Cavechat.org

GroundquestMSA wrote:A cave on the outskirts of Tazewell, Va has several double ended arrows. There are about five sets of arrows painted scratched and smoked at every junction. There are a lot of junctions. One passage has an orange arrow with the word "out" and a red arrow (same direction) with the word "death."

So, I'll ask! Show me a picture!

I rarely take pictures. I'm not good at photography or taking care of fragile things in a dirty, rough environment. You're in Va., trek on down there and take a peek someday.

Even a monkey can take a picture of an arrow lol. I'm dying to see this as well.

I have been in maze caves where there is a flight of arrows at intersections, pointing in 3 or 4 directions. I mostly ignored all of them and did not take pictures. Some of them may have been removed in cleanups. I have not seen a double-ended arrow.

I have seen spray-painted arrows in the middle of Sinks of Gandy where the only two directions to go are downstream and upstream.

Chads93GT wrote:Even a monkey can take a picture of an arrow lol. I'm dying to see this as well.

I suppose if I'm ever there again I could try my very hardest to get a picture. I don't know. Knowing how far from the wall to stand and which direction to face, pointing that little box and a light source directly at the arrows, holding relatively still, pushing that pesky little button...it sounds so impossible.

I meant to say that since I rarely take photos I've never had a camera with me in this cave. Some goofy arrows never seemed worth making a trip back for. Maybe I was wrong. I should probably shoot them to enter into a competition.

GroundquestMSA wrote:

Chads93GT wrote:Even a monkey can take a picture of an arrow lol. I'm dying to see this as well.

I suppose if I'm ever there again I could try my very hardest to get a picture. I don't know. Knowing how far from the wall to stand and which direction to face, pointing that little box and a light source directly at the arrows, holding relatively still, pushing that pesky little button...it sounds so impossible.

I meant to say that since I rarely take photos I've never had a camera with me in this cave. Some goofy arrows never seemed worth making a trip back for. Maybe I was wrong. I should probably shoot them to enter into a competition.

I don't know about competition, but you definitely should take pictures of arrows while in a cave.

That way if you get lost after leaving the area around the arrows, you can whip out the camera, review the pictures (assuming digital of course) and see which way to go based on the arrows you see in the pictures.

Very helpful arrows and sign in my favorite Michigan cave, although the caver still looks confused.

There are caves in Michigan? I thought Amy said she lived 8+ hours from any caving region.

baa43003 wrote:Very helpful arrows and sign in my favorite Michigan cave, although the caver still looks confused.

Obviously you'll want to visit the "CAVE" before you leave the cave.

Um I thought it was green arrows/ markers on the way in and red on the way out, you know kind of nautical, red right returning?

If aliens beamed me into a cave I would look for food and water sources and figure on staying, not sure I'd want to see what was going on on the surface. Besides they might be getting ready to beam me in a harem to repopulate the earth and I wouldn't want to miss that!!!

Jeff Bartlett wrote:There are caves in Michigan? I thought Amy said she lived 8+ hours from any caving region.

I will put all the real estate brokers in Michigan on notice to get ready for all the TAG people who are going to move up there because of Michigan being such a cave rich area.

If only we could remove all that damn glacial till, Michigan would be a caving region. The Wolverine State might not have a lot of accessible caves (or wolverines) but it does have a nice diversity including limestone, gypsum, salt, tufa, and littoral caves, massive sinkholes and disappearing streams and lakes. There are also leads that blow enough air to impress even a TAG caver.

baa43003 wrote:If only we could remove all that damn glacial till, Michigan would be a caving region. The Wolverine State might not have a lot of accessible caves (or wolverines) but it does have a nice diversity including limestone, gypsum, salt, tufa, and littoral caves, massive sinkholes and disappearing streams and lakes. There are also leads that blow enough air to impress even a TAG caver.

Northern Indiana would likely be the same way as it was buried by the glacier. That same glacier buried a major river in Northern In. called The Teays (spelling ?) River. It was large and similar to the Ohio River. The Wisconsin Glacial Boundary is not too far south of Indianapolis. That is why it is mostly flat in northern Indiana and more hilly in the south.

There are probably more caves in Michigan than there are wolverines! (I'm not counting the drunk ones in Ann Arbor)

Sounds like this new book would have some useful information!

Lost in a Cave--applying graph theory to cave exploration
by Richard L Breisch
The goal of this book is to offer advice about three topics related to being lost in a cave:
--How to avoid becoming lost
--What to do if you become lost
--How to organize a search for a person lost in a cave.

Find (and buy) it here:
http://nssbookstore.org/index.php?mode= ... -1127-2683