In other threads the term "wilderness" has been used to denote remote areas of Ogof Draenen. This term sits very uncomfortably on a UK cave, compared to its American sources.

Perhaps a more quantifiable term like remoteness mite be better? This could be defined in many ways - surveyed distance to nearest entrance, time for an average caver to the nearest entrance, or many other ways

I suggest perhaps time from an accident to evacuation to a place of high quality medical treatment could be used, with perhaps way marks of time to initiate call out, arrival of first response team, arrival of medical professional (Dr, paramedic, etc.), time to surface...
In this way Giants Hole East Canal is about 24 hours remote, the bottom of Far Flats in Nettle Pot about 18 hours, a deep Bavarian(?) alpine system about a week, an Andean mine about a month!

So what are your thoughts - what times are you aware of for a debilitating injury from the bottom of Swildons, OFD, Draenen, bits of Lancaster/Easegill etc.
Can you think of a better term than either of these? or alternative ways of defining them?

Brains said:

I suggest perhaps time from an accident to evacuation to a place of high quality medical treatment could be used, with perhaps way marks of time to initiate call out, arrival of first response team, arrival of medical professional (Dr, paramedic, etc.), time to surface...
In this way Giants Hole East Canal is about 24 hours remote, the bottom of Far Flats in Nettle Pot about 18 hours, a deep Bavarian(?) alpine system about a week, an Andean mine about a month!

So what are your thoughts - what times are you aware of for a debilitating injury from the bottom of Swildons, OFD, Draenen, bits of Lancaster/Easegill etc.
Can you think of a better term than either of these? or alternative ways of defining them?

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I like the idea, definitions need tidying up, " high quality medical treatment ", how long does the recovery need to take for it to be a 'wilderness', etc. at a symposium on cave rescue a good few years ago we had a debate about underground hospitalisation, a concept that has been utilised about 25 years later on the continent!.

I re-iterate my statement made on another thread, talking about 'wilderness' in the U.K. is daft!!

Fully agree Brains, "remoteness" is far more meaningful than "wilderness".

I originally thought of saying a hospital A&E unit, but then thought many procedures could be initiated in a ground or air ambulance, or even as mentioned underground... whichever is deemed to fit I suppose.
Even places thought of as beginer locations like Long Churns, Carlswark, or Porth Yr Ogof would not be as easy as say, Snowdon or Ben Nevis... with mobile communications and helicopters, places like Knoydart are arguably less remote than P8!

I has had a long hard thought about what wilderness means in relation to a cave system.

I think wilderness can only be applied to a cave that is in wilderness.

There is no place in the UK , on the surface that is what I could term wilderness.  You ain't never more than five miles from the next nearest human.    You can argue that sentence as long as you want, but I don't see that anywhere in the UK qualifies as wilderness.

Wilderness for me, is someplace like tundra or desert or Antarctica where the next nearest human is not five miles away, but hundreds.

As far as cave rescue goes I can think of caves in the UK where it would be incredibly difficult to extract a seriously injured caver, they are not even big caves, just difficult.    Sometimes the only option might be to hospitalize the injured person within the cave, and I know plans exist to do just that.

A cave is below ground.  The surface is the surface.    Once you is underground you is not on the surface.    I just don't see how a place accessed from a surface that is not wilderness can be called wilderness.    If shit happens, tens of cavers will attend to extract a body.    Yet at most times of any day a cave will be empty (unless its a public tourist cave) by its nature a cave is something not may venture into.

That a cave has been surveyed to be over 75km in length does not mean you can get 75km from the next nearest human.    In the case of Draenen I doubt you can be more than two miles from the 'official' entrance even at its the furthest points.

Wilderness cannot be applied to cave.    The term only has meaning applied to the surface of the planet.

Caves are special places in the planet which only a few would ever venture into.  OK the few who do just got to do it, but most would not go there.    If one cave is wilderness then all caves are wilderness for not only are there few humans in any cave there are very few lifeforms in any cave compared to any place on the surface above them.    Even in wilderness you can find thriving life.  I can't think of a cave where life exactly thrives.    I been in the Sahra,  go too far, thats wilderness.  more scarey than any cave cause you know there ain't no rescue from that place.

Some good thoughtful points emerging here.

Travel time rather than simple distance seems the best measure. For an initial table of comparisons, 'ordinary cavers' travel time would be simpler to obtain and to discuss than would using medical response times, I suggest. The debate could subsequently be broadened by separately calculating a table of medical response times.

Broadly, the longer the system, the more remote the further reaches - but some multi-entrance systems, despite their great length, will turn out to have lower indices of remoteness than significantly shorter systems. The tables will make interesting reading!

I had considered mooting just ordinary travel times, but then that could put the top of Ben Nevis and the Bottom of Pen y Ghent pot of comparable remotness factors, and that seems a bit odd to me. The top of the Ben is remote, but you can easily phone home, bivvy out, summon help, even watch TV on your mobile from there.

Perhaps other peeps can add a few ordinary times, or rescue times for various locations so we could get more of a feel for things?

Brains said:

I had considered mooting just ordinary travel times, but then that could put the top of Ben Nevis and the Bottom of Pen y Ghent pot of comparable remotness factors, and that seems a bit odd to me. The top of the Ben is remote, but you can easily phone home, bivvy out, summon help, even watch TV on your mobile from there.

Perhaps other peeps can add a few ordinary times, or rescue times for various locations so we could get more of a feel for things?

Click to expand...

Surely depends upon the severity of injury? and the expertise and experience of the rescue organisation.

As a comparison; The 20 hour rescue of Donna Carr from Giants in '63;
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19651115&id=9apWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2-gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1840,4803158

Versus a rescue that I was involved in, in the early '80's, a dislocated knee at the eating house, same DCRO doctor, casualty was on the surface less than 2 hours after call out, we overtook the stretcher, the communications team, and the messenger we sent out, Doc Kidd put the joint back in place on the spot and told us to get him out before the swelling and pain took hold.
(Sorry, can't find a reference on line, around 1983 I think)

Admitted, Back Wash Sump had been blasted between the two events, maybe saving an hour either way.

A good point - I had in mind something like a lower leg compound fracture, certainly requiring a stretcher anyway. I know we tried a stretcher carry from the far reaches, over a series of exercises. The 20 hours you mention seems pretty good going in light of those! BTW does that include the time from injury to the arrival of the stretcher/Dr, or just the extraction?
I was on another shout for a medical condition in P8 - the unfortunate was hauled up the first pitch and then became Lazarus and ran out of the cave for a cup of tea at the van while we extricated ourselves and the kit

Seeing this post reminded me of an incident when trekking in Nepal. We were accompanied for part of the way by Bill, a Canadian engineer involved in building small scale hydro electric schemes for locals. On the way we met a group of elderly eco warriors from the USA. When they heard what Bill was up to they were outraged and said they were totally opposed to such schemes in wilderness areas. Bill indignantly replied "This is NOT a wilderness. Thousands of people live in these valleys and they are entitled to electricity."
To get back to the original topic I don't think caves can be described as wildernesses. A simple remote or very remote sounds better to me.
Also I was on the Donna Carr rescue and I am sure it was later. I was still at school in 63.

You're right, the newspaper article is November 15th 1965.

To me:
remoteness = how difficult access is / how long access takes (eg. for help to arrive in an emergency)
wilderness = how wild the area is (ie. how unaffected by humans it is)

I can conceive of section of a cave system that due to difficulty of access (physical or permission) has remained wilderness even though it may be in a generally non-wild, or even non-remote, area.

It's always tricky when you try and map human constructs onto the real world. The real world may fail to co-operate.

I am long distanced from caving now, but in my time, did my bit. As a school kid, people would nudge-nudge me in the early to middle 60's because my my Dad was Doc Kidd - of Donna Carr fame, of Henry Meres fame and so many others. A childhood, followed by a young adulthood in Derbyshire Cave rescue was a real beginning to life. Doc Kidd has been dead for perhaps 16 years now - but he was a bit of a character!

Some years ago we explored a new cave no more than 60 metres long but it had a pitch we had to negotiate. An accident here would have been interesting. No mobile phones and we had spent at least 2 hours walking into the site after a 'short cut' up a Scottish loch by inflatable. Without that it would have been a demanding 5  hour walk to get to the cave entrance.  Not many places like that in the British Isles.

Brains said:

Even places thought of as beginer locations like Long Churns, Carlswark, or Porth Yr Ogof would not be as easy as say, Snowdon or Ben Nevis... with mobile communications and helicopters, places like Knoydart are arguably less remote than P8!

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Arguably some of the places I've been in P8 are much more remote than the end of Daren Cilau...

From the descriptions I have read of P8 you are really out on your own down there!

Remoteness also depends on weather...

Injure yourself at the top of a remote Cairngorm mountain on a sunny day with good phone signal, and the big red and white taxi will carry you away in a few hours or less.

Injure yourself there without phone signal during a gale-force blizzard that shuts down helicopter operations, and suddenly civilization seems a lot further away...



Interestingly I would argue caves are one of the only wild places in Britain - virtually all the surface land is non-natural (the exception possibly being the coast, cliffs and the bare tops of some mountains). Wild but not remote.

Interestingly I would argue caves are one of the only wild places in Britain - virtually all the surface land is non-natural (the exception possibly being the coast, cliffs and the bare tops of some mountains). Wild but not remote.

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I agree, and reckon that Alkapton had it more or less backward in his post a couple of years back. Wilderness has a pretty basic definition, which can surely be applied to some UK caves, remote or not. Wilderness and remoteness are often connected, but don't necessarily have anything to do with one another.

Going by the state of the NHS I would say everywhere is pretty remote using the above criteria set out on the first page, even my front room. I am genuinely worried about picking up an injury at the moment.

I know from recent call outs its a bit of an lottery, ambulances are taking many hours in some cases.