Caving and mining disasters http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/mainstream-fiction/threads/43620 Cerealboxreader My story takes place in a newly discovered painted cave in the Dordogne in France. That's the same area as the famous Lascaux cave among others. Does anybody on this forum have experience with caving and the things that go wrong. I've only had happy spelunking experiences in France & I need things in my story to go terribly, terribly wrong. Thanks! Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:30:23 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/mainstream-fiction/threads/43620?page=1#forum_thread_comment_852699 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/mainstream-fiction/threads/43620?page=1#forum_thread_comment_852699 cloister Well. Smart cavers, exploring virgin caves, are highly careful people. If they're doing it right, they'll be roped at all times and will leave some kind of no-fail trail to get back. They do this because caves can be really, really tricky places. They're often wet, slick and muddy in patches. The topography (and topology) of them follows no normal rules of surface landscape, and it is remarkably easy to become disoriented and lose track of one's sense of direction. So, paranoia is the order of the day. Consequently, anything that messes with sensible, paranoid precautions would count as "terribly, terribly wrong." LIke, let's say your fellows are exploring a new branch, so they go in with a 2000 foot spool of line to lead them back. They go and go, excited by what they're finding, only to realize after a while that the spool isn't unwinding anymore, because it broke off, and now they have no clue how far they've gone since that happened. Oops. And when their light runs out? Double-screwed. Water would run out next, unless they could find a source in the cave, which I wouldn't be surprised if they could, so that may not be much of a worry. But then the food will run out. Not a good situation, at all. Still, what can they do but try to make their way back, in the dark, when it's all too easy for someone to slip and get seriously injured? Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:41:31 -0600 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/mainstream-fiction/threads/43620?page=1#forum_thread_comment_871979 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/mainstream-fiction/threads/43620?page=1#forum_thread_comment_871979