Lava tube! Laaavaaa tuuuuuuuube

[gement]

Washington State has one of the best publicly accessible lava tubes, Ape Cave.

I'm going! Along with J and corivax, who is kind enough to drive.

If you peruse the official site, you will note it suggests two light sources per person.

... I own one tiny flashlight.

While I should own more flashlights, I don't own flashlights and headlamps for everyone, and headlamps seem to run $20 each, which is a lot for something I won't use a lot.

Anyone Seattle-ish care to loan me some light sources?

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Hrm. There are only a few sections where the ceiling is low enough you could clonk your head, iirc, but it's not a terrible idea. The big fear I had doing the upper section was just a twisted/sprained/broken ankle, since you're climbing over piles of wet and slippery boulders most of the way. One wrong move and it would suddenly become a very bad day.

But I have 3 Attoparsec-branded hardhats, if you want to borrow them. :)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Within the confines of the largest single underground room in Colorado, I've hit my head so hard that even with a helmet I saw sparky things that weren't supposed to be there.
The lava tubes I've been in have been vastly friendlier than my usual speleological encounters, but, man, all it takes is one misjudged move.

And yeah, twisted ankles can be potentially deadly. Again, advantage lava tube, since EMT's can usually get in there and get you back out.

[ivy]

...now I am wondering if Seattle Mountain Rescue does caves too. Bet they do; they do all our high angle technical rope rescues, so it's probably similar. (That's way out of King County jurisdiction, but we get a bunch of cross-county assist calls since we're the biggest population center. Now I'm interested and will ask at next month's training!)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

There's a ton of specialized training stuff for subterranean rescue. I looked into doing this at one point. It seemed cool, but lots of work for rare utility.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I would be highly entertained to borrow your hardhats.

I work downtown business hours and bus everywhere. If we wanted to do an evening meal, Tuesday is free. Otherwise, a drive-by at my house or coffee date drop-off would work great.