Deep Caveing

[Dinner]

Not if you use common sense and don't try knocking down the 130 year old wooden support beams.

[Hueij]

...like saying XYZZY at one point.

[Vince278]

Oh. We're talking about spelunking here.

[Space05us]

Ive never been in a cave. Come to think of it Ive never even had the chance of being near one.

They set camps at depths of 700m, 1,215m, 1,410m and 1,640m, where they cooked meals, slept up to six people to a tent and worked for up to 20 hours at a stretch.

Why bother with tents? Its not going to rain and most animals arent dumb enough to travel thousands of feet into a cave.

[DaShi]

Spiders

[KrazyHorse]

It's probably quite moist. You might get a lot of condensation falling off the roof.

[Vince278]

I was once in a really big cave near Trieste, Italy. It was said it was one of the biggest in the world. Can't remember the name though.

[monolith94]

I went spelunking once. Quite difficult for a 6', 210 lb guy who's not very agile. There was this one point where I honestly felt like Pooh bear, when he was stuck in that hole - I was actually almost worried I wouldn't have the physical upper-body strength to make it through. But I did - and when it was finished with I felt like I had truly accomplished something.

Man, what a workout that was. Not an experience I'd repeat until I lost 20 lbs, but I'm glad I did it.

[Provost Harrison]

Potholing

Caving

Or how's about the nice blanket term speleology?

You're doing the acts, you shoudl be able to bleeding well spell them!

[Dauphin]

Hey Rich, you should check out Chislehurst caves. Used as bomb shelters during the war.

[Provost Harrison]

Now there's an idea...I may pop there first just to have a look!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Space05us
Why bother with tents? Its not going to rain and most animals arent dumb enough to travel thousands of feet into a cave.

Caves are cold and very wet plus there is normally mud. Lots and lots of mud plus you have to worry about oil from your skin or clothing getting on the formations because such oils stop the formations from growing any more.

[Dis]

Of course I've been to Lehman caves in central Nevada. Those are some pretty good caves. Though not as good as Carlsbad caverns I hear. I'd like to go down there. But it's so far south...

[Dinner]

Carlsbad caverns were the major woot. Mammoth cave in Kentucky was rather boring in comparision due to its lack of interesting cave formations. Louis & Clark caverns in Montana is very nice but far smaller then Carlsbad Caverns. If any one gets a chance to go to Carlsbad caverns/lechagia cave complex in New Mexico I would suggest they go for it. Its the world's largest and most extensive cave complex which includes the world's largest underground room while the various cave formations are amoung the world's best. Two thumbs up.

Although both sides of the valley are still connected by a cave network which goes at least a mile under the earth's surface the whole valley is actually the caved in roof of what was once a truly massive cave complex. We're talking about a central cave which was five to ten miles long and 250-1000 feet high at points. This central cave collapsed (likely from an earthquake) 4k-5k years ago but the deeper network still exists. National Geographic has done a few specials on Carlsbad/lechagia which I'd recommend to anyone.

[child of Thor]

we have 'wookie hole' here in the uk, i think it was my first cave experience(i was around 9) - and i was really excited as i think i had convinced myself it was where wookies lived(like chewbaca from starwars).
I remember being pretty bummed about all the rock and no wookies

Still i got over it and have been on a few weirdy-breardy cave adventures. I even discoverd an old sabre tooth tigers cave(or maybe grave?) in my back garden many years ago. After i explored it a bit(and realised it went even deeper), i got scared and came out to tell my parents. They called a local caving group and some guys came around and had a look - they found some bones, one that sabre's tooth

One thing i wouldn't want to do is that underwater caving thing - looks amazing but its really risky, i'm happy watching it on tv.

I'm still trying to get my head around the 2000 meters down part of the article i posted. That's really deep. The worlds diameter is what - 10,000 km's or something? So its like a fifth of the way through the earth?