Does anyone know the history of the stake in the white room? Who put it there? How long has it been there?
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white room stake
Does anyone know the history of the stake in the white room? Who put it there? How long has it been there?
If you're referring to the stake ( rock pile ) in the center of the room, then I know all about it!! If there's another stake somewhere in the room, then I know nothing about it!Originally Posted by jdobbertien
When I get your answer, we'll go from there. Don't want to write an essay if it's not necessary.
Yes the one in the middle of the rock pile
I, for one, would love to read your essay lol
OK, here we go. Not 100% certain who put the state in the middle of the room but it dates to "around" the 85 time frame. Was doing my Full Cave with Mark Leonard from Dive Rite and he took me into the White Room and the briefing I had before the dive was as follows: At that time the White Room was as pristine as could be and had little to no traffic at all. Again, so the story goes, Wes Skiles put the stake in the middle of the room and then made it known that any diver making a visit to the White Room was required to pick up a rock that had fallen ( or been knocked down ) and place it on the pile in the center of the room. The intent was to keep the room looking like nobody had ever been there before. In the 80s, this was easy to do because we had very few cave divers then and hardly any of them ever visited the White Room, even though it's a very easy jump off the Bone Room line. My last visit there was probably about a year ago and as anybody knows who has been there recently, the room is FUBAR! The mound was still there, and probably always will be, but the damage around the entire circle is really bad. Divers have also made attempts to push some holes on the floor, which has created more damage. The thought process, for many years, (decades ) is that the White Room possibly made a connection into the Little Devils system. I've heard that story since the 91 time frame when I worked at Ginnie and Berman and I talked about that a lot, back in the day. So there you have it. It's possible that Wes was not the one who actually put the stake in the ground but he definitely was the person who started the rock pile. On this forum today, there's just a hand full of divers who go back that far so perhaps one of them has some more thoughts. The ones to ask would be Forrest, Kelly, Jim Wyatt, Woody and Lamar for starters. I know there's more but that's all that comes to mind at the moment. Hope this helps.
That?s basically what I was told in the late 90?s.
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Thanks for sharing. The stake and proverbial pile for the longest time became defined as the place you could put your reel when you got to the room, and then take time to swim around without carrying the reel. At the time most reels would just make it to the room, and it would have to pull the main line extra taught, so without a secure place to put the reel, it would drag on the floor as the mainline returned to its original position.
"Not all change is improvement...but all improvement is change" Donald Berwick
Good comment. I had forgotten about that. I think all of us did that, and still do probably. A line dragging on the floor can make a serious mess plus it's destructive!
I had been taught that while Wes started the rock tradition, the stake itself was Steve Berman's original survey stake. It use to say Berman on it.
Www.artflowslikewater.com
Brendan's Law - "Know what you're breathing. Analyze your gas for O2 and Co. Analyze your gas each time, everytime, anywhere."
The pity is all the Berman markers etc that were common place from his survey of the cave, were pilfered pretty quickly after he died.
"Not all change is improvement...but all improvement is change" Donald Berwick
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