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On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 01:39:48AM +1200, Apptech wrote:
> I'm no 'thrill seeker'. I am to some extent, where it seems 
> appropriate, a qualified-risk taker. I'd consider crossing 
> it if there seemed a VERY good reason to do so, provided the 
> recent years death rate was extremely modest* relative to 
> the usage rate, but I'd be utterly petrified throughout. My 
> experience so far in life is that you can perform activities 
> where people die only occasionally with a high degree of 
> success (100% so far) and a degree of wonder about why it is 
> people actually die there. This may be due to my superior 
> skills, or my heightened awareness of the danger compared to 
> the average person who does such things or, far far far more 
> likely, the statistically obvious fact that, if people only 
> occasionally die, I probably won't if I exercise extreme 
> care. My means of death, whenever it may occur, may give 
> others some insight into the relative merits of these 
> choices. My wife, and more timid friends, see me as 
> something of a risk taker, but I only take 'relative risks' 
> where there are objectives to be attained - I see it as 
> "applied engineering". eg * in the above case, if one or two 
> people have died there in the past 5 years and thousands of 
> people use it every year, then odds are (but only odds) that 
> judicious use of the safety cable, using clip on security 
> whenever possible (as at least one walker was doing) would 
> probably [tm] allow safe passage. The photo opportunity 
> would have to be a rather good one :-).

I didn't see your first post probably because I was busy off in West
Virginia caving last weekend. ;)

Caves are an interesting place to see that kind of logic first hand. Go
find yourself a breakwater near some lake, or perferably an ocean
harbour, ideally one frequented by the general public. Now run around on
the rocks. Notice how none of them shift? When I was quite a bit younger
my dad and I would spend seemingly every weekend hiking, often along the
waterfront and the long breakwaters along Lake Ontario's shores in
Scarborough. I can think of exactly one instance where when running
along those boulder breakwaters something big shifted. It's easy to see
why, if something can shift, it will, until it's in a state where it
won't, due to the tremendous forces of the waves and the thousands of
people who have run along those breakwaters before. The same applies to
that path, sure the concrete and steel supports look fragile and deadly,
but chances are most of the loose and breakable stuff has been knocked
off before by other people and the forces of wind and weather, so it's
somewhat safer than you'd expect.

Now as for that cave I was in last weekend, Scott's Hollow, it's got
about 30km of passage in it, and I'd be surprised if more than 100
people go in it every year. (there is only one natural entrance, and
it's strictly controlled by the landowner) It really struck me
travelling over the boulder breakdown passages in it, and I probably
traveled over a kilometer of that stuff in that one trip, how loose
everything was. In caves there are *no* major forces present other than
people, so if something is loose, it'll stay loose, for potentially
thousands of years. While everything looked just like those breakwaters
I spent so much time on as a kid, you could say that everything was in a
low entropy state, just waiting for me to knock something over.

Similarly at one point we had to do a 20ft traverse along a 2ft wide
ledge next to a 30ft drop. Same idea as Caminito del Rey really, but a
heck of a lot less of it! Probably more inherently dangerous though.
While we were roped up with proper belaying techniques, helmets,
harnesses and a rescue plan, a fall was *not* going to end in disaster,
I quickly managed to cause a mini-avalanche of rock while carefully
testing my next footing... I was probably the first person to have ever
stepped on that particular section of path.

- -- 
http://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org 
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