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Hello from Central California!

PostPosted: Jan 11, 2016 9:45 pm
by TyTheCaveGuy
My name's Tyler, I'm 20 living in Cen. Cali area, I just stumbled onto a cave this past Saturday with some friends, we went about 100 yards in or so and turned back. I went home that night and was dreaming about caves, I'm addicted I want to see them all. We were hiking the San Joaquin River Trail if anyone knows what cave is around there I'd love to know the name of it! Thank you. I can't wait to start exploring some more, once I learn the ropes of it all of course!

Re: Hello from Central California!

PostPosted: Jan 12, 2016 9:57 am
by CaverScott
Hi Tyler!

Back in the 80's I was a member of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the NSS. Great group of cavers!

Not sure where you are in Cental Cali, but this should help you connect with some good cavers!

http://www.nssio.org/Find_Grotto.cfm


Welcome! :cavingrocks: :cave softly: :bananabat:

Re: Hello from Central California!

PostPosted: Jan 12, 2016 2:23 pm
by cavewizard
Congratulations on getting cave fever man. That's semi pretty much how I got into caving. My buddies and I got tired of hiking and camping and finally just threw our hands up and said "Lets see what this caving thing is about!"

Long story short, the first wild cave I explored was pretty much me playing detective and searching the web for clues. I wound up finding an address of an decade old online obituary and pretty much crossed my fingers that this would work out. Luckily it did. As you'll probably start realizing sooner or later cave locations aren't exactly out there for the public to take. The best thing you can do is join a local grotto, get to know some of the key members/make some friends and show them that your a responsible caver.

Most grottos will have a ton of information on local caves, caves in the area, and caves wherever you can at least drive to. But they don't hand that information out to non-members.

In the mean time, go get yourself a decent helmet. You can go to mountainproject.com and probably find a decent used helmet, and potentially even some lights. If not that route, go get your standard skateboarding helmet and attach a headlamp to it. Seriously though, you need a helmet and you'll find out why after your first big cave adventure.

Look into what type of equipment you'll need, which isn't too much, and you're good to go!

Good luck, be careful, be adventurous, and have fun.

Re: Hello from Central California!

PostPosted: Jan 13, 2016 1:12 pm
by captnemo
TyTheCaveGuy wrote:My name's Tyler, I'm 20 living in Cen. Cali area, I just stumbled onto a cave this past Saturday with some friends, we went about 100 yards in or so and turned back. I went home that night and was dreaming about caves, I'm addicted I want to see them all. We were hiking the San Joaquin River Trail if anyone knows what cave is around there I'd love to know the name of it! Thank you. I can't wait to start exploring some more, once I learn the ropes of it all of course!


Welcome, if you're interested in hiking around Kern Canyon sometime, let me know, I'm in Bakersfield, there's a couple caves to visit. Your best bet for finding out about the cave you found though is http://www.caver.com/sjvg/- San Joaquin Valley grotto. And if you venture further north you can contact the wonderful folks athttp://www.motherlodegrotto.org/ :)
Good luck and cave safe.
John
http://chilembwe.com

Re: Hello from Central California!

PostPosted: Jan 17, 2016 6:22 pm
by cavedoc
Hi Tyler,
The San Joaquin Valley Grotto meets the 3rd Thursdays at 7:30 at REI in Fresno. This is a new meeting spot for us. If you run into anything that says Kaiser or anywhere else it is out of date.