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Vertical caving has turned into Lockhart's Lament, but caving, not math, for me.

The only fun thing about it is knots. I could go on for hours about how amazing knots are. And rope itself. I spent a good hour dissecting a piece of rope once, the structure is utterly fascinating. But then you can take this rope and tie it into various life supporting forms of knots, now THAT is truly Incredible. I've even made up some knots of my own, wonder if they have been discovered before, have names, or if they would be of any use at all. Sometimes, I'll recognize a knot I tied just in sheer exploration and playing around, such as an alpine butterfly! How Fantastic is that? It is truly beautiful, all these shapes and formations. It's even like protein chemistry...you have your primary structure, how the molecules are that make up the indivdual bits within the rope's outer sheath. The secondary structure are those fibres and strands. Tertiary is how they all come together, the core and outer sheath, to make what we finally call a "rope". And then you can even form quaternary structures with how you fold the rope around and in on itself, or even pair it with others and move them in and around each other.

That, is beauty.

Amy, that doesn't sound like a rant!
I have to agree with you, though. Knots are very cool. I like the figure-eight bunny ears; a great one for rigging to two anchors.
I guess now we are both getting

Trogman

It's a rant in the reverse sense, the sense that the idea of vertical caving has become so foreign, unreachable, unobtainable, and hence, boring and uninteresting, that seriously the coolest thing about it is the knots. Not to downplay rope and knots and the beauty of those themselves, but clearly, something is not right there.

If you've never read Lockhart's Lament you wouldn't get the parallel I'm drawing between the two though (vertical caving and math).

Amy, are you lamenting vertical caving education? A particular way it has been taught to you? How do you mean that it's foreign and unreachable?

trogman wrote: I guess now we are both getting

Ha! The beauty part....ya can't get off topic on the Rant thread!

Here'a a rant..... I'm off to central PA. to go cavin for the next 6 days!!!

Cavemud wrote:

trogman wrote: I guess now we are both getting

Ha! The beauty part....ya can't get off topic on the Rant thread!

Here'a a rant..... I'm off to central PA. to go cavin for the next 6 days!!!

Get 'er done, Cavemud.

LukeM wrote:Amy, are you lamenting vertical caving education? A particular way it has been taught to you? How do you mean that it's foreign and unreachable?

The vertical part is there, not the caving part.

Hence, no point to it. Unless I just like playing around in garages, in trees, and if I'm lucky, on a small cliff. Yeah sure practice is good. But it gets blah.

Also I've never wanted to do any large drops (like, anything more than 100 or so) I really don't want to. So again, what's the point? Aren't I *supposed* to want to do things like Ellisons someday? Because I really couldn't care less. I have no desire to.

Then again, what reason would I have to desire to do things like that? I can't even get in on any vertical trip yet, period.

I don't even feel like going up to Aaron's and climbing the treadmill. Thirty minute drive to do something that sure is probably good excersize but the practice is pointless. I'd rather drive thirty minutes the other way and go to a capoeira class.

Although I have asked my mom about if she'd be ok with me climbing in the trees at the house this spring - we have lots of mature trees, I'm sure Aaron could help figure out some way to rig something somewhere, then I'm only 5 min away from getting on rope. I can changeover pretty durn well now so it's not like it'd be a problem for me to climb up 20 ft or whatever, changeover, rappel, repeat.

Amy,

vertical practice, however boring is always good. Muscle memory and fitness and all that. As for big pits....I have been vertical caving for over 10 years. The longest climb I did was just over 200ft on a cliff. My caving friends will tell you that I like pits under 50ft, will grudgingly consider pits under 100ft but not like it, and have yet to find enough enticement to climb more than 150ft.

Mostly this is due to simple fitness, partly its due to laziness. If im completely wore out its not fun for me. If just hiking to the cave and bouncing the pit is all the trip I'm up for that seems like more work than fun to me. Of course the better shape you are in and the more efficient climber you are then the greater range of trips that are "fun".

Of course it also is probablyy no accident that Indiana pits average between 30-80ft with pits over 100ft being rare.......so maybe I'm just adapted to my environment, where if I was in MI, I'd consider a 30ft deep manhole too much bother

*shrugs* I guess.

With only my limited climbing-lots-at-once practice, even the first time I climbed 60 ft easily. That's a good start point to work up from, lol. I bet if I was on a Mitchel or ropewalking system I would be even /faster/ and go longer.

Here's my current rant: 2011 seems to be one of those years that the Heaven's have opened up & decided to dump all the contents of God's almighty septic tank right on my head .

The most pressing issue I have to rant about is my truck (Ford Explorer) being STUCK back in our mud pit of a pasture for the past month. How in the hell does a 4wd vehicle manage to get stuck in the mud? Here's how, broken down into step by step instructions.

1) Make friends with stupid, irresponsible people.
2) Mention to your idiot friend that the pasture can be fun to drive around in.
3) Don't mention that the snow melting & rainfall have turned your pasture into something fit for a mud wrestling competition because you assume it's a given.
4) Let idiot friend borrow your 4wd drive vehicle without asking any questions or bothering to watch which direction he's heading off in.

Of course he hauled *ss outta there & off our property once he realized it was stuck . Thanks for not helping fix your screw up, dude, really appreciate it. Better hope I either don't see you again for a long time or you can outrun me because if I catch you, it's not gonna be pretty. There are exactly *2* people who can drive back there without getting stuck when the ground's like that--me & my husband. Dad can manage it most of the time but he's even gotten stuck before. You have to know EXACTLY where to go or you're coming back out on foot.

The best part? Now it's not wanting to start. I hope he just got mud up where mud doesn't belong and/or whatever it is is cheap & easy to fix. Can't even try to drive it out if it won't start. Dad tried pulling it out with his 3/4 ton Chevy 4wd trucks & it almost got stuck. Dad says the tractor won't pull it which I say is BS but he still won't let me try. I need to get ahold of my friend with the winch but he's either avoiding me, in jail, or something else because he's not answering my calls. It keeps raining every few days so the ground isn't wanting to harden up AND it snowed a couple days ago wtf? Tow trucks are $$$$ that I don't really have to spend but I will if I absolutely have to. There's also a humiliation factor involved with calling the tow truck--the cheapest one is the one we had to call last February to pull my van out after Dad ran over me (long story) & when I saw them back in early February they remembered me & what happened.

Does ANYONE have any suggestions for getting my truck out or why it might not be starting?

Any big trees or other large anchor points? If you research mechanical advantage (i.e. pulley systems) like 3:1 6:1 etc you can contruct a haul system that can give you many times the effective pulling power. You need lots of rope, some pulleys, and the research to know how to put them together. I watched 2 guys pull a truck out of a creek bed once....by hand. They had like 4 3:1 systems linked together......wasn't quick to set up but kinda neat to watch!

wyandottecaver wrote:Any big trees or other large anchor points? If you research mechanical advantage (i.e. pulley systems) like 3:1 6:1 etc you can contruct a haul system that can give you many times the effective pulling power. You need lots of rope, some pulleys, and the research to know how to put them together. I watched 2 guys pull a truck out of a creek bed once....by hand. They had like 4 3:1 systems linked together......wasn't quick to set up but kinda neat to watch!

Out of a creek bed by hand you say? Now I'm interested since if it slides about a foot to the side, that's what I'll be looking at .

Yes, there are trees I could use as anchor points and I can round up some rope & pulleys. Thanks for the pulley system idea--I'm going to look into that. Off to put my Google Ninja skills to work!

You might be able to borrow a tool known as a come-along which is a hand powered winch essentially. It also has a large mechanical advantage.

Phil Winkler wrote:You might be able to borrow a tool known as a come-along which is a hand powered winch essentially. It also has a large mechanical advantage.

Thanks, I'll look into that as well. I'm sure somebody in my "neighborhood" (meaning mile in each direction span of the boonies) is bound to have one.

I just realized I've literally done nothing today but sit on my butt playing around online . How did I get away with this and more importantly, can I manage to do it again sometime without anyone noticing?

The rant part comes into play because I realized that while I was sitting on my butt the dishes weren't being washed, the counters weren't wiped down, the floors weren't vacuumed, and somebody let one of the damn cats in which means I'll probably find poop somewhere . Got my work cut out for me this evening.