Caving
Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2017 9:48 amI know a sport considered extreme and dangerous: caving.
When I practiced it I was told mad, fool, and some other lovely adjectives. I understand it is difficult to see some people to vanish beyond a hole in the ground and not know nor be able to know about them until they reach the earth surface again, it can take hours or days if you explore a large cave where you are even sleeping; no cellular phone contact is avaliable there, no visual contact like was possible with climbers; nothing. It’s not so dangerous as most of people believes. A correct behaviour may keep you from danger. Carefullness is the best lifeguard. Many people has been told there you can’t breathe as it’s a closed space. Caves are made by water drop by drop modelling slits. If water has been there air can get there too.
There inside dangers are increased as there is no contact with the surface (only very deep caves where long stays are scheduled or military missions have a telephone avaliable if it was installed like in a battlefield before the radio).
There are a few rules you must respect for your safety, all of them very important. You don’t have to start a mission you think you are not trained to, I mean, you must know your phisical condition and act according to it. Always must there be someone who knows where you are and about at what time you are coming back to alert emergency services if necessary. Don’t change your plans, if you were in trouble the information given before would not be useful.
Caving is a wonderful activity. It takes you to places you’d never imagine they exist. Even more, maybe you’ll be the first person in the history to get into a place in the world. Once I took part in an expedition to discover new caves, I was the second. It was hard but as an experience one of the treasures I keep.
Exploring any cave you’ll see precious sculptures made just by the nature, the very mother of all of us. There, you also depend on yourself and your mates. Such an activity can join the strongest friends you can get. All you experience there wouldn’t be as intense as if it wasn’t shared. One of the most precious feelings of my whole life happened the day all of us turned off our torches and kept silent. If you haven’t felt it you cannot imagine the deepest dark and the most absolute silence. It was almost meeting God.
Training is important as I wrote before. You need resistance to fatigue, cold weather and humidity. Caves keep a constant temperature, the annual average. Inside a cave you shouldn’t stop for long periods to avoid getting cold unless the mission was so long to sleep there inside. In that case you must wear warming clothes and a good sleeping bag. For sure you’ll descend wells, some caves are sets of them. To get to lower places you fix a rope to the wall, you cling to it and thanks to some appropiate items you can use the rope as a train its track. Those items are to brake the gravity force and to go down slowly. You should never hurry up in a cave, you coud slip, fall from great heights or crash to any stone or rock (you don’t see as well as in the surface) as well.
Notwithstanding you’ll do nothing if you don’t keep cool at any situation. Trained in other sports but unexperienced people in caving may get exhausted due to fear more than fatigue. You must bear to be dirty of mud, know youself to keep cool even in trouble (I remind you most dangers are avoidable), improvise while going on...
Caving is like getting to another world, a world that waits for you under your feet.
Yours sincerely
Aleix
When I practiced it I was told mad, fool, and some other lovely adjectives. I understand it is difficult to see some people to vanish beyond a hole in the ground and not know nor be able to know about them until they reach the earth surface again, it can take hours or days if you explore a large cave where you are even sleeping; no cellular phone contact is avaliable there, no visual contact like was possible with climbers; nothing. It’s not so dangerous as most of people believes. A correct behaviour may keep you from danger. Carefullness is the best lifeguard. Many people has been told there you can’t breathe as it’s a closed space. Caves are made by water drop by drop modelling slits. If water has been there air can get there too.
There inside dangers are increased as there is no contact with the surface (only very deep caves where long stays are scheduled or military missions have a telephone avaliable if it was installed like in a battlefield before the radio).
There are a few rules you must respect for your safety, all of them very important. You don’t have to start a mission you think you are not trained to, I mean, you must know your phisical condition and act according to it. Always must there be someone who knows where you are and about at what time you are coming back to alert emergency services if necessary. Don’t change your plans, if you were in trouble the information given before would not be useful.
Caving is a wonderful activity. It takes you to places you’d never imagine they exist. Even more, maybe you’ll be the first person in the history to get into a place in the world. Once I took part in an expedition to discover new caves, I was the second. It was hard but as an experience one of the treasures I keep.
Exploring any cave you’ll see precious sculptures made just by the nature, the very mother of all of us. There, you also depend on yourself and your mates. Such an activity can join the strongest friends you can get. All you experience there wouldn’t be as intense as if it wasn’t shared. One of the most precious feelings of my whole life happened the day all of us turned off our torches and kept silent. If you haven’t felt it you cannot imagine the deepest dark and the most absolute silence. It was almost meeting God.
Training is important as I wrote before. You need resistance to fatigue, cold weather and humidity. Caves keep a constant temperature, the annual average. Inside a cave you shouldn’t stop for long periods to avoid getting cold unless the mission was so long to sleep there inside. In that case you must wear warming clothes and a good sleeping bag. For sure you’ll descend wells, some caves are sets of them. To get to lower places you fix a rope to the wall, you cling to it and thanks to some appropiate items you can use the rope as a train its track. Those items are to brake the gravity force and to go down slowly. You should never hurry up in a cave, you coud slip, fall from great heights or crash to any stone or rock (you don’t see as well as in the surface) as well.
Notwithstanding you’ll do nothing if you don’t keep cool at any situation. Trained in other sports but unexperienced people in caving may get exhausted due to fear more than fatigue. You must bear to be dirty of mud, know youself to keep cool even in trouble (I remind you most dangers are avoidable), improvise while going on...
Caving is like getting to another world, a world that waits for you under your feet.
Yours sincerely
Aleix