Does anyone have a technique for masuring stream flow that is accessible to an ignorant layperson? I understand what data need to be collected (velocity over a cross section) but the various ways of collecting such seem impractical or difficult to accomplish in a remote in-cave setting. I do not...

I wonder some days if free will is a thing. My inheritance of self-loathing and self-righteousness, embarrassment and pride, confuses me. There's no way that pansy squeeze in Gough's would have stopped me. No matter the demands of clockwork or the better advice of voices real or ghostly, I'd...

I make my own coffee at home but I usually stop for another one to hear what the loafing farmers are saying. Adds up to a lot of coffee. It's difficult to write about these things in the first person. When I finally pressed the little button it took a while for anyone to come. I held real...

Speleothems are somewhat unpredictable. In many cases, caves with apparently similar geologic formation and situation contain wildly differing amounts and types of speleothems. Even high-level joint-controlled passages, where speleothems are often best developed, are very inconsistent. The...

Talk of 1930s cavers has me wondering what you have done or would do without knowledge of or access to modern srt gear. I had the advantage of absolute ignorance, so got to experiment a bit before discovering "propriety". My father and grandfather climbed hand over hand into many small pits...

Which part of the UK has the most potential for original cave study or discovery? The size of the caves (or potential caves) is not particularly important.

Where is the best place to read a summary of karst areas in the UK and Ireland? I don't need a guidebook exactly but I would like to read about the various geological regions and the nature of the caves within them. I am willing to buy a book if an excellent one can be recommended, otherwise any...

There is no power "between my finger and my thumb". The ninety-nine pages before this one are a palimpsest of mediocrity, of an inauthentic tongue unable even to strain against the problems of a long trip west. The amended and reamended and finally crossed out lines amount to eighty pages...

Topimo's recent thread, requesting sites to attempt formation repair via 3D modelling, raises some interesting questions. My initial instinct is to reject such applications as being grossly artificial. However, my first instinct isn't altogether logical in this case. If cave formations are...

I am in the process of writing an extended essay on the topic of fidelity, both in general and as it relates to caves, caving culture, and the larger natural world. Instead of discussing fidelity here or elsewhere, I would invite anyone who wishes to write down their thoughts, then either share...

I worked for the past week on a trip report which eventually grew to eight or ten pages... but never said what I was trying to say. The following doesn't quite touch it either, but is closer, and a lot easier to read. -- He moves in the woods like a dog. I move with the grace of a falling tree...

The nine foundation pillars are left, and about seven feet of chimney. The same orange sandstone is scattered among buildings and bridges from Portsmouth to Cincinnati and was cause for a full-blown town once, about five miles from here (there now is only an overgrown gash, no structures, for...

Is the typical dripping speleothem subject to much hydraulic pressure? The water dripping from straws, for example, seems to be pretty passive, but perhaps that's because of shape/suction? We squeezed into an interesting little chamber along a road cut and noticed this spray coming from a broken...

The Reunion Glancing left of the register, I feel a sharp and new disgust for the glossy covers-covered magazines. I have seen a catalyst for infidelity; the husband of a woman I love gone from his too-ordinary wife and their too-conservative bed in lust for the Plastic Fantastic. They have...

The Hill Hills, like men, are visible easily and from afar, but only knowable through patient and intimate years. I think that last night?s frost will be the last of the year. The birth of a night will be gone somewhere before nine o-clock. Possibly too it will be my last frost, so knelt at a...

Trip reports may be documentary, descriptive, scientific, literary, or exhibitive, and are often created under a combination of motivations. Their value depends not on the skill of the writer alone, but on the intention of the writer. For example, if they are documentary, descriptive, or...

This is barely recognizable as a conifer forest, but as recently as fifteen years ago, when the trees were healthy, it was a much darker place, carpeted in needles and ground pine. Quite a few fast-growing poplars have sprung up, and there are many hundreds of oak, maple, and hickory saplings in...

I have a database of caves in the state of Tennessee. From a great distance, the dots of them, in their thousands, run together into a meaningless blob. Zoom. The mass parts into masses. Zoom. The masses loosen into great expanses of thick rash. Zoom. The rash begins to define the...

Is there a history of saltpeter mining in UK caves? I've spent the last week surveying in two caves which contained vat casts from 1860s mining. Many cavers do not seem to know what these casts are, and do not recognize mining artifacts when they see them. This leads to a lot of casts being...

Are there a significant number of UK cavers who already operate independently of BCA? Other than insurance, what practical benefits does BCA membership include? What would be the practical impact of "individuals and clubs alike not renewing their membership in 2018?" From my position, this...