RF Generation Message Board

Tomorrow (Saturday the 11th) Eddie and I are going caving in Rockcastle County, Kentucky.  It should be a fun trip.  I've been going caving since I was six or seven, but haven't gone as often the last few years as I used to.

My dad has been a member of the Cincinnati Cave Grotto for years, so when he renews his membership I'm finally going to join as well.  It's something I should have done a long time ago.

So do we have any other cavers here?  Since that's doubtful, anybody else who has gone caving even once before?  (Mammoth cave and electric-lit tours do not come close to counting.

I'm going to take my camera down tomorrow, but I'm not sure if it will go in the cave with me....  it depends if we end up going in a wet or dry cave, really.  Talk to you kids late Saturday night, maybe with photos.  Ciao.

Yup, getting up bright and early tomorrow at 5:30 to start the trip.  I'll be bringing my camera as well, so hopefully we'll have some interesting photos to post when we get back.

caving? I thought it was called spelunking.

Isn't that a surprise, only one reply in the topic and Den already starts with a homosexual reference. *sigh*

What kind of caves are you going to see? I remember being in a cave in France once, when I was very little. There aren't many caves in the Netherlands, it's basically all mud.

excuse me?

spelunker  n.
One who explores caves chiefly as a hobby; a caver.

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[From obsolete spelunk, cave, from Middle English, from Old French spelunque, from Latin splunca, from Greek splunx.]
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spelunking n.

I was gonna say that^.

As promised, pictures from the trip can be found here:

http://www.venturecrew42.org/id4.html

Just click on the Cave Trip link.  Sorry I'm too lazy to repost them on the board :P

Me
(http://www.venturecrew42.org/pics/caving12048.jpg)

Me on the right
(http://www.venturecrew42.org/pics/caving120417.jpg)

Me in the middle with the map
(http://www.venturecrew42.org/pics/caving120419.jpg)

I'm in the middle with the blue helmet (the only one not smiling). Eddie is below me in the gray and red shirt.
(http://www.venturecrew42.org/pics/caving120427.jpg)

The trip was pretty fun overall.  It was a really easy cave, which was good for the group we were with since there were some beginners with us.  Unfortunately, the cave has been trashed over time.  Some of the people in our group didn't make things better since I saw them touching the rimstone dams and flowstone, but that's partially because the trip "leader" obviously had no idea himself.  Thankfully, most of the pristine caves are still kept good secrets and are on private land.  Mostly, the owners only allow people who they know they can trust go into them.  I hope it stays this way, since with an inexperienced group who has little knowledge of the process of cave formation, millions of years of geological formation can be stunted permanently in an instant.

Caving is awesome, though.  Most areas in the U.S. have grottoes that you can join if you're interested in getting involved in it.  The closer to Kentucky you are, the better.  There are probably thousands of caves in the state, and at least hundreds in the single county we visited.  All of the caves in Kentucky are limestone caves formed by the movement of water through the rocks over millions of years.  There are also a lot of sinkholes in the area.  This is typically called a "carst" geological zone or system.  As the water table rises and drops, different "levels" of the caves form.  Once you have a "dry" level, water still drips down through it from the surface and/or streams.  Where this happens, limestone particles in the water are deposited on the rock and form stalactites, stalagmites, "bacon," flowstone, rimstone dams, columns, and other formations.    Blah, blah, blah boring cave talk.  If you want more info, I can talk about this stuff for hours and hours.

There are also a lot of caves in Mexico, some in the southwest, and some scattered all over the world.  There are a few in Ohio, too.  If you're in the South Dakota area, I highly recommend taking a trip to Wind Cave and Jewel cave.  They are both near each other, and though they haven't finished mapping either one, they expect both will dwarf Mammoth Cave in terms of total length of underground passages.  Jewel Cave in particular has some very unique "box" formations, which if I remember correctly are only known to exist in one other cave in the world.  That one might be in France somewhere, though I really don't know.  Florida also has a lot of caves, but most of these are underwater caves.  Underwater caving is literally the most dangerous "sport" in the world.  A higher percentage of people die doing it than any other sport.  So, I don't recommend doing it.  (I never have and probably never will.)  All of the caves around the country I've been to were really cool, but Kentucky is one of the best places to be.  The carst geology of the area is perfect for a RIDICULOUS concentration of caves.  Every year, people go "ridge walking," which basically means walking along mountain ridges looking for caves.  It seems like they find a few new ones every year.

I need to do this more often....  a lot more often.

That looked like alot of fun. Sucks about the graffitti in there though.
Also was this just a huge pit in the cave?
(http://www.venturecrew42.org/pics/caving12047.jpg)

I'm guessing that was just a regular passageway/tunnel.  Eddie took the photo, but that's my guess.  One of the problems with cave photography is that unless you take a bunch of lighting equipment in with you, you're left with having to use a flash most of the time.  Of course, the max distance on most flashes is about fifteen feet, which is a lot less than the length of many passages.  That's probably why that photo is so dark towards the back.

I didn't take my camera or tripod into this cave because it was wet and I was nervous about taking a $500 digital camera into a cave on a very wet day.  The camera would have been fine and I regret not taking it in.  Hopefully I'll be back down there at another cave within a month or two and can get some cool photos then.

That picture is just of a passageway. You're looking horizontally so you can basically just walk or crawl straight ahead, which we probably did.

We don't have too many caves around here.  I've always kind of wanted to do that, but I don't want to drive far.


btw, when I first saw this topic I started laughing my ass off because the only other time I've heard of someone refering to "going caving", it was code for banging the bar slut.  |D

Yeeeeeah, that's not quite what I mean.  I assume you deducted that already though.  As for the lack of caves in MI (and most of Ohio), I too dislike it.  Fuck glaciers.

Well, they did give Cincinnati its hills, so I like them.

Kind of.  We would have had mountains instead.

Damn that looks really cool. I have only been on the tours that don't count. The tour was at the Grand Canyon Carvens.

Well tomorrow I leave to go on another cave trip.  I got a nice LED light for Christmas, so this will be my first chance to use it.  I've also finally officially joined the Cincinnati Cave Grotto, so this will be my first trip as a "real" member.  Anyhow, we're going to be caving in Kentucky in the Cumberland Gap area.  Originally I thought I heard West Virginia, but I was wrong.  We'll be in one cave for six or seven hours I think on Saturday, and then we'll be going on a commercial cave tour in the National Park on Sunday just for kicks.  I'll be back late on Sunday, with lots of pictures.  As long as cave crickets don't eat me like they did a certain other Collins.

(http://www.uc.edu/news/cavecrik.jpg)

Okay, I'm back.  I got a few good photos too.  Friday night we stayed in a motel in Kentucky.  Saturday morning we drove through the tunnel in Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, which was in Tennessee.  After a very short while we were in Virginia, where the cave we were going to was.  The cave we went to on Saturday was near Pennington Gap, called Gilley's Cave.  Sunday, we went on a commercial cave called Gap Cave, which was in the National Park in Tennessee.  Both caves had some very unusual features and formations, but unfortunately both have been damaged heavily by really dumb people.  Anyway, here are some photos I took over the weekend.  Panoramas will follow.  (A few of these are parts of panoramic series, but that's okay.)

Gilley's Cave

Cave entrance.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_2985_700.JPG)

"Before" group photo.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_2988_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_2996_700.JPG)

Gypsum flowers.  Dirty though.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3010_700.JPG)

Gypsum columns.  Also dirty.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3019_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3026_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3029_700.JPG)

It's dark in there!
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3032_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3038_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3041_700.JPG)

More typical gypsum, with a few small gypsum columns/soda straws.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3047_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3054_700.JPG)

My cave helmet.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3055_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3075_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3079_700.JPG)

This stuff just coated the cave all over.  Unfortunately this crawlspace was in the best condition of the whole cave, and even it was fairly damaged.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3097_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3112_700.JPG)

This should give you a good size comparison.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3133_700.JPG)

"After" group photo.  I'm the one that's not old.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gilleys/100_3138_700.JPG)

The following are from the cave we went in this morning.  As I said, it was in the National Park.  While the previous cave was what I would call "real" caving, this one was just a tour through a commercial cave.  Regardless, it was very beautiful as you'll see below.  There was much less gypsum, but a lot more traditional formations - only in extremely plentiful numbers and sizes.

Gap Cave

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3199_700.JPG)

Difficult to see, but the column is in the pool of a rimstone dam.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3213_700.JPG)

This photo, the next, and several others (not shown) will be stitched together into one image later.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3224_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3225_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3229_700.JPG)

As you can see, this column was enormous.  I think I've only seen one or two this size in my life.  The photo does little justice to it, and especially not the room it was in.  The room was even larger, with flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, and more coating everything.  Really incredible stuff, in spite of the fact that it was a commercial cave.
(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3241_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3243_700.JPG)

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3248_700.JPG)

Those are some pretty funky caves. Isn't there any danger in crawling into all those small spaces?

wow, that's some pretty damn cool stuff. great pictures.

Thats awesome.

I was Howe Cavern in New York (i think). Gap Cave reminded me of it. Except i remember it more colorful for some reason.

Of course.  There is usually more danger in other parts of caves though than the crawlspaces.  For instance, there was a spot in Gilley's where there was a pit that was somewhere between fifty and seventy feet deep, and twenty feet or so across.  To get around it, we had to walk along a ledge maybe two feet wide.  If you fall in, you -ay not come back out.  Another big danger is not taking enough sources of light and travelling alone.  If you do that and run out of light, you'll need a lot of luck.  You've never experienced total darkness until you've gone into a cave.  Then there is always the concern of dehydrating, needing food, getting injured, etc.  Some caves can also be dangerous because of water.  During heavy rains, a passage may become impassable, and you could get trapped.  Cave ceilings do indeed fall, and they have hit people, but this is extremely rare.  The only instance of this that I can think of offhand is Floyd Collins.

However, if you're careful, take plenty of light sources, water, and a bit of food, travel in a group (with at least one person that knows the cave well), and take a cave map, you'll be fine 99% of the time.

On the other hand, cave diving is something entirely different.  The likelihood of death while doing that is just ridiculous.  That's part of why I'll never do it.

Those are some cool pics. Caves are one of the coolest places on Earth.

Here we go.  This one is a LOT better than the crappy one I had up there above.

(http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/misc/caves/gap/100_3241_edit_700.jpg)

Your right the pictured don't give it justice.
I knew it was going to be big but that shot makes it look so much larger.