Marion Smith, the world’s most prolific cave explorer, dies at 80
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
In Georgia, I went with well trained cavers from my school. We belly crawled through a slot so small I had to turn my head sideways to fit. It was cold, wet, and very scary. I have rarely felt as much relief as I did upon emerging.
When my friends went spelunking and invited me to go, I told them I'd take a rain check. Maybe the risks are negligible, but every one of my alarm bells goes off.
Instant panic attacks. I guess I’m claustrophobic?
The closest freaky / claustrophobic experience I remember was during a hike upon entering into a train tunnel…for some reason…it was pitch black dark.
Once we were probably half way in I realised how insanely idiotic we were for going in. Then I realised the tunnel was really much longer than we anticipated, the light at the end became tiny. There was probably manholes in the side we could jump into if needs be but it was hard to see.
Two things were going through our minds, do we hide in man holes and go slowly, or run? We ran ! Of course my friend hurt his ankle So I was hobbling out of there with him over my shoulder.
I never remember how relived I was we made it out. Not long after, a train came around the corner quite fast, would’ve been a horrible tragedy.
Bring in that tunnel when a huge freight train was in there wouldn’t have been very enjoyable to say the least.
(If there was a room known as the "Aggie Art Gallery," on the other hand... well, that's the cave I'm referring to.)
When going into small spaces sometimes people enter a bad mental spiral of: feeling a bit squished, have a doubt that maybe the wall/ceiling moved, tense up further etc etc.
It is a weird mental thing because this cave has likely been largely this way for a looooooong time. It wasn't waiting for you to come along... but such are mind games.
People tended to crack more as you get tired. Physical fitness helped as well as being comfortable with your gear.
Rope stuff was easy enough and fun, though a bit tiring.
Your subconscious mind only partially understands the concept of rope and safety it brings, and being few tens of meters above ground puts out some very real emotions and fear of death out, especially when protection placement is quite apart. But you still have equipment that can handle easily 2 tonnes of static load and few of you in worst possible dynamic fall.
There's one worse, though...
About 30 years ago I became trapped in an alpine cave in a way very similar to Floyd Collins, when a football sized piece of marble fell from the ceiling about 30 feet into a virgin body sized phreatic tube I was exploring.
It landed on my ankle, pinning it so I couldn't move forward or back, and the passage was so tight that I couldn't move my free leg to dislodge it, and yes, Floyd Collins entrapment was the first thing I thought of.
Thankfully, I had two things in my favor, one was I had a caving partner on the surface who knew where I was, and I could communicate with, so if I couldn't self rescue she could hike the 5 miles back to a road end and get help (no cell phone service back then).
And two, I was an experienced caver, so I remained very calm, and kept working my free foot in order to attempt to dislodge the rock pinning my ankle, and after about 10 minutes I was able to somehow with great effort, shift the rock enough that I could move deeper into the cave.
I crawled forward another 15 feet to a pit about 20 feet deep that I was able to free climb into so I could turn around and head back out, and was able to push the rock ahead of me and I got out just fine.
It didn't phase me one bit, as I'd had much more serious life threatening events in caves previously (almost "flat rocked" in Lechuguilla Cave, NM), but I was well aware that it could have been a serious situation as it got down into the 20's at night in that location, so hypothermia was a real possibility.
The lesson here for non cavers is, don't explore caves alone, especially if nobody knows where you are, and get proper training before doing so, from a local "grotto" (chapter) of the National Speleological Society https://caves.org/ .
BTW, I've been hanging out at /. since it was "Chips and Dips".
And I have a beard, but not a neck beard.
This place is more like the "old" /. and I like it here.
Thats gonna be a no for me dawg
Are you a professional caver or just someone who likes to do it. The places you mentioned seem like a place that a novice would not be.
It seems like they are neither!
It's mostly hard core cavers who do the majority of cave exploration, surveying/mapping and biological/archeological inventory in caves around the world.
Almost all of us are volunteers, and arrange our lives around caving, not our jobs, it's a passion that consumes us.
Before retiring from caving due to health issues, I caved with the best of the best for years, and none of us were/are "adventure seekers", not even close, we are pragmatic, calm, and seriously experienced in cave exploration, as opposed to those who are untrained casual cave explorers (what we call "spelunkers", i.e. flashlight cavers).
Kudos to you and the work you and like-minded individuals put into exploring and mapping these systems.
The problem was that I tagged along on one of their fun trips rather than taking a class, so the difficulty was not calibrated for me. Even so, while it pushed me mentally, it wasn’t physically dangerous.
I appreciate your concern though.
Don't be like the other group ahead of us, though. They got to the top and decided it was an excellent place to do shrooms. Even though a handful of their people just had a claustrophobia episode...
[1] https://thatadventurelife.com/2021/02/10/how-to-find-chasm-o...
> “Even if I’m physically impossible to go in a wild cave, surely I can be put in a wheelchair and wheeled to a commercial cave,” he told The Chattanooga Times-Free Press in 2014. “And if I can’t be sitting up in a cave, surely they can put me on a stretcher and wheel me into one.”
Come to think of it - I don’t think I have any hobby that borders on scary to anyone ( flying somehow calms me and snaps me to reality tho).
Perhaps I’m just an anxious person, but caving is a nope for me!
Climbing without a partner is soloing. Technically there's aid soloing, which is sort of a weird discipline wherein you're aid climbing without a partner protected by a rope, which is why the kind of climbing Alex Honnold is famous for is called free soloing.
Confusingly, there's also rope soloing, which is free climbing with a rope for protection. He did a bunch of rope soloing to practice the pitches he did free solo in the movie of the same name.
Then (tragically) after they set the last anchor, one of them broke out from the passage wall, and that's when he slipped back down further than before, it was so damn SAD!
So you can probably find some small hole to grovel down in most places, but the good stuff is concentrated in parts of Kentucky, the Alps, the classical Karst, parts of China and so on.
Basic safety rules include: cave with groups of 3 to 6 people, some of whom have experience, bring 3 independent sources of light, use helmets and headlamps, avoid hand-held lights (a strong sign of inexperience or incompetence), leave word of your plans - where you are going, expected return time, who to call for help - with a trustworthy friend. Some basic knowledge of geology is useful, as is comfort with physical contortion, sturdy clothing, and an ability to orient and visualize in 3-dimensions in environments that are far from rectilinear.
Respect the culture of secrecy about cave locations, which helps protect them from damage. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.
In Britain there are a number of good university clubs (I learned with ULSA at Leeds) as well as established local clubs like RRCPC, Northern Pennine Club, and Mendip Caving Group. In the US, the National Speleological Society has a network of local 'grottos'. There are established clubs in nearly all countries with good caves.
Also, caving with other enthusiasts is great fun. Outside of tech, the cavers were the closest I've ever found to 'my people'.
A decade should be good enough to keep you alive most of the time.