PeteHall said:
I know of a cave that suffered "an unfortunate collapse of the entrance" forcing access via an alternative and very narrow connection from a nearby cave, thus conserving a recenetly discovered and rather delicate and beautiful area.
I fit through the alternative route, so don't need to worry, but while effective, is a "fat-selector" really a fair means of access control?
If you're too large to get through or past a particular obstacle in a cave then go on a diet or go somewhere else! There's nothing fairer than natural selection . . . There are many, many caves you can go and visit in the UK and abroad which don't have significant obstacles to bar progress, but require varying caving skills and stamina to negotiate successfully.
Not everyone is suited to Pippikin Pot (
http://www.rrcpc.org.uk/easegill/text/pippikin.htm ) in the Yorkshire Dales, but by all means give it a go to see where you stand in respect to tight places underground.
If the original explorers have done their work well then most cavers of usual build will find it possible to make progress, albeit some 'mind over matter' will be necessary for those tending towards the 'portly' side. So, I'm not advocating leaving everything as tight as, say, the bedding plane in Ogof Rhyd Sych (
http://www.ogof.org.uk/ogof-rhyd-sych.html ), but removing challenging obstacles can help let those with less care and attention for the condition of the cave and its features to blaze on through regardless, instead of being deterred through lack of caving experience and mental preparation.
I once took a sizeable Russian caver through a small high-level connecting passage and it wasn't until I was squeezing past the single rocking boulder in the middle of the passage that I realised, from his build, he probably didn't stand a chance of following me through and we'd instead have to go back out the way we came in . . . Well, if you have the right mental preparation and attitude, as Vladimir did, you just worm your way through, using mind over matter, as he did, an inch at a time, and, much to my amazement, he pulled himself through and we then able to complete the intended and imposing round-trip exit, with no more
horrible squeezes!
On the other hand, a particularly large caver, caving with a certain university caving club, decided to blindly press upwards and onwards through the Corkscrew Squeeze in Ogof Pen Eryr in the Llangattock quarries, in spite of the suggestions to the contrary made by his companions in the passage ahead of him.
Ultimately, 'Pavarotti', as we called him during the subsequent cave-rescue operation, could make neither further progress upwards
nor back downwards again and became firmly
trapped in the squeeze. This did not impress his fellow cavers in the chamber above yet, fortunately, the group had the insight to have one more caver at the rear, who was able to exit the cave and call cave rescue. It took us 2-3 hours to get him (and his caving companions) safely back out again. And Maureen's (from the Traveller's Rest) bottle of Fairy Liquid washing-up liquid proved most helpful and efficacious!
And the moral of the story is . . .
Blast the Corkscrew Squeeze away . . . I think not!
Man-made mines, however, are a completely different 'kettle of fish' and remedial work done to halt the return of mines to their natural state of solid rock, or make progress through collapsed sections more spacious and thereby safer, can only be applauded.