Hello everybody!
I looked through some of the posts but didn't find anything that exactly addresses my question. It is probably out there in cyberspace somewhere, so sorry if this is a repeat topic/question.
I am new to caving and I have been in only 2 caves. One was with a group of about 20 people and I have only been in there once. The other cave I go to rather frequently and have been down there with a couple friends and and I have been down there with up to 11 people. Tonight, there were 11 of us (the largest group previously was 9) and we were in a commonly explored and well explored cave. As we kept going down paths I had been down before, we all noticed a difficulty in breathing. Then it got to a point where 3 people wanted to bail, so I led the way out and before I know it, the rest of the group (7 people) had bailed too because they reached a place where they absolutely could not breathe - they said it was like they hit a wall. The areas we were in you could fully stand up in, but we were surrounded by lots of pools of water. I have been even deeper in this cave than where we went tonight, and I have never experienced that - not even with the group of 9. Now, this group tonight was probably more excited and was therefore breathing more and breathing harder, but what are the usual reasons for this? I read somewhere it means there could be a high amount of decay. Or was it just that everyone was sucking up all the oxygen? However, we were in such spacious areas, I do not know how much of a role that can actually play. I am just curious as to the possible causes since I have been down there many times before and never experienced it.
Thanks!
Lauren