Ginnie Springs

[wingman]

Have long been curious about the ginnie springs gate blocking the entrance. I have many of the details about the ga college student deaths but little real info about the cave system behind the gate (i do have the publicly available maps). In the day, preventing the untrained and ignorant from dying was clearly important and deemed critical and resulted in training and the warnings that exist today and that has worked well. However extreme death prevention examples include the dynamiting of morrison and the gate at ginnie both preventing any kind of access at all and seem a bit over the top today. I am not sure that this restriction makes sense anymore and thought i'd ask here about the history and justifications for the gate at ginnie. Also interested in cave characteristics and conditions from those that have been able to dive it. Finally would like to get some feedback regarding the costs and benefits from changing the access policy. Bill

[DA Aquamaster]

Great question and I look forward to the possible replies. I have read a bit about the conditions there in a couple books and have heard one or two rather limited references on the board from older divers who were there, but a broader description as well as the history and justifications for closing it off would be really interesting.

I suspect the major issue now would be the loss of revenue that would be incurred by Ginnie Springs if the gate were removed and consequently OW diver access to the ball room had to be eliminated/prevented.

Then there is the liability of trying to keep OW divers out after the gate was removed.

[pink arrows]

If you pay my entrance fee, provide the gas, and we go in with fake names/cert cards I would be more than happy to help you cut through the bars. I like the high flow.... : )

[Sludge]

Bill, I'll PM you my instructor's name and number.

[Greenwood_60]

...loss of revenue...OW diver access to the ball room had to be eliminated/prevented.

Then there is the liability of trying to keep OW divers out after the gate was removed.

Ginnie is not there to provide a place to cave dive, they are there to make money. They make more money on OW divers, hands down. It will never happen.

Besides, how many of us can credit ginnie as the place we caught the bug?

[gschaut]

Given the immediate proximity of the Devil's Eye system, I think the loss of Ginnie to cave divers was a small price to pay for the benefit of making a cavern open and "safe" to open water divers.

And, yes. Ginnie is where I caught the bug.

[DA Aquamaster]

Ginnie is not there to provide a place to cave dive, they are there to make money. They make more money on OW divers, hands down. It will never happen.

Besides, how many of us can credit ginnie as the place we caught the bug?

My first ever cave or cavern dive was in the eye, and it was on my first trip to Ginnie (wreck diver looking for Cavern and Intro as some additonal training). However, on my first dive in the ballroom (months later) it was obvious that had I dove there as an OW diver, it would have lit the cave diving fire in me a lot earlier.

In that regard it probably a money maker for cave instructors as well.

[Jim Wyatt]

We used it for training before the grate was put in. Even dived it for fun a few times. Its low and as I recall a lot of clay on the bottom.

[RN]

I suspect the major issue now would be the loss of revenue that would be incurred by Ginnie Springs if the gate were removed and consequently OW diver access to the ball room had to be eliminated/prevented.

Then there is the liability of trying to keep OW divers out after the gate was removed.

I've been told Ginnie doesn't make much money off cave divers. They make enough over Memorial Day weekend to pay for the entire year's expenses. Whenever I'm there on weekends cave divers represent a very small percentage of the people there, and I'll bet many of them are annual pass holders. I don't think there would be much loss of revenue by limiting access to the Ballroom, not when compared to their annual revenue.

[Line Squirrel]

I've been told that on a good three day holiday weekend paying attendance exceeds 10,000 people. The horse pasture on your left along the long "Ginnie driveway" as you drive to the Ginnie store has been filled with campers; they’ve had to bus tubers in from outside the property on the busiest of holiday weekends.

Another money maker was renting land to Coke for the well, so I was told.