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Ken, You are expressing sentiments that I have felt for a very long time. Every time I dive Devil's Ear I am saddened by the gouges in the floor in the low area just before the RollerCoaster jump. And the Roller Coaster itself is a real mess! I just cannot conceive of how bad someone's technique would have to be to dig a scooter into the floor of a cave that deeply! Even in the passage around the "teeth", huge as it is I have seen handprints in the rises there. I think that for some people they never start out with any respect for the cave and so anything goes. In caves that are used for training, some damage is inevitable, though sad, but 2,000 to 3,000 feet back? If you cannot control your bouyancy and trim you have no business being back there. Even those divers who started out with respect for the cave and cave life I believe get mesmerized by the idea to go further and deeper with the goal being the only objective. Conservation becomes subordinate to that diver's larger goals. The fact is that respect for the cave becomes respect for your own technique and translates into being a better diver. I put a finger in the silt in Potter's a couple of times when I was in training to stabilize myself and I was mortified at doing so and since then I cannot even imagine a circumstance that would require that sort of recovery. When I dive I look closely at the fossils strewn in places under ledges and in the sand and sometimes there will be a perfect sea biscuit. I will pick it up and look at it and then return it, but I wonder who will then come along and decide that it will look great on their mantle? There are places in Peacock that are still beautiful, still pristine, still full of life, dropping from the ceiling like white rain as you pass and this is as it should be. Just like the hiker's adage of "Take nothing but pictures . . ." we as cave divers should treat these limited resources as the treasures that they are and never become complacent to _any_ passage as being "already trashed." Time will heal many wounds if we just give them the chance to heal. More and more cave divers are getting trained and then jumping on scooters to bag the "big" dives. It is a taletell sign to come down the mainline and pass Hill 400 and suddenly find yourself in a machine-induced "fog" and one wonders what new scar has been let on the cave floor back in the recesses of the cave where these new Big Dogs have run and marked their territory for all to "enjoy". It's never acceptable behavior to damage the cave. Get it together or don't go in! Dive lightly, JoeL
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