Eagle's Nest Lines

[OutlawCaver]

I applaud the efforts to replace line there. I was just hoping to understand , in advance, what changed since the last time I was there earlier this summer. In the rare event of a siltout, gold and/or thicker line may be hard to distinguish.

[Line Squirrel]

Please pardon my brashness, but if you accidentally make a visual jump onto this line(s) and don't realize you are no longer on GOLDline and that becomes an issue for you, well, you need to have better situational awareness and probably should not be diving EN in the first place.

Mike,
The only problem I have with the above statement is, I would have left the word "probably" out.

[sskasser]

Quote:
Originally Posted by barney00
Please pardon my brashness, but if you accidentally make a visual jump onto this line(s) and don't realize you are no longer on GOLDline and that becomes an issue for you, well, you need to have better situational awareness and probably should not be diving EN in the first place.

Mike,
The only problem I have with the above statement is, I would have left the word "probably" out.

Agreed. I'll be running a reel on that jump anyway, though. Thanks for all the work that went into this project.

[barney00]

I applaud the efforts to replace line there. I was just hoping to understand , in advance, what changed since the last time I was there earlier this summer. In the rare event of a siltout, gold and/or thicker line may be hard to distinguish.

I meant to post a notice about the line change on this forum, but it was undergoing its transition at the time so the post made it to The Deco Stop but not here. During the work we had laminated notices in the check-in stand, and also clipped off to the line. As the work has been completed, those notices have been removed.

Regardless, and I am not directing this at anyone at particular, one should pay attention to the lines and keep a mental track of how they run in the cave during the course of the dive (noting jumps, Ts, etc.) as a regular practice. Blindly following a line and not paying attention is a recipe for disaster should events conspire against you. One should not have to necessarily know in advance how lines are run and placed in a cave to conduct a cave dive.

Anyone diving EN should have the requisite experience and training so that any siltout or line change only presents an inconvenience. If one feels its anything more than that, then he/she is diving past his/her abilities.

[barney00]

FWIW, here is the post made following the upstream line replacement...

Over the extended Thanksgiving weekend, a group of divers worked to install goldline in the upstream tunnel of Eagle's Nest.

We successfully placed goldline from the entrance to the back of the cave at approximately 2,500 feet, and pulled out all old line. Those familiar with the cave may remember the portion of the tunnel where four parallel lines ran close together for almost five hundred feet. Two of these lines were ill-placed lines forming front and back lines for the Challenge Circuit. The front line is now cut back to make a short jump, which is marked on the goldline. The parallel extension to the back line was also cut out; it can now be found on the back wall across from where the goldline takes a hard left turn at ~1,850 feet. At this time the back jump is not marked (ran out of arrows and time). But the jump is short and easily visible (barring poor visibility). We also cleaned up portions of the Circuit, where we found incorrect directional arrows and saw other issues. We were unable to completely address the Circuit line, but it is now better than it was.

All dives we conducted on Megalodon close circuit rebreathers with bottom times ranging from 50 - 80 minutes.

DIVERS:
Brian Armstrong
Heather Armstrong
Michael Barnette
Joe Citelli
Corey Mearns
Steve Muslin

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Dive Rite
Halcyon
Salvo
NSS-CDS
Brett Hemphill
Steve Stratsma
Gene Hobbs

Goldline now runs in both the upstream and downstream tunnels, and several thousand feet of redundant or unecessary line have been removed. Hopefully this will make the cave safer for future divers.

[JoeyP]

.....I meant to post a notice about the line change on this forum, but it was undergoing its transition at the time so the post made it to The Deco Stop but not here......

As an addendum to all of this everyone should take note that this is still a work in process. The Gold line was the first part of the relining efforts. Our mission was to create a situation where anyone could safely dive either side of the cave on a continuous, properly marked Gold line with NO tees. Both up and downstream lines were that way when we left after Thanksgiving weekend.

On that weekend we installed 2500 feet of continuous gold line in the upstream passage, removed all of the offending parallel lines and cut back all of the Tees. The next phase of the project will be to inspect all of the side lines and replace where necessary and remove those which are duplicates or go no where.

We will go back after the holidays with some #36 line and begin cleaning up the rest of the cave and tidying up any of the Gold line that may have stretched out.

As always, the onus is on the individual diver to use extreme caution when cave diving, especially in a system like Eagles Nest.

[OutlawCaver]

Thanks for all the help on this topic. I feel totally incompetent and going to sell all of my cave diving equipment. I am going back to my humble beginnings and try to start drinking water first and maybe in another lifetime, after decades of experience, I will be ready to stare into the deep abyss and know that I too will never make a mistake. It is at this moment, I will walk upon the waters at Eagle's Nest.

Being prepared for unexpected conditions or line placement is a given during any dive. If planning a dive in advance and curiosty about what to expect during that dive makes me an unexperienced cave diver or stroke then so be it. I will proudly wear that T-shirt. On OC, gas goes quick at that depth. I have lost too many friends in the caves that we all love. I hear their voices, and if asking a question and getting resolution about one of these passages prepares me or someone else for a dive then I consider it a good thing.

In an attempt to provide an analogy, if we, as a nation, ever attempt to return to the moon, do you think we will ask questions of, and look at findings from, Apollo mission planners, or will we just wing it, and figure it out all again on the way there?

[barney00]

Sorry if the posts seemed a little preachy or harsh, but again it was not directed solely at you since others read this and other forums. Some of what is basic stuff seems to be taken for granted or largely ignored at EN, which is ironic given the technical nature of this particular cave. Perhaps I am a little sensitive about it due to an incident in the past, where we somehow caught a rash of sh*t from a diver who made multiple basic mistakes and deemed it was our fault. Still scratching my head about that one...but when I saw the first post I had flashbacks.

In any case, we just want to drive the point home that while the cave is safer now due to the goldline and the elimination of redundant and parallel lines, it is still a technical cave dive and will bite you in the ass if you cut corners (just as any cave dive can and will). Given that there are divers venturing into this cave that really should not be there (both certified and uncertified), this point can't be understated IMHO.

Hope you understand.
Respectfully,
Mike

Thanks for all the help on this topic. I feel totally incompetent and going to sell all of my cave diving equipment. I am going back to my humble beginnings and try to start drinking water first and maybe in another lifetime, after decades of experience, I will be ready to stare into the deep abyss and know that I too will never make a mistake. It is at this moment, I will walk upon the waters at Eagle's Nest.

Being prepared for unexpected conditions or line placement is a given during any dive. If planning a dive in advance and curiosty about what to expect during that dive makes me an unexperienced cave diver or stroke then so be it. I will proudly wear that T-shirt. On OC, gas goes quick at that depth. I have lost too many friends in the caves that we all love. I hear their voices, and if asking a question and getting resolution about one of these passages prepares me or someone else for a dive then I consider it a good thing.

In an attempt to provide an analogy, if we, as a nation, ever attempt to return to the moon, do you think we will ask questions of, and look at findings from, Apollo mission planners, or will we just wing it, and figure it out all again on the way there?

[Dan Thoms]

The answer is to the question that is never asked.....

well,. at least it will be some more practice with the reels anyways. Easier to understand now, that someone has presented what exactly was cut out of it,. and added to make sense of the spider web.. along the cave.

The teams were a success,. and every bit of the effort was apreaciated.