dowbergill navigational aids removed!

[NigR]

Simon,
Well done for removing the unnecessary navigational aids. I hope you will do the same if you find any more anywhere else in the Dales.

Peter,
Perhaps you could contact a moderator and ask that this thread be split as it is no longer purely area specific. Some more general valid points have been made that are, in my opinion, worthy of a wider audience.

 

[MSD]

Part of the problem with Provi Dow is the survey makes it look so easy - a nice straight line Pity it isnt so straight forward for those that get lost and need assistance....
(Have done it, with assistance of a knowledgeable team...)

Yes, but Northern Caves is very explicit about the difficulties of the trip, which are in fact somewhat overrated provided you choose a day with good weather. Modern clothing means that you can just follow along at stream level most of the way and not worry about getting wet. When it's too tight, climb up and along, but return to the stream as soon as possible.

I went there with two other people and none of us had done either cave before. We breezed through in a bit over 3 hours using the above strategy and wondered what all the fuss was about.

Mark

 

[ianball11]

I've been through this cave with someone who had been before and we were in there for 8 hours or so.

Mostly because I was too fat.

Ian B.

 

[Otter]

I too am pleased that you removed the markers. I hate to see anything that shows the way on or indeeed where not to go such as lines of rocks. I always move them and take cairns apart where they are also used for route finding.

Having said that, I have in the past placed temporary markers on the way in which I then removed on the way out.

On Dowbergill, the stream route is indeed easy if the water is low, but the high level is the REAL way to do the trip!

 

[Goydenman]

Anyone know who has stripped out tlengths of telephone cable throughout Dowbergill passage?

 

[footleg]

Many moons ago I did this trip as a fresher with around 5 other freshers and a couple of not so sensible leaders. It took us about 8 hours, much of which was spent waiting around as people did not have the climbing skills needed for the higher level route, and were too big to fit through at stream level.  An exhausting but memorable trip, after which we were driving back to Lancaster in the knackered old club minibus at around 2am when the police pulled us over. They asked us what we were doing driving through the Dales at this hour of the morning, and when we told them where we had been they laughed loudly. "8 hours?! It only took us 3 hours when we did it!" they told us.

 

[darkplaces]

Is there a case for limiting the distribution of route-finding surveys for sites where the challenge of getting to know your way around is much reduced with a survey freely available?

No!  :chair:

 

[Peter Burgess]

Care to enlighten us why, or is it supposed to be obvious?

 

[footleg]

Firstly, you can elect not to carry a survey underground if you want the challenge of finding your own way. Markers left underground do not allow you to do this.

Secondly, a survey does not take away the challenge of finding your way underground, it usually provides sufficient information to allow you to make a trip in a complex system without wasting so much time getting lost that the trip become impossible.

In the specific case of Dowbergill passage, a survey is really of limited use as the plan just looks like a straight passage. I've never seen a detailed elevation section through Dowbergill passage. The passage is a straight rift around 70ft high and the easiest route on varies in height between floor level to ceiling level throughout the trip (although skinny people can complete most of the trip at floor level if they are happy to be in the water a lot of the time, and free dive a sump).

 

[Peter Burgess]

Firstly, you can elect not to carry a survey underground if you want the challenge of finding your own way. Markers left underground do not allow you to do this.

Secondly, a survey does not take away the challenge of finding your way underground, it usually provides sufficient information to allow you to make a trip in a complex system without wasting so much time getting lost that the trip become impossible.

In the specific case of Dowbergill passage, a survey is really of limited use as the plan just looks like a straight passage. I've never seen a detailed elevation section through Dowbergill passage. The passage is a straight rift around 70ft high and the easiest route on varies in height between floor level to ceiling level throughout the trip (although skinny people can complete most of the trip at floor level if they are happy to be in the water a lot of the time, and free dive a sump).

That's fine, but if someone just says "No!" when I ask a question, and then proceeds to bang me on the head with a large chair, I tend to find myself taking a stand opposite to them! 

Now, suppose there was a cave with a remote section containing well-preserved and delicate features. Would you still agree it was a good idea to publish a survey showing everyone how to get there? Dowbergill passage etc may not be such a place, but the question is still valid in general terms.

 

[Les W]

I know of a few sites in Mendip where the passages and names have been "left off" for conservation reasons. And a site that was left completely out of the guide books.
I also know of a passage in OFD that had it's name removed from more recent surveys after a degree of attrition from the passage of cavers.

In a caving community that believes in openness it sticks in my throat a bit but from a conservation view point it defiantly works very well.

 

[graham]

Unlike our "open source" anti-gate brethren I do not believe that the caving community "as a whole" does actually believe in openness. As Les rightly notes there are a number of very sensitive sites that are not in guidebooks and I know of a number of guidebook descriptions that are misleadingly bland.

Once you've been around long enough without pissing off your fellow cavers, you'll know where they are.

We'll even tell Les, one day. 

 

[Les W]

We'll even tell Les, one day. 

Thanks Graham.  :hug:

I think I may have already been to most of them though  :tease:

 

[graham]

Probably, mate. But not all. Not yet.

 

[Pete K]

I wonder what would happen if Ordnance Survey decided to ommit the Lake District from their next generation of maps. Thats a very pretty place.

Who decides what passages get published or which cavers get to see the pretty ones? What right do we have to say that others do not deserve to see such places. In every sport there are good and bad examples of behavior. We should invest our time in better educating the less responsible among our ranks and not in hiding caves.

 

[graham]

Pete

There is a big difference between the Lake District and a well decorated cavern. One is a high energy dynamic environment the other is a low energy environment. To put it another way, the worn paths on Penyghent are being successfully repaired, but Easter Grotto in Ease Gill is as badly damaged as it has been for decades.

I wholly agree with you on the subject of education but the fact is we have a moral duty to protect caves from the uneducated whilst that process goes on.

Who decides? Those of us who willy nilly have been put in a position of responsibility, by our knowledge of what's there.

 

[cap n chris]

We should invest our time in better educating the less responsible among our ranks.

Easy to write.

Not easy to do.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Who decides what passages get published or which cavers get to see the pretty ones? What right do we have to say that others do not deserve to see such places.

The person who invests hundreds of hours of his own time in surveying and drawing up the cave? The person who by doing so appreciates just how fragile certain places are? And they have every right to publish what they want, or not publish it as the case may be. Nobody should be able to dictate what someone else publishes unless they are sponsoring the work. If such people want a survey published with everything on it, then they should invest their own time in equal measure to publish what they want to see published.

 

[andymorgan]

This is a good debate and these last few posts are probably worth a separate thread...

Unlike our "open source" anti-gate brethren I do not believe that the caving community "as a whole" does actually believe in openness. As Les rightly notes there are a number of very sensitive sites that are not in guidebooks and I know of a number of guidebook descriptions that are misleadingly bland.

Just to add to Graham's comment above: after caving in the USA, the UK caving community is comparatively open, so we shouldn't complain if the odd site is slightly less well publicised. In the USA cave whereabouts aren't widely publicised, and there are few guidebooks. Often you have to know the right people before you can get trips or even know of certain caves.
  I don't think the 'anti-gate brethren' entirely believe in openness.  I was chastised on a UK mine forum for asking the directions to a mine: the reason being is that posting locations would attract vandals, which is fair enough point, but it seemed like you had to be in the 'club' to be allowed to know about the mines. As UK cavers we are fortunate that we know of most caves in the UK, their locations, and how to get access even if they are gated. However from a conservation point of view maybe UK caves aren't quite so fortunate...

 

[graham]

The UK is a much smaller and more crowded place than the US* and so what works for them does not work for us. In the wide open spaces of, especially, the Mid-West few folks will stumble across open caves by accident and secrecy works. Simple secrecy wouldn't work in the UK where no cave entrance is very far from a road, or even from a centre of population, and no wilderness areas now exist. Other techniques are now required.

If anyone thinks that more "robust" conservation practices are not required here then they haven't looked at our caves. After fifty years St. Cuthberts would now look as battered as Swildon's were it not for the BEC.







*This is not an invitation for a Whitlackington political rant.