diff --git a/core/views/prospect.py b/core/views/prospect.py
index 880c8d0..aaefc11 100644
--- a/core/views/prospect.py
+++ b/core/views/prospect.py
@@ -52,8 +52,22 @@ def prospecting(request):
     '''This produces the multipage 'prospecting guide' document,
     intended to be printed and carried into the field - in 1999.
     
-    All the formatting and selection clverness is in the template file.
+    All the formatting and selection cleverness is in the template file.
+    
+    This produces a vast number of bad 404 URLs as many URLs in the cave_data
+    XML files refer to other caves, assuming that they are in the same directory
+    as the prospecting guide. But since the introduction of the 1623/ level, this is
+    not true. e.g. 163 refers to 162 as href="../162.htm" which is valid in the cave
+    description page but not when navigating from the prospecting guide page.
+    
+    Since this vast number of broken links is getting in the way of finding real errors, the guide
+    has been disabled. 
     '''
+    message = f'This prospecting guide text report contains many broken URLs because of a major redesign\n' +\
+    ' to put caves into 1623/ and 1624/ folders in 2017. It was mostly useless because recent QM info was not in it anyway.\n\n' +\
+    'It is disabled in the python code in "prospecting(request):" in troggle/core/views/prospect.py'
+    return render(request,'errors/disabled.html', {'message': message})
+
     areas = []
     for key, name in AREANAMES:
         a = Area.objects.get(short_name = key) # assumes unique
diff --git a/templates/errors/disabled.html b/templates/errors/disabled.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e625dc5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/templates/errors/disabled.html
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+{% extends 'base.html' %}
+
+{% block title %}Troggle Disabled Page{% endblock %}
+{% block content %}
+
+<div class='middle'>
+	<h2>Troggle Page Disabled</h2>
+</div>
+
+    
+<div   class='middle3 login'>
+	<div class='space'></div>
+	<div class='align-center'>
+		<h3>DISABLED PAGE.</h3>
+        <h4>
+        
+        <font color="red">
+        {% if message %}
+        <pre>
+            {{message}}
+        </pre>
+        {% else %}
+            <p>This page is disabled. This is not an error. Consult a nerd to find out why.</p>
+        
+        {% endif %}
+        </font>
+        </h4>
+	<div class='space'><p>&nbsp;</div>
+        
+		<h3>What you should do now</h3>
+    <p>If you want to find out why, email the nerds at 
+        <a href="mailto:expo-tech@lists.wookware.org">expo-tech@lists.wookware.org</a> with this information:
+        <ol>
+        <li>The error message written in <font color="red">red</font> above.
+        <li>The previous page URL: <font color="red">
+<script type="text/javascript">
+    document.write(document.referrer);
+</script></font>
+        <li>Go back to this previous page <script type="text/javascript">
+        document.write("<a href='",document.referrer,"'>",document.referrer,"</a>");
+        </script>
+        and see if you can tell whether the bad page reference was in HTML text which had been written manually, or whether it appeared to be a programming error.
+        </ol>
+
+
+	</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+{% endblock %}
\ No newline at end of file