Cave Locations
From Chattanooga Grotto
Policy on Sharing
The Chattanooga Grotto does not, as a rule, freely share cave locations. As is mentioned elsewhere on this site, this policy exists for several reasons:
Conservation
We don't want the caves we love (and we love all of them equally :-D) to be damaged. We are perfectly aware that any and all visitation to a cave, including our own, affects it. Once a cave is known, the best you can do is to mitigate damage, not prevent it. As such, we generally will NOT knowingly give out information that might lead to additional impact on a cave.
Preservation
In some cases, the best policy is to not allow any human traffic to a cave whatsoever. Caves like this, called "closed caves" are closed for countless reasons. Some of these include political, archaeological, speleological, biological, illogical, etc. Whatever the reason may be, the end result that we all hope for is that the cave will be preserved for future generations. No traffic optimistically means that the cave isn't going to be damaged much. Perhaps in the future, such "closed caves" will be opened. As such, the Chattanooga Grotto does not participate in trying to force or coerce a cave manager to open a cave, nor do we divulge the knowledge we may have of close caves so that they can be "ramboed".
Safety
This one should be obvious. Caves are very unforgiving places and the Chattanooga Grotto does not want to be responsible for loading the gun that you use to shoot yourself with. No responsible caver willfully creates situations where they are putting other peoples lives in danger. Freely helping any idiot find his way in to a dangerous hole in the ground would definitely be putting their life on the the line. It would also be putting that persons eventual rescuers lives on the line.
Many Chattanooga Grotto members are also affiliated with various local cave search and rescue teams. Rescuers put themselves in grave danger in the execution of their duties. Their lives are, quite literally, on the line. May the caving gods strike us dead if we inadvertantly lead them to injury.
Why Should We
I mean, besides having people like us, what's in it for us? As anybody will freely attest to (and quite often do), we all have pretty healthy self esteems, too healthy even. So there isn't really any reason for us to be nice.
