Reddit reviews Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Cave on Earth
We found 5 Reddit comments about Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Cave on Earth. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Used Book in Good Condition
This is a great question. There are all sorts of extreme technical challenges associated with spelunking. In many ways, spelunking deep caves is much more difficult than high peak mountaineering.
For one, the amount of equipment needed far exceeds that of mountaineering. A deep expedition will use specialized camping gear, food, lights, SCUBA re-breathers, suspension gear and literally miles of rope.
The spelunkers must go slowly as mistakes/injuries put the everyone in the expedition in danger. Think about how difficult it would be to have to haul a non-ambulatory person out from the bottom of a cave.
It's dark and cold. Spelunkers do not use their lights unless absolutely necessary to save on power. This slows everything down.
It's also very wet. These caves are filled with flowing water howling winds. Spelunkers are constantly soaked. The nature of caves ensures that no permanent base camps can be set up. The water will destroy anything you leave down there, so every time they go in, they essentially must start all over.
And I haven't even touched on sumps yet. Caves are just basically massive water conduits. Every so often they form what they call sumps. They look like pools but really there are completely flooded sections of the cave, beneath the water's surface. That's why they need the re-breather equipment, because once you hit a sump, you have to swim through it. Navigating sumps is the most dangerous part of spelunking.
If you, or anyone else, truly are interested in this then I recommend checking out Blind Descent. It goes into great detail on just how truly difficult it is to explore these caves. It also details the rare breed of person that takes on the challenge of exploring the deep caves. One of the most fascinating books I have ever read.
If you want more, read this insane book.
And then this one.
I was just going back through looking again, Are these the same books, just different editions or what? If you look at the kindle one, and hit paperback, the description is different and it's a different amount of pages (320 vs 304), different cover art, different price, etc. Here are the two paperbacks, you've obviously already seen the kindle one (the kindle one does match the one you linked, but the paperback linked from the kindle site is the one that looks different)
one you linked: http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Descent-Quest-Discover-Deepest/dp/0812979494/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395655122&sr=8-2&keywords=Blind+Descent
one linked from kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Descent-Quest-Discover-Deepest/dp/1849018561/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1395705552&sr=1-1
I'm probably thinking about it too much, I just think the difference is strange.
Blind Descent is a pretty good book that covers the Krubera expedition as well as the Cheve cave in Mexico.
Well, this should be relevant then:
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Descent-Quest-Discover-Deepest/dp/0812979494