Repairing Caves

[TONY CHANEY]

I for one am getting very sick and tired of what my dive buddy and I refer to as cattle crossings. Sad part is that some of these areas are far beyond what I would expect a student to be able to reach. I would also think that if the student had that good of a SAC rate the instructor would have turned the dive just on the fact that the student is destroying the cave. I knew during the entire training dives I did, my instructor was watching and every time I started to get near the floor I was thinking, "God please don't let me touch it, please don't let me touch it." I also remember the very first dive I did with him, he turned the dive because I was screwing it up. (OBTW, we turned it a few feet past the sign in OG and there is a rather funny reason why). There was no way he was going to allow me to go any farther. So with all this said, I feel that these hand prints are not always caused by students but already certified divers. (check out the thread about the diver with his / her group in front of the dive team behind them in OG).

[dogwatch]

You'd need a giant broom to take the gouges out of the floor in the back of Twin. Or maybe some sort of blower? Or a really good biblical flood. My money's on the flood.

Semi hijack:

If those are what i think you are refering to, they were there over 25 years ago. I remember seeing them for the first time thinking to myself that someone had a really bad day back there. It looks as if someone almost walked out or dropped the bottom of a stage vertically every few feet. The was a serious spider web of lines back then - maybe five different lines in that area. Any old timers know what happened? always been curious ....

[Jont]

+1 Joe ....

Does anyone EVER fail a cave course anymore?

Oh yes, I have seen Reggie fail at least 3 people, he's a hell of a great guy.

and

In my first CCR Cave class I was "incomplete" because of equipment issues and incalculable bad luck.

Jon

[RN]

You'd need a giant broom to take the gouges out of the floor in the back of Twin. Or maybe some sort of blower? Or a really good biblical flood. My money's on the flood.

The marks in Twin have gotten a lot worse over the last year or so. It's really sad to see the floor so beaten up. And it's not just hand prints. There are trail marks from SPGs next to the gold line in the Subway Tunnel. No reason to be there since there's another 10 feet of passage from there to the ceiling. Whenever I swim through there I gently wave my hand over the trench marks in an attempt to get some of the silt in the area to fill the trenches back in. I'm seeing some progress over the last several months but as I fix some of the trenches new ones appear.

[MichaelAngelo]

Hey guys,

Guess I made a huge mistake referring to Peacock as a "Tourist Cave". My gaff was not meant to imply that Peacock was in any way not to be protected or respected in any degree. I only used the term "Tourist Cave" to imply that this cave received a lot of traffic by many different divers with different levels of experience and skills on an ongoing basis. As a Cave Instructor, I obviously teach my students as well as personally strive to protect and respect the caves at all costs on EVERY dive! I would hope this principle is fundamental to cave instruction regardless of which agency is involved.

I will make sure I don't use that term in the future, as I can see how people could misconstrue what I meant by the term.

Thank You

[Tegg]

It would be nice to see one of the "conservation" organizations cover this in a summit at a conference.

Just a thought.

[FW]

It would be nice to see one of the "conservation" organizations cover this in a summit at a conference.

Just a thought.

"They" would need a speaker/moderator, are you volunteering?

[rjack]

The marks in Twin have gotten a lot worse over the last year or so. It's really sad to see the floor so beaten up. And it's not just hand prints. There are trail marks from SPGs next to the gold line in the Subway Tunnel. No reason to be there since there's another 10 feet of passage from there to the ceiling. Whenever I swim through there I gently wave my hand over the trench marks in an attempt to get some of the silt in the area to fill the trenches back in. I'm seeing some progress over the last several months but as I fix some of the trenches new ones appear.

I don't recall the name of where Ben M and I went.
Right at the 1st T
Jump right from the mainline arrow 1/2 way around the circuit (high on the lefthand wall) to a new line maybe 35degrees forward and high on the right.
Following that line straight, at least it seemed fairly straight ahead. This was the worst area. Is this the subway tunnel?

We then did a duckunder on the right where the floor damage was vastly less before getting to an EOL. I don't recall if that was a jump or the end end.

[RN]

The Subway Tunnel is the main tunnel. The first 1000' before the 1st T. The area you are talking about is the Training Room. The Training Room is clean compared to the way the Subway Tunnel looks these days.

[Jont]

OK Great so we all agree that thats there's a problem that needs to be addressed....super!

Nebulous terms like "teaching proper technique" have NO value and border the absurd....why you ask because technique by definition is "a method of accomplishing a desired aim" this implies these skills are learned, therefore skills are demonstrated to the newbe (I mean me) hopefully by individuals with a far greater comprehension of the task at hand, over time with practice proper technique is developed.

So how specifically can you blind someone in a cave (a diver in training), spin them around , upside down etc., totally disorientate them, jam them far away from the line with no tie off points and expect them to find the line then do a blind 1000' plus exit without some damage to the mud/clay floor or whatever else?

Reality and common sense clearly dictates that some damage is a necessary part of training.

So maybe "sacrificial caves" aren't such a bad idea because if standards are enforced it will bring about a net loss in damage once the entire environment is factored in, you'll have more damage in the "training caves" but far, far less in the caves that are in the 100 dives/hours category and speaking of that limited access caves need to increase i number rather then decrease.

The other factor is how do these superficial, dings and gouges harm the cave environment to the point that there's an environmental concern that could effect the general public? Is water quality affected by this? Are species of plants or animals being driven to extinction? Could this result in an energy shortage? food shortage?