OV9

I was sent a link to something on TokTik recently, so had to download the app to view. For some reason the algorithm has decided that I want to see copious stories/digital reinactments of horrific caving/potholing/spelunking incidents, which often become slow, lingering deadly tragedies. And given that I've watched a few..... maybe the algorithm is right?

It's a pastime that carries zero appeal for me - I'm watching through gritted fingers - anyone ever done it? What's the driver?

I did some potholing when I was about 13 on a week's outward bound course. It involved squeezing through small fissures which I would definitely not fit through now and was rather fun, though I've not done it since. It was somewhere down the Wye Valley, not a million miles from Symonds Yat (which we abseiled down). Certainly more fun than canoeing down the river Severn in February and nearly getting hypothermia.

Not sure I'd ever have enjoyed caving which required ducking under a syphon though.

It’s a big bowl of Fuck That.

Closest I’ve got is cenote swimming in Mexico which was quite enclosed in spaces, but you’re between water and cave, not cave and cave.

Jobbo wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 8:31 am I did some potholing when I was about 13 on a week's outward bound course. It involved squeezing through small fissures which I would definitely not fit through now and was rather fun, though I've not done it since. It was somewhere down the Wye Valley, not a million miles from Symonds Yat (which we abseiled down). Certainly more fun than canoeing down the river Severn in February and nearly getting hypothermia.

Not sure I'd ever have enjoyed caving which required ducking under a syphon though.

I did something similar when I was around sixteen. Part of our route involved swimming under water along a totally submerged passage between two caves, I don't remember being terrified at the time but the thought of it now...

H&S was different in those days

240PP wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 9:08 am It’s a big bowl of Fuck That.

This…

Couldn’t think of anything worse

We did it some place in Derbyshire, I can't remember if it was caving or outgoing? Shimmied up a tube of slimy shit, slid out onto a ledge, slipped off the side and gripped like a limpet till an instructor saw me and threw me back over.
The afternoon group was cancelled, over the lip was an u ground river and pretty much super dead.

Always have the fear of tight spaces, fuck that

There was a picture of a Japanese pervert who got trapped in a toilet and the idea of falling into a space you can't remove yourself from makes me feel very funny and would be my number one worst way to die.



Dave!

The Nutty Putty one was bad

Mito Man wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 9:35 am The Nutty Putty one was bad

Yeah - it’s chilling. And he’s still there.

V8Granite wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 9:24 am the idea of falling into a space you can't remove yourself from makes me feel very funny and would be my number one worst way to die.

Only kinda related, and it's decades since I read Deception Point by Dan Brown, but the description of the death of Dr Ming is still etched in my mind....... <shudders>

Wailee Ming lay on his stomach beside the extraction hole, his right arm extended over the rim trying to extract a water sample. His eyes were definitely not playing tricks on him; his face, now only a yard or so from the water, could see everything perfectly. This is incredible!

Straining harder, Ming maneuvered the beaker in his fingers, trying to reach down to the surface of the water. All he needed was another few inches.

Unable to extend his arm any farther, Ming repositioned himself closer to the hole. He pressed the toes of his boots against the ice and firmly replanted his left hand on the rim. Again, he extended his right arm as far as he could. Almost. He shifted a little closer. Yes! The edge of the beaker broke the surface of the water. As the liquid flowed into the container, Ming stared in disbelief.

Then, without warning, something utterly inexplicable occurred. Out of the darkness, like a bullet from a gun, flew a tiny speck of metal. Ming only saw it for a fraction of a second before it smashed into his right eye.

The human instinct to protect one’s eyes was so innately ingrained, that despite Ming’s brain telling him that any sudden movements risked his balance, he recoiled. It was a jolting reaction more out of surprise than pain. Ming’s left hand, closest to his face, shot up reflexively to protect the assaulted eyeball. Even as his hand was in motion, Ming knew he had made a mistake. With all of his weight leaning forward, and his only means of support suddenly gone, Wailee Ming teetered. He recovered too late. Dropping the beaker and trying to grab on to the slick ice to stop his fall, he slipped–plummeting forward into the darkened hole.

The fall was only four feet, and yet as Ming hit the icy water head first he felt like his face had hit pavement at fifty miles an hour. The liquid that engulfed his face was so cold it felt like burning acid. It brought an instantaneous spike of panic.

Upside down and in the darkness, Ming was momentarily disoriented, not knowing which way to turn toward the surface. His heavy camel-hair coat kept the icy blast from his body–but only for a second or two. Finally righting himself, Ming came sputtering up for air, just as the water found its way to his back and chest, engulfing his body in a lung-crushing vise of cold.

“Hee... lp,” he gasped, but Ming could barely pull in enough air to let out a whimper. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Heee... lp!” His cries were inaudible even to himself. Ming clambered toward the side of the extraction pit and tried to pull himself out. The wall before him was vertical ice. Nothing to grab. Underwater, his boots kicked the side of the wall, searching for a foothold. Nothing. He strained upward, reaching for the rim. It was only a foot out of reach.

Ming’s muscles were already having trouble responding. He kicked his legs harder, trying to propel himself high enough up the wall to grab the rim. His body felt like lead, and his lungs seemed to have shrunk to nothing, as if they were being crushed by a python. His water-laden coat was getting heavier by the second, pulling him downward. Ming tried to pull it off his body, but the heavy fabric stuck.

“Help... me!”

The fear came on in torrents now.

Drowning, Ming had once read, was the most horrific death imaginable. He had never dreamed he would find himself on the verge of experiencing it. His muscles refused to cooperate with his mind, and already he was fighting just to keep his head above water. His soggy clothing pulled him downward as his numb fingers scratched the sides of the pit.

His screams were only in his mind now.

And then it happened.

Ming went under. The sheer terror of being conscious of his own impending death was something he never imagined he would experience. And yet here he was... sinking slowly down the sheer ice wall of a two-hundred-foot-deep hole in the ice. Multitudes of thoughts flashed before his eyes. Moments from his childhood. His career. He wondered if anyone would find him down here. Or would he simply sink to the bottom and freeze there... entombed in the glacier for all time.

Ming’s lungs were screaming for oxygen. He held his breath, still trying to kick toward the surface. Breathe! He fought the reflex, clamping his insensate lips together. Breathe! He tried in vain to swim upward. Breathe! At that instant, in a deadly battle of human reflex against reason, Ming’s breathing instinct overcame his ability to keep his mouth closed.

Wailee Ming inhaled.

The water crashing into his lungs felt like scalding oil on his sensitive pulmonary tissue. He felt like he was burning from the inside out. Cruelly, water does not kill immediately. Ming spent seven horrifying seconds inhaling in the icy water, each breath more painful than the last, each inhalation offering none of what his body so desperately craved.

Finally, as Ming slid downward into the icy darkness, he felt himself going unconscious. He welcomed the escape. All around him in the water Ming saw tiny glowing specks of light. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

i think it takes a special kind of weird brain to enjoy the idea of squeezing into these spaces for fun - i do not have that brain.

I think I'm just gonna mentally hide this thread and never visit it again.

Simon wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 11:03 am I think I'm just gonna mentally hide this thread and never visit it again.

This.

I've done some coasteering in Devon, which is basically jump in the rough sea, get bashed into rocks and have seals swimming around you is quite an adrenaline rush! The sea-filled caves that glow eerily when the water rises up and creates a trapped air bubble are beautiful at the time, and slightly terrifying thinking about afterwards, and timing your movement between each bubble was enjoyable... but I'm an amateur and always go with experienced professionals to provide some reassurance.

Mito Man wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 9:35 am The Nutty Putty one was bad

A video about that on YouTube is forever etched in my brain.

mik wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 9:54 am

V8Granite wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 9:24 am the idea of falling into a space you can't remove yourself from makes me feel very funny and would be my number one worst way to die.

<snip>

Part of me wants to read that but I know I’d be a different person afterwards

Rich B wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 10:53 am i think it takes a special kind of weird brain to enjoy the idea of squeezing into these spaces for fun - i do not have that brain.

I don't think it's as black and white as that. Go to the Dan yr Ogof show caves in Wales or the Blue John Cavern in Castleton for example; they're tourist attractions and it's not just big underground spaces.

My phone as usual is spying on what I’m doing and this popped up which I was flicking through whilst having much lunch.

It has horrifically tight caves mixed with skeletons. A whole lot of hell no from me but interesting to watch.

Jobbo wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 1:39 pm

Rich B wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 10:53 am i think it takes a special kind of weird brain to enjoy the idea of squeezing into these spaces for fun - i do not have that brain.

I don't think it's as black and white as that. Go to the Dan yr Ogof show caves in Wales or the Blue John Cavern in Castleton for example; they're tourist attractions and it's not just big underground spaces.

I do love a tourist cave/mine but that's a very different experience.

the slate mines at Llechwedd (Zip world) are very good

Thread bookmarked for tonights bedtime reading

Jobbo wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 1:39 pm I don't think it's as black and white as that. Go to the Dan yr Ogof show caves in Wales or the Blue John Cavern in Castleton for example; they're tourist attractions and it's not just big underground spaces.

Speedwell Cavern is excellent too where you are taken through the tunnels in a boat. The guides lay on their back and propel the boat by walking their feet along the tunnel roof

John wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 3:09 pm Thread bookmarked for tonights bedtime reading

Jobbo wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 1:39 pm I don't think it's as black and white as that. Go to the Dan yr Ogof show caves in Wales or the Blue John Cavern in Castleton for example; they're tourist attractions and it's not just big underground spaces.

Speedwell Cavern is excellent too where you are taken through the tunnels in a boat. The guides lay on their back and propel the boat by walking their feet along the tunnel roof

Ah yes, I've done that - you can do similar at the Black Country Museum: https://dudleycanaltrust.org.uk/boat-tr ... -explorer/