Poison-ivy and Karst
How cave related can you get?? (I'll do everything I can to get this site back on track) I grew up in New York and was terribly allergic to poison ivy as a youngster. Like, someone burned some brush with the vines in the pile, a half-mile away. Good Lord, was I ever in an awful itchy situation after the smoke passed over me ------ . Fortunately my lungs did not react. When I started to do karst and geological things in upstate NY, I discovered two things: 1. To see the bedrock I had to crawl on my belly like a snake up stream beds. 2. I could map the limestone without ever seeing it, just by mapping where the lush poison ivy grew. (THAT is the Karst tie-in) After I came West, I could more easily see Rocks and I gradually lost my extreme reaction. But I learned what George cautioned: Immunity is lost by repeated exposure. Then I moved to Texas and discovered Poison Oak. It makes TREES going up the cliffs with trunks as big around as Bob Oakley's thighs around springs in the Big Bend. ESPECIALLY in what is now Big Bend Ranch State Park.
