Sean Kelly
Adventure Module 1 Report
Oct. 13, 2007
The exact
assignment was either a 10-page paper or a “media option.”
Media reports in the past have included paintings, music videos, and
other things which consume the same amount of time and thought of a
10-page paper. My original plan was to do just a webcomic, itself
an 8-hour investment, but the webcomic format doesn't quite
allow the text needed for the depth of assessment I wanted to
provide, and my art is not yet strong enough to convey the
experience on its own, so as a compromise I'm trying something that
could only happen at the intersection of art and technology: a
webcomic that can stand on its own with a linked set of more
detailed text annotations for interested parties.
I should note
for any ETC readers/graders that I generally keep to a policy of not
drawing real people other than myself. I'm bending this a little
for the tour guides in this comic since having named characters
makes for better storytelling, and readers may wish to seek out,
e.g., Jeremy as a river guide. Also, the guides are as unlikely to
read this as I am to see them again. Apart from them, I just want
to clear up that all other “extras” are from the purely
fictional cast of my regular comic. No offense, I just don't trust
myself to draw the wonderful real people I rafted and caved with in
a manner that wouldn't have them coming after me with pitchforks and
torches.
When the module was first presented to us, the name “Cheat River”
was tossed around, and the promotional pictures clearly showed
whitewater rafting. I was overjoyed to hear that we in fact had
four options and could completely avoid whitewater.
I'm not afraid of water or rafting or anything- I was a competitive
swimmer for over a decade and have gone on numerous whitewater trips
from rafting to canoe/kayaking- I've just never been a big fan of
the sport. When we were asked in mid September to commit to spending
half a day getting thoroughly soaked outdoors in the middle of
October, I was not about to bank on that being a fun experience. I
get hypothermic fairly easily, don't find water particularly
enchanting, and would not be learning much from the trip beyond the
local history of the river in question.
I was not at all
pleased when the last-minute announcement was made that everyone who
didn't choose whitewater would have to go rafting at the expense of
another activity. For one, it meant that I'd have to do whitewater,
which I wasn't thrilled about. More significantly, however, I saw
it as a suboptimal solution. I fully appreciate the work it took to
quickly rebook with another outfitter at the last minute, but if I
had been a naïve paying guest of an experience and there had
been a problem involving an activity I didn't sign up for, I would
expect that the people who did sign up for the compromised
activity would bear the brunt of the schedule change rather than the
people who didn't.
It was bright, sunny, pushing 70 degrees and fairly dry for the
whitewater portion of the day. In short, perfect weather for the
experience. If the weather had been the usual October 40s-50s and
gray, I can say with confidence that I would not have had fun. I've
already mentioned I get hypothermic reasonably quickly, and a few
people who got soaked on the trip stayed chilly, even in the
provided wetsuits, even in the weather we had. The novelty would
not have made up for the discomfort, and I would have been even more
put off at having been shunted into the activity against my will.
When you're in a guided raft in low- or mid-class rapids, all you
really provide is extra power. The guide is more than able to steer
the raft on his own and set up the best trajectories through rapids,
but being asked to paddle and steer the raft makes you as a guest
feel like you have far more of a contribution to the overall success
of the experience than you actually do or necessarily need to have.
In a worst-case scenario, the guide can simply exit the raft and
manhandle it around rocks- our guide let slip that guide training
and certification involves swimming down the entire course a guide
wants to be certified on, and whether by design or scheduling
necessity, doing so in about the worst weather a guide would ever
experience.
I had known on a passive level, from past experience, that
whitewater guides (and trail guides, and camp staff, and AT hut
crews, the list goes on...) commonly joked around and were good for
local history and fun stories. However, with senses tuned to the
entertainment value of the experience, I came to realize that guides
probably aren't fun by accident. It takes time, effort and practice
to be able to improvise such a performance while attending to all
the safety and control concerns that a guide is more officially paid
for, and the mark of a good guide in any experience is the
capacity to turn it into a show no matter what dangers are
inherently involved.
The outfitters we rafted with, Ohiopyle
Trading Post, apparently distinguish themselves from other local
companies by focusing on smaller groups so they can make sure each
raft gets its own guide as often as possible. They also let you
request guides by name when you book a trip so you can ensure the
quality level you had one time is the same when you come back.
Tech note: Apparently incandescent bulbs work better for caving
than LEDs. I would not have believed this except that I saw
firsthand another odd cave phenomenon our guide talked about-
batteries die in caves faster than in “normal” conditions-
sometimes without even being used. Being an electrical engineer by
undergraduate education, I took a look at our caving headlamps and
convinced myself that they were pretty hard to mess up, and yet my
own light dimmed and ultimately died twice in the cave. When our
guide took it to replace its batteries, I saw him try 2 full sets of
4 batteries each from a newly opened package, each of which ended up
no better than the ones previously in the light. A third set
finally gave a marked improvement. My best guess is that a fine
layer of condensation forms on the batteries from the cool, humid
cave air, shorting their terminals and causing them to leak power
even when disconnected. This still doesn't explain how freshly
freshly opened boxes of batteries can contain duds when used
in cave lamps in caves. I'd be curious what better explanations a
group of more analog voltage-current signals&systems-oriented
electrical engineers, or better yet, battery/light manufacturers
could come up with if I ever got them down into a cave...
Helmets and lights make caving a much safer experience. Our guide
frequently referred to 2-hour trips which turned into 24-hour trips
because everybody's light died, or else someone got hurt in the cave
due to not following proper safety precautions. Our guide
recommended always carrying a chemical light stick, food and water,
among other things, and wearing solid shoes and thick pants.
However, unlike in rafting and climbing, the caving technology does
not per se enable the experience. The caves we explored were
apparently known for harboring fugitives during the Civil War and
distilleries during prohibition. Apparently caves can be
productively explored without all our modern safety equipment, I
simply would not recommend doing so given the choice.
Just a note here: I am pushing 6' tall and have been hovering
between 115 and 120 pounds for at least the past 5 years. I can fit
through some pretty tight spaces, even if I'm not exactly
comfortable when I don't have room to move. We were taken through
one hole in the cave which was not much wider than my shoulders and
not much taller than our helmets. I could fit through, even if I
didn't enjoy it. The “low path” the guide directed me to lead
people out at the end of the day, however, ended in a big slab of
sandstone with, I would estimate, 10” of clearance on the left and
less underneath. Prior to this obstruction, the tunnel was maybe 2'
wide, tapering upwards to a useful height of maybe 3'. I felt a
little ashamed at having to call back and say I couldn't make it out
and would prefer to take the secondary passage we'd been led in
through, but I honestly could not see fitting around the stone slab,
and I remembered the “high” passage we came in through as being
much more spacious. When I learned that the “low” passage had
collapsed at one point, I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that I
wasn't “wimping out,” imagining things and succumbing to mild
claustrophobia or concerned that part of this “safe” cave we had
been touring had collapsed recently. In retrospect, I should
probably go with concerned. If at any point a tunnel which the
guide had been planning on using had collapsed and there wasn't
an alternative, we would have had to backtrack over terrain- muddy
slopes, steep jagged climbs, chasm crossings and the like- which was
only remotely safe to cross in one direction. If any part of the
cave had collapsed while we were in it, matters could have
been worse still.
Our guide pointed out, and I strongly agree, that we went that day
into the sort of place very few people in the world ever venture.
We were exposed to things that only exist in the particular
ecosystem of “living” caves: bats, lichens, mineral deposits,
even a strange tufted grassy blue-white algae that apparently
thrives on discarded bubblegum. Even if the cave tour wasn't “fun”
in the traditional sense, the experience and accomplishment of
having explored so far underground and come back out to talk about
it will stick with me better than a lot of more stereotypical
entertainment experiences.
Okay, that's a little tongue-in-cheek. I wasn't ever actually
planing to wear a kilt for rock climbing.
For one thing, I don't
yet have a Survival Utilikilt. My Workman's is a little bulky and
my Classic is already starting to wear out. But some day...