Cavechat.org

Amy,

WNS hasn't really been a factor for cave conservation IMHO. It has steadily been improving for decades. People used to dump carbide (or crap) with never a thought. Now, if they use carbide they mostly carry it out and same for cave burritos. Partly its also because some of these sites are seeing more traffic. The number of people willing to drop neversink on PMI maxwear and a mitchell system is probably a bit different than the old days of hemp ropes, goldline, and prusiks...

I personally think we need to get away from this old timer vs noobie caver mentality. WE ARE ALL CAVERS! It doesn't matter how long you have been caving. Of course when you are new to the sport there is a learning curve, as it would be with any sport. But conservation of the resource has, and always will be, at the core of our principles. We should not be sliding on this no matter how long we have been caving and we certainly should never decide which rules are not as important and therefore can be bent. Rules and policies are in place for a reason because they protect you, the resource and future generations.

That being said, the problems at Neversink are not all that new. Impact and erosion due to humans has been occurring there for at least a decade. The original rigging tree was cut down because of the same issues. Soil became packed and the roots were exposed and the tree died. If it were not cut down, it would have rotted and someone could have been killed. The problem now is that more and more people are visiting this pit because its location is well known and because of the many stories and pictures that have been posted in all sorts of media. The problem with over use of any resource always leads to decline and eventual failure.

The question is "Are we stewards or users?"

I wouldn't say 2-3 years = new cavers. In the 3 years ive caved ive gone on over 90 trips. thats more than some people who have been caving for 10 years.

Years caving doesnt necessarily mean experienced, especially if you only go caving once every 2-3 months.

Sungura wrote:Just a thought...as a no0b... all I hear about is conservation. Okay, not all. But, this is coming in after WNS. The younger people I cave with seem to be much more conservation minded than the older people, in general.

The above statement has been abreviated by me to get to a point.

Now, here's the point:
Conservation is GREAT! A lot of oldies have taught conservation for years. A lot of newbies are good listeners. The bottom line is that anything carried
to the extreme can become a bad thing. Hence the old saying, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing". All you newbies and a lot of the oldies
out there need to observe that saying and practice common sense. Seems common sense is lacking in a lot of places these days.

tncaver wrote: Seems common sense is lacking in a lot of places these days.

Yeah, it ain't really common anymore. It's more like rare sense.

And good point, Chad. I've been caving 7 months and been on about 20 trips. But since I'm not a great climber and I haven't done anything vertical I def consider myself new. I mean, the longest trip I've ever been on was only 9 hrs. Hrm I'm curious now....*goes off to start new topic*

Neversink can recieve so much rain that the bottom is over 20 feet under water. There are remnants of several very large trees at the bottom. If you can visualize it, the entire top of what is now Neversink was once completely covered with trees. Erosion happens with or without cavers/new cavers. Rig Safely.