mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-12-18 14:32:23 +00:00
82 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
82 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<title>CUCC Expo Surveying Handbook: Rationale</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
|
|
<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expo Surveying Handbook</h2>
|
|
<h1>Why am I doing this?</h1>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Once upon a time, none of the caves were explored. Anything you found was
|
|
guaranteed virgin. Now, many of the obvious caves have been looked at. Some
|
|
went, some didn't. The fact that <strong>you can come to Austria and be pretty sure
|
|
of finding new passage to explore is all down to the folk who came before you
|
|
recording what they looked at</strong>, both the stuff that went, and the stuff that
|
|
didn't.
|
|
<p>Without detailed recording and surveying of the caves, it would
|
|
rapidly become more difficult to find new passage, or to be sure that round
|
|
the next corner wouldn't be a load of previous explorers' footprints.</p>
|
|
|
|
<a href="../computing/onlinesystems.html">
|
|
<img style="margin:10px auto 20px; display:block"
|
|
width=70% src="../computing/go-caving.jpg"></a>
|
|
|
|
<h3>Austria</h3>
|
|
<p>There is a more basic reason: if we do not produce surveys, we will <em>not be allowed</em> to
|
|
have an expo in Austria.
|
|
<p>The price of being allowed to do primary exploration in a foreign country
|
|
is that the national caving association and the local caving clubs require that we
|
|
survey the caves and share the survey data.
|
|
|
|
<h3>Expedition surveying</h3>
|
|
<p>The main aim of the expedition is to explore new passages - to boldly
|
|
explore what no-one has seen before. Indeed, in many cases, what noone even
|
|
suspected was there. This is the fun and excitement of expo, so why spoil it
|
|
all by doing tedious activities like surveying?</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>A lot of work is involved in maintaining the lists of caves that didn't
|
|
go, the lists of going leads, the cave surveys, the route descriptions and
|
|
other documentation. In the very earliest years, this work was not regarded
|
|
as a priority and we are still living with the problems which this created.
|
|
In the UK this work is done by a dedicated few souls with a long-term
|
|
commitment to the Loser plateau. To make their job easier, indeed, to make
|
|
their job possible, and thus to ensure that future expeditions have new
|
|
passage to find, those actually exploring the caves need also to survey them
|
|
and to record what they looked at in a variety of other ways.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Of course, its also rewarding to have a big survey or a cave photograph on
|
|
your wall and to be able to point to it and say "I found that !" Good
|
|
documentation is also essential to ensure that the club appears competant
|
|
when applying for Sports Council money and the like. Indirectly, surveying
|
|
makes your holiday cheaper.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><b>Surveying ethics</b>. <em>Survey what you find - don't leave it for
|
|
someone else</em>. For horizontal stuff, it is usually most effective to
|
|
survey into virgin passage. Don't run off finding loads of cave and then
|
|
survey back - this leads to long nights and eventually to poor or incomplete
|
|
surveys, and probably to missed call-outs. For vertical stuff, where rigging
|
|
is time consuming and you don't find too much in one go, surveying back is
|
|
probably warmer, but if you run out of time, energy, morale or lights, make
|
|
sure you go back and survey before derigging or pushing more!</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>One great advantage of doing the surveying yourself is that a surveying
|
|
party inevitably looks more closely at a passage than an exploration party.
|
|
This means you are quite likely to find new going leads as a result of doing
|
|
the survey. As evidence for this, at one time, the University of Leeds
|
|
Speleological Association found more passage in Yorkshire each year than most
|
|
other clubs put together. The reason - they had a program of systematically
|
|
resurveying known caves, and invariably found previously overlooked ways
|
|
on.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>Go back to the <a href="index.htm">Survey Guide introduction</a>
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<a href="what.htm">Next page - 'What is a cave survey ?'</a><br>
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|