Comment by nemomarx
Comment by nemomarx 2 days ago
how much safer is normal cave spelunking? I hear about accidents pretty often with that too, or getting into a crevice you can't back out of...
Comment by nemomarx 2 days ago
how much safer is normal cave spelunking? I hear about accidents pretty often with that too, or getting into a crevice you can't back out of...
"Some of the best diving I've ever done is snorkeling in Cancun..."
You're on the surface, generally with a life vest, don't have to worry about running out of air, generally the guides inter-communicate and take you to hot spots of fishes or turtles or whatever... tropical warm water. Biggest difference is access to air rather than having to be "self-sufficient".
What about the weird gases that can be in caves? Or just gravity dropping you down a hole? Sounds pretty dangerous.
I recently took a cave rope climbing technique course, after being comfortable with rope climbing in other disciplines, such as climbing, rope rescue and glacier rescue.
The bolting techniques used in caves are fucking terrifying. They work, but they are terrifying.
I'm specifically thinking about using older self-drive bolts, which seem to still be used if they are placed. I have only met people thinking they are acceptable in the caving environment.
And also using temporary bolts as the Coeur 8 mm, which is rated for 2 kN before deformation in the worst direction (and the mechanism of those bolts are more akin to a cam, making them squiggle a lot in the hole, which is safe, but scary. My ice axe don't squiggle).
Obviously you use redundant bolts, and there are much lower forces in SRT than in dynamic falls, but I still think it's scary as hell.
The strapped air reservoir could come in handy for when it rains...
Much safer. Spelunking can be fairly safe if done with caution and an experienced team. Cave diving causes fatalities even among experts.
Here are a few things to keep in mind in asking that question:
While spelunking, if you become lost or trapped, how long can you live without food (assuming your clothing is reasonably warm enough to protect you from hypothermia) while waiting for rescue? Quite a while, many days even. Most navegable caves have plentiful air and it being toxic isn't too common. Water is also usually present; it might not be clean water, but you won't easily die of dehydration in just a couple days at least.
Now imagine being trapped in a submerged cave, where none of the above applies at all, and you will die in a very specific range of seconds immediately after your extremely limited supply of tank air runs out.
Yep.
Also, silt lifting in submerged caves can reduce visibility down to a total zero in just seconds if you or a partner accidentally upset settled silt deposits with any sort of rapid movement. These can take more hours to clear than you have air to breathe, and in those situations, you'd better hope you have a guide line and absolutely do not let go of it at all.
Spelunking is very dangerous at its more extreme end (being the first to explore unmapped caves, going on multi-day trips into caves prone to flooding or other additional dangers, etc), but even normal cave diving makes it look like a sunday walk in the park.
I've seen many reports of utterly professional, extremely experienced cave divers dying during their descents despite doing everything they could think to do correctly. It can just be that dangerous. In some cases, this happens even in well-mapped underwater caves, and in a grotesque irony, there are many cases of them dying while working retreival operations for the bodies of other cave divers who just recently died in the same cave.
I’d argue much safer as your upper bound is not an air reservoir strapped to your body, it’s food/water …or in the event that shit really hits the fan, how fast you can secure a wound.
Generally speaking, these are rare events in both sports but one allows much more time for rescues.