caving / exploration

[konadog]

I got my first 4x4 shortly after I Joined VICEG (Vancouver Island Cave Exploration Group) and started caving in 1991. I have always been an outdoors type, but never really felt the need for a 4x4. Heading up to Thanksgiving Cave in my old VW bus and bashing the motor mount and tearing the main attachment bolts out of the case (still got to the cave and home) going through a cross-ditch made clear the need for a 4x4. There is seldom any really epic 4 wheeling, but lots of super steep sections and cross-ditches that require the 4x4 traction and clearance. And not all caving areas require 4x4 at all, but the best ones with the most potential for original exploration generally do...
Vancouver Island is a great place for cavers, with lots of well know caves for recreational "touring" and others with the additional opportunity to be the first human ever to enter passages and map them - the real pinnacle of the pursuit. There are even chances to find new entrances that could eventually prove to be caves multiple kilometres long and hundreds of meters deep. Many of our caves can be travelled with no aid, though more often single rope technique (SRT) is needed at some point. Sometimes a rope pitch (an unclimbable section requiring rope) will be only a few meters but can be 50m or more. There is a cave in the Rockies, Close to the Edge, with an entrance pitch of about 250m! Yikes
The longest cave on the Island has over 12 km of mapped passage and has the potential to get much bigger as there are many pits and passages deep within the cave that have yet to be "pushed" (explored in the true sense i.e. mapped with a compass, clinometer, and a measuring tape). The longest cave in the country, Castleguard, in the Rockies, is about 20 km. long and with only one entrance has the distinction of being tied with one other cave somewhere in Europe for the furthest distance one can get from an entrance in any cave in the world.
Caves are athletically challenging with the three dimensional climbing and crawling and rope work, not to mention that access hikes can take hours. The ones on the Island are generally about 5 Celsius year round and usually wet, humid and MUDDY. They are full of hazards that could easily lead to serious injury or death to the unwary - proper knowledge and skills are a must for personal safety as well as the long-term health of the cave as they are also very fragile and many have been looted or damaged by vandals or careless, thoughtless cavers (the kind serious cavers call "spelunkers" ). Anyway, caving is the reason I have a 4x4 and having the delica bus is a huge step in in comfort and fun for this pursuit. Loads of fun

[electrik_jester]

Very cool pics.

[Erebus]

I know a couple of cavers who are members of the Alberta Cave Rescue Organisation (http://www.cancaver.ca/ACRO/). Just went to their website, and they are having training on Vancouver Island in July.

One of the cavers, when I saw him, he asked "how's it going?" I replied with an old saying that I had just heard, "Still above the grass," referring to not being 6 feet under in a coffin. His reply was, "Yah, bummer, eh?" Took me a second to remember he was a caver.

I love the idea of caving, but I think I would get claustrophobic thinking of all that ground above. (Keep in mind my hobby is flying ) I have been in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, but that's hardly the same thing. Really neat, but it was a little too civilized and crowded for my taste.