Better Cave Maps

[Jack Hammer]

If some one needs a marker to tell them if side mount is "required" to get through a tunnel then perhaps they need a new hobby...

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[Steve Clark]

As a small team in Europe, we have an on-going project to re-map a cave. It's hard work, but it's not that hard. It also means you get to properly understand the cave, not just have a look as you are swimming around.

To date, we've done 3 separate trips as a team of 5/6. Each time we have done about 4 days of diving, so maybe 12 days in total.

The old map : http://www.plongeesout.com/sites/rou...nt%20coupe.jpg

The new map : https://www.dropbox.com/s/yfo7o0qxk3..._v1.1.pdf?dl=0

Steve

[Kelly Jessop]

The best way to get better cave maps is to go out and make them!

Maps have personal meaning to the individual that is doing them. To some the map is almost like an artist at work who doesn't want to reveal the work until it is done,so you likely wouldn't see any updating. To some the map reveals clues about the system,and until they have walled out the cave,they don't want to share the information. Others really feel like they are doing it for personal reasons and don't care to share the map at all. I have always felt that if a person is going to sell a map for profit,then should also provide all the data that produced the maps eg azimuths,distance etc etc. If you are trusting that map to be accurate to plan a dive,then you should have the right to verify accuracy,if you have a "for profit" map.

[rddvet]

If some one needs a marker to tell them if side mount is "required" to get through a tunnel then perhaps they need a new hobby...

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While I completely agree with you, hasn't more than one accident at JB involved someone entering a sm tunnel.

[Jack Hammer]

While I completely agree with you, hasn't more than one accident at JB involved someone entering a sm tunnel.

I imagine continuing in a side mount tunnel may have had more to do with it becoming an accident than just entering the tunnel itself did...

[Webmaster]

While I completely agree with you, hasn't more than one accident at JB involved someone entering a sm tunnel.

Isn't this analogous to people that drive into a lake because their GPS navigation device told them to make a turn?

An accurate map can be very useful for planning, but no map will save you from yourself.

[apitkin]

Maps have personal meaning to the individual that is doing them. To some the map is almost like an artist at work who doesn't want to reveal the work until it is done,so you likely wouldn't see any updating. To some the map reveals clues about the system,and until they have walled out the cave,they don't want to share the information. Others really feel like they are doing it for personal reasons and don't care to share the map at all. I have always felt that if a person is going to sell a map for profit,then should also provide all the data that produced the maps eg azimuths,distance etc etc. If you are trusting that map to be accurate to plan a dive,then you should have the right to verify accuracy,if you have a "for profit" map.

Kelly,

I agree with the first part of this - making a map is a significant undertaking involving (usually) a lot of work and expense. Most cartographers have put so much work in that they don't want to release anything until they are completely happy with it. And of course there is an artistic element - the purpose of a map is to convey information, but it cannot include everything, so inevitably the cartographer's bias (be it exploration, tourism, conservation, even art itself if you are Eric Hutcheson) infuses the final result.

As to providing the data - I have to disagree. If you buy a map, you are buying the finished product. If you want to verify its accuracy, go survey the cave yourself. After all, the data may be no more accurate than the map. There are other reasons to give you the data, but to "prove" the accuracy of a finished map is not one of them.

Andy

[Kelly Jessop]

Kelly,

.

As to providing the data - I have to disagree. If you buy a map, you are buying the finished product. If you want to verify its accuracy, go survey the cave yourself. After all, the data may be no more accurate than the map. There are other reasons to give you the data, but to "prove" the accuracy of a finished map is not one of them.

Andy

Andy, I understand with what you are saying,and agree in context. I recall two cave maps that we were being sold by individuals a number of years ago,and for all practical purpose they were artistic rendering. They were highly inaccurate,and they exhibited a couple passages as something they weren't, with dimensions that were out of scale. For example a no mount restriction was in the same dimension as a medium sized backmountable tunnel. These maps were sold for significant amount of money,and people used them for navigation,and fortunately no incidents happened. If these individual had to provide the survey data then it would have exposed them as the farce they were. I will give credit to Mike Poucher. He did the survey project at Peacock,which is considered the best map of the cave system,but published his survey data in "Taming of the Slough".

[victorzamora]

I'm sure some of the Mexico maps have been done to generate income, but I don't know that for a fact.

That said, I think the best way to get better maps is to contribute to a project whether it's your own or your on a large team. The more people that survey caves should help with more and better maps all over.

Some of the Mx maps are made for income-related purposes. However, I'd gladly pay for Mx-quality maps of FL caves. Heck, I'd pay for a digital copy. There are too many caves with miserably drawn maps in FL. I'll stick to the caves I'm familiar with, so JB maps are missing a TON of detail all over....but especially in the first few hundred feet. Many are awful around Horseshoe, if they have it at all. Same as Young's Siphon, Parallel Lines, Lost Student Tunnel, etc.....not to mention the "top route" to

As for contributing: I've had a couple of opportunities to help but they've fallen through. My biggest hurdles are that I'm still in the process of practicing the required skills and that I have absolutely zero artistic talent. I'm technically-minded, so I could deal with roughing in the big picture....but there's no way I could do as good of a job as most people. Stick figures are beyond me!

the temptation to steal someone else's passage and finish exploring it before they do isn't nearly as great.
I had never thought about it that way....that's interesting.
Actually in Mexico, there's at least some form of centralized cave survey data database.
As much as I hate it, that might not hurt....but it'd have to be self-policed.
On top of that, I don't know that most people making maps want to make those maps publicly available, and I can assure you they don't want to give real time updates nightly. If you look at mapped passage in FL vs unmapped passage you'll notice an extremely large difference in the condition of the passage, and because of this, quite a few people would disagree with you that there isn't a good reason to not circulate an up to date map.
I certainly didn't think it'd be feasbile to update nightly, I was just saying it'd be easy to do from a distribution perspective, especially with computers being so prevalent now. From a mapping perspective, it'd be impossible for obvious reasons. For the passage conditions, that 's another reason I hadn't thought of yet and something to definitely think about.

Better quality of maps and/or reduce chance of disastrous misintepration?

This would be the biggest thing I'm thinking of. Many of the caves I'm familiar with, you have to "ask around" to know which jump goes where.

[bamafan]

I think the most common JB was done by Sheck back in the day. They were backmount and pushing the main cave so I believe this is one reason why alot of the passages we dive in sidemount aren't on the map. I am in awe of what they did. Just look at the dates. The dives they did back then with the equipment they had is amazing to me.