Virgin passages

[CaveGirl]

Yeah I am. Good luck with that knife when a bear comes up to you and mauls you. I don't care how big that knife is; it's likely you're going to lose. Hell, even with a gun it often takes a few shots to down a bear. But then at least I got a start on it 30+ feet away.

Are you insane? No really, are you? You can't fire a gun in a cave, dude. The bullet will ricochet and you'll end up shooting yourself and probably miss what you were trying to hit in the first place.

...

Have you ever been out to the country? Cause it really sounds like all your knowledge about it comes from TV .

I think your insane comment is misplaced. Have you ever fired a gun? It's not going to ricochet off of rock and come back at you. In fact, given that most natural cave walls are soft, it's most likely going to impact into the wall. Particularly if they're hollow points, which is all I carry. I think you're the one watching too many movies.

Also, I grew up in the country, which is how I know the dangers of bears, packs of coyotes, wolves, and angry dogs. Those are all things I've encountered (sans bears, honestly, but I wouldn't put it past me depending on the area I'm in). Just ask any cyclist how often angry dogs are encountered.. on a typical 50 mile trip I do, I'll be chased at least three times. Your pepper spray might deter one dog, but good luck with a pack, which is how they often come.

Plus, let's be honest here: if it's between my life in danger and worrying about the nonexistent potential of ricochet, I'll take the option which stops the threat to my life immediately. If you made every decision based on the nonexistent or extremely slight potential of a bad outcome, we'd all be driving horse and carriages, and our horses would be wearing colostomy bags so they couldn't accidentally diarrhea on our faces.

You've never actually been in a cave, have you?

[CaveGirl]

double post

[colony]

You've never actually been in a cave, have you?

Yes, I have.

[BROUSER]

I've never been in a cave with a bear. I've been in quite a few caves. As a rule of thumb, though, bears won't go back too far. And you will be able to smell if the cave you have chosen is any kind of a den. Guns not necessary in cave exploration. Just noses. But they don't work if they're loaded.

[crazydrummerdude]

I'm sure PANIC can correct me, but aren't caves "made from" hard rocks? That is, didn't the soft stuff erode away, leaving [hard] dolomite behind? Bullets ricochet off rocks, easily.

One time, I brought a gun into a cave. Hello, rust.

I think we need to check out CaveGirl's caves.. sans guns.

[PANIC! on the Titanic]

Well, in Missouri, caves are formed by an acid/base reaction not unlike vinegar and baking soda but way scaled down. Other caves like lava tubes, ice caves, tectonic caves, all have different mechanisms of genesis (Cobcob, in your vernacular: their parent's have different kinds of sex thus different kinds of offspring. yeah, geology is weird like that.)

In our case, the acid is the rain (combined with CO2 from the atmosphere to form weak ass carbonic acid) and the base is limestone or dolomite, both are soluble. Ovulously, the more acidic the water the faster the reaction. Carlsbad Caverns in NM is dissolved using sulfuric acid instead of carbonic rain water. Anywhore, as water finds a crack, joint, fracture etc it opens it up by solution and viola we have a cave. The harder stuff like chert and less soluble portions of dolomite are left behind because they are resilient bastards. Probably resilient enough to deflect a bullet. Hell, if a bullet can ricochet off water, it can do it off a rock too. Not to mention the concussion in a confined space that would probably blow out your eardrums.
Better stick with a bow and arrow or blow gun or maybe a batarang.

[colony]

Still, I'd argue that if something big and scary came at me to where I felt like I had to take out a gun and kill it, I'd be perfectly fine with the minimal chance of ricochet or ear damage. We're talking about death/grave injury vs. minimal chances of something bad happening. If I'm going to choose between those, I'll take living any day. As long as they didn't get to me and chew my nuts off, in which case I'll just shoot myself right there.

[PANIC! on the Titanic]

I'd still use the batarang. And I'd feel BA doing it.

[cobcob]

I'd take my pants off and GOATSE whatever the fuck is in there. If it's still alive after that sight then at least i'd have my pants off already so I could have my way with it.











No, really...

[colony]

There's nothing wrong with that.

...in Arkansas.

[CaveGirl]

Still, I'd argue that if something big and scary came at me to where I felt like I had to take out a gun and kill it, I'd be perfectly fine with the minimal chance of ricochet or ear damage. We're talking about death/grave injury vs. minimal chances of something bad happening. If I'm going to choose between those, I'll take living any day. As long as they didn't get to me and chew my nuts off, in which case I'll just shoot myself right there.

It's not as minimal of a chance as you seem to think. I've spoken with my uncle, who's a gun nut and hangs out with other gun nuts, back when I was thinking about packing a gun into caves with me. He talked me out of it because of the danger involved with firing in an enclosed space like that. I still plan on eventually getting a handgun to take along on my hikes TO caves and I'll probably have to wrap it up and put it in my bag inside caves but no way am I firing that bastard off inside a cave.

ANYWAY, those glowing eyes definitely belonged to coyotes. We went back yesterday and unintentionally scared them shitless. They went tearing off down the passage, brushing right past my husband, to get the fuck out of there when they saw us

I'm still working on uploading pictures of the caves. I have several on my Facebook now but don't want to post a link until they're all uploaded. I don't know why but I can upload a few a time before the whole thing freezes up on me. I'm gonna try putting them on Flickr and see if that works better. I'll be posting a link instead of trying to post them here one by one.

[colony]

It's not as minimal of a chance as you seem to think. I've spoken with my uncle, who's a gun nut and hangs out with other gun nuts, back when I was thinking about packing a gun into caves with me. He talked me out of it because of the danger involved with firing in an enclosed space like that. I still plan on eventually getting a handgun to take along on my hikes TO caves and I'll probably have to wrap it up and put it in my bag inside caves but no way am I firing that bastard off inside a cave.

Not to keep harping on the issue, but I don't think you're getting my point. Let's say you're faced between two choices, one of which has a 100% chance you'll die, and the other which has a 99% chance of you dying. I'm going to choose the one with 99%. Which one will you choose?

[cobcob]

Which one will you choose?

[CaveGirl]

It's not as minimal of a chance as you seem to think. I've spoken with my uncle, who's a gun nut and hangs out with other gun nuts, back when I was thinking about packing a gun into caves with me. He talked me out of it because of the danger involved with firing in an enclosed space like that. I still plan on eventually getting a handgun to take along on my hikes TO caves and I'll probably have to wrap it up and put it in my bag inside caves but no way am I firing that bastard off inside a cave.

Not to keep harping on the issue, but I don't think you're getting my point. Let's say you're faced between two choices, one of which has a 100% chance you'll die, and the other which has a 99% chance of you dying. I'm going to choose the one with 99%. Which one will you choose?

If you're that paranoid you really shouldn't leave your house because seriously? Chances are you're not going to end up in a man vs. beast that wants to kill you situation in a cave. Geez. You're talking completely out of your asshole on this one and I'm really starting to doubt that you've ever been caving since you seem to think bears and shit are lurking around every corner. Or maybe you've just watched The Descent too many times

[CaveGirl]

I'm sure PANIC can correct me, but aren't caves "made from" hard rocks? That is, didn't the soft stuff erode away, leaving [hard] dolomite behind? Bullets ricochet off rocks, easily.

One time, I brought a gun into a cave. Hello, rust.

I think we need to check out CaveGirl's caves.. sans guns.

Panic! has already been invited on the grounds that my husband and I meet him and go caving with him somewhere away from our home the first time, just to make sure he's ok and all that. That goes for you, too. Shoot me a PM and maybe we can all get together sometime. I work nights so my schedule is all kinds of fucked up but we can work something out.

I do have to warn you that while the entrance can easily be walked into, it quickly drops to stoop walking/knee crawling height, then down to a belly crawl that we couldn't see an end to. It could be just a few hundred feet or it could go on for miles. Hopefully it opens back up and isn't all that God awful crawling.