W-T-F?? part II

[The Chairman]

You've been to the Godzilla Room in back mount without touching? I guess you're a lot smaller than me.

 

[ucfdiver]

You've been to the Godzilla Room in back mount without touching? I guess you're a lot smaller than me.

YouTube - Madison Springs - Godzilla Circuit - Cave Diving

 

[Cave Diver]

Some instructors don't mind forcing their way through tight spots.

I think this is the exact type of mentality that produced some of the comments that spurred this discussion.

The big question is what, if anything can we as a community do to change that?

How do we let new students passing classes with subpar skills let them know that they're trashing the caves and that it's not acceptable?

How do we stop instructors from allowing this to happen?

 

[Dive-aholic]

How do you force students to switch sides in lights-out exit drills?

The location of the line does this. Touching the cave with a hand is a lot different than banging it with cylinders. I wrote the line is in the middle (top to bottom), not necessarily side to side.

EDIT: also, what about stage drops in cave 2 / full-cave? For that matter, what about stage drops done by cave 2 / full cave divers... I always try not to cause damage, but it does cause some. Just our own passage causes massive damage trails through the cave....

Stage cylinders can be placed with minimal to no damage to caves. I drop my deco cylinders without making any marks on every single dive. I also drop my stage cylinders in very specific locations to minimize any damage. They don't get dropped on silty bottoms. And, actually, then don't get dropped. They get placed.

There probably is an acceptable amount of damage to the cave from a course, or else we just wouldn't cave dive at all...

That's the wrong attitude. No amount of damage is acceptable. While it does occur, we shouldn't accept it. We should strive to become better divers and avoid it.

...and was required to use back mount.

Then why did you participate?? Come over and join some of my classes. I'll let you dive sidemount!

I guess you're a lot smaller than me.

He is.

The big question is what, if anything can we as a community do to change that?

How do we let new students passing classes with subpar skills let them know that they're trashing the caves and that it's not acceptable?

How do we stop instructors from allowing this to happen?

Unfortunately, John, there is no way to do this. We can have threads like this, even in the open forum, but many new cave diving students aren't on the boards and aren't going to read these threads. There's no system in place to monitor how classes are being conducted. And most students think their instructors are the best.

The best we can do is post threads in hopes that already trained/certified cave divers recognize their skills are subpar and they take action to improve. Unfortunately, most egos are too inflated for them to recognize subpar skills. I came across 4 divers a couple of weeks ago that were scootering Twin and blew out most of the system. I was there with a cavern class and couldn't even enter the cavern for over half an hour after those guys exited. And they were heading back there as evidenced by the 2 scooters left in the cavern! I guarantee none of them thought their skills or techniques were subpar.

 

[ucfdiver]

Rob,

Write this one down...first time I think I've ever thanked a post of yours. ;-)

 

[lamont]

That's the wrong attitude. No amount of damage is acceptable. While it does occur, we shouldn't accept it. We should strive to become better divers and avoid it.

I'm just not an absolutist. I'd say you need be conscious of any damage and strive to minimize it. We have to accept some level of damage, though, or just have everyone stop cave diving entirely.

 

[TSandM]

I don't remember hitting very much in Madison, except the first time we did the Rabbit Hole entry, where all of us were pretty clumsy.

I do have to say that I watched a group of divers led by someone whose name is very well known and apparently respected, do such a poor job of managing a pretty simple cave in Mexico that it really amazed me. I realize a guide can't be totally responsible for the technique of everyone in his group at all times, but at that point, I was still surprised that someone could pass a Full Cave class and not be able to do better than what I was seeing. It no longer surprises me, but I still find it very sad. I have seen people in caves who wouldn't pass Fundies.

But none of us is perfect, and it is not possible to dive some sections of cave without touching anything -- not in sidemount, not in backmount. Go through the King Pong restriction without touching anything -- I dare you! If we were all to be absolutely ethical about doing no damage whatsoever, we'd stay home. The best we can do is try to be the best we can be; to practice skills diligently, and use common sense about what kinds of cave we are ready to dive and which ones we should stay out of until we are better.

 

[lamont]

Go through the King Pong restriction without touching anything -- I dare you!

I bet you anything Fred/Chris/Danny could get through there.

I did a lot better on the way out.

I don't know how you get better without causing some damage to begin with though...

 

[karstdvr]

That's the wrong attitude. No amount of damage is acceptable. While it does occur, we shouldn't accept it. We should strive to become better divers and avoid it.

Absolutely right!

A couple years ago a question was asked by the state of some well respected cave divers about damage in the caves. After this a system of doing photo points was developed for caves. Photopoints are used at parks,which takes photos of consistent spots,and compare them over time,and if degradation is seen,then something is altered. In our case carrying capacity would be changed. All state parks have a carrying capacity,but we worked hard so the carrying capacity wouldn't even be noticed by the average cave diver. But,if attitudes of "sacrificial cave" or "some damage is acceptable" is pervasive,and we see more damage from carelessness,then one day in the near future you may drive up to (for example) Peacock,and get turned away because they have their limit for the day. People copy you,and people copy instructors,if you exhibit a concern for cave conservation,then these issues go away.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

... the guys that were beating the crap out of Madison when we were there were on rebreathers ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yes, the technique was appalingly bad and they had blitzed significant areas of the cave - and apparently not from doing lights out or lost line drills, just from diving the passages. Sadly, I saw that same instructor on a later trip with rebreather students putting in a jump at the crossover tunnel with a student literally on his knees on the bottom.

However, I was reading "The Taming of the Slough" yesterday and I noted some very interesting things relevant to this topic. To put it in context, many of the chapters and articles in the book were written in the mid to late 1970's and many of the pictures are from the 1970's and 1980's. It is obvious from reading the text and looking at the pictures that conservation was viewed differently then.

Some examples:

1. References to the use of flutter and dolphin kicks as they are less tiring on portions of the dive where creating silt is not an concern - such as on a taverse where the divers are returning on that route (obviously traffic in peacock was not nearly what it is now and consideration for other divers was not an issue when you were possibly the only team there on a weekday or weeknight.

2. References to "squirrel marks" on cave walls. Apparently a reference to marks left by "line squirrels" but again not viewed with any great alarm.

3. References to digging/moving rocks in the cave to find/expand openings. (I can see the need, and over the long term it opened up areas of the cave, but the practice would none the less be very controversial today - although I know it still happens.)

4. Pictures of Sheck Exley with clay all along the sides of his Jet Fins. Someone was obviosuly wallowing in the cave somewhere.

5. A later picture of divers (ironically enough rebreather divers) kneeling on the bottom of the cave.

6. References to and pride of accomplishment in speed in making traverses in minimum time, to the point divers were exhausted. One can only image at the lack of concern for silt and/or cave damage.

To be fair, the grand traverse was a big dive in that era, so the focus was probably different. Today it's just another dive easily set up and done by almost any full cave diver in one afternoon, so the focus or goal should not be just on doing it, but on doing it cleanly with an eye to prefection in technique.

Obviously, expectations in terms of conservation are far higher today, and they need to be in light of the far greater traffic all caves are going to see relative to 20-40 years ago. I think that is a concept that some of the old guard instructors and cave divers need to recognize and heed.

I also agree that the concept of a training cave is a bad one and I think the acceptance of this concept plays a part in accepting damage to a cave as aneccesary part of cave training. It also ignores the fact that even heavily traveld caves have features worth protecting.

For example a month or so ago along the peanut line I noted some small but still beautiful clay bank formations that apparently have resulted from some comparatively recent subsidence in the floor. I am pretty sure they are doomed as divers will soon have them obliterated with careless hands, poor buoyancy and poor silt control and fin techniques.

I know that in both intro and full cave classes, I put a great deal of emphais on maintaining decent trim and buoyancy control during lights out drills to minimize contact with the cave. But I also know that not everyone in the clas had the same skill level, and that was evident when passing through those same areas on subsequent dives where the damage to the cave floor was evident.

To be fair it was in an area of the cave that does get refloored with every flood, so one can argue the dmage is not long term, but I have also noted over the last few years that new floors in Peacock do not stay new for more than a few weeks. Sadly, some cave certed divers truly suck and the more traffic an area gets, the greater the staistical liklihood that a poor diver will come through and damage the area.

What makes it worse is that these same divers then decide they are qualified and perhaps even entitled by their cert to go into less traveled and tighter areas of the cave. For example, the waterhole can be done completely clean all the way from the Peanut line to Waterhole III in back mount, but you still see numerous hand prints, fin marks and over evidence of poorly skilled dives within a short time after a flood. The odds are you'll see marks before all the tannic intrusion is gone. In my opinion, there is no excuse for that.

I have amended dive plans for the dive, day or week, when it became obvious a diver in the group was not able to go somewhere small with an acceptable level of skill, and stayed on the mainline. I also tend to dive with other divers who will provide feedback as well as hold themselves to high standards and dive within the limits of their abilities from a conservation perspective. I think that as a community we need to maintain similar standards and self police ourselves using high expectations, peer pressure and a willingness to point out practices that damage the cave.

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One thing I'd like to do is see if I can replicate some of the pictures in Peacock that were taken in the 1970s and 1980s and then compare what we see now with what we saw then to get an indicator of the damage that has occurred. I suspect it will be enlightening. Some changes are obvious in the text of "The Taming of the Slough" such as the reference to the "squeeze" at challenge and the reference to Sheck having to make two attempts to get through it in double 72s. I have never even really regarded it as a restriction requiring any cave contact, so obviously it has gotten substantially bigger over the intervening years.

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Sidemount diving plays a role but one that is both a positive and a negative. For example, Madision blue struck me as being a very small and tight cave off the mainline, but with more experience is got a lot bigger and can be dove cleanly in back mount with a bit of care. On the other hand the passages get a lot bigger in sidemount as while the passages are low, they are also usually wide.

In some caves, the reverse is true and the passage profile benefits backmount more than sidemount. Some caves are a mix of both. Cow Springs may be an example as the way the line is set, more care is needed in sidemount than in back mount to prevent any contact in some of the narrower/more veritcal cross sections and sidemount is an advantage in some of the flatter sections (ex. just before "not my fault"). In any case, it depends on the diver not the configuration to prevent damage to the cave.

A possible concern is that with sidemount diving may come an exploration mentality in some cave divers that might not be consistent with the realities in today's cave diving environment, and in some of the caves where that is practiced. For example, practicing / acting like a mud puppy in some of the smaler tunnesl in Peacock is just not acceptable, even if you justify it as practicing skills you envision needing when pushing new line in an unexplored cave. From a cave conservation perspective, being in sidemount is not a licence to contact the cave or to damage the cave getting into ever smaller passages. Whether sidemount is viewed as benefit to cave conservation or a curse will depend on how well side mount divers try to uphold than ethic and whether sidemount divers as a whole see the need to enfiorce that ethic on their peers.

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The same thing applies to rebreather divers. I had a recent experience with a rebreather teamate who was frequently contacting the floor in his effort to avoid contacting the ceiling. He missed the obvious issues - 1) you need the SA to know where you all your body parts and kit are at in relation to the cave and 2) you need the buoyancy skils to stay between floor and ceiling wthout contacting either - but he was primarily concerned with not damaging the hoses or connections on top of his rebreather and was choosing to stay extra low even if contacting the floor was an issue. I understand that a rebreather poses extra challenges in a cave, and it may call for some different approaches in managing loop volume and PO2 (and related cave specific rebreather training needs), but again, having a rebretaher is not an acceptable justification for contacting the cave. And in that regard, like sidemount diving, the responsibility for ensuring rebreathers don't magnify the conservation problems in caves will depend on the self discipline and self policing of rebreather divers and instructors.