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Where are the caves?
June 30, 2009 9:04 AM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

Are there any legal or ethical ramifications to revealing the locations of public caves?

Through much research and conversation, I have learned the location of several caves in my area. This information is generally kept private and off the Internet. I do not agree with many of the spelunking organizations that try to keep public cave locations from the public. I would like to create a page that maps caves and gives everyone directions on how and where to explore them.

Do I face any legal problems with publicizing these locations. If someone were to get hurt in a cave, can I be held liable? This is the only reason I can think of as to why a page like this does not exist already. Is there anything else that I might be forgetting?
posted by anonymous to sports, hobbies, & recreation (25 comments total)
Are you sure they're public - i.e. on public property with no restrictions about when you can visit them?
posted by restless_nomad at 9:11 AM on June 30


If someone were to get hurt in a cave, can I be held liable?

IANAL, but I doubt it. If you posted a list of lakes, and someone drowned in one of them, would you be liable?

Are you sure you understand the reasons that cavers (they hate to be called "spelunkers") prefer to keep the locations of caves quiet? I'm not involved in the sport, but I can think of at least three reasons off the top of my head:
posted by ixohoxi at 9:14 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]


can I be held liable? This is the only reason I can think of as to why a page like this does not exist already

A more likely reason it doesn't exist is because publicizing the caves would expose them to vandalism and exploitation, as well as attract inexperienced cavers who could damage them. Keeping them somewhat secret is a way to route interested parties through local caving groups and organizations which work to protect caves and other rare natural features while facilitating low-impact exploration.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 9:16 AM on June 30 [4 favorites]


Well ethically I think the reasoning behind keeping them a little more hidden goes like this... Opening up caves to where anyone who can Google can get to them can lead to

- increased traffic at the cave, which can lead to
-- accidents for inexperienced cavers or people without decent support
-- vandalism and/or destruction of cave features (many cave environments are fairly easily polluted and don't do well with lots of traffic, etc) and/or just littering and the like
-- awareness that there is a cave leading to closing of cave by authorities

To the best of my knowledge (which is not much) there is no legal liability, but you will be angering many people in spelunking organizations if the fact that you are publicizing the caves becomes common knowledge.
posted by jessamyn at 9:17 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]


I'd be more concerned about losing a favorite cave than about liability (but IANAL). Cave locations are kept quiet to protect the caves themselves. If you do this, do it slowly. Release information about one or two caves, and then go back and keep tabs on them. See how the increased traffic impacts the cave. Then decide whether it's the right thing to do.

Most caves are inherently fragile, in ways that are not always obvious to non-spelunkers. In general, publicizing the location of a cave will cause more people to enter the cave, which almost always will damage it. Publishing this information on the internet will attract more untrained people (and all too often, their empty beer bottles, trash, and pee). If the cave happens to be on (or under) private property, the additional attention will often cause the owner(s) to restrict access - as they get nervous about untrained people exploring under their property.

You will absolutely be irritating caving organizations and most spelunkers. They will stop showing you new locations.
posted by toxic at 9:21 AM on June 30


If you do this, do it slowly. Release information about one or two caves, and then go back and keep tabs on them. See how the increased traffic impacts the cave. Then decide whether it's the right thing to do.

I hope you do not follow this advice. There is nothing stopping people who are interested in caves from joining caving organizations, finding out where cool caves are, and going into caves. They will do this after they have learned how fragile that environment is, and will learn how to explore safely and without destroying features that took many hundreds of years to form. If you have ever seen a cave that has been well known for a few decades, after the crystals, stalactites, stalagmites, popcorn etc have been removed, you will realize why caving organizations aren't all that anxious to publicize. Offering up a few caves as a trial for your own learning experience is not a good way to do this.

I suggest asking a nearby caving organization to show you a cave that has been publicly accessed for a few decades. Then have them show you one with the pretties still intact.
posted by Killick at 9:55 AM on June 30


In addition to the reasons above - fragile nature of caves, people trespassing on private land, trash and graffiti - one of the reasons that cavers don't want any old person to go into caves is that when that person gets lost, stuck or injured (and they will), it's the experienced cavers who risk life and limb to rescue them. It's the cavers who know that particular system best who will do the rescuing, not the fire department.

Are you willing to add to the risks they already take? Are you willing to have no caver talk to you or take you caving again?

The reasons for keeping caves secret is not because it's an elite sport for elitists. There are serious potential physical risks to the cave, the inexperienced caver, and the experienced ones who do the rescuing. There's nothing to stop someone who wants to learn about caves from joining one of the existing organizations and learning about it safely.
posted by rtha at 10:32 AM on June 30 [2 favorites]


Another reason not to do this is white nose syndrome, which is practically wiping out cave dwelling bats in North America (since you're anonymous, I don't know where you are) . Bats are an important part of the ecosystem and are insect killing machines. They are intelligent and interesting creatures. 90% of the bats in New York state are gone.

Cavers themselves are voluntarily restricting their access to many caves because of this tragedy. When they are not doing so experienced cavers are taking extreme precautions. Opening up caves to the public will pretty much end that and screw the bats even more.
posted by xetere at 11:27 AM on June 30 [4 favorites]


It's dangerous to go alone, and not everyone who enters a cave can master using it or pay for the door repair charge. Therefore, caves have to be a secret to everybody.
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:36 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]


I think your ethical obligations are directly related to how comfortable you are with your favorite caves becoming a dumping ground for Natty Light cans and used condoms.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:46 AM on June 30


A few thoughtless, casual visitors can accidentally destroy formations that took millenia to develop

In addition to the problem of people accidentally destroying formations, there is the problem of people deliberately breaking formations either for fun or for souvenirs.

I notice that you've asked this anonymously. I guess you are aware that people would be upset with you if you did this, but you don't seem to understand why. Visit some caves whose locations have become well known and see the damage caused by parties and bonfires in caves. See the black ceiling. Put your hand in the broken glass on the floor. Smell the tang of old urine and feces where it never rains.

Do you understand now? No? Okay, now volunteer to clean up these areas. See how some of the damage is permanent. I hope, then, you will have found out what else you might be forgetting.
posted by yohko at 11:56 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]


Some researchers are attributing the bat die-off now epidemic in the Northeast US to human intrusion into the bats' caves.

Bats are among the major predators of obnoxious insects such as mosquitoes (not to mention mosquitoes role as vectors of emerging diseases like West Nile virus) as well as insects which destroy crops:

In Panama..."Uncovered control plants accessed by both bats and birds lost merely 4.3 percent of their leaf area to insect herbivores. When only birds were excluded, plants lost 7.2 percent of their leaf area," reported STRI. "When only bats were excluded, plants lost a striking 13.3 percent of their leaf area"

If I knew you and you did what you are planning, you would instantly become persona non grata with me, and I would also do my best to make you feel the toe as I gave you the boot.
posted by jamjam at 12:59 PM on June 30


I don't understand why safety, legal liability, or even environmental concerns would cause you to prevent the outflow of information here, and would urge you to disseminate what information you have to interested parties.

With more information, people can make better judgments on what to do and how to do it. Look at what yelp does for restaurants, tripadvisor does for vacation planning, or numerous other examples. It might be a good idea to include safety tips and other collective knowledge.

I have never gone caving (though I would like to someday) but have been on hiking trails which I would not have gone on in the past without an increase in patronage. Despite the ills of more foot traffic, there have been better signs, improved environmental oversight, better facilities along the way, and more information from others on what to expect.

Let's not prevent other people from enjoying the most beautiful parts of our world just because you are skeptical of their abilities & intentions. If anything, you could attract more people to the activity, and make it richer as a result. Good luck!
posted by gushn at 1:49 PM on June 30


gushn, the information is already out there on the interwebs. There is a huge amount of safety and cave etiquette information already freely available. Oddly enough, teenagers who find caves and light fires, drink, and damage structures don't seem to pay attention to that. What's not out there is information on how to find the cave. This is a good thing.

Caving is not like hiking. At all. If you go with an established club, you don't have to supply (all of) your own equipment, and you're taught the finer points of packing out waste, how to be safe, and what that particular cave is like, in detail.

Caves are a much more delicate environment than the vast majority of hiking trails. (And most hiking trails are on public land - or did you trespass when you went on those trails?) I've known cavers who only visit a particular cave once a year or less, to limit the damage that can be caused by people bringing in non-native flora and fauna, like the stuff that's causing white-nose syndrome in bats.
posted by rtha at 2:57 PM on June 30


With more information, people can make better judgments on what to do and how to do it. ... It might be a good idea to include safety tips and other collective knowledge.

Let's say for the sake of argument, that gushn is correct about 98% of all people who read your information and decide to visit the cave. They go, do minimal damage because they have read and absorbed all of the fabulous information you posted along with your directions. The other 2% break off formations to sell or keep, write graffiti on the cave walls, shit/piss in the cave, start campfires in the cave, use ropes inappropriately in the cave and damage cave surfaces, and all the other things that any caver can tell you _will_ happen. Maybe I am too cynical, and the actual fraction of people that don't damage the cave is 99.8%, and only 0.2% of visitors damage the cave. Then it will take ten times as long for the damage to be done. But it will be done. And you can feel bad, and email gushn about the results of your experiment to let him know what happened, but that won't change the damage that you have caused. And a lot of that damage cannot be undone.

This is not an academic exercise in how much trust to give others -- what you are proposing has real, predictable, and permanent consequences. Here for example is a description of what publicity did to Peppersauce Cave:

"Peppersauce Cave was a pristine underground habitat in Southern Arizona. The cave had large rooms and a mile of passage containing large, white formations, diverse biota, and clear, clean, permanent pools of water. The name Peppersauce is now synonymous with "sacrificial cave"-it has been trashed-massive graffiti, garbage, dirty water, no biota, and hordes of people.
The primary catalyst for the destruction was, and is, media publicity-media coverage leads to more media involvement, public curiosity, untutored visitation, and even vandalism. In February 1948, Desert Magazine published an article titled "Operation Underground" complete with high quality photos, adventure, and exact directions to the cave. The article included an excellent cave map and text about cave science ..."

Let's not prevent other people from enjoying the most beautiful parts of our world just because you are skeptical of their abilities & intentions. If anything, you could attract more people to the activity, and make it richer as a result. Good luck!
This is, of course, a crock of shit. Take a careful look at what this mindset has done for accessible coral reefs -- another case where damage cannot be undone. The world's coral reefs somehow are not richer as a result.

People who are going to make caving richer will take the time to contact a caving organization and learn about what they are doing from people who have done it. As rtha says above, cavers are not particularly elitist people -- they would love to talk your ear off about caves, show you everything they know, teach you about climbing in caves, equipment, and safety, and lead you to cool caves.

anonymous, just don't do this -- please.
posted by Killick at 3:33 PM on June 30 [1 favorite]


In the caving organizations I've been involved with, the local property owners have been very concerned about unauthorized access. In some cases we maintained locked covers over the entrences, and I heard stories about how they had been torn or blowtorched off. While your legal liability is speculative, that of the property owners isn't. I don't think a prudent property owner would have any choice but to close off a cave that had become a popular attraction.

Also, Gushn's analogy to hiking trails in not a good one. A better comparison would be publishing on the internet that you leave you house unlocked during the day so the public can come and appreciate your art collection.
posted by Hermes32 at 3:33 PM on June 30


Oh, and since I think it is reasonable to believe anyone publishing such a page is motivated not by altruism but rather by the prospect of some advertising dollars, I would be sure to organize a boycott of your local advertisers.

West Nile is devastating to many different bird species other than crows, so I might just be able to get the Audubon Society involved-- maybe even Google under their 'do no evil' rubric. Organic gardening groups would be a good bet too, I'd think, since the presence of local bats is so essential to being able to grow things without pesticides.
posted by jamjam at 4:22 PM on June 30


(And most hiking trails are on public land - or did you trespass when you went on those trails?)

rtha, I did not trespass, and I'm insulted that you'd even ask. Maybe next time you can make your argument without descending to personal attacks, thanks.

The world's coral reefs somehow are not richer as a result.

That environmental damage can be done by a minority of patrons is not an excuse to curtain it off altogether. If you believe otherwise, then why do we even have a natural park system which subjects our beautiful landscapes to recreational use at all? If we're talking about something in public land, then it's public land, and should be available to all citizens regardless of my or your judgments about the public's worthiness.

If you are concerned about environmental damage being done, I would urge you to contact the proper authorities; trying to keep things a secret is not the appropriate way to safeguard the environment.

(Of course this only applies to public land)
posted by gushn at 5:26 PM on June 30


It's not like the bar is set very high if you want to go caving as things are right now. All you have to do is hook up with cavers. The internet's full of 'em.

Caving is not walking in the park. Many of the world's loveliest coral reefs are off-limits to people who don't know how to SCUBA dive; you wouldn't just hand people the equipment and let them go off diving without any training just so they can experience natural beauty. You don't get to climb Denali without some training, equipment, and preparation. There's nothing wrong with having to put in some minimal effort to learn how to do something safely and well so you can really enjoy it.
posted by rtha at 7:40 PM on June 30


Everyone above said it best - in all my years of exploring caves, I never saw a single one unraped by the hands of assholes. Floors covered in broken soda straws, massive stalagtites laying broken & impotent, graffiti, and - over one mile into a cave, in an 18" high crawl, scads of broken beer bottles that we had to slide through on our backs & bellies.

I'd feel little remorse at leaving one of the vandals bodies behind, if (as in my fantasies) I ever caught them in the act. Bigoted hatred & desecration of natural spots - these two things get under my skin like nothing else, for some reason.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:09 PM on June 30


vandals'
posted by IAmBroom at 8:10 PM on June 30


That environmental damage can be done by a minority of patrons is not an excuse to curtain it off altogether. If you believe otherwise, then why do we even have a natural park system which subjects our beautiful landscapes to recreational use at all?

Because the fragility of caves vs parks is akin to that of Waterford crystal compared to plates from Bed Bath & Beyond.
posted by scalefree at 9:25 PM on June 30 [1 favorite]


To answer your actual question, I suspect there may be legal liability issues if the caves are on private property. As in, if you encourage people to trespass, the property owner may have issues with that. IANAL, but I'd be very, very wary. (I'd also sue the crap out of someone who posted my property as a great place to wander around, if it were at all possible, caves aside.)
posted by restless_nomad at 7:36 AM on July 1


Caving is not like hiking.

This cannot be overstated.

After I posted my initial reply, I was invited to go caving this morning (with a very experienced caver), so I did.

I'd been caving once before, but I'd never gone crawling-on-my-belly, too-tight-to-turn-around, deep-into-the-bowels-of-the-earth caving before this morning. It was a lot of fun. It was also borderline terrifying at moments, and I'm very, very glad I was with an experienced caver who knew this particular cave.

Caves aren't just holes in the ground; they're sprawling, tangled, intricate networks of passages that all look the same, and they will trick you and confuse you. On the way back out, I had to ask—more than once—which way to go. One or two wrong turns, and I would have been completely, utterly, hopelessly lost, in a narrow hollow of muddy rock eighty feet below the ground. I would have been lucky to get back out on my own.

And there are plenty of random schmucks who would have gone in there without notifying anyone, without a good flashlight, without extra batteries, and without any idea what they're getting into.

So, no—caving is not anything like hiking. It can be quite safe if you take the appropriate precautions, but it can be very, very dangerous if you don't.

If you publicize the locations of caves, there's a very real chance that you'll be contributing to someone's death. Sure, maybe they "deserve" it, but can you honestly say you never did anything foolish as a teenager?

And there's a 100% certainty that you'll be fucking up the cave. One of my companions pointed to a tiny calcite formation—no more than an inch long—and asked the caving expert in the group how long it had taken to form. He took a closer look and estimated that it was 600 to 1000 years old. There are plenty of people who would snap that off and put it in their pocket without a second thought.

There were a few instances of graffiti, but I'm sure it would have been far, far worse if more people knew about this place.

I generally agree with the "information wants to be free" thing, but this is one case where gatekeepers make sense. Please don't do what you're talking about doing.
posted by ixohoxi at 1:26 PM on July 3 [3 favorites]


Besides the danger to the caves, and loss of those areas to your own access and as natural areas, add the loss of your access to other caves as a possible consequence.

A day or two after this was posted, a mail was forwarded to a NE US group I'm on that because there were directions posted online to a cave, the manager of some area caves would not allow this group or its members access until the information was removed (in a way to enforce the above safety and habitat concerns; a self-policing, if you will). So, yeah. You could become really unpopular with other caving groups or cave managers or property owners.

Therefore, if the common-good arguments aren't enough to convince you, try the selfish one: you could lose access to other caves.
posted by whatzit at 7:05 PM on July 3


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