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#straw

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knizer

Oh! You all like to vote in the #BostonWeekend polls, and I enjoy knowing whether any people read these threads, so, I present to the #BostonWeekend (7/x) crowd this week's wholly pointless straw poll:

How many holes does a #straw have?

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Sunguramy :nb_lily:

#Karstmas day 11

"Photographers Passage"
Notice anything...off? He is not wearing a helmet. Why? Because this little passage is *super* delicate. A head is softer than a helmet, and when not wearing one, we can be a little more aware of where our head is.

A helmets-off policy for delicate areas was started by JV Swearingen who was an excellent cave photographer and caretaker of the largest system in Alabama for many years. A delicate small chamber of that cave was what prompted him to institute a helmets-off policy. Groups entering were limited in size (ideally you don't even visit that room more than once in your lifetime), and everyone had to take helmets off before going into it. I learned about this guidance from the current caretaker; it has lasted half a century and passed on.

So in a totally different cave, in a totally different country, but yet an equally delicate small passage, I shared this concept with others. It's not like there is chance of falling or rock fall here, so instead, take your helmet off, be careful, slow, and thoughtful in movement.

Never go caving without a helmet...but sometimes, specific places perhaps dictate that taking it off is the safer thing for the environment. Hard and fast rules never work for conservation, there is always nuance.

A white male with short hair and curly red beard sits in a blue and red cave suit admiring the beautiful clear crystaline white formations dancing around this small tubular passage.
#cave#caves#caving
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Sunguramy :nb_lily:

#Karstmas day 8

One of my first caves in Spain was actually a new cave. We were walking along a old logging road and found a hole, so of course, you climb down *inside* the hole, and it was a cave!

The first room you had to crawl through, but there were these really neat formations I'd never seen before, nor seen since. I called them "Swizzle Sticks" - they were much like soda straws formations but instead of being smooth, had the very crinkled variegated texture to them. I'm not sure how they formed, exactly.

We returned later in the week and surveyed this cave, giving it the name Extra Special Pot (ESP) as a nod to a friend and fellow caver who had recently passed, whose nickname was Eddie Sharp Pencil, or ESP for short. As you can guess, he was a very good project caver.

A low ceiling cave as noted by the person sitting scrunched up. The main focus of the image is the quite long straw-like formations that are very variegated, zig-zaged, stack of cheerios, or like a scrunched up swizzle straw. The most impressive one is only about a centimeter at thickest, and over half a meter long, swizzled the entire way from root to tip. Giving a sense of scale is a white male with red beard in a yellow helmet, his black shirt blends him into the background.
#karst#cave#caving
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