In the course of my job as editor of Get Out! magazine, I talk to a lot of outdoor adventurers. When I talk to cavers, it’s usually a different experience than when I talk to others. I get a lot of suspicion – who are you, what’s your agenda and so on. When I ask them about their favorite caves, I often receive no reply.
While this behavior can be off putting, there is a very good reason for it: cavers guard their favorite caves like nobody’s business. If you join a grotto – a local caving club – they are likely to first take you to a so-called sacrifice cave. That is, they’ll take you to a place that isn’t that great or pristine in order to check you out. Only when you prove your conservationist cred – and only after they’ve had a chance to teach you a thing or two about cave conservation – will they introduce you to an underground world you never knew existed.
My favorite cave is right here in the Ohio River region. A couple of friends and I pieced together word-of-mouth information with vague online references to eventually find this hidden treasure (you won’t see it on a map). When we finally arrived at the pullout near the cave entrance … it was full of cavers! They know all about this place but have successfully kept it a secret from everyone else. And true to the code, I will not reveal anything about this cave on the pages of getoutzine.com. Both entrances are on private property and if some stupid yahoos read about it online and decide to go get drunk, break beer bottles and carve their initials in the cave, you can bet that those private property owners will shut down access in a heartbeat.
I think other outdoor sports – rock climbing and mountain biking are just two that come to mind – have a lot to learn from cavers. Wouldn’t it be great if we had sacrifice crags or sacrifice trails where we take climbers and bikers to check them out? We can make teach newcomers to be vigilant about litter, to be careful and considerate pet owners, to learn that you actually shouldn’t ride your mountain bike on a wet trail because that causes too much erosion … the list (as usual!) goes on.
Some groups, such a climbers coalitions that work to protect climbing access to public lands, are getting pretty good at this. Here’s what you can do yourself: next time you take a newcomer under your wing and introduce them to your favorite sport, consider yourself a Leave No Trace spokesperson as well. If you see another experienced person behaving badly, speak up. It doesn’t have to be a negative interaction; just consider it a teachable moment. Try being friendly for a few minutes and then say something like this: “Hey, I don’t mean to be a litter Nazi but if you leave your trash around that threatens access for all of us. I know we both don’t want that to happen.”
Yes, caves have the advantage of more limited access to begin with, but other lands – especially private lands – can be better protected by vigilant user groups. And the fact is, caver to caver, biker to biker and climber to climber communications will always be more successful than messages from someone who is outside of the user group. The more we police ourselves, the fewer problems we will have with access and the longer we will be able to enjoy our natural playgrounds and introduce them to the next generation of users.
While this behavior can be off putting, there is a very good reason for it: cavers guard their favorite caves like nobody’s business. If you join a grotto – a local caving club – they are likely to first take you to a so-called sacrifice cave. That is, they’ll take you to a place that isn’t that great or pristine in order to check you out. Only when you prove your conservationist cred – and only after they’ve had a chance to teach you a thing or two about cave conservation – will they introduce you to an underground world you never knew existed.
My favorite cave is right here in the Ohio River region. A couple of friends and I pieced together word-of-mouth information with vague online references to eventually find this hidden treasure (you won’t see it on a map). When we finally arrived at the pullout near the cave entrance … it was full of cavers! They know all about this place but have successfully kept it a secret from everyone else. And true to the code, I will not reveal anything about this cave on the pages of getoutzine.com. Both entrances are on private property and if some stupid yahoos read about it online and decide to go get drunk, break beer bottles and carve their initials in the cave, you can bet that those private property owners will shut down access in a heartbeat.
I think other outdoor sports – rock climbing and mountain biking are just two that come to mind – have a lot to learn from cavers. Wouldn’t it be great if we had sacrifice crags or sacrifice trails where we take climbers and bikers to check them out? We can make teach newcomers to be vigilant about litter, to be careful and considerate pet owners, to learn that you actually shouldn’t ride your mountain bike on a wet trail because that causes too much erosion … the list (as usual!) goes on.
Some groups, such a climbers coalitions that work to protect climbing access to public lands, are getting pretty good at this. Here’s what you can do yourself: next time you take a newcomer under your wing and introduce them to your favorite sport, consider yourself a Leave No Trace spokesperson as well. If you see another experienced person behaving badly, speak up. It doesn’t have to be a negative interaction; just consider it a teachable moment. Try being friendly for a few minutes and then say something like this: “Hey, I don’t mean to be a litter Nazi but if you leave your trash around that threatens access for all of us. I know we both don’t want that to happen.”
Yes, caves have the advantage of more limited access to begin with, but other lands – especially private lands – can be better protected by vigilant user groups. And the fact is, caver to caver, biker to biker and climber to climber communications will always be more successful than messages from someone who is outside of the user group. The more we police ourselves, the fewer problems we will have with access and the longer we will be able to enjoy our natural playgrounds and introduce them to the next generation of users.
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