Remove Accidental Glory Marker near Olsen Please?

[Red Hat Jef]

Was diving in peacock today, up Olsen line. I think I may have lost a white cookie (I am missing one) and I also saw a marker on the line halfway from pothole to olsen with the label "JEF" (my name). Since I was missing a cookie, I thought about pulling it but since I didn't put it on the line, I didn't want to pull it off. I'm assuming that someone might have found it and put it on the line. I definitely didn't want to pull a cookie someone was depending on for navigation or safety.

If it's still in there in a day or two, and you're going that way, let's go ahead and assume it's my missing cookie and please go ahead and pull it.

I'm also going to find a new way to mark my cookies, other than just my name.

[JCGoodwin]

I saw the cookie you speak of on Nov. 3rd.
It was placed on the line as you have stated our team did not touch it.
Good luck.

JCG

[DA Aquamaster]

Is this the cookie placed about 18" past the start of the P1 gold line (Nov 5th) or the other one?

I like to mark my cookies and arrows tactilely as well, and as such the odds of finding an arrow or cookie with my initials, my hand writing, my tactile marking, in an area where I have been diving recently that is not mine is very, very small...

You can make a unique tactile mark by filing marks in the side, drilling holes in the arrow or cookie, or applying a unique pattern of dots or stippling.

[Squirrel Girl]

I'm also going to find a new way to mark my cookies, other than just my name.

There's a hundred, million ways to do this! Outline the arrow/cookie in another color. Pick an unusual color (pink is not unusual) and buy a paint marker or Sharpie in that color. Draw a picture (squirrels are taken) instead of your initials. I could go on and on and on.

[T. Bix]

what is the correct protocol for a non directional line marker found near the line? Do you just put it back on the line making the assumption that someone knocked it off? I've seen guys just put them back on so when I found a brass double ended snap clip in OG Monday near that rock with the hole through it that the line runs through (maybe 300' in) I clipped it back to the line. But what "should" I have done?

[skip]

I would have taken it with me out of the cave and asked around in the parking lot if anyone lost it. It's not often someone clips off a double-ender as a marker. And since you found it on the floor of the cave...chances are someone lost it. cookies on the floor? clips on the line? I leave those alone.

this thread does remind that several years ago i left a cookie at the end of the peanut tunnel. My buddy and I were working on doing the grand traverse and I wanted to mark the peanut tunnel at that end and pick up the cookie when coming in from the other direction. Something happened and we didn't make the next dive and as it turns out I haven't dove peacock since. I doubt if the cookie still there lo these many years hence, but if so, go ahead and pull it! It used to say "skip" on it.

skip

[DA Aquamaster]

We could probably alos discuss cookies versus line arrows.

Personally, I think cookies are over used (beyond the already bad idea of using them as hero markers). Provided it is not conflicting with the permanent line arrows, a line arrow often makes more sense to drop than a cookie as it then provides useful directional information to everyone where a cookie does not and is more or less just cave clutter. Further, since it is "useful" to some extent, it is probably slightly less objectionable if you end up leaving it for various unspecified reasons or circumstances.

With that said, I also see value in using cookies and clothes pins in a much more directional manner in some cases. For example in Lafayette Blue upstream of Kitty you find clothes pins consistently placed on the downstream side (i.e toward an exit at Kitty) of tie offs so that in effect they are providing directional informtion to the person who placed them (and anyone else who spots the pattern) without adding further confusion to the already confusing and competing line arrow systems in use on that line. I think that is a reasonably intelligetn use of a non direction marker in situations where more clarity may be needed - although removing them when you're done is still greatly appreciated.

[DA Aquamaster]

this thread does remind that several years ago i left a cookie at the end of the peanut tunnel. My buddy and I were working on doing the grand traverse and I wanted to mark the peanut tunnel at that end and pick up the cookie when coming in from the other direction. Something happened and we didn't make the next dive and as it turns out I haven't dove peacock since. I doubt if the cookie still there lo these many years hence, but if so, go ahead and pull it! It used to say "skip" on it.

skip

I cleaned a bunch of them off the T near Cisteen a few trips ago. In general if they've been there long enough to become discolored (a process that I've noted takes 3-6 months in tannic/low viz caves to a year or more in clear high viz caves) or I see them there a few months after I first see them, I tend to to remove them. In cases where I have to leave one and am not able to come back to remove it in a timely manner, I'd expect other divers to remove it once it becomes reasonably obvious to them it is not "active".

[LCF]

The cookie versus arrow question is a little different in Mexico, where there are a lot of alternative entrances/exits and it's not at all unusual for a dive to move into a section of cave where the general navigation is against you. Dropping an arrow there, what do you do? Point it toward YOUR exit, which will confuse anyone who came in another way, or put it the direction the arrows in the area are going, and then it doesn't point to your exit any more. Cookies are a lot less worrisome in MX, but have their shortcomings, too, which is why Bil Phillips came up with another type of directional marker that nobody will worry about but you . . .

[DA Aquamaster]

We had a dive last week where I flat ran out of cookies and arrows since we encountered numerous T's in quick succession. It's the first time I almost turned a dive on "markers". But it was low and silty and the viz went downhill so we turned anyway before the next T.