Dynamiting caves

[CaveMD]

Maybe I can dynamite my way into the connection between lower orange grove, the crypt and henlys castle today.

[phillip1]

You've provided your own answer.

You understand the rationale for breaking some decorations to, in effect, re-open a natural connection, or at least make it large enough to get a diver through the connection in order to open up a significant portion of cave.

How is that different than using dynamite to connect two nearby passages that don't have a known connection large enough to let a diver through?

You misunderstand my point entirely, what I am saying is if there are two known and mapped cave systems separated by a few meters of rock with no connection that makes no sense, if breaking a few decorations is required to gain access to another few kilometers of unexplored and unmapped cave then I can understand (I would not actually break a hole personally but I understand).

[d_berman]

You misunderstand my point entirely, what I am saying is if there are two known and mapped cave systems separated by a few meters of rock with no connection that makes no sense, if breaking a few decorations is required to gain access to another few kilometers of unexplored and unmapped cave then I can understand (I would not actually break a hole personally but I understand).

Since we don't have the particular - - some conjecture as to why this might happen could be that such a connection would cut off significant hours of travel time to another system or part of the system. Such as someone finding a sinkhole matching it up with data and realizing that it would save 5,10,15(etc) hrs of time,effort (risk?) in getting to the underlying system if they could get it to connect (if only that one boulder wasn't in the way). The sinkhole is "known" and the other system is "known" the "why" all becomes situational dependent.

I suspect what was written could make it sound like "willy nilly" just for fun rock removal was taking place, I'm sure or at least hopeful that was and is not the case. Particularly with the effort required to do so... it just wouldn't make sense.

[mwenner]

Since we don't have the particular - - some conjecture as to why this might happen could be that such a connection would cut off significant hours of travel time to another system or part of the system. Such as someone finding a sinkhole matching it up with data and realizing that it would save 5,10,15(etc) hrs of time,effort (risk?) in getting to the underlying system if they could get it to connect (if only that one boulder wasn't in the way). The sinkhole is "known" and the other system is "known" the "why" all becomes situational dependent.

I suspect what was written could make it sound like "willy nilly" just for fun rock removal was taking place, I'm sure or at least hopeful that was and is not the case. Particularly with the effort required to do so... it just wouldn't make sense.

Yes, that's exactly correct. Phillip, two of the main entrances to the Roppel, and Mammoth Cave systems are man made (if not more, in that I've only used these two). The Wellar Entrance was actually the top of a rather tall dome room, before Dave Wellar purchased the property, and they proceeded to blast the top of the dome, and install the ladders we all use to get to that section of the cave. It's still four to five good hours of caving to get to the Logsdon River. In Mammoth, the Doyle Entrance is completely man made, using a 30" coring drill, and then installing culvert metal to hold the walls of the coring in place. This entrance shaves another 10 hours off of walking in the river to reach the closest access to Toohey Ridge. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that we've been doing it for a while in caving.

[phillip1]

I kind of understand and see your point, but then again you dry cavers are a much more hardcore bunch that us lazy as$ cave divers, 99.9% of cave divers would not walk 15 mins (or complain profusely) in the jungle to access a cave, let alone dry cave. Actually every time I dive I wonder how insanely hard it would be to explore the caves if they were dry.

[Unregistered User]

Actually every time I dive I wonder how insanely hard it would be to explore the caves if they were dry.

Same here. A 15 minute DPV dive to the Henkel in Ginnie would take you at least an hour if it were dry.

And every time I go up to TAG I always picture the caves if they were filled with water. Most would require tri-mix but a few like Bluff River in Alabama would be pretty shallow and an awesome DPV trip.

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[Sludge]

I wonder how insanely hard it would be to explore the caves if they were dry.

And why would you want to?