Cow Springs Access Restrictions for Conservation, Safety, Accessibility

[firemedic1015]

I recently dove cow for the first time and was amazed at how beautiful it is. It is easily one of my favorite dives now. I think that the access plan needs to balance protecting the cave with providing access to members of the CDS. 100 dives post full cave is a fairly arbitrary way to assess a divers level of ability and readiness to dive this system. A diver who advances through the training levels slowly, doing dives at each level, as well as dives in other environments may well be ready to dive cow at the completion of their full cave class. On the other hand, a diver with the minimum number of open water dives who take a zero to hero full cave class is almost certainly not ready to do this dive and protect this cave as it should be. Additionally, a full cave diver who does 100 40 min (or whatever the minimum time limit is) dives up the gold line at ginnie or the peanut tunnel at peacock is probably not as prepared as a diver who does long dives in a variety of caves before diving cow. For example, on our recent trip, our average dive time was 91 min and we dove four different systems in five days. Doing dives of this length makes it impossible to do more than two dives in a day and for an out of town diver means that your going to have to spend 50+ days in cave country to get to 100 dives. Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is that a diver with 100 dives totaling 4000 minutes of dive time in one or two systems is not the same as a diver who has 100 dives with 9000 minutes of dive time in 20 systems but they would be treated the same as far as access to cow is concerned. Personally, I'm not willing to do a bunch of 40 min dives so that I can get to 100 but I know that there are divers out there who would. If a 100 dives post full cave rule is implemented (or enforced, as it seems to already exist) I would be prevented from diving a system that I've already come to love. On another note, I think a kiosk about cow at the site would be a great idea, especially for divers that are new to the system.

Zeb Lilly

NSS 56382

[Line Squirrel]

How much interest would there be in having a conservation kiosk out there

I think the locals would use it for fire wood

[w ripley]

I think the locals would use it for fire wood

However, the idea of putting something up that stated whatever the access requirements are - and WHY - might make some sense. I've been in Cow lots of times over many years and until this thread never knew there were access requirements based on experience level. Maybe, as said earlier, Cathy just knew us.

Another thought would be to display a picture or two showing the damage that has been done over the last 2 years, explaining how much work it took on the cave diving community's part to try and mitigate it, and how that damage has forever damaged Cow. You know what they say about pictures...

You wouldn't think anything at all would be needed for well trained & supposedly sensitive "cave divers," but obviously the message of this thread is not getting thru to everyone.

Then again, we could always put a + charge on the pull line and a - charge on the clay bank

[DA Aquamaster]

The 100 full cave rule seriously limits those that dont live near cave country and cant run get dives in whenever they want. Not certified yet, just making an observation. I do over 200 dives a year in open water, and bouancy is not a problem, and I do respect the environment so woundn't do anything to hurt the caves. Seems like 100 dives is a penalty for not living in Florida. I'll be 60 before I can dive there... But I guess there are plenty of other places to go. Not in any hurry to get in over my head.... That may have been an unintentional pun.

As a non local (13 hours away) diver, I disagree. We do three or four 5-7 day trips per year. That frequency and intensity of diving potentially gets a post full cave diver to Abe Davis in 18-24 months. (And it's probably more than some local divers do.)

I'd prefer to cave dive a lot more and I would argue that if you are not cave diving at least that often, it's hard to maintain any reasonable level of skill, even practicing cave skills in OW in the interim.

I also don't view Cow as a good choice for a first dive of the trip warm up either as the skills are perishable and need to be refreshed.

The thing to consider is that if greater conservation efforts are in place, Cow will be more likely to persist in a good condition longer, allowing the less than Abe Davis diver to eventually get there and see it in good condition. That's preferable to allowing easier access but accelerating damage.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

The 100 full cave rule seriously limits those that dont live near cave country and cant run get dives in whenever they want.

The rule is there for a conservation aspect, making it easy for an infrequent out of town cave diver, or a local infrequent cave diver, to access the cave would overall be detrimental to the cave.

The people diving the cave need to be proficient, which usually means in practice.

Is there another measuring stick without evaluation dives(which are far more prohibitive IMO)? Hours in the cave environment would be a worthwhile measurement(possibly better than 100 safe dives), but would require everyone to submit a logbook again - and possibly another sticker/award. This still wouldn't help infrequent cave divers from getting in easy(which I think is a good thing as far as conservation goes).

Make more trips to the caves. Sure, its not easy.

Then again, I'll never be a world class snowboarder, mountain climber, or cowboy while living in Florida either.

[MORGAN]

I support requiring Abe Davis or equivalent for access to upstream Cow. I thought that it had been that way for years.

No doubt this will exclude (temporarily) some excellent divers who don't yet meet the numerical requirement, just as it will admit some Abe Davis holders who have less than stellar skills and poor conservation attitudes. But overall, competence increases with experience, and there's no practicable way other than number of cave dives to evaluate who's qualified and who's not. (Other than maybe a system of evaluation dives conducted by a cadre who would then stamp your card "OK for Cow". )

I don't mind the idea that some caves are not open to all, and are to be aspired to. When Tracy and I finished full cave in 2006, our instructor told us that when we had 100 more cave dives we'd be able to dive upstream Cows. Not because it was too difficult, but because it was too pretty to allow a lot of traffic from new cave divers.

It took us three years to get there, but it was worth it. There are caves now that I can't dive because I'm not trimix certified. That's OK with me - when I want to dive them bad enough to spend the time and money on the necessary certifications, I will.

Yes, it is harder for people who live far away. But as SuPrBuGmAn says, "Make more trips to the caves". It is 1490 miles and about 25 hours driving time for Tracy and I to Dive Outpost, but we have managed to do quite a bit of cave diving over the past 5 or 6 years.

We were "dry" cavers before we were divers. In the larger caving community, it's common for entry to caves to be restricted, by secrecy if not by regulations. In order to get invited along on the "good" trips, you have to serve kind of an apprenticeship where you show that you have the skills, commitment, and above all the right attitude. So it doesn't seem strange to me at all that one should have to meet certain requirements before getting into a particular cave.

Mike

[Bobby]

As a non local (13 hours away) diver, I disagree. We do three or four 5-7 day trips per year. That frequency and intensity of diving potentially gets a post full cave diver to Abe Davis in 18-24 months. (And it's probably more than some local divers do.)

I'd prefer to cave dive a lot more and I would argue that if you are not cave diving at least that often, it's hard to maintain any reasonable level of skill, even practicing cave skills in OW in the interim.

I also don't view Cow as a good choice for a first dive of the trip warm up either as the skills are perishable and need to be refreshed.

The thing to consider is that if greater conservation efforts are in place, Cow will be more likely to persist in a good condition longer, allowing the less than Abe Davis diver to eventually get there and see it in good condition. That's preferable to allowing easier access but accelerating damage.

+1 Very well said!

[Bobby]

The rule is there for a conservation aspect, making it easy for an infrequent out of town cave diver, or a local infrequent cave diver, to access the cave would overall be detrimental to the cave.

The people diving the cave need to be proficient, which usually means in practice.

Is there another measuring stick without evaluation dives(which are far more prohibitive IMO)? Hours in the cave environment would be a worthwhile measurement(possibly better than 100 safe dives), but would require everyone to submit a logbook again - and possibly another sticker/award. This still wouldn't help infrequent cave divers from getting in easy(which I think is a good thing as far as conservation goes).

Make more trips to the caves. Sure, its not easy.

Then again, I'll never be a world class snowboarder, mountain climber, or cowboy while living in Florida either.

+1 Also very well said!

[jj1987]

An enforceable requirement beats a perfect one that you can't enforce. 100 dives has become a cave diving standard, used at several dive sites and the agencies have already taken on verification of this. Aside from making it guided like Indian, I don't know of a more realistic way to limit access.

The waynes world guide system is one I'm a fan of *if* a guide system is needed (I don't think so for cow), and seems realistic, but I don't know who keeps track of it all?

I wish the NACD/NSS would reinstate the 100 dives AND 10+ systems to get the awards however. I think variety and experience should go hand and hand, but often don't.

[Bobby]

Restricting first time access to invitation is a very good tool. Yes we have had damage at Bonnet which uses this system. I also believe that the 100 safe cave dives should stay in place. Keeping a list of who is qualified for fragile or challenging systems fits into self policing. It keeps the cave diving community connected and would further mentoring IMO.

The weak point of the system is why the damage at Bonnet occurred. Someone was taken there that did not have the skill and experience, they did not respect the system because of this, and they brought more people in that lacked the needed skill and experience. Hopefully the gator in the basin is giving the system time to heal as much as possible. Though the arch and z bend will never recover the same as a number of other places that were damaged beyond repair.