Reading 'what made you start caving' made me realise just how much people that do it, love it, but most that dont, think we are absolutley mad!
Take trying to recruit new members in freshers week, 90% of people dont even answer, 9% look at you like you crawled out from under a rock, 0.9% talk to you, then make a rapid excuse and maybe the last 0.01% contemplate joining.
Yet its one of the most exciting things you can do with your life. Just about the only true exploration left in the uk, and an alround amazing experience?
So, new question, why do you still cave? Whats the one best thing about it that makes you just come back for more time and time and time again?

I think for me, its just a sense of exploring a completley alien environment thats still sooo close the the pub!

tt.

I guess for me it is the unknown too... and the beauty of it all. I think the team spirit is a pretty good pull. It's also about escapism and being able to detach from the mundane crap in life... it's you, your pals, and the cave... pretty simple really.

CN

It's the sheer exhiliration of pushing yourself, utilising all of the skills and knowlege you have, to get to somewhere like "Hall of the Winds" down in Gaping Ghyll and viewing the thundering waterfall dropping from some 300 ft above you......there are not many places above ground in the UK where you can see sights like this, and those that you can are normally in "never-never" regions of the country, or full of tourists and screaming kids - none of those problems 'down under'!!

Also, It's also the only place I know where you can experience so many emotions within a short period of time - fear (slipping on a traverse and being saved by yer cowstails!), relief (peeing in your wetsuit......LOL), joy (making it out alive and without help from DCRO!), exhiliration (as previously mentioned) and others.

Lastly, it's nice to be part of a large "family". Cavers really are nice people (well......the majority of them, anyways) and to be able to go anywhere in the country, meet up with someone you do not really know, do a bit of caving and then go to a pub and laugh about "Joe Bloggs" who got the group lost.......you can't beat it!!

I guess for me it is the unknown too... and the beauty of it all. I think the team spirit is a pretty good pull. It's also about escapism and being able to detach from the mundane crap in life... it's you, your pals, and the cave... pretty simple really.

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That just about sums it up nicely the way I see it too..

Personally it's the thrill of getting naked on a windy hillside with a load of strangers :whip:

Cumbrian Neil said:

I guess for me it is the unknown too... and the beauty of it all. I think the team spirit is a pretty good pull. It's also about escapism and being able to detach from the mundane crap in life... it's you, your pals, and the cave... pretty simple really.

CN

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Yes, Like Armstrong said about jazz, if you need to ask "what jazz is" you'll never get to know it! The same goes for caving...

for me it's absolutely the beauty of it, underground you find a landscape that people who've not been down a cave can't really imagine - stals, helictites, flowstone...
...i think it's also the un-spoilt feel of caves - they seem so untouched by man

i also love passages like Sunset in the Dales - the way the water has shaped the walls - also in OFD streamway...

oh, and picon in Matienzo (my avatar) - the ceiling there is undescribable!

you all know what i mean!

For me it the idea of standing somewhere no one has stood before and the great feeling of compleating a trip and knowing you can go to the Helwith for a pint

<3 Feel at home :!:

When you get to be as old and jaded as I am, reasons like "the challenge" or "the pretties" just don't cut it. I get cold easily now, and I'm not very fit anymore, and it is getting harder for me to drag myself underground at all. But every once in a while, when I'm waiting at the bottom of a pitch or something, I really feel good, and alive, and I just get that feeling that caving was what I was meant to do. Some of the best (and worst) moments in my life have been underground, and I have absolutely met the best people caving (some of them were even Brits!). Caving is also a good excuse to travel; it takes you to jungles and mountaintops you'd otherwise not even think of visiting.

ian mckenzie said:

Caving is also a good excuse to travel; it takes you to jungles and mountaintops you'd otherwise not even think of visiting.

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True! I just got back from a 3 week caving trip to Thailand at the weekend. I doubt if I would ever have visited the country if it wasn't because of the caving.

It was nice changing at 80 degrees F into Ron Hills, T-shirt and wellies but having to watch out for snakes, scorpions, BIG spiders and insects and bats was a bit of a drawback!

Some wicked river caves too - with unexplored sections...

Still, it will be nice to get back to caving in Britain! At least you can get a decent pint afterwards!

Personally, I love taking people on their first trips. Not only for the looks of awe on their faces, but from the sence of achievement they get. And of course, you're never too old, or experienced to learn something yourself.

The chance to go somewhere no-one else has been before.
Getting away from all the boring everyday stuff and doing something I enjoy.
Hanging over a 100m hole in a waterfall trying to find a bolt.
Taking someone on their first trip, and them loving it.
The feeling of achievement after the Daren crawl or the OFD3 traverses.
The beer afterwards.
Being able to go to a caving hut and have a conversation with someone I haven't met before, or haven't seen for over a year.

And, getting naked beside a road in the sleet, when you are so cold you can't feel your hands, and having passing cars stop so the driver can ask what you are doing.