Dear Mr. Ediger, I am so grateful you acknowledged Christian prayer on this list-serve. Thank you, my friend. By doing so, you have opened (or dare I say, opined) an opportunity for others to reply to your "pathetic" statement below. I serve an awesome God who created all we enjoy above or below ground and I pray to thank Him for it a lot. Had I known about this rescue situation in WV, I would have been praying for their safety and rescue. Instead, now I'm praying for you.
You may be feeling a bit defensive by now and that is not at all my intent. My God created all of us. He also gave us free will to choose not to believe. Your apparent choice saddens me, but still, it is your choice and I respect it. I am convinced you prefer I give you the textual freedom to believe (or not believe) whatever you want about God and prayer. Done! Even if these folks did everything wrong - or - everything right, I'm sure you're glad they are now safe and uninjured. In the midst of all your pointed text below, you surely were distracted into not mentioning how relieved you are that they are ok. I have read your entertaining posts on cavetex for years and really enjoyed most of what you write. Your writings are often insightful and educational. I typically read them with anticipation of being rewarded by your wit. To those ends, I welcome your response. Persecution that brings attention to the name of God is always a good thing. I thank God in advance for it. Thanks again for bringing up prayer, their Christian prayers to the only God! God's humble servant and your servant too, Dennis Welch The Caving Christian mailto:jesusservan...@yahoo.com Lubbock, TX NSS#53060 -----Original Message----- From: Gill Ediger [mailto:gi...@worldnet.att.net] Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 4:51 PM To: texascavers@texascavers.com Subject: [Texascavers] Cave Rescue in Penn. 2 At 08:57 AM 4/26/2007, addi...@caveresource.com wrote: >http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/25/cave.rescue.ap/index.html The first report I heard of it was sent to me by Roger Moore: <http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_5747278>Click here: Evening Sun - Faith, rescuers the salvation of spelunkers As Jim pointed out, the cave is in WV, not PA. Still, the emphasis on praying in the article makes for some funny if otherwise pathetic reading. I have spent multiple overnight trips in Simmons-Mingo Cave--one that approached 72 hours and can vouch for the fact that it can be confusing. It's joint controlled and several (like 5 or 6) miles long in essentially a straight line to a connection with a cave named Oil Drum Falls which was made since I was active there and was the object of our efforts back in the '70s. The entrance is in the back of a medium-sized shelter cave and immediately drops into a confusing maze of large jumbled up breakdown slabs--not boulders, slabs--and minor up-and-down elevation changes. Once clear of any breakdown, the passages are all walking and essentially bee-line straight though developed on several levels 20 or 30 feet above or below each other and which require some-not-so-straight-forward tricky routes to change from one level to another every thousand feet or so. It's a damned fun cave with lots of scrambling and interesting and tricky moves to remember on the way out. It's a great, fun cave for novices, but they really, really do need a good leader who knows the cave well before venturing thither. There are many places where you must know a critical and not-so-obvious place to climb up or down to another level or you'll keep walking right on past it. At one point you have to drop down through a hole in the bottom of the correct one of 3 or so slime-mud covered funnels in the floor of a continuing passage in the upper level and blindly feel with your foot for a toe hold--then know where the hidden and critical hand hold is--before letting yourself down onto a minor ledge at the top of a 60 or so foot fissure--all pretty much without being able to see what you're doing until on the ledge. One very serious downside of being lost in there is that the cave is a miserable 48ºF and it's hard to carry enough clothes to stay warm if forced into inactivity--such as being lost or if someone gets hurt. There should be laws passed against allowing caves to get that cold. It's just not safe or smart--or fun. We had sleeping bags stashed near the back of the cave both for spending the night and for any emergency which might arise. It's a long way back there. Simmons-Mingo would be a great cave if it could be transplanted to, say, Travis County. Texas caving and people's experience would be improved immensely. I think the article said that they had a map but had left it in the car. But the cave is multi-level and many miles long and as Jim pointed out, the map is probably much reduced and difficult of detail. By way of critique, I'd say that the fault lay not in having or not having a quality map, but in not paying attention to--and noting and pointing out to each other--the critical moves and junctions being made on the way in so they could find and use the landmarks on the way out. I know from experience in S-M and other multi-level caves that it is easy to miss a route marker and walk right on past a level-change and into confusion. If you were paying attention on the way in you could usually backtrack and find the landmark, if not, then being lost is about the only option. Praying will not hurt anything (fortunately) but neither will it help. You are on your own when it comes to route finding and at the mercy of the sort of people who join rescue squads when it comes to being rescued. In short, safety is a personal responsibility--don't rely on anyone to be more responsibile for your caving than you are. --Ediger --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
