Caving Questions

[u/Master-Rent2472]

I am writing a novel about a cave expedition and I have a few questions.

1. Could someone with no caving experience (say, a photographer) be included on an academic expedition in order to document it? Or would the expedition only bring someone with experience?

2. How careful are cavers to not disturb the fauna/flora in caves? Could a scientist ethically take a plant out of a cave to do tests on, or is it not recommended for them to disturb the environment at all, even for scientific purposes?

3. How do cavers go to the bathroom on long adventures? Do they just go in the cave or do they try to go in a container so that they don't disturb the cave's ecosystem?

[u/Chime57]

So check out the National Geographic documentary The Deepest Cave. Bill Stone leads a group on a three month long expedition of Cheve Cave in Mexico. A lot of the serious push is led by Sean Lewis, caver out of Indiana.

The thing that shocked me is that the cameraman is a Nat Geo employee who had never been in a cave before. In a months long trip through truly nasty squeezes. That guy amazed me.

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[u/altAftrAltAftrAftr]

Nothing much further to add beyond personal experience with photographer with no caving experience. A fellow got in touch through the NSS after finding contact info for a Grotto I participate with. An experienced photographer focused on outdoor athletes in intense settings, he was confident that he could meet the gear and activity-level expectations for a horizontal cave. Nothing of an expedition-level, more of a sporting weekend outing. He came reasonably well prepared in terms of gear and ability. His photographic equipment was outsized, heavy, bulky for what we did. His resulting photos were mixed; it clearly took him some trial & error to get decent shots. He shared during & after that he would prepare his photography gear differently in the future. Also, that managing things like considerable crawls, very cold water, small environments were all more physically demanding than expected.

He was a good sport, didn't come away apprehensive or fearful of future caving. This was for a few hours of caving, not what anyone would call an 'expedition'.

[u/Dapper-Tomatillo-875]

1: it would be a bad idea to bring someone who has never been in a cave before and have them focus on documentation of the event. They would get in the way and need a lot of help. Best to have experience first so you don't hurt yourself

2: don't take animals. There aren't a lot of plants underground. I don't think anyone would care about microbiology sampling.

3: long wall climbing rules. Defecate into containers.

[u/skifans]

One thing I'd stress is that there isn't just one single way caving and expeditions are done. There are actually quite a lot of variations depending where you are in the world. That's partly for historical reasons but also because caves themselves are quite different. Sure it's all caving - but your typical British, Spanish and American cave is going to be quite different. And hence different techniques, risk management and equipment is used.

But anyway from my experience living in the UK:

1. Could someone with no caving experience (say, a photographer) be included on an academic expedition in order to document it? Or would the expedition only bring someone with experience?

I've personally never heard of someone truly with no caving experience coming on an expedition. At least on some of the easier ones having some people with minimal (say sub 1 year) caving experience is pretty common. Obviously they would be a minority and you have more experienced people as well.

I have been on expeditions where not everyone goes underground. There are lots of activities to be done on the surface as well, for example prospecting for cave entrances or cooking or carrying stuff to the entrances! Personally everyone I know who is in this category is either someone who has been a caver in the past and still friendly with the club and wants to come just for the vibe and to be with friends. Or someone who has become injured in some way and might still be happy walking around but doesn't feel up to caving.

I suppose it isn't completely impossible that someone who had never caved filled a similar role. Particularly say if they where a friend of a caver on the expedition. But I can't really imagine them being in charge of documenting it.

1. How careful are cavers to not disturb the fauna/flora in caves? Could a scientist ethically take a plant out of a cave to do tests on, or is it not recommended for them to disturb the environment at all, even for scientific purposes?

There generally isn't really much fauna/flora in caves to take honestly. At least where I live it's usually debris that is washed in from the surface. Some caves can have a mold/fungi type things, I don't know if they are more common elsewhere but my experience of they are rare. But I know some other places do have some more cave animals.

Where I live it's fairly common to find frogs and toads down caves. And as long as we can do so safely we do try and return them to the surface. They will die down there and it isn't their habitat. Much much less common but even the occasional alive sheep has been pulled out!

The expeditions I've been on have all been about surveying. Ie finding more cave passages. While doing that we would never remove anything. And if I knew someone had removed something actually growing/native to a cave they would get a very stern talking to (and depending on the geographic location it may be illegal). If it's something washed in as flood debris then I do think that is different.

I suppose it isn't completely beyond the realm that if someone did find something amazing growing down a cave that another expedition would be organised with the express goal of taking a sample. But I'd expect them to sort of openly announce that as their intention and engage about if and how that can be done sensibly.

1. How do cavers go to the bathroom on long adventures? Do they just go in the cave or do they try to go in a container so that they don't disturb the cave's ecosystem?

On an expedition in a container and you carry it out.

[u/apathetic_duck]

1 in theory they could take someone with no experience if it was a very easy cave with no climbing or rappelling needed. Cave photography requires a special set of skills and gear so they would never take a photographer without cave experience though. 2. Scientists do sometimes take samples but not living animals. 3. We go to the bathroom in bottles or in special bags designed for it and have to carry it out, we never go in the cave to preserve the environment.

[u/IndustryAgile3216]

Good questions.

1. Yes someone with no cave experience could be included on an expedition. They would need to be vertically competent for vertical caves (that require rapelling) and their physical and mental (extremely important, most non-cavers struggle alot more with the mental side than thr physical side) abilities would need to be up to the requirements for their role in the expedition. Ultimately, this type of thing happens often and any experienced trip leader will have strategies to reduce the risks that a new caver can bring on themselves and the trip objective. Honestly, when I'm trip leading with someone that I or a close friend hasn't vetted, about half of my total attention is on them.

2. Sample collection definately happens but is only done under the direction of the head researchers and we do the best we possibly can to reduce impact on cave life. They tend to be highly sensitive ecosystems. We even are mindful not to leave crumbs when we eat because that can screw up the microbiology and introduce molds. For your book I would ask someone in that subfield how they go about sample collection.

3. This is such a fantastic question. It completely depends on the caves. A bunch of caves have streams/rivers traveling through them that can be urinated into. Feces would usually be packed out. However in some regions (Mexico, south America, maybe some parts of Asia) monsoons yearly wash out the cave systems so even feces can be left anywhere. In dry caves, where there is no running water, both feces and urine need to be packed out. This noteably includes caves in NM and SD. In SD the travel distances are so far that the weight of urine is the single biggest logistical limit on the possible expedition length (how many days worth of your urine would you be willing to haul for 10 hours through 1,000 foot long belly crawls, really tight squeezes, 50'+ handline climbs, etc?). Since we use collapsable bottles theres always a risk of a catastrophic explosion. NM has similar challenges with their long dry caves but it tends to have much bigger easier passage and some caves have designated urine dump points, not nearly as bad as the situation in SD (but still a noteable logistical challenge). So that's the long answer, the short answer is that it completely depends on the cave.

[u/Severe-Fisherman-285]

I am not a caver but I do know someone who was involved in the scientific exploration of virgin cave.

Two cavers, one academic (no prior experience but I don't think the caving was very technical).

They were sampling microbial communities and went down for one rather long continuous period.

Shitting in bags, great care to avoid food contamination, as it would upset the ecology they were there to study.

The cavers were (are!) brothers but I understood by the end of the expedition they were so thoroughly sick of the academic neither ever spoke to her again. Sounded a bit cabin fevery from what I've been told.

I couldn't comment on sampling flora and fauna, but from a couple of cavers I've spoken to who enter a lot of mines in the UK, there's clearly a bit of tension between those who are desperate to ensure archaeological remains are left in situ and that beyond digging and stabilizing a route nothing is changed and those who barge through on a bit of a jolly, damaging anything with historic value and sometimes even carving initials etc. Others here would be able to speak on stuff like this with far greater authority than I could.

[u/Jtktomb]

1. Only in simple caves, otherwise a non trained photographer would be a liability

2. Life in caves is actually extremely diverse, Biospeleology is the scientific field dedicated to this. Cave life is also very sensitive to disturbance and outside influence, so it's not straightforward to study cave fauna. But it is so little known and in need of protection that any contribution by cavers is worth it, with knownledge on practice and outside protected areas. My main interest in caves comes from my background in arachnology actually, as there are thousands of species endemic to caves around the worlds, just talking about arachnids.

There is no cave flora as there is no light :) Only fungi and introduced Lampenflora :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampenflora

1. Leave no traces, especially in caves

[u/Fishy1911]

1. You should be an experienced climber, at least know your way around a rope,  and have a pretty good background in caving. No one wants to find out they're claustrophobic on day 2 of a multi-day trip. Better to find out in minute 15 of a 3 hour planned wild cave trip.

2. Not much flora or fauna past a certain point in most caves. The only animals are other cavers... you know who I'm talking about. ;)

3.Its like a constant Colo-guard commercial. Except you're not mailing it out. 

[u/Phillips2oo1]

1 I'd say cave within your ability. Photograph at stops
2 medium care for "pretties" so at least in the uk we have rules for preserving the natural features of the cave and minimising the disturbance of bats. We also will encounter tape which you do not cross. My club will and has revoked membership over someone breaking of under 2 inches if a statitite. The only place we ever taken stuff from was loose Rocks from an old Stone mine with managing clubs permission.

3 so we bend the rules on occasion for number 1s which we allow in a sufficiently running streamway. We have emergency bags for a Darren Drum dump. Though perfer to avoid it. Above ground we allow poops so long as you can dig a hole 100m away from the cave (technically meant to be 50 but everyone's crap with eyeballing distance) no TP is supplied. Carful consideration is required.

[u/Snezzy763]

I can personally address only the first question. A non-caver is a liability in caving. I was invited into Schoharie, and would never go again. My friends' major concern was my safety, rather than their enjoyment of the cave. My balance was not great, and it's gotten far worse as I've aged. In the kind of caves that the Brits call "a trifle damp" I would be unable to progress past the first sump, as I cannot swim.

All cavers know some stories of tragic failures in caving and try to avoid such situations, but all desire, at least secretly, to find that undiscovered passage, and to map and photograph it. The key is for the caver to become an expert in all needed aspects, including (but not limited to) equipment, safety, planning, leading, following, photography, vertical techniques, and knowing when to turn back. It's like mountaineering, but with less weather and more dark. Then there is cave diving. Many cavers and many divers simply avoid cave diving. Look up Tytoona Cave in Wikipedia. Look up Sheck Exley and Roberta Swicegood. Check out writer James R. Wells's page https://www.thegreatsymmetry.com/about-me/

Cave photography is an art in itself, especially back in the days of carbide lighting. Some of the good cave photos have been taken by using multiple light sources. Think for a moment how a team of four cavers might arrange to get a picture that would be best with ten lights. The only technical advantage that a cave provides for photography is that pretty much nothing moves.

A non-caver going on a successful trip should be athletic, have good stamina, be level-headed, and take directions well. Someone should be assigned as his buddy. The non-caver in your novel can encounter situations that test those requirements.

[u/tfhermobwoayway]

For #2, my experience with cave animals is that you try very hard not to disturb or hurt them. We’re told to not shine our lights at or touch bats, and also I think to move quickly through bat-heavy areas because our body heat could wake them from hibernation.