Amy's TAG weeklong cave ADVENTURE

Amy

New member
Well hey folks! Some of ya'all wanted to know what US caving is like so HEY GUESS WHAT you have a US member on your forum who is currently in TAG for the week! So just like i did for the NSS forum posting updates on my trip there for the US peeps, I shall reverse it for you! I should warn, I am not an expert in how to write trip reports in fact I really don't know much about any rules for any "proper" way of doing it. However, that's ok, I think this will be better more storyesque anyway :) I will be posting very sporatically...you see here we don't have such a thing as club huts that have nice warm beds and kithens and even better, WIFI!! So probably I'll post a lot when I get home but oh well, I tried! Also I tend to post photos galore so watch for incoming of those.

day 1: I arrived at the Birmingham, Alabama airport (OH interjection - TAG = Tennessee Alabama Georgia as the corner areas of where those states all come together and surrounding areas is where the bulk of our caves are)  along with my friend Tenzin flying in from Albequrque, New Mexico, and was picked up by my friend David who lives in Atlanta. We dropped Tenzin off with some friends halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta and David and I continued on to Atlanta.

Day 2: David and I went by REI (outdoorsy store, has various gear for climbing, hiking, backpacking, kayaking, et etc etc) and I got some hiking boots that should drain water pretty well (here, we want our stuff to drain, and I have found my 5 fingers work great in wet caves, but not so much dry) Also I got more 5finger socks including RAINBOW :D which made me really excited.

Then it was off to meet MacNair (his name is also david, hence we always call him MacNair) at Palisdeas Cliffs outside of Atlanta. You see, I was able to aquire vertical gear and it was time to get off the garage and tree rope and actually on a decent size drop. About 50-60 feet. Rigged up and rappelled down (long microrack, 4 bar dual hyperbar) and then switched over to frog. Didn't make it up that far it was oddly a lot harder than I had in the garage/tree so changed over (needed to practise that anyway) and went back down about the 10 feet I'd made it up with lots of struggle (way too much, I could barely budge with all leg and arm strength, and it's *not that hard* I am usually very quick with it so knew something was goofed) fixed the harness a bit to get the croll lower made a few chest harness adjustments and then bam I was going up the rope like a pro. Ok maybe not a pro, but hey, MacNair commented I was a natural so THERE! And David said I did really well too. Practised changing over a few more times and then it was past dark and super cold so time to leave the cliff, nab Tenzin, and eat something.

And....back at david's place for the night (hence wifi access) and tomorrow we meet back up with MacNair since he has all the cave surveys and locations and he may or may not be able to come with us. Then have to go grab the camping gear and jazz and drive up north of here to the Lookout Mountain area in NW Georgia.

So that's what's up for now, next time I will have what's down stories!

 

Amy

New member
OOh hey folks! So basically I am on Davids cell phone since he got one of the Droids or something like that so there is internet ace's here. Well so long ass there is cell service.  Going to Howard's waterfall today. It is a pretty straightforward horizontal cave and we might run into spelunkers since it is well known by the locals. Anyway....this already took me 10 min to fingertype so im done now aha. *hugs* ttfn!
 

Elaine

Active member
Right then Amy. I know I could probably research this, but I am going to ask you instead. What is TAG? Does it stand for a region? Sorry.

Signed Mendip bound caver!
 

Les W

Active member
Tag = Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia.  :sneaky:

The corners where the 3 states meet is the location of the USA's premier caving region.
The whole limestone area extends from Missouri and beyond, through Kentucky, TAG, West Virginia and Virginia.
The limestone is contemporaneous with the Carboniferous Limestone of the UK and was actually deposited in the same sea (before plate tectonics split North America from the UK) The caves and the caving are quite similar.

 

Amy

New member
TThanks Les! I didn't know all that.

Anyway....no cell. Service even where we are staying now (Bucks Pocket) so. I will finish this thread when I get back home.

We did Howard's Waterfall, Pettijohn, and Tumbling Rock. Got a little lost in the boulder choke on he way out (freaking 3D maze!) 9 hrs in cave. Best part was we decided to do themmuddy crawl above Kings Shower naked then washed clean in Topless Dome :D (yes photos of this exist!)

Ok time to go will post full trip reports with photos on Sunday or Monday. Naked photos not included though :p
 

Amy

New member
Day 3 (Monday) was spent grocery shopping for camp foods, gathering up all the gear, meeting up with MacNair to copy the cave surveys and directions for the ones we were interested in, and driving out to Cloudland Canyon and setting up camp.

1-CloudlandCanyon04 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

1-CloudlandCanyon05 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

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Finally on Day 4 (tuesday) we were able to get underground! We decided to do Howard's Waterfall.

2-HowardsWaterfallCave03 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
It is an easy cave, a good starter to get us going for the week. We entered about noon and started down the passage, chekcing out all the side routes we wanted to, knowing that we had plenty of time before our call out. The favourite side route is small and windy, up and down, twisty and turny, it's all slithering on your belly. There are multiple ways to go back there, but it's all the same entrance to that section so you can't really get lost unless you don't remember where you came from, haha. This section included the infamous "Find Your Nuts" passage,
Image27.jpg

so named (I believe by) David and MacNair because...well...as you can see in the photo, all the guys tend to experience some pain from a certain protrusion that even skinny Tenzin couldn't get over without some discomfort. I had less problems with this section of the cave nut-wise however there were some times that my dang childbearin' hips made me have to reverse and re-approach sections at new angles as the first try just got me wedged.

Sufficiently tired of those shenanagins we continued on. Most of this cave is an easy walk, but there are some crawls and climbs although not tough for the mostpart. The guys did decide to do a slightly sketchy 3 meter climb down with an in-cave rope as an aid...whoever put that rope there used the "lets tie lots of random knots and that'll do it!" approach, and the climb down only had about two easy foot holds so there was a lot of rope reliance for it. I personally didn't feel like attempting that one so while they continued on below in a small area to find the mud sculpture room (people just make their own there, it's kinda cool, little in-cave art gallery!) I stayed up above, following the passage further back until it looped around on itself. I found lots of cool formations and just did some photography until they climbed back up.

2-HowardsWaterfallCave43 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

2-HowardsWaterfallCave46 by Sunguramy, on Flickr (note: we weren't concerned about separation...it'd be next to impossible to get lost and both the upper and lower sections were the back of the cave, we could hear each other almost 100% of the time actually.)

Eventually, they rejoined me, I excitedly showed them some small helictites I'd found, fossils, and a formation I am convinced looks like a Humpback Whale head why they spyhop...only upsidedown.

2-HowardsWaterfallCave42 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
Image60.jpg

We wandered back out then, exiting the cave about 4:00pm. It was a good warm-up cave for our next busy days! Although, poor Tenzin who has never caved in TAG somehow managed to get pooped,
Image64.jpg

which is silly as he certainly didn't cave enough as you can see his shirt is still white in the aftershot!
Image65.jpg

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Day 5 (Wed)
We forgot to take a before photo (and hence ignored taking an after photo) so instead we took some photos here and there in the first big room of the cave.

3-PettijohnCave04 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
3-PettijohnCave05 by Sunguramy, on Flickr (lightpaint fail! oh well haha)

3-PettijohnCave06 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

There is a lot of breakdown in Pettijohns with side routes if you can find them. We started off about 11:30am and had lots of time so we pushed a few to see where they'd go. Eventually, back on the main route we made it to a skinny crawl that you have to be formation-conscious to go through.

3-PettijohnCave09 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
Sadly, too many formations in this cave have been broken and there is graffiti in places as well, as it is a well-known cave. In fact, we came across a group of spelunkers that day. (In the states, spelunker is derogatory to call a caver. For example, these spelunkers we came across were in all cotton clothes, no helmets, gloves, or kneepads, some with flashlights some with a small light strapped on their head, and even when we told them not to go down to the river passage because the water levels were up to your chest and rising - it was raining outside - they seemed unconcerned and wanted to go there anyway)

Then it was to the famous Z-crawl and Corkscrew, that opens up to the Pancake. The Z-crawl is just what it sounds like, narrow and little, wind your body through a sharp z-shape. You can take a bit of a breather in a small area you can almost sit up in then it's right into the Corkscrew where you get to rotate your body 360 deg as you belly-crawl-climb up this 5-6 foot passage that has rocks jutting out forcing you to rotate. Pops you out in to the Pancake, a room maybe 30 ft diameter, round, and very flat. Too short to even do the roll technique instead of belly crawling, and lots of nice puddles of water around in it to get all muddy in :)

As I mentioned it was a rainy day and the stream passage was not safe so we stayed out of that section. Tenzin and David decided to do another sketchy traverse/climb up to a higher passage going towards the Worm Tubes. I didn't follow...if I'd had a way hooking in I would've done it  but considering a fall would've made me plumit about 40 feet down rocks I didn't feel like risking it. They said it was easy and not as sketchy as it looked once they were up, but on their way back down both were getting concerned as coming down was a LOT harder, enough to worry even Tenzin who is a really good climber so I definitely made the right choice. While they were up though, we tried to find an alternate route so I could get up and they could get down easier. Didn't find one, so we tinkered around in a few other side routes when oddly I started to get cold. I hadn't even gotten wet in this cave, and it was pretty warm (low-50f's) but when I started to shiver we decided to head back out. I'm still not sure why my body temp dropped like that, new one to me. I was never that cold even over there in the UK! About 3:30pm we exited the cave...to pouring rain. Shorter trip than we'd expected it to be by about an hour or two (originally we were going to check out what was behind another breakdown pile as well) but oh well. I also lack photos from this trip due to most of it being crawly, narrow, and lots of breakdown and climbing.

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Day 6 (Thurs)
It was time to leave Cloudland Canyon in Georgia and move across to Buck's Pocket in Alabama. We spend the still-raining morning packing up camp and then drove...and drove...and drove...and made it and set up camp and just chilled that evening.

4-BucksPocket01 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

4-BucksPocket09 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

_______________
 

Amy

New member
Day 7 (Fri)
This was the most epic day, and my favourite despite the twisted slightly embarrassing oopsie ending.

5-TumblingRock01 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

We were doing Tumbling Rock. Now a bit of history on this one - it was the first TAG cave I ever did back in July last year. I only made it to the Christmas Tree room because by then I was VERY migraine-y and sick. In fact, I scared some peeps because I laid down on a rock and insta-fell-asleep and it was a bit hard to wake me. (Yeah I know, rocks suck heat, bad idea to sleep on one, I wasn't exactly thinking other than "make everything stop!!!!!!!!!!") So, I really wanted to defeat this dang cave and make it all the way back to Mt. Olympus this time! However....woke up in the morning with a migraine on the horizon. Took two pills before even getting to the cave - which did help, I kept it staved off and entered feeling fine this bit of info is only important because I can only ahve 2 in 24 hrs, and it's not a med you can cheat on.

So we entered about 11am, a nice early start. Nathan was at the house that is right at the entrance (it is SSCi owned now - a conservancy - and with Nathan living there guess he prettymuch manages it for them) so he was our call out this time. David told him 6-7 hrs or so, that we were going all the way back to Mt Olympus and if we had time Terry's Terrible Tiger Teeth as well.

This was an extra fun trip. You see, I want to come back to cave there in the UK, and I have David and Tenzin hooked on the idea too - they are my original cavebuddies here and I want them to experience how awesome it is there in the UK too! So the idea was hatched for us to make a "Natural Cavers" calendar for this year. <shameless plug> you should totally message/email me if you want one </plug> (although...I'm looking through the photos not sure if we got enough good ones for a calender, but you should message me anyway!)

So we entered the Tumbling Rock. Tenzin checked out a hole in the ceiling close to the entrance. See? Told you he is a little monkey.

5-TumblingRock02 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
Anyway, continuing on we made it to the Elephant's Feet:

5-TumblingRock08 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
and there was another hole in the ceiling that of course Tenzin had to check out again (and David wanted to as well, he tried once and almost got stuck with his legs, wanted to see how little Tenzin did it)

5-TumblingRock09 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
I couldn't get through it with my hips so again I resided to look at pretties and take some photos while they played. *sigh* I really ahve to do something about those hips. It was suggested I break them a few times. That might be a bit drastic.

We continued on then...and while before the guys were doing the fun playful stuff soon I could do something they couldn't...in the Handstand Room!
Image102.jpg

Next came looking at all the pretties in the Pillar Room:

5-TumblingRock12 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
scrambling over Wildcat Breakdown too where I even defeated the evil "F**k You" rock with much ease in comparison to last time. I am told every cave has one of these rocks. This one sucks, especially if you are shorter than 6 feet tall. You have about a 1.5 foot wide dropoff to get across, slide down this FU rock about 4.5 feet (it's about a 50-60 deg angle and slick) catching the 0.5 ft lip at the bottom before the nice big dropoff after it, then straddle that to get to the next rock and the rest of the breakdown. If you're tall, it's decently easy for hand holds while you slide. If you are short, erm, good luck, it's a free slide without anything really to help ya.

From there we went to King's Shower and Topless Dome. We decided the mud crawl above King's Shower NAKED. Best. Idea. Ever. Although a hint to any of you doing this in the future, in the "naked" besides keeping your helmets/shoes/gloves, keep your  kneepads. You'll thank me for this warning. Who knew beneath all that lovely squishy mud is a lot of sharp rocks? It was still a blast though, and Topless Dome was a nice natural shower (~400ft, waterfall!) to rinse off before putting clothes back on.

We were excited once we arrived at the Christmas Tree room and there were still the decorations on it! Sadly though, since we thought they were taken down the weekend before we didn't have the power box for them :( so we couldn't light it up. And, since already 4.5 hrs had passed we knew we had to book it so I didn't even bother with a photo.

Lots more breakdown and two sandy bellycrawls later we went back up..and up....and up...through a boulder choke 3D ish maze like passage. Finally found our way coming out of the top of a huge room with breakdown from all the walls like a cone shape, the center of the room a low point. Finally found the crawl to go through, and in this area is where this cave turns from limestone to shale. Let me just pause here to say I HATE SHALE. Seriously, it's rough, sharp, smaller breakdown "boudlers" that are loose and wobbly....YUCK. Anyway, the smell of tar soon hit our noses and we knew we were about there! A bit more breakdown, and there it was, Mt. Olympus! I saw it! But...I did not make the climb up to it. The tar....the tar...ewww the smell was horrible and my migraines are *usually* smell-triggered (they started with a HAZMAT inhalation exposure and now just certain smells/compounds seem to be the worst triggers). Tenzin and David went up it quick (aka about 20 min) while I waited...and we were now at hour 6 inside the cave and we knew we *really* had to book it out of there. Nathan can do this trip to Mt Olympus and back in 2 hrs but he's done it a bajillion times and knows the exact foot placements in the exact routes to go the fastest and easiest etcetcetc. it would be hard pressed for us to get back out in an hour...it's usually a 6-8 hr trip to Mt Olympus and back.

Knowing we had to book it and the fact that I wasn't dizzy yet we definitely had turbo cave mode in full swing. But...we soon ran into some problems. a.k.a. that crawl that had elluded us on the way in? The way out it was still ellusive...finally thinking we found it we entered the boulder choke in the wrong area and ended up very twisted around in that 3D maze, we could see in some little cracks streamway below us, we knew we had to work our way down to it.

We did find a hole big enough for Tenzin to squeeze down and climb through. It was right near the "15 MPH" sign which was a great landmark...we were indeed just somehow above where we needed to be and way past the point we should've been back down to the stream. Using our voices, David and I (still up in the boulders worming our way through them) called back and forth with Tenzin (now down in the stream, with our bags to make our worming a lot easier, this was a no-room-for-a-pack area we were in!) we ended up working our way all the way back to the breakdown room....and realizing we took the wrong crawl that we should've been down below more underneath the breakdown, not up high near the ceiling. Oops. At this point too, I was barely hanging in there, my migraine really starting to take a toll on my body and the boulder crawlings used up a LOT of energy especially when not feeling well. We were now 7.5 hrs in to our trip, and quite late for our call out of 6-7 hrs as it was likely at this point a good 2 hrs back out still, even more depending how much I slowed us down.

As we re-approached where Tenzin had left our bags by the 15MPH sign, we saw a light ahead. We called out a hello and it answered...it was Nathan, who worried we hadn't made it out yet had come in after us, making a call out for 2 hrs from the time he entered that if he wasn't back to call in cave rescue. (Which, the odd thought crossed my mind that well then I'd get to meet Brian finally, as he was on the CR team for this county.) Anyway, luckily of course we were fine and finally un-lost and on the right path. It had only taken Nathan 38 minutes (yes, he was timing it so he'd be out in time, as hopefully no rescue was needed of course) to get to us, crazy fast that is! Anyway, we followed him back out of course since he knew the fastest and easiest ways.

By this point I was getting dizzy and disorientated though from my migraine. Tenzin walked behind me, a good thing as I tried turning around a few times I was told to go the wrong way. Everything from the time we got back on the right route to the exit is blurry to me, I don't have clear memories of it. I remember by the Christmas Tree room I was almost always on my butt because I was feeling so dizzy and like I was going to fall over I figured I can't fall if I'm on my butt already. Even so, I am told I slipped a few times and was often calling out for directions because apparently I didn't know which way to go, even with someone in front and behind me in line. The only time I remember falling was on an easy barely sloped huge shelf, no falling danger here, I was walking across it and yet still somehow fell, almost rolling off it (which, that would've been bad, it was enough of a drop injury would've happened) but at least my instincts were in tact and I grabbed a hold and held on for dear life, but I think I had stopped rolling to be honest, by the time I grabbed the hold, although I couldn't tell that for sure so I held on for a bit anyway!

When we got close to the entrance, Nathan dashed out to make his 2 hr callout, we were about 15-20 min behind him in emerging. Considering it had to be less than 1.5 hrs from the time he found us, and we were not far behind at all, I am shocked I made it out that fast. I...really don't remember any of getting out other than stumbling along trying not to die when I fell and/or the room spun or I saw weird things and 2 inch gaps suddenly looked like they were asking me to jump over a 5 foot huge crevice (which just let me say, does shit for balance and distance/depth perception!)

Total time in Tumbling Rock was 9 hrs. It was pitch dark when we got out so no after photo :p And...at least I defeated Tumbling Rock! ha! I finally saw Mt Olympus! Although I feel no rush to go back to that cave again! haha.

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Day 8 (sat)
We were supposed to meet up with Stephen who was going to show us a new virgin cave he'd found. This was also our vertical trip of the week - entrance was a 75ish foot drop :) The fact that it was 2am before we even got back to camp the night before though meant the early start of 9am to meet Stephen the next day was not gonna be fun - especially with me recovering from my migraine. We set an early alarm as he is an early riser to hop in the car quick and drive up to where we could get cell service, call him and push it back, then fall back into bed. He said 9am was already pushing it late as it was a 1.5 mile hike in the woods and he wanted to be back out before nightfall. (I still don't see how this is impossible, but he's the one who knows this cave so went with what he said) but he did say another hour would be ok, so we should meet at 10am instead. Yay an extra hour. Drove back down snuggled back into the sleeping bags.

We arose and got moving and were 15 min from the meet point when a new message came in on my phone. It was him, saying to call him that there was a change of plans. So I called, and found out that he decided 10am was too late a start and so he was canceling our trip and to contact him next time we were down there. Needless...we were a bit PO'd but what can you do? I thanked him for being willing to take us in the first place and hung up. We were now the wrong direction from the caves we knew of with drops that David's 100 ft rope could do, a good prolly 2 hrs out from those. (There are a lot of caves, but the number of vertical that can be done with that short a rope that we had directions for was only 2.)

David remembered directions to a cave he'd heard of (never been) that is basically "park by a bend in the road in this town and walk across a field and then up to the left trail 100 yards up the mountain" that is a vertical cave. We thought we had the right area, I saw an old gentleman doing some yard work hopped out to ask. We were exactly in the right area, and he told us exactly where across the field to walk to. So we hiked up there and found a beautiful entrance that I am sad I didn't get a photo of - the waterfall pours right out of it about 80 feet below into a pit. Gorgeous. But, no where to rig it anywehre near close enough that David's rope would work, and it was cold and none of us felt like changing to do a wet low crawl to see what was further back than we could see peering in. So no cave on our last day.

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Day 10 (sun)
Was simply spent packing up camp and getting to the airport in time for our flights out.

(All my photos are now up on www.flickr.com/sunguramy if you want to see more and I got lazy waiting for the files to upload so some of these are smushied grainy ones, sorry about that!)
 

crickleymal

New member
From there we went to King's Shower and Topless Dome. We decided the mud crawl above King's Shower NAKED. Best. Idea. Ever. Although a hint to any of you doing this in the future, in the "naked" besides keeping your helmets/shoes/gloves, keep your  kneepads. You'll thank me for this warning. Who knew beneath all that lovely squishy mud is a lot of sharp rocks? It was still a blast though, and Topless Dome was a nice natural shower (~400ft, waterfall!) to rinse off before putting clothes back on.

jpg!
 

carabeener

New member
Naked caving?  Photos or it didn't happen! Lol! 

Great report, nice to see how it is done elsewhere in the world.  A lot cleaner, warmer and drier I think is the answer!

Any surveys online to get an idea of the sizes of the caves?

Keep up the good work!
 

Amy

New member
LOL check out my avatar! I cropped it though so as not to offend anyone  :tease:

Also like I said, working on putting together a calendar you should all buy it ;) And YES there is a lot of mud, Howard's Waterfall is more "dirty" than "muddy" because it's quite dry but Pettijohns we did come out with a layer of dirt and we would've in Tumbling Rock but we kinda got the muddiest bits on our bodies and then washed off as I said, lol.

It is dryer and warmer in many TAG caves though for sure. There are wet caves though too!

Erm...here are before/afters of Pettijohns from October (and actually, did a shorter trip there in Oct than we did this time) for an idea since we neglected before/afters this trip:

Pettijohn Cave 01 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

Pettijohn Cave 14 by Sunguramy, on Flickr

Here in the states, very few caves are under lock/key and so in order to protect them from damage from those who don't care we don't really have surveys/locations online. Grottos (cave clubs) have surveys and cave locations that members can have access too. As such...I have some. It is just how access is controlled here in the states rather than putting all the caves under lock and key. (Although a few, like Tumbling Rock, are under lock & key) I actually don't know of any US caves that have surveys available online.

Tumbling Rock is a horizontal cave, about 2.5 miles long to Mt Olympus and a depth of about 400 feet if you climb Topless Dome (which hasn't been done since the 70's I think is what I heard). A standard pace trip to Mt Olympus (the traditional "end trip" location although it does go deeper) is about an 6-8 hr round trip. To go to the actual back of the cave is about a 10-12 hr trip. Of course, this depends on how many side routes you check out, how many photos you want to take...etc. If you book it, Mt Olympus and back should be maybe 4 hrs. I think all passages together give it a length of close to 6 miles.

Pettijohn's Cave is surveyed as of the 80's to be 31,490 feet of passage, 235 ft depth, it is also horizontal although a 50' handline is recommended gear for belaying on some climbs or if you really want, rigging them as short drops. We really didn't touch this cave in our 4-ish hour trip in it, we stayed in the loop close to the entrance, maybe saw a mile and a half of passage. And honestly the survey I have for it does squat for me...I couldn't tell you where on it we were based on it and a lot of the passages named on it must have changed names over the years..."flat room?" I'm guessing that is what *everyone* calls the pancake, for example.

Howard's Waterfall apparently I didn't grab a survey copy of it but it's about 3 miles of passage. We prolly saw 2 miles of it. It is horizontal as well and definitely the easiest cave of the three, most of it being more of the strolling borehole type.

We tend to measure caves in hours rather than miles here....I mean, 4 hrs in Howard's Waterfall saw us most of the entire cave. But the same time in Pettijohns we saw about half the distance we covered in Howard's.
 

graham

New member
Interesting reports Amy, thanks. The caves there look most interesting.  (y)


But who do you think would have been offended by your avatar uncropped?  :doubt:
 

Amy

New member
I dunno, sure there is someone who would be! On the US cave forum we had a "women's caving issues" thread I made (because I was trying to figure out like...how to deal with shark week while on a long cave trip? where on earth can one find non-cotton bras for non-average-size - see here if you aren't around a 30-34 B or C it's really hard to find anything) and when we got on the bra tangent two of the mods were joking around with me they could help more if they saw a photo  :LOL: so much to their surprise and amusement I called them on the joke and posted a link to a photo (technically sfw, it's on facebook even) but some others got really offended by the fact there was a link to said photo and the mods ended up having to take the link out :( I just assumed it would be similar here!

Droid...I don't understand the reference you make. I know what a Zeppelin is but I am missing something I think.
 

graham

New member
Droid was just being vulgar, ignore.

It's true that some sites would be unhappy about linking to such pics, but I think the admin on here have made it quite clear in the past that this site is for robust adults, not children.

It's also true that attitudes to such things vary across the world in strange ways. I know most on this side of the pond could not understand the upset over Janet Jackson's (I think) "costume malfunction" at the Superbowl, which caused great distress over there. On the other hand, having used the hot tub area at OTR a few years back, there are a number of of US cavers, male and female, that I don't think I've ever seen with clothes on.

Takes all sorts.
 

Amy

New member
I see. Well then, can I assume you will all support our endeavor to come caving over there by getting a calendar?  :clap:
heehee *goes back to working on putting it together*

Oh and for the Dales peeps - I have vertical gear now and I know how to use it!  ;) I have not practised rebelays yet though, but I assume that's just like a changeover, except, going the same direction!
 

n?π

New member
I'd have thought that in the 80ish years since prohibition meaning beer was poured down the drain any collecting in caves would have drained away by now! Still live and learn.  :tease:

Looks like a stout to me.
 

Amy

New member
LOL that is the Goop Loop. It's the muckiest muck with water on that and the frothyness on top of the water. It's really pure grossness and it stinks. BUT IT IS SO MUCH FUN.
 
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