At 06:56 PM 4/26/2007, Diana Tomchick wrote:
Isn't that why they make space blankets, synthetic thermal underwear and high energy food? I carry a personal space blanket ($3.95 at REI), extra synthetic thermal underwear and extra food with me in cold caves.
We did carry an "Emergency Blanket" or sometimes 2 (or even Space Blankets, but they are bulky). Poly-Pro, fuzzy suits, and such stuff wasn't available at the time. A lot of the Easterners wore coveralls over tons of layers which makes "feeling the cave" particularly difficult and all movements strained. I just layered up and kept moving. It wasn't T-shirt caving. One good thing was that we all used carbide in those daze and with one carbide lamp (burning) and an emergency blanket wrapped around you as a tepee it could get reasonably comfortable inside. Still, sitting there on the cold mud trying to keep a crinkley sheet of mylar wrapped around you in desparation was no comparison to sitting under a coconut tree on the beach at Talum.
And we usually had a jacket stuffed into a pack or "Carts Can" gear carrier. Simmons-Mingo has a small stream on some of the lower passages--and a big lake near the rear end--but mostly it's a dry cave, discounting the nature of the mud, so being wet wasn't a problem.
Forty-eight degrees doesn't have to be miserable, if you're properly prepared for it. Dress properly and carry the right equipment, and it can be great fun.
That may be mostly a difference in our viewpoints here, Diana. I cannot consider that living inside a refrigerator would ever be fun, especially when further burdened with the constriction of heavy clothing--and aching hands and ears. It's an endurable means to an end which I'm sometimes willing to accept, but there's nothing fun about living in cold air or wearing heavy clothing--none that I've ever been able to recognize, at least. Despite all that, Simmons-Mingo itself is a wonderfully fun cave. I would just prefer that it had been placed nearer the 30th parallel where the comfort and simplicity of T-shirts and cut-offs would be the uniform of the day and comfort is an inherent and expected right, not a necessary and troublesome compromise, and the Space Blanket and thermal underwear could stay on the shelf at home.
And at 06:59 PM 4/26/2007, Stefan Creaser wrote:
If one only caves with attractive people then "shared bodily warmth" is great fun too :-)
A little "shared bodily warmth" is good at any latitude--not to mention attractive people.
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