Thirty years ago I spent three months as a USGS intern as part of a team taking depth readings on explored portions of caves.
What makes Mammoth so cool is the huge size of the passages. But, I don’t think I’d have been nearly as impressed if I’d not spend three months mostly crawling through the tiny passageways that comprise the vast majority of most caves.
Wyandott cave once ran a 12 hour 2 person + 2 guide tour into the tighter areas. If they’re still running that tour then I highly recommend it. At the time, it was damned near impossible to ever see a cave in that way unless you had a friend already hooked into the spelunking community.
I went to The Caves of Han and had a blast, and also went to some smaller natural caves. We have some divers in the family and I was well aware about the dangers and difficulties of exploring caves(systems) like this. Walking around on pathways with railings, lights and every comfort you need for walking through a cave, it sometimes felt surreal or weirdly conflicting.
I did some guided underwater caving myself in coastal reefs in Egypt. There was a point where you had turn up from horizontal, slightly left, and about 45degrees back upward where you came from, with only the light you make with the divers light. This tunnel was just large enough to fit you with divers equipment, so basically a human sized hamstertube. and even though our guide was fantastic and dive prep was 10/10, that was intense.
Cave exploring is super cool and very very dangerous and risky and unpractical, so it’s not hard to feel great awe when you see some caves like this ‘conquered’, knowing the effort it must have taken :-) .
I did some guided underwater caving myself in coastal reefs in Egypt.
I’ve been in tight caves, skydived and may soon buy an ultralight, climb without a rope (class 3ish) with fatal fall exposure, etc. I’ve managed to stay alive because of heavy risk assessment and mitigation efforts.
Cave diving is a whole different category of risk. I’d never attempt it. As a hobby it’s certain death. Please say something about this in your post above.
Thirty years ago I spent three months as a USGS intern as part of a team taking depth readings on explored portions of caves.
What makes Mammoth so cool is the huge size of the passages. But, I don’t think I’d have been nearly as impressed if I’d not spend three months mostly crawling through the tiny passageways that comprise the vast majority of most caves.
Wyandott cave once ran a 12 hour 2 person + 2 guide tour into the tighter areas. If they’re still running that tour then I highly recommend it. At the time, it was damned near impossible to ever see a cave in that way unless you had a friend already hooked into the spelunking community.
Damn, very cool, thanks so much for elaborating!
I went to The Caves of Han and had a blast, and also went to some smaller natural caves. We have some divers in the family and I was well aware about the dangers and difficulties of exploring caves(systems) like this. Walking around on pathways with railings, lights and every comfort you need for walking through a cave, it sometimes felt surreal or weirdly conflicting.
I did some guided underwater caving myself in coastal reefs in Egypt. There was a point where you had turn up from horizontal, slightly left, and about 45degrees back upward where you came from, with only the light you make with the divers light. This tunnel was just large enough to fit you with divers equipment, so basically a human sized hamstertube. and even though our guide was fantastic and dive prep was 10/10, that was intense.
Cave exploring is super cool and very very dangerous and risky and unpractical, so it’s not hard to feel great awe when you see some caves like this ‘conquered’, knowing the effort it must have taken :-) .
I’ve been in tight caves, skydived and may soon buy an ultralight, climb without a rope (class 3ish) with fatal fall exposure, etc. I’ve managed to stay alive because of heavy risk assessment and mitigation efforts.
Cave diving is a whole different category of risk. I’d never attempt it. As a hobby it’s certain death. Please say something about this in your post above.