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SYSK Selects: How Caving Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's s
0:03
Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen our episode on caving.
0:07
Speaker 1: We had already done an episode on bio speleology, which
0:10
Speaker 1: is about animals that live in caves. We kind of
0:13
Speaker 1: touch on that too, But this is all of the
0:15
Speaker 1: ins and outs. If you'll excuse the unintentional pun about caving,
0:20
Speaker 1: um and you are going to love it. It's just
0:22
Speaker 1: a great, thorough classic example of stuff you should know.
0:26
Speaker 1: So check it out. Starting now, Welcome to Stuff you
0:31
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:42
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Um. I'm
0:45
Speaker 1: an m C of sorts, not the cool kind, the
0:48
Speaker 1: boring kind with me as always as MC Charles W
0:51
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. He's the same kind of m C that
0:54
Speaker 1: I am. Sum no, no, not even we're not even
0:58
Speaker 1: suck mcs were two square for that even it's so sad.
1:01
Speaker 1: Maybe sucker mcs, but certainly not with an Ayah, I'm
1:05
Speaker 1: a sucker, right, MC, yeah, too square to be a sucker.
1:09
Speaker 1: That is a T shirt. Well I'll bet it is
1:12
Speaker 1: now number two the square shape, uh number two the
1:17
Speaker 1: letter b or two squared two with two to the
1:19
Speaker 1: second power to square to be a sucker. Yeah, that's it. Yep,
1:25
Speaker 1: you've pretty we've reached the point where you say stuff
1:27
Speaker 1: and people make t shirts of it. One of these though,
1:29
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit it rich and we can quit this
1:31
Speaker 1: whole podcast in game, retire on our never fortune, never
1:36
Speaker 1: will be rich old man podcasting still if only uh, hey, Chuck, Hey,
1:42
Speaker 1: are you doing well? Yeah? You know, I think, um,
1:46
Speaker 1: I remember that you actually have done this before, what
1:48
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about. I have, um and uh,
1:52
Speaker 1: you had a good time, didn't too. Yeah. I'll be
1:54
Speaker 1: offering my personal insights along the way. But I was
1:56
Speaker 1: hoping so that's what I was getting at. Um. Hey,
1:59
Speaker 1: so I this article in Slate. It's called America's Ancient
2:03
Speaker 1: Cave Art. And back in the late seventies, there were
2:07
Speaker 1: a couple of friends who worked for the U. S.
2:08
Speaker 1: Forestry Service and I think Tennessee, and um, they were
2:12
Speaker 1: running around, um the forest and they found a cave
2:16
Speaker 1: and they started to explore it and they went into
2:19
Speaker 1: it and they noticed like there were all these weird
2:21
Speaker 1: like scratches on the wall. And when they looked a
2:24
Speaker 1: little closer, like, wait, that's not a scratch, that's a
2:26
Speaker 1: snake with horns, and that's a bird that like is
2:31
Speaker 1: tearing the head off of something else. And one of
2:33
Speaker 1: them luckily realized that these are all images associated with
2:37
Speaker 1: what's called the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, or more coolly named
2:42
Speaker 1: the Southern Death Cult, which sprung up around the southeastern
2:46
Speaker 1: United States inexplicably about years ago. There's like this, um
2:50
Speaker 1: what what the author of the article called a religious
2:52
Speaker 1: outbreak that they have no idea where it came from.
2:56
Speaker 1: But um, the weird thing about this is that they
2:58
Speaker 1: these these drawings were completely preserved, like you could still
3:04
Speaker 1: smear the charcoal. Um they and even though they were
3:08
Speaker 1: anywhere from five and then they found some others that
3:10
Speaker 1: are up to like six thousand years old, and they're
3:13
Speaker 1: all in this enormous elaborate cave system in the southeastern
3:17
Speaker 1: United States, specifically the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. UM. But
3:22
Speaker 1: what's most remarkable, aside from their preservation, is that some
3:25
Speaker 1: of these are like a mile into the cave. So
3:29
Speaker 1: some of the Mississippian people were running around walking a
3:33
Speaker 1: mile into a cave to like leave this art and
3:36
Speaker 1: it was perfectly preserved, even though almost every other trace
3:40
Speaker 1: of this religious outbreak, the Southern Death Cult is just gone.
3:44
Speaker 1: And that cool. That's awesome. So I bring that up
3:47
Speaker 1: because that is one of the big reasons that people
3:49
Speaker 1: go caving, which ultimately is entering a cave. Once you
3:54
Speaker 1: walk into a cave, you're caving, right, Yeah, I think so.
3:58
Speaker 1: Uh one, Southern Death Cult the original name of the
4:00
Speaker 1: cult the band, Yes, it was, and they changed it
4:03
Speaker 1: so much better. Well, I mean, that's one of the
4:07
Speaker 1: coolest names that anyone's ever come up with, and it's
4:11
Speaker 1: an archaeological term. Yeah, so it's got just you know,
4:14
Speaker 1: academic meaning as well. All right, Well, aside from the
4:19
Speaker 1: poor name change, I like the band. Yeah, it's a
4:21
Speaker 1: good band. I used to you don't like him anymore? Well,
4:24
Speaker 1: I mean it's just that sort of represented like high
4:26
Speaker 1: school to me in early college. They still hold up. Yeah,
4:30
Speaker 1: it's not like I don't like it. I got you know,
4:33
Speaker 1: Billy Duffy plays a main guitar. Al right, so spelunking.
4:37
Speaker 1: Should we go ahead and get this out of the way.
4:39
Speaker 1: That's that's another word for caving, But um been't they're
4:43
Speaker 1: an atari game names blanker. I think so, But cavers
4:47
Speaker 1: don't really use that term a lot. They use it derogatorially. Yeah,
4:52
Speaker 1: I think that is the case. I'm trying to remember
4:55
Speaker 1: because I went caving, like you said, go ahead and
4:57
Speaker 1: set that up for the rest of the show. With
4:59
Speaker 1: my former neighbor Um, who was a fan of the show.
5:03
Speaker 1: Former neighbor, did you guys have a spat? We don't
5:05
Speaker 1: talk anymore. I refused to acknowledge his president. No, he moved, Um.
5:10
Speaker 1: But the other way that happened, yeah, yeah, he Um.
5:12
Speaker 1: He lived across the street and Um left a letter
5:14
Speaker 1: in my mailbox one day and was like, hey, dude,
5:17
Speaker 1: I heard you mentioned it might have been after the
5:18
Speaker 1: biospi speleology, which we'll touch on it again. Said I'm
5:23
Speaker 1: a experienced caver. Me and my buddy would love to
5:26
Speaker 1: take you and you guys too, you and yeah, yeah,
5:29
Speaker 1: we were invited. Originally it was all four of us,
5:31
Speaker 1: and it ended up being just me. Right the day came,
5:34
Speaker 1: I was like, let's see crawl around in the cold
5:36
Speaker 1: in a cave, get wet and muddy. I'm gonna stay
5:39
Speaker 1: home boy. After I did it, I was like, I'm
5:41
Speaker 1: so glad Emily and you, Me and Josh didn't come.
5:45
Speaker 1: Just you guys wouldn't like that. Yeah, there's a good
5:46
Speaker 1: picture of you on Facebook where you're covered in mud. Yeah,
5:49
Speaker 1: I'll post more pictures when this comes out, but um yeah,
5:53
Speaker 1: I'll touch on it as we go. But the first
5:54
Speaker 1: thing I want to point out is that a cave
5:56
Speaker 1: can be a thing that you picture when you picture
5:59
Speaker 1: a cave, which is like you're walking along and there's
6:02
Speaker 1: a big, huge entrance that you're looking at and you
6:03
Speaker 1: walk in, or in this case, it can be a
6:07
Speaker 1: little hole in the ground, which is when I walked by,
6:10
Speaker 1: I was like, that, that's where we're going, and he
6:13
Speaker 1: was like yeah. I was like, really, it's like a
6:15
Speaker 1: two foot little hole in the ground. Yeah, it looked like, um,
6:18
Speaker 1: maybe a place where foxes live. Yeah, and he's like,
6:20
Speaker 1: now that's how you get in there. I was like, okay,
6:23
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's how you get in their pal
6:25
Speaker 1: But it ended up being, aside from the most physically
6:29
Speaker 1: challenging thing I've ever done, one of the coolest things
6:31
Speaker 1: I've done. It was very difficult, but you, I mean,
6:34
Speaker 1: you nail it on the head. A cave is basically
6:36
Speaker 1: any opening from the surface below ground, Yeah, into the earth,
6:41
Speaker 1: right and um. For the most part, when we think
6:43
Speaker 1: of a cave, it's part of something called the Karst landscape,
6:47
Speaker 1: which is characterized by like sink holes, underground aquifers, um,
6:52
Speaker 1: subterranean drainage, caves, a cave system. That's part. That's it's
6:58
Speaker 1: technically called a Krst escape. Yeah. And well once you
7:02
Speaker 1: read that, you kind of take it for granted, but
7:03
Speaker 1: if you never really thought about it. I hadn't never
7:05
Speaker 1: thought about it. I was like, well, why are these
7:06
Speaker 1: caves even here? You know, someone didn't come in here
7:09
Speaker 1: and carve these out. No, but some natural processes too,
7:12
Speaker 1: That's right. There's actually um four main ways that caves
7:16
Speaker 1: are created, right, Yeah. Most caves um are limestone caves.
7:20
Speaker 1: And you get those when rainwater uh seeps down through
7:23
Speaker 1: the soil, picks up some c O two along the
7:26
Speaker 1: way and that forms carbonic acid, which is kind of
7:29
Speaker 1: weak it is, but if you if you have carbon
7:32
Speaker 1: carbonic acid present in the same area for eons, yeah,
7:37
Speaker 1: it's going to eventually eat away at even stone, Yeah,
7:40
Speaker 1: like limestone, and that's basically what happens. It either collects
7:43
Speaker 1: there for a long time or is UM rushed in
7:46
Speaker 1: there by rain and uh, corrosion, Yeah, is what happens.
7:52
Speaker 1: It's erosion through abrasion. Through abrasion just basically rainwater running
7:57
Speaker 1: over something long enough, it's gonna erode it. And that
8:00
Speaker 1: it's how you get a cave one way. Yeah, that's
8:02
Speaker 1: the that's the main way. I think. UM, you've got
8:05
Speaker 1: extreme of files, which is kind of cool. We're still
8:08
Speaker 1: we're starting to realize, you know, I think we talked
8:10
Speaker 1: about them in the are we all Marson's episode? Yeah,
8:13
Speaker 1: we have an article on extreme of files that I
8:15
Speaker 1: have earmarked for us. That's pretty good. Um. They are
8:19
Speaker 1: basically bacteria that live and thrive in um toxic environments,
8:25
Speaker 1: like places where nothing else lives. High sulfuric content, are
8:28
Speaker 1: really high temperatures, are really really low temperatures. Just yeah,
8:32
Speaker 1: they're the only things that live there. UM, and they
8:34
Speaker 1: are starting to realize that they have a pretty big
8:37
Speaker 1: impact on cave formation. For example, there's some that UM
8:41
Speaker 1: like to eat oil underground. I never knew this, And
8:45
Speaker 1: they eat and eat, and then they shoot ducks of
8:49
Speaker 1: sulfi gas, right, and the sulfi gas goes up and
8:53
Speaker 1: up and up as gases wants to do and uh,
8:56
Speaker 1: it travels through um the through groundwater picks up oxygen
9:01
Speaker 1: and becomes sulfuric acid, and that really starts to eat
9:04
Speaker 1: away at caves. Yeah. That's probably more so, I think
9:07
Speaker 1: than chronic. Yeah, which is you probably want to look
9:10
Speaker 1: out for the sulfuric acid lake in a cave system
9:13
Speaker 1: if you're ever caving, I would say so. Yeah, so
9:15
Speaker 1: that's number two. Um, see sea caves. You'll see a
9:19
Speaker 1: lot um. If you ever do sea kayaking and stuff
9:21
Speaker 1: around the island, you might venture into a sea cave.
9:24
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Um. They are basically just water pounding
9:28
Speaker 1: away at the seaside cliffs to the point where they
9:32
Speaker 1: form caves. Pretty easy. Yeah. Did you ever see The
9:35
Speaker 1: Orphanage the Gearmo del Toro movie. No, dude, you've not
9:40
Speaker 1: seen that. I almost watched it last week. That is
9:43
Speaker 1: one of the best ghost movies ever made. Yeah. I
9:47
Speaker 1: was by myself and I wanted to watch something scary
9:50
Speaker 1: because it was how and I searched around on the
9:54
Speaker 1: internets for like, what's a really good scary movie, not
9:57
Speaker 1: some crappy scary movie, and that was on the list,
10:00
Speaker 1: and I ended up searching and researching for so long,
10:03
Speaker 1: and I didn't watch anything. I went to sleep. You
10:06
Speaker 1: should have asked me or go on to the social
10:08
Speaker 1: media's Like once, I was like a Christmas scary movies
10:11
Speaker 1: and got in a conversation with Joe Randazzo and like
10:14
Speaker 1: a couple of other people and ended up with this
10:16
Speaker 1: list of like great horror movies and all of them
10:19
Speaker 1: panned out awesomely. The Devil Have you seen that? Dude?
10:23
Speaker 1: That was another one recommended. But dude, it is it's
10:27
Speaker 1: just like the Spanish Civil War era orphan No, no no, no,
10:31
Speaker 1: that's um what is that one called? I know, the
10:34
Speaker 1: one you're talking about, Devil's Backbone? Yes, I saw that one.
10:37
Speaker 1: That's okay. Compared to the orphanage, it might as well
10:41
Speaker 1: have been like Peewee's Playhouse. Hey, I like Peewee. No,
10:44
Speaker 1: I mean as far as light Fair goes. Ah. Yeah, okay,
10:48
Speaker 1: it's just so much better. I'm watching it. Yeah, and
10:51
Speaker 1: watch Us to the Devil too. It's pretty good, all right.
10:53
Speaker 1: I think you like that a lot. Yeah, I don't.
10:55
Speaker 1: I like good scary. I don't like all that crappy
10:59
Speaker 1: saw like stuff. You like shocking torture porn crap. I
11:02
Speaker 1: liked the first couple sauce alright, So that's the third
11:06
Speaker 1: wave that caves are well, that was a good one.
11:09
Speaker 1: The fourth um is lava tubes. You know, when lava
11:13
Speaker 1: comes up through a volcano and it shoots up, if
11:17
Speaker 1: the conditions are right, the outer part will cool more
11:21
Speaker 1: quickly than the creamy, gooey middle. Uh. And when that
11:25
Speaker 1: happens that our shell will come together and form this
11:29
Speaker 1: coherent crust, and the stuff in the middle might fall
11:32
Speaker 1: back down. Right, you get yourself a tube. You have
11:35
Speaker 1: a tube of lava. Now if at the top of
11:37
Speaker 1: this that that top caves inner crumbles, all of a sudden,
11:40
Speaker 1: you have an entrance, and the lava tube is now
11:42
Speaker 1: a cave, because again, cave is any entry from the
11:48
Speaker 1: above ground to hell. I imagine the lava tube caves
11:52
Speaker 1: are pretty interesting to explore. But I'm a limestone guy. Well,
11:57
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't spend much time in Hawaii. If
11:59
Speaker 1: you did, I'll it you'd be a lot with tube
12:00
Speaker 1: guy too. Yeah, you're probably right, all right. So once
12:02
Speaker 1: you're in the cave, you're gonna notice a couple of
12:04
Speaker 1: things straight away. Um, stillactites and stillag mites, okay, which
12:09
Speaker 1: is which man, I feel like we have a golden
12:11
Speaker 1: opportunity to explain this to thousands and thousands and hundreds
12:15
Speaker 1: of thousands of people. It's very easy. There's a lot
12:18
Speaker 1: of little ways you can remember. Maybe millions of people
12:21
Speaker 1: still lack tights and that is where the C are
12:23
Speaker 1: the ones that hang down. And you can remember that
12:25
Speaker 1: by maybe hold on tight, stillack tight. They gotta hold
12:30
Speaker 1: on tight, yeah, because it's not still lag tight and
12:32
Speaker 1: still lag tight or stillag might and stillagmite. It's stillack
12:39
Speaker 1: tight with a C and then still lag mighte with
12:41
Speaker 1: a G and and M. So that helps too because
12:44
Speaker 1: you have C for ceiling or G for ground. Great
12:48
Speaker 1: there you just didn't or T for top. If that
12:51
Speaker 1: helps you, we give you three ways to remember this.
12:54
Speaker 1: I don't think that we're I don't. I think I
12:56
Speaker 1: messed it up. This is so simple for a second
12:58
Speaker 1: and then I I'm sorry everyone. So stalactites hang down.
13:04
Speaker 1: Stalagmites come up from the bottom. Uh. They are speliotherms,
13:09
Speaker 1: which is a K formation. And this happens when um
13:14
Speaker 1: carbonic acid eats away the limestone. It starts dripping the
13:17
Speaker 1: calcite mineral from rainwater. Yeah, it's just kind of trickling
13:21
Speaker 1: in and just centuries. Yeah. And as it is, it's
13:24
Speaker 1: depositing that calcite, right, yeah. So it drips down from
13:26
Speaker 1: the top, so it forms and then it will you know,
13:29
Speaker 1: not drip up, but collect and form up from the bottom.
13:33
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll meet and form a column, which is really cool.
13:36
Speaker 1: But these things grow at a rate of a quarter
13:38
Speaker 1: inch to an inch per century. Wow, So you can't
13:42
Speaker 1: sit around and watch a stalactite form. That's basically the rule.
13:46
Speaker 1: So the rainwater comes down and drips down, and whatever
13:51
Speaker 1: deposits are at the top going down is a stalac tight,
13:56
Speaker 1: that's right. And it drifts down onto the ground and
13:58
Speaker 1: builds a formation that grows up towards the top. Yes,
14:01
Speaker 1: that's a stalag might and that's why you usually find
14:05
Speaker 1: them together. And the last scene is actually the Greek
14:11
Speaker 1: derivative and means to drip. Really, So there you have it.
14:16
Speaker 1: And uh, they did mention I look these up because
14:18
Speaker 1: I've never seen them other uh speliotherms like fried eggs
14:22
Speaker 1: and bacon. Did you look these up? It's pretty neat.
14:25
Speaker 1: It looks like a fried egg. It's the formation. Yeah,
14:29
Speaker 1: it looks like a you know, it's it's large and
14:31
Speaker 1: round and has a center that's very round as well.
14:34
Speaker 1: And then the bacon stuff, it looks like bacon strips.
14:37
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, these little strip like formations that
14:40
Speaker 1: have different colored patterns that look like, you know, the
14:43
Speaker 1: fatty part of the bacon and the meaty part, and
14:46
Speaker 1: it looks like fried eggs and bacon. So I feel
14:47
Speaker 1: like I saw the Friday egg one before. Yeah, you
14:49
Speaker 1: probably have. When I saw it, I was like, oh,
14:51
Speaker 1: that's what that is, Oh, Frida eggs and bacon. I
14:55
Speaker 1: had to see it because the the the name wasn't
14:59
Speaker 1: descriptive enough. Yeah, and that's just this just proves that
15:01
Speaker 1: speleologists are fun loving people, right m hm. So while
15:33
Speaker 1: you're in the cave, you're probably going to run into
15:37
Speaker 1: certain kinds of animals, and as speleologists love to do,
15:40
Speaker 1: they've classified these things in the categories, right. Yeah, we
15:43
Speaker 1: talked about these in Biospeleology Creepy cave dwelling things. Yeah.
15:47
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard that UM episode, go check it out.
15:50
Speaker 1: It's all about caves and the stuff living in caves.
15:52
Speaker 1: It's really cool. UM. But the truck lizines, those are
15:57
Speaker 1: temporary visitors like a bear maybe hibernating and a cave.
16:00
Speaker 1: It's they live most of their life outside of the
16:02
Speaker 1: cave and coming for shelter food or like that. Then
16:06
Speaker 1: there's a trougle of files that means they love the
16:08
Speaker 1: trog they do. They spend most of their life there,
16:13
Speaker 1: but they will come out some for food. Yeah, but
16:17
Speaker 1: they spend most of their lives in the cave right. Yeah,
16:18
Speaker 1: Salamander's crickets uh daddy along legs and other spiders love them.
16:24
Speaker 1: And then there's the trougle of bites. Yeah, those are
16:28
Speaker 1: ones who live their entire lives within the dark zone
16:31
Speaker 1: of the cave and usually they don't have eyes, and
16:34
Speaker 1: apparently without exception, they're all blind, like the Prometheus salamander. Yeah,
16:39
Speaker 1: I remember that thing, the Ozark blind salamander. The tooth
16:43
Speaker 1: Cave spider, which isn't as creepy looking as it sounds.
16:47
Speaker 1: I expected to see, like, you know, some something out
16:50
Speaker 1: of a like B movie, but it was just a
16:52
Speaker 1: little skinny spider. But if you name something the tooth
16:55
Speaker 1: Cave spider, you'd expect some like really scary looking thing, yeah,
16:58
Speaker 1: or something with glasses in huge buck teeth. Yeah. Uh,
17:02
Speaker 1: same with the tooth cave beetle. And then and they're
17:05
Speaker 1: also blind fish and shrimp and all manner of little white,
17:09
Speaker 1: creepy creatures. They lack pigment because they don't need it,
17:13
Speaker 1: like screw pigment. What do we need that for? Um?
17:16
Speaker 1: And then I this kind of stuck out to me,
17:18
Speaker 1: the idea that it's always the average annual temperature of
17:23
Speaker 1: the surface above a cave within the cave. So if
17:26
Speaker 1: it's the average temperature over the course of an entire
17:29
Speaker 1: year in the spot above a cave is sixty degrees,
17:32
Speaker 1: it's always sixty five degrees in the cave. Not true.
17:35
Speaker 1: Oh that's not true. No, So this this the the
17:38
Speaker 1: temperature is in a cave are very very stable. Um.
17:42
Speaker 1: But you know, depending on how how deep it is.
17:45
Speaker 1: Closer you get to the center of the earth, the
17:47
Speaker 1: warmer it gets. So that has an effect. And just
17:50
Speaker 1: like above ground with the sun warming, UM, the surface
17:55
Speaker 1: differently causes weather, different amounts of heat in inside a cave,
18:01
Speaker 1: cause what we wouldn't recognize is weather but actual weather itself.
18:05
Speaker 1: So is this wrong? Yes, the way it stated, it's
18:09
Speaker 1: always the average annual temperature. Yeah, but generally it is. Yeah,
18:13
Speaker 1: it's usually very stable and it's very close to that.
18:16
Speaker 1: But we're finding now that there is actual weather that
18:19
Speaker 1: happens in a cave, just like there we found out
18:21
Speaker 1: there's seasons on the bottom of the sea floor like that.
18:24
Speaker 1: It seems like the same thing to us, but there's
18:26
Speaker 1: actually like seasons and changes that we don't We didn't
18:29
Speaker 1: recognize because you don't think of it that way. Uh, caves,
18:34
Speaker 1: um sometimes can be dry and dusty. I guess it
18:38
Speaker 1: all depends on where you are in the country. Um,
18:40
Speaker 1: the one I went to, and like many caves are
18:43
Speaker 1: wet and muddy, and I was not expecting that. I
18:46
Speaker 1: was not expecting a lot of what I encountered. Actually, really,
18:49
Speaker 1: you weren't. Were you prepared for a wet money? Oh yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: I mean they told me what to wear and we'll
18:53
Speaker 1: get into all that stuff. But um, I just I
18:56
Speaker 1: don't know. I thought it was gonna be walking into
18:58
Speaker 1: a thing and then walking around, sort of like the
19:02
Speaker 1: kid caves that you can take the whole family too.
19:05
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, it wasn't like that at all. It
19:07
Speaker 1: was being dropped into a muddy, wet, cold hell yeah,
19:11
Speaker 1: And you looked like it too, man afterwards, like you
19:14
Speaker 1: were really glad to be top side again. It was
19:17
Speaker 1: weird coming out, I'll say that. So why did you go?
19:21
Speaker 1: Why would anybody go? What's the allure of caving? Uh?
19:24
Speaker 1: The unknown? In the thrill of discovery? Yes, well it's
19:28
Speaker 1: true though, that's what the article says. But I don't
19:30
Speaker 1: mean to be glib. It is very cool and way
19:33
Speaker 1: different down there, Like you get a sense that it is.
19:37
Speaker 1: It is not the same top side as it is
19:40
Speaker 1: in the bowels of the earth. Very different place and
19:43
Speaker 1: very cool to experience. Yeah, firsthand. And as we mentioned,
19:46
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good opportunity for cave archaeology because
19:49
Speaker 1: the climate and temperature in a cave is so stable.
19:53
Speaker 1: Things are things left in caves are really really well preserved. Yeah,
19:57
Speaker 1: and you know they're the caves were a good place
19:59
Speaker 1: for ancient rituals and things. And um, they mentioned that
20:03
Speaker 1: the cave art in France. Yeah, let's have you seen
20:07
Speaker 1: this stuff? Holy cal It's like it looks like artwork
20:14
Speaker 1: painted on canvas, some of it does. It's not like,
20:17
Speaker 1: you know, just scratchy cave drawings. Like this stuff is
20:20
Speaker 1: really beautiful and uh, they found this um in nineteen
20:25
Speaker 1: forty they discovered this in France from the Paleolithic era,
20:29
Speaker 1: seventeen and twenty years old and over two thousand figures drawn.
20:35
Speaker 1: And it's like, from what I understand, like the granddaddy
20:37
Speaker 1: of all cave drawing scores was here in France. Here
20:42
Speaker 1: in France, there in France. Well there's also another one
20:44
Speaker 1: called Chauves Cave in France and that's what um Waren
20:48
Speaker 1: or Herzog's Cave of Forgotten dreams is that you didn't,
20:53
Speaker 1: I'll watch anything that he's in the or narrates at nting.
20:57
Speaker 1: He's a bad guy and is it the new Bond? Now?
21:01
Speaker 1: Is that right? Now? He's a bad guy in some
21:03
Speaker 1: movie coming up? And I was like, oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, like,
21:06
Speaker 1: no one sounds more diabolical than fronts All. Yeah, it's perfect.
21:09
Speaker 1: Um but yeah, no, that's that's a good one too.
21:11
Speaker 1: And I think they shot it in three D as well.
21:13
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be like really good. Um, but yeah,
21:16
Speaker 1: check that one out. It's it's very interesting because they
21:19
Speaker 1: figure out that, Um, they're like, why why would these
21:23
Speaker 1: idiots draw bison with eight legs? Was there an eight
21:25
Speaker 1: legged bison? Back then, and then somebody figured out that
21:28
Speaker 1: if you look at it by by torchlight, not electric
21:32
Speaker 1: torch but real fire torches, it move. It moves. Oh
21:35
Speaker 1: my god, that is so cool. Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
21:39
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I highly recommend you guys go and google
21:41
Speaker 1: image these um l A S C A U X
21:45
Speaker 1: France and it's all over the place. And what was
21:48
Speaker 1: the other one chauves h u v e T. Yeah,
21:51
Speaker 1: very cool stuff. And cek have Forgotten Dreams if you're
21:53
Speaker 1: into that. I mean, it's a lot of cattle drawings, granted,
21:57
Speaker 1: but um, you know, it's better than you would think.
22:01
Speaker 1: You're right considering they're doing this on a cave twenty
22:04
Speaker 1: years ago. Exactly right. Uh. There's also bio speleology, which
22:08
Speaker 1: we talked about at length and we don't need to
22:11
Speaker 1: really get into here again. Go listen to the biospeleology episode.
22:15
Speaker 1: But that's another reason people go through caves. But ultimately,
22:18
Speaker 1: I think like the first sentence was the right one.
22:19
Speaker 1: It's like the thrill of discovery and unknown. Yeah, there's
22:23
Speaker 1: so few people doing any actual caving and enough caves
22:26
Speaker 1: out there that like you've got a pretty good shot
22:29
Speaker 1: of finding something that no one else has seen for
22:32
Speaker 1: ten thousand years or maybe ever. Yeah, you know that's
22:36
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Uh. And cavers to um, part of being
22:39
Speaker 1: a a caver or a speleologist is being into conservation
22:44
Speaker 1: and preservation. And that's one thing I learned from my
22:47
Speaker 1: buddy Eric and his friend there. They were like casual
22:52
Speaker 1: speed lunkers that were in there, clearly didn't know what
22:55
Speaker 1: they were doing, weren't dressed for it, didn't have the
22:58
Speaker 1: proper equipment. And of course these eyes are just like
23:00
Speaker 1: these are the people that get us in trouble or
23:03
Speaker 1: that get in trouble that we need to come help
23:05
Speaker 1: get out of trouble. Uh. But I think serious cavers
23:09
Speaker 1: are uniformly way into the preserving the cave. Like they
23:15
Speaker 1: don't just go and cave and like, yeah, that was cool.
23:17
Speaker 1: Like they're all into the meetings and the preservation. A
23:20
Speaker 1: lot of them do the volunteer for search and rescue
23:23
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Like they really get into it. Yeah,
23:25
Speaker 1: it's not a casual affair, no, And I that that
23:28
Speaker 1: that idea actually extends to um urban spelunking or urban exploration. Yeah.
23:34
Speaker 1: Um yeah, where you um you enter something like a
23:38
Speaker 1: sewer system or an abandoned building or something like that.
23:42
Speaker 1: But you're one of the big rules is like you
23:44
Speaker 1: can't break an enter. You can enter somebody else has
23:47
Speaker 1: already like cut a hole in the chain link fence.
23:48
Speaker 1: You can go through that hole. You can't cut that
23:51
Speaker 1: hole yourself, and you don't take anything. You you preserve
23:55
Speaker 1: the places exactly the way it was. And we actually
23:57
Speaker 1: have I think, what's a new article on the site
24:00
Speaker 1: that's awesome ten top ten cities for urban Exploration. It's
24:05
Speaker 1: like got all these attractions of like where to go
24:08
Speaker 1: in this city and like to explore. It's very cool. Well,
24:10
Speaker 1: Francis the catacombs, I know, we're really popular. Yeah. Um,
24:14
Speaker 1: and I did a little bit of that in Florida
24:15
Speaker 1: in um Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Oh, the Fort Pickens Catacombs. Well,
24:20
Speaker 1: the Fort Pickens battery. It was like you know Civil
24:23
Speaker 1: War battery. Yeah, yeah, and um, I think it's all
24:26
Speaker 1: blocked off now, but at the time, like the metal
24:29
Speaker 1: bars were bent enough where you could get through, and
24:31
Speaker 1: me and my brother and my brother in law like
24:32
Speaker 1: mad torches and like went all through the stuff, you know,
24:36
Speaker 1: stuff written on the walls like from the Civil War
24:38
Speaker 1: and then stuff written on the walls clearly more modern,
24:42
Speaker 1: uh in nature, right, but just graffiti and stuff and
24:46
Speaker 1: beer cans. But it was just neat walking around. That's cool. Um,
24:50
Speaker 1: what else, Chuck? How do you get started? Yeah? I
24:54
Speaker 1: guess if this podcast tickles your fancy, then you may
24:58
Speaker 1: want to know how to get into this. Yeah. A
25:01
Speaker 1: lot of people might be into the very easy, guided,
25:05
Speaker 1: you walk in and you walk around type of experience. Right,
25:08
Speaker 1: take the kids. There's nothing wrong with it. You can
25:11
Speaker 1: still learn a lot, you know. It's not a cop
25:14
Speaker 1: out like Carl's bad caverns and like the real touristy ones.
25:16
Speaker 1: They're great. Yeah. Have you ever been there? I haven't
25:19
Speaker 1: been there. I've been to Ruby Falls, you mean, and
25:21
Speaker 1: I went Ruby Falls is nice? It was, yeah, and
25:24
Speaker 1: there was plenty of people running around. Was very well
25:27
Speaker 1: lit yeah, um safe yeah. And then but it was
25:30
Speaker 1: so awesome getting to the falls. Yeah yeah, I mean,
25:33
Speaker 1: like it was great. It was total. I think part
25:35
Speaker 1: of the reason I appreciated it so much because I
25:37
Speaker 1: took it for what it was. It was like this,
25:40
Speaker 1: this is tourism, you know. Yeah, but it's also very cool. Yeah.
25:44
Speaker 1: I mean you're walking underneath a fault line in the earth. Yeah,
25:47
Speaker 1: it's really kind of you can sell t shirts afterwards,
25:50
Speaker 1: but it's still very cool to be in there. Um,
25:53
Speaker 1: So you can do that. You can go to these
25:55
Speaker 1: like really big touristy ones and still get a nice experience,
25:58
Speaker 1: or you can get a guided tour for you know
26:03
Speaker 1: a little more um intense experience. Have you been in
26:06
Speaker 1: Carl's Bag caberin Yeah, okay, Yeah, it's nice, it's lovely.
26:10
Speaker 1: It's like red carpet everywhere. Yes, couches everything. Um. But
26:16
Speaker 1: they do mention in this article that kids are great
26:18
Speaker 1: to take into caves. They love that kind of stuff.
26:20
Speaker 1: Obviously you want to keep an eye on them because
26:22
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to get lost in there. Yeah. But
26:25
Speaker 1: at these at these big major attractions, they they take
26:28
Speaker 1: care of you, you know, right, They're not gonna let
26:30
Speaker 1: your kid go off and live with the salamanders. Yeah,
26:32
Speaker 1: and you've got a guide for the guided tour, but
26:35
Speaker 1: even the self guided tours are it's usually like paved
26:39
Speaker 1: or clearly marked trail, like you're you're gonna have a
26:42
Speaker 1: lot of trouble getting lost if you get off of
26:44
Speaker 1: this trail, um or if you stay on the trail,
26:47
Speaker 1: I should say. Yeah, I went to a concert in
26:49
Speaker 1: a cave one time. Yeah, and Tennessee. They man, what's
26:53
Speaker 1: the name of It's something caverns and I can't remember now,
26:56
Speaker 1: but it was The Silver Juice played their last show
26:59
Speaker 1: ever in this cave and they have regular shows. They're
27:03
Speaker 1: like usually it's like bluegrass and stuff, but it's awesome.
27:06
Speaker 1: Like you you know, you park in this big field
27:08
Speaker 1: and then it's one of these where you walk into
27:09
Speaker 1: a huge opening and there's big paths, but you know,
27:12
Speaker 1: you walk like probably half a mile down in there,
27:14
Speaker 1: and then it opens up to this huge open room
27:19
Speaker 1: and there's a stage and there's lights and everything. That's cool,
27:22
Speaker 1: really cool experience. I wonder what the green rooms like there.
27:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's probably brown. Right, just sit on
27:30
Speaker 1: that rock. I won't bring you some shrimp. Yeah, it
27:32
Speaker 1: was really very cool show. Though I might post pictures
27:34
Speaker 1: of that too. Well, it's gonna be a picture of bananda. Um.
27:39
Speaker 1: Then there's cave diving. Yes, probably the most dangerous thing
27:43
Speaker 1: my person can do. Yeah, we can't overstate that enough.
27:47
Speaker 1: Like even these caver dudes that I was with that
27:49
Speaker 1: are hardcore, they were like those people are crazy. Yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: And if you're a hardcore scuba diver, even a wreck diver,
27:56
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you're a cave diver. Cave diver is
27:59
Speaker 1: its own thing. Yeah, and like it's it's very easy
28:03
Speaker 1: to die. In two thou twelve. Seven people already died
28:06
Speaker 1: in a cave diving in two thousand twelve. Now, wow,
28:09
Speaker 1: three of them in three different days, three consecutive days
28:13
Speaker 1: in Florida, in three different incidents. Yeah, in March. Yeah,
28:16
Speaker 1: it's scary. And asked Eric. I was like, well, why
28:18
Speaker 1: you know, what's the big deal, And he was like, dude,
28:20
Speaker 1: you're just you've got to be crazy to do it.
28:22
Speaker 1: And he's like, you are underground, underwater, and it's very
28:27
Speaker 1: easy to get lost and turned around, and you've only
28:29
Speaker 1: got so much air. They say that to never like
28:34
Speaker 1: to try and exit with half a tank of air
28:37
Speaker 1: still or whatever. It was not air, what is it?
28:40
Speaker 1: It's compressed compressed, there's like an air mix, but it's
28:43
Speaker 1: generally air. Yeah, but they're like, you don't want to
28:45
Speaker 1: go below half a tank ever, that's just scary. And um.
28:50
Speaker 1: He took me after we went caving, he took me
28:52
Speaker 1: to the entry point for the cave diving nearby, and
28:55
Speaker 1: it's this little probably you know, ten ft by ten
28:59
Speaker 1: foot whole, you know, a little pool, but it's like
29:03
Speaker 1: infinitely deep and it's like wow. So you can jump
29:06
Speaker 1: in and just sort of waddle around, or there's below
29:09
Speaker 1: that there's the tube where you enter, and it just
29:12
Speaker 1: seemed like the scariest thing ever, right with a tank
29:15
Speaker 1: of air on your back that could be punctured by anything,
29:18
Speaker 1: because it's not like there's not stalactites hanging down. Utterly
29:23
Speaker 1: frightening to me. Um that said, if you're in a
29:26
Speaker 1: cave diving, you go through the certification and you like
29:29
Speaker 1: are into that kind of thing. There's some awesome cave
29:32
Speaker 1: diving like senote Is any sinote Um. And there's a
29:37
Speaker 1: place in that I missed when we were talking about
29:39
Speaker 1: the Abandoned Minds podcast. There's a place called Bond Terror Mine, Missouri,
29:45
Speaker 1: and it's an old lead mine that was in production
29:49
Speaker 1: for like a hundred years and then they closed it
29:50
Speaker 1: down in nineteen sixty and they didn't remove anything. There's
29:54
Speaker 1: like magazines, all this stuff still sitting around, and they
29:57
Speaker 1: flooded it with like a billion gallons of crystal clear
30:00
Speaker 1: water really and you can go scuba dive, you can
30:04
Speaker 1: cave dive this abandoned mine now and see there's like
30:07
Speaker 1: an old movie theater down there. There's mind cars. Yeah,
30:12
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah, but it's like the
30:14
Speaker 1: visibility is just limitless. I wonder if that's slightly safer.
30:20
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty heavily guided as well as tours go.
30:23
Speaker 1: So if you're gonna start somewhere, that would probably be
30:26
Speaker 1: a good place. Okay, Yeah, I saw a couple of
30:29
Speaker 1: dudes come out of the hole. Um, and all the
30:32
Speaker 1: cavers know each other, it seems like because they knew
30:34
Speaker 1: these guys and they were like, oh yeah, it's good.
30:36
Speaker 1: You know, these guys are real nice, and then they
30:38
Speaker 1: turned around they're like they're nuts. These guys are crazy. Um. Oh,
30:44
Speaker 1: so all the cavers know each other because they're all
30:46
Speaker 1: members of grottos, right. Yeah. It definitely seems like a
30:49
Speaker 1: close knit community, like they're all on each other that
30:51
Speaker 1: have each other's contact info because you know, when someone
30:55
Speaker 1: gets lost, they send out you know, like who can
30:57
Speaker 1: come and help? Basically, who's free tomorrow to come and
31:00
Speaker 1: find these idiots tomorrow they're in trouble. If it's tomorrow.
31:05
Speaker 1: But well, a grotto is a caving club, right, and
31:08
Speaker 1: there are any legitimate caving club is sanctioned by the
31:11
Speaker 1: National Speleological Society, and there's about two d caving clubs
31:16
Speaker 1: or grottos in the US. Nice m hm. So if
31:47
Speaker 1: if you're a member of a grotto, if you're a caver,
31:49
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that you're gonna need.
31:51
Speaker 1: You're already into this, You're like, come on, let's go.
31:53
Speaker 1: What are we gonna do? What? What do I need
31:54
Speaker 1: to take with me? Well, you want to take three
31:56
Speaker 1: forms of light um, and plenty of backup batteries and
32:01
Speaker 1: take closed sticks, take the head lamps, take lighters, even
32:05
Speaker 1: though those will get wet. Um. You know, you can
32:09
Speaker 1: bag him in the dry bag, but take as many
32:10
Speaker 1: forms of light as you feel comfortable with. That's not
32:14
Speaker 1: less than three, and not only I took like four
32:17
Speaker 1: or five flights. That's smart. Yeah, I just and I
32:19
Speaker 1: knew I was going to be fine, but I was
32:20
Speaker 1: just like, you know what, I'm going into the depths
32:22
Speaker 1: of the earth. I want to have lots of light
32:24
Speaker 1: at my disposal, right, And you want to also have
32:26
Speaker 1: lots of batteries and extra bulbs for those lights, just
32:30
Speaker 1: because the light, your light is the number one most
32:33
Speaker 1: important thing when you're caving. That's the number one most
32:36
Speaker 1: important piece of equipment. Yeah, and my buddy Eric had
32:39
Speaker 1: a carbide lamp, which, um, you know, back in the
32:42
Speaker 1: day with like even car headlights and lights on the
32:46
Speaker 1: fronts of houses. Um, it wasn't always a gas lamp.
32:49
Speaker 1: Sometimes it was carbide and old school cavers used these things.
32:54
Speaker 1: And it's basically a chemical reaction. Um. It burns a
32:58
Speaker 1: seedylene gas and it's created from a reaction of calcium
33:02
Speaker 1: carbide with water. So he had this, uh, this pod
33:07
Speaker 1: that he carried on his belt that had carbide pellets
33:10
Speaker 1: in it and it would drip water down and create
33:13
Speaker 1: the gas and it fed it up through a tube
33:15
Speaker 1: connected to the you know, the the gas lamp that
33:18
Speaker 1: he's wearing on his head. And it was really cool.
33:21
Speaker 1: The other guy didn't have one, but Eric was used it,
33:23
Speaker 1: and um, the light that it gives is just really
33:28
Speaker 1: very illuminating. It's not like a you know how incandescent
33:31
Speaker 1: light is just so specific, even if it's like a
33:34
Speaker 1: broad range, it's not like having a flame. So this
33:38
Speaker 1: thing really warm, like warms up the cave and it
33:41
Speaker 1: does actually warm it, um slightly, but just generally with
33:45
Speaker 1: light warmth. It's just like the cave was illuminated, not
33:49
Speaker 1: like a flashlight shining on something very cool and um,
33:53
Speaker 1: very durable. Like if you take care of these things,
33:56
Speaker 1: they're a little finicky, but if you take care of him,
33:58
Speaker 1: you can have them like your whole life. Sounds kind
34:00
Speaker 1: of new fangled. Uh no, it's very old school, well
34:03
Speaker 1: old fangled. Yeah, it's old angled. And you just look cool.
34:06
Speaker 1: Eric looked like a cool guy with his tube running
34:08
Speaker 1: out of his head and flicking the little lighter switch.
34:11
Speaker 1: And do you look cooler than I did with my yeah,
34:16
Speaker 1: my glow stick. Um, so you need light, you need light,
34:20
Speaker 1: You need a helmet, and you want your helmet to
34:22
Speaker 1: be certified by the Union International Day Associations. Del peace me. Yes,
34:30
Speaker 1: Jerry just laughed at you want a helmet, you want
34:34
Speaker 1: like and this is if you if you want to
34:36
Speaker 1: do it right like and safely. We we saw morons
34:40
Speaker 1: and tank tops and shorts walking around and crawling around
34:44
Speaker 1: and you know these guys are just rolling their eyes,
34:46
Speaker 1: are like those are the people that get hurt and
34:48
Speaker 1: get lost. Um, we had kneepads and elbow pads, helmets. Um.
34:54
Speaker 1: As far as safety gear, that was pretty much it,
34:56
Speaker 1: and that they had like rope and stuff just in case. Um,
35:00
Speaker 1: and you want to dress appropriately avoid cotton, Well, if
35:05
Speaker 1: you are wearing cotton, you want to wear under layers
35:08
Speaker 1: of synthetics. Yes, snags less easily, they dry more quickly. Yeah. Yeah,
35:13
Speaker 1: I would imagine you just want to avoid cotton altogether
35:15
Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah. I were one of those like, uh,
35:18
Speaker 1: synthetic wicking shirts, you know, the workout shirts. Yeah. Um,
35:23
Speaker 1: but you do you want to dress in layers because
35:25
Speaker 1: it's cold in there. Yeah, but you know you you
35:27
Speaker 1: may raise your heart right here there and you may
35:30
Speaker 1: get a little warm. That definitely makes my heart right. Um,
35:35
Speaker 1: you're gonna get wet most likely. Um. You can be
35:37
Speaker 1: in a dry, dusty cave, but chances are you going
35:39
Speaker 1: to get wet. Uh. There were times where we were
35:42
Speaker 1: up to our chest in a crevice about two ft wide,
35:46
Speaker 1: up to our chest and water and it's intimidating. It's
35:49
Speaker 1: like I am far away from anybody, and like what
35:53
Speaker 1: if this water rises? I mean it didn't, but you
35:56
Speaker 1: know what if it started raining. These things can happen
35:59
Speaker 1: pretty fast down there, and uh so. I mean we
36:02
Speaker 1: were literally soaked through the bone. It's like getting a
36:04
Speaker 1: swimming pool and then you get out and you're covered
36:07
Speaker 1: mud and you're supposed to climb things. That's like climbing
36:10
Speaker 1: a creased wall of stone. I'm like, am I supposed
36:14
Speaker 1: to really do this? And they were like pushing me
36:17
Speaker 1: by by butt. It was sort of embarrassing, like pulling me.
36:20
Speaker 1: It felt like a stuck pig at times. The only
36:22
Speaker 1: thing that made it better was the warm glow of
36:24
Speaker 1: the carbine lamp. And then they had the pancakes, you
36:28
Speaker 1: know where it's like, you know, as I'm surprised my
36:32
Speaker 1: body fit in this thing and you had to go
36:34
Speaker 1: like thirty ft across this pancake. What is it? Well,
36:38
Speaker 1: it's a it's where there's a top rock and a
36:40
Speaker 1: bottom rock. So basically you just there's like a foot
36:44
Speaker 1: of space to crawl through and you can't even crawl.
36:47
Speaker 1: You're like inching, you know, using your shoulder blades. I
36:51
Speaker 1: would have lost my You would not have liked this pancake.
36:55
Speaker 1: And that's when I remember thinking, boy, Josh would not
36:59
Speaker 1: have liked this part. Know it was uncomfortable for me.
37:02
Speaker 1: And I don't even have issues with like, you know,
37:05
Speaker 1: closed in spaces, but you feel like, what if the
37:08
Speaker 1: earth shifted it in this thing just smash me. Yeah,
37:12
Speaker 1: of course you're at that and ship like that, but
37:13
Speaker 1: I don't know it could. I'm down there, I'm freaking out. Yeah,
37:17
Speaker 1: and you made it though, but I don't want to
37:19
Speaker 1: spoil it. You survived. Uh, what else? You need? Food
37:24
Speaker 1: and water? You want enough to last your whole trip,
37:27
Speaker 1: and then some just in case, you know, like you
37:30
Speaker 1: want gloves, you want a first aid kit. Yeah, and
37:33
Speaker 1: here's my favorite part. So we were talking about how
37:36
Speaker 1: um like you do you just preserve the environment exactly
37:40
Speaker 1: as it was found. This also means that you're not
37:43
Speaker 1: allowed to poop there. You can poop there, but you're
37:46
Speaker 1: gonna poop into like a plastic container that you can
37:50
Speaker 1: carry out with you because you take your urine and
37:52
Speaker 1: your feces out of the cave with you. So you
37:55
Speaker 1: want a plastic bottle to p in two and a
37:58
Speaker 1: like a good crushed proof container to poop into. I
38:01
Speaker 1: did not poop. I wouldn't have pooped. I'd just be like, well,
38:03
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not pooping today. Yeah, and you know,
38:06
Speaker 1: I was only down there a few hours. So if
38:07
Speaker 1: you if if you can't hold your poop a few hours,
38:09
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't be caving that day. Man, just put
38:12
Speaker 1: it off, you know. Imagine getting sick down there, Oh
38:16
Speaker 1: like vomity, No, I'm not sure what you mean the
38:20
Speaker 1: other kind? Oh like poopy sick? Yeah, yeah, that would
38:23
Speaker 1: be awful. Um. If you have a cave map, which
38:29
Speaker 1: you should have, UM, bring a few copies, put them
38:33
Speaker 1: in zip blocks, hand them out to your friends that
38:35
Speaker 1: you're with, make sure everyone knows what's going on. And
38:39
Speaker 1: you also want to probably leave one at home with
38:41
Speaker 1: an X marks the spot of your route and um, well,
38:45
Speaker 1: at least it's a cave safety, doesn't it. Yeah, there's
38:49
Speaker 1: a lot of precautions you should be taking before you
38:51
Speaker 1: set out. Yeah, I know what you're doing. Do not
38:53
Speaker 1: take it lightly. It's not like a hike, um that
38:57
Speaker 1: you can go on, so it's it's definitely different. You
38:59
Speaker 1: should go with someone knows what they're doing. Um. At
39:01
Speaker 1: the very least, Uh, a couple of people would be
39:05
Speaker 1: even better. They say not to go in really large
39:07
Speaker 1: groups because you don't want it like you could leave
39:09
Speaker 1: someone behind easier, Like four to six people is a
39:13
Speaker 1: good number, and you want to put the slowest person
39:16
Speaker 1: at the front of the group. That would have been me.
39:18
Speaker 1: So everybody's kind of pushing them from behind sometimes literally. Uh.
39:23
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because you know that person
39:25
Speaker 1: doesn't get left behind. That makes the whole groups together.
39:30
Speaker 1: And if you're into um, passive aggressive peer pressure, that's great.
39:36
Speaker 1: That's a great situation for everybody. Yeah, you know, no,
39:40
Speaker 1: you're fine, That's what they kept saying to I know
39:43
Speaker 1: you're doing great, buddy, And I was like, no, I'm not.
39:46
Speaker 1: I know, I'm that guy. Um. You also, never ever
39:49
Speaker 1: want to go caving alone. I don't think there's a
39:53
Speaker 1: better sentence that's ever been spoken by anybody. Never go
39:56
Speaker 1: caving alone. That's a good idea. Um. If you do
40:00
Speaker 1: get lost, they say to stay put and that it's
40:04
Speaker 1: better to stay put instead of moving around because at
40:06
Speaker 1: least you're where you last were. You are where you
40:09
Speaker 1: last were, well, you're where you said you were going
40:13
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, at least roughly. If your light goes
40:16
Speaker 1: out in your alone, starts screaming at the top of
40:19
Speaker 1: your lungs until someone comes and gets you that's probably
40:22
Speaker 1: not a bad idea, but they say not to freak out.
40:24
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would definitely try and make a little noise,
40:26
Speaker 1: although you also don't want to attract the descent hail billies.
40:30
Speaker 1: Yeah whatever those were, they were they were mountain folk.
40:34
Speaker 1: You know what? That was a lot like a Lovecraft
40:37
Speaker 1: um story. I wasn't I can't remember the name of it,
40:41
Speaker 1: but it's, uh, there's a whole thing that tooks place
40:44
Speaker 1: in the Allegheny's maybe at Airondacks when somewhere up there, um,
40:49
Speaker 1: whereas this family that was like kind of mountain folk
40:54
Speaker 1: came to inbreed and eventually moved underground. It's one of
40:57
Speaker 1: his best ones. Man, he was. We should do a
41:00
Speaker 1: guest on him. Okay, what a twisted mind. Yeah, well
41:03
Speaker 1: we did the necronomic I remember, Yeah, but let's just
41:06
Speaker 1: do one in his life what made him tick? Let's
41:08
Speaker 1: do it. Um. Well, we're at it real quick, dude.
41:13
Speaker 1: I found a real legitimate physics paper or written by
41:17
Speaker 1: a legitimate physicist that explains how certain events in uh
41:23
Speaker 1: Lovecrafts the Call of Cthulhu can be explained away by
41:27
Speaker 1: quantum physics. Really. Yeah, it's specifically a gravitational lensing. Yeah,
41:33
Speaker 1: to explain what cthulhu is or know, like, what happened
41:36
Speaker 1: to this guy who went mad and described this crazy
41:39
Speaker 1: place that he went and stumbled upon in the South
41:42
Speaker 1: Pacific um and then came back and wrote about it.
41:46
Speaker 1: They were like, well, actually, wait a minute, what he's
41:48
Speaker 1: talking about is a quantum bubble. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
41:52
Speaker 1: That's like it's it gets like he works out math
41:56
Speaker 1: and formulas for explaining all this and that's but the
41:59
Speaker 1: rest of it is really interesting. Wow. Yeah, I can't
42:02
Speaker 1: remember what it's called, but probably look up the physics
42:04
Speaker 1: of the called Cathulia and I'm sure it'll bring it up.
42:07
Speaker 1: That's a good one. That's awesome. So what are some
42:11
Speaker 1: of the big problems you're gonna run into, chuck, aside
42:14
Speaker 1: from getting lost or running out of light. Hypothermia, right,
42:17
Speaker 1: always a concern when you're cold and wet. Um, like
42:21
Speaker 1: I said earlier, flooding of passages, which I was worried
42:24
Speaker 1: about the whole time. Um, slipping, falling. I was slipping
42:28
Speaker 1: all over the place. It's going to happen in these
42:30
Speaker 1: muddy caves, and you know, you just I just sort
42:33
Speaker 1: of slid and try not to pick my face up
42:36
Speaker 1: off the rock, but I definitely got bumps and bruises
42:40
Speaker 1: and I was really sore the next day. It was
42:43
Speaker 1: like mountain climbing, except under ground in the mountain was
42:48
Speaker 1: slick and muddy. That's basically kind of what it felt
42:50
Speaker 1: like rock climbing. It was not what I thought it
42:53
Speaker 1: was gonna be. Once again, I can't stress that enough.
42:57
Speaker 1: It's not a stroll a my bologna sandwich by and Am. Yeah.
43:02
Speaker 1: It was pretty bad, um, but super fun. And like
43:04
Speaker 1: I said, when you come out, man, that's so weird.
43:06
Speaker 1: Once you've been underground for that long, when you come
43:09
Speaker 1: out into the real world, everything is just like hypercolorful
43:12
Speaker 1: and bright and just weird, and it's like, man, there's
43:16
Speaker 1: a whole different world down there that most people don't
43:18
Speaker 1: know about. Nice, highly encourage it. Just be careful. Yeah,
43:22
Speaker 1: I think that's a good advice. Is there anything else
43:24
Speaker 1: in here? Um? Always make sure that several people above
43:27
Speaker 1: ground know where you went, know where you're going, no
43:30
Speaker 1: when you expect to be back. Um. And if somebody
43:33
Speaker 1: does get hurt, never leave that person alone. A couple
43:37
Speaker 1: of people have to stay with them. A couple of
43:39
Speaker 1: people have to go top side. The people who go
43:41
Speaker 1: top side need to leave some of their supplies and
43:43
Speaker 1: lightening stuff and water back with the people who are
43:46
Speaker 1: hanging out with the injured person. They need to know
43:49
Speaker 1: exactly where the injured person is so they can tell
43:53
Speaker 1: other people who can come get them out. Um. And uh.
43:57
Speaker 1: They also need to remember to take the car keys
43:59
Speaker 1: with them. Really kind of important. You don't want to
44:03
Speaker 1: get all the way out there and be like, can
44:05
Speaker 1: you imagine left the keys in there? Yeah, that would suck. Uh.
44:09
Speaker 1: And then like you said, if you ever get lost,
44:11
Speaker 1: you don't want to panic. You want to stay put.
44:14
Speaker 1: You want to uh rely on your plan, your backup plan,
44:17
Speaker 1: which was letting a bunch of people know that you
44:19
Speaker 1: were supposed to have been home two hours ago and
44:21
Speaker 1: you weren't. That's right. And there are thousands of caves
44:24
Speaker 1: in the US, um many of which are very explorable.
44:28
Speaker 1: Just do your research beforehand, go with someone that knows
44:31
Speaker 1: what they're doing. There are more extreme caves around the
44:33
Speaker 1: world that are very cool to look at. Ones that
44:36
Speaker 1: you actually can skydive into, or not scott dive, but
44:38
Speaker 1: base jump into. Boy that I can't imagine Skott having
44:42
Speaker 1: into one. I think I've seen, Um, I've seen video
44:46
Speaker 1: of people base jumping into this Satano de LESCo and
44:51
Speaker 1: yeah it was I think Planet Earth the Discovery Show
44:53
Speaker 1: had that. Okay, yeah that's where I saw it. It
44:55
Speaker 1: was it's way cool. And then like you talked about
44:58
Speaker 1: the note tast those are very cool too. UM, just
45:03
Speaker 1: be careful. Have we said that enough? I don't know.
45:07
Speaker 1: I don't think you can, because, like I said, once
45:09
Speaker 1: you get there, you realize they're just a bunch of
45:11
Speaker 1: dummies no matter what that are ill prepared locals that
45:15
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, I've been down here before. Well, if
45:18
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about caving, you can type
45:20
Speaker 1: in spelunking in the search bar at how stuff works
45:23
Speaker 1: dot com sp E l U n K, I n
45:27
Speaker 1: G and we'll bring up this article. UM and uh,
45:31
Speaker 1: I said spilanking, which means, of course it's time for
45:34
Speaker 1: a listener. Now, I'm gonna call this Pakistani pizza. We
45:40
Speaker 1: did a pizza podcast and we got lots and lots
45:43
Speaker 1: and lots of feedback on that. I knew that was
45:46
Speaker 1: going to be one of those very ubiquitous food that
45:49
Speaker 1: people love to talk about. UM. And this is from
45:52
Speaker 1: UM and I'm probably gonna put your name, sorry, buddy.
45:56
Speaker 1: Uh Nabi ha c ed okay, and he said that
46:01
Speaker 1: he listened to the Pizza Cast and thought he would
46:03
Speaker 1: drop some four one one on pizza in Pakistan. He's
46:07
Speaker 1: originally from Orlando, but it currently lives in Karachi for university.
46:12
Speaker 1: And he said here, when you order a pizza, you
46:14
Speaker 1: don't really order toppings, but you order a specific flavor.
46:18
Speaker 1: Um although if you're at a pizza place you can
46:20
Speaker 1: order specific toppings and build your on pizza. His Pizza
46:23
Speaker 1: Hut calls it, though they are a little less cooperative
46:26
Speaker 1: when you order for delivery, apparently in Pakistan, so he said,
46:29
Speaker 1: your pizza will most likely have some form of chicken
46:31
Speaker 1: on it, and then of course there's no ham because
46:34
Speaker 1: it's a Muslim country. Pizza Hut alone serves chicken Tica,
46:39
Speaker 1: Chicken Cary, chicken Fajita Bhari, chicken f caan Tica, and
46:44
Speaker 1: the spicier fajita Sicilian Asabella as vell, as well as
46:49
Speaker 1: the veggie shwarma pepperoni and a couple of other different
46:52
Speaker 1: beat Flavorsizza in Pakistan here's the kicker for me, guys.
46:59
Speaker 1: Not only do they offer their usual stuff crust with
47:01
Speaker 1: the rope of cheese. They also serve beefy Uh seek
47:05
Speaker 1: kebab stuff crust. Yes, wow, Papa Johns, wait, I want
47:11
Speaker 1: to just make sure you understands what you just said.
47:14
Speaker 1: He said that they offer a a pizza with a
47:18
Speaker 1: crust stuffed with kebab with beef kebab. That sounds delightful,
47:23
Speaker 1: it does, um. Papa John's uh offers some more traditional
47:28
Speaker 1: American pizza menu with their various pseudo Italian names including Chicken, Florentine,
47:33
Speaker 1: Um Dominoes. Flavors in Pakistan are a little more mainstream American,
47:38
Speaker 1: while they do serve chicken Tika as well as something
47:41
Speaker 1: called Golden Feast or something to that effect, which as
47:46
Speaker 1: far as I know involves corn, pineapple, and probably chicken.
47:49
Speaker 1: Along with the corporate giants, there are plenty of local
47:51
Speaker 1: chains oddly generic sounding names, including Pizza Place, Pizza Point, Pizza,
47:56
Speaker 1: California Pizza, and the list goes on and on. Just pizza.
48:00
Speaker 1: It's it's a type of Unfortunately, my university and dorm
48:03
Speaker 1: are located on the outskirts of town, not in the
48:05
Speaker 1: ideal neighborhoods at these places usually don't deliver, but I
48:08
Speaker 1: suppose that's fine. I don't order pizza very much here
48:11
Speaker 1: as Pakistani pizza is kind of small and a bit
48:13
Speaker 1: too cakey and very super ready, but it fills you up, um,
48:18
Speaker 1: and you never leave hungry. I just had a fairly
48:20
Speaker 1: tasty contraption from pizza point around five hours ago for dinner.
48:26
Speaker 1: I can still feel it in my throat less and
48:29
Speaker 1: learn did not go to bed in the morning, sleep
48:32
Speaker 1: until the evening. Can order excess food anyways. Love the show, uh,
48:36
Speaker 1: and lots of love that is uh, Nabia, see it.
48:40
Speaker 1: That's a lot, and that's why. Yeah, that's that's why. Eat. Yeah,
48:44
Speaker 1: see it you just said, but maybe just said it's eat,
48:48
Speaker 1: but it's a eat. We'll find out to be all right. Yep,
48:52
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for writing you. Good luck with your study,
48:55
Speaker 1: um and the pizza. Yeah. If you're in a foreign
48:58
Speaker 1: land and you're listening to us and you have some
49:01
Speaker 1: four one one uh, as Nabiha pointed out, Nabiha, right, good. Uh.
49:08
Speaker 1: We want to hear from it you. Uh, we want
49:10
Speaker 1: to hear about it from you. You can tweet to
49:13
Speaker 1: us at s y s K podcast. You can join
49:16
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com. Slash stuff you Should Know,
49:19
Speaker 1: and you can send us an email to Stuff podcast
49:21
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should Know
49:27
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49:29
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49:31
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49:34
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H