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The largest cave owner in the U.S.
- bambam24 6y agoWhy sharing paid articles?
- onetimemanytime 6y agowhy not? In all seriousness, and you're not the only person that asks this: doesn't the website have a right to make money? Do you think a journalist did all that work and travel for free?
- LeoPanthera 6y agoWhat's the difference between a link to a paywall, and an ad?
- onetimemanytime 6y agoBoth are ways of getting paid. The website decides that.
- EwanToo 6y agoIt didn't ask me to pay, it showed a "Please donate" overlay with an option to continue without donating?
- logfromblammo 6y agoIt's not a pay-wall; it's a beg-wall.
- risos 6y agoThe article doesn't actually have a paywall, it's more of a blocking message asking you to donate, but you can click it away and read the whole article for free.
- Zitrax 6y agoIt even say so in the message: "This is not a paywall, but...".
- robin_reala 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
- hanniabu 6y agoNothing like having your pick of nice holes to plunder
- pengaru 6y ago> Nothing like having your pick of nice holes to plunder that's what she said
- guerrilla 6y agoIt certainly doesn't seem like either private or public ownership is optimal for this situation and something much more democratic involving all stakeholders would be beneficial. Interesting case study. I appreciated the article highlighting the debate.
- jacobush 6y agoI think governance in general is a hard problem, and private or public ownership is not what is going to make or brake it. The aboriginal sites being exploited in coal mining comes to mind.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jamest 6y agoI was surprised to see this on HN! A story, if you'll permit... I visited two of Ackerman's caves (Spring Valley and Temple of Doom) in May of 2002. It was a few days shy of high school graduation and summer was starting to arrive in Minnesota. My future Firebase co-founder, Andrew, and our high school classmate, Bob, made the drive down there one Saturday. Bob had been a sort-of pupil of Ackerman's, helping him explore and map the various caves he had found. The day started innocuously enough with a visit to the main Spring Valley Cave that the article references as being previously owned and equipped to give tours. Bob took us off the steel gantry-ways and into some side passageways and chambers that were rarely trafficked. It was the second cave, Temple of Doom, that was the more, ah, interesting experience. It has only recently been discovered and wasn't fully mapped yet. We popped open a man-hole cover in the middle of a corn field and dropped down a ~50 foot steel ladder. From there the cave descended in a spiral, with the passageway barely able to fit a human. Bob, typically the most composed human I knew, occasionally burst into fits of expletives, followed by silence. "Uhhh... Bob, everything OK?". Descending a 20-30 degree downward slope with inches to spare on every side, occasionally getting stuck, and with no way to turn-around was hair-raising. After some undetermined period of time we finally got to the bottom of the spiral. At this point, Bob announced we could either brace ourselves between two sheer, very wet, rock faces and climb up ~100 feet without ropes, or go back the way we came. So... up the rock faces we went. Fortunately nobody slipped. I can still viscerally feel the elation of emerging into bright afternoon sun of the corn field, grateful and relieved to be uninjured. This was one of the several intense and bonding experiences Andrew and I had together, and perhaps contributed to why we kept working together despite some early startup failures. As for Bob, he kept on spending time with Ackerman, until one day he was buried alive by a cave entrance collapse. Ackerman dug him out with a backhoe, but he was a little more wary of caving after.
- janlaureys 6y agoNever thought I'd get sweaty hands from reading a Hacker News comment but here we are. I'm not claustrophobic at all but no way in hell I'm ever doing any spelunking voluntarily.
- theshrike79 6y ago
- elihu 6y agoSometimes I wonder how many large caves exist in the world that we simply don't know about because they have no natural exit and no other easy way to locate them.
- carapace 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Gray_Park_Cave_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Gray_Park_Cave_discovery > The Wells Gray Park Cave discovery of 2018 was of a karst cave in Wells Gray Provincial Park, in the Cariboo Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. The cave has informally been named Sarlacc's Pit pending an official name. > The cave may have been snow-covered year-round until the 20th century.
- roflchoppa 6y agoi like caves till the point where you have to squeeze your body in this little crack. What happens if theres a earthquake when im trying to pass through.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoA while back I visited a cave with a large room that had been previously used some sort sort of public gatherings. The room was rather wide with no supports in the middle. A local official had expressed concern that the room was unsafe and could collapse in an earthquake. The cave operator informed that official that the cave room had been just like that for millions of years, and it was probably safer than any above ground building.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- em-bee 6y agoif there is an earthquake then i wouldn't want to be anywhere near a cave, let alone be stuck in a tight spot.
- Joof 6y agoCaves are generally pretty stable over short geologic-periods. Otherwise they wouldn't be there. Mines on the otherhand... mines are where you get fucked.
- basicplus2 6y agoArticle does not present any evidence of his size or the size of any other cave owners.
- rubidium 6y ago“ Ackerman grew up in Burnsville, a drab suburb of Minneapolis” Spent my middle and high school years living there. Can confirm with the exception of the Minnesota Valley Natural Wildlife refuge. It was in my backyard and the saving grace of the otherwise bleak suburbs. On a different note, growing up there you’d hear every year or so of someone who died in the St. Paul caves due to trapped gases (maybe co2 or methane? ). Are gases a similar concern in the driftless caves?
- callahad 6y agoIf I recall correctly, most of the deaths in the St. Paul caves are from people starting makeshift campfires in areas without any ventilation. Seems to be backed up by this MPR News article from 2004: http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/04/28_ap_cavedeaths/ http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/04/28_ap... Generally speaking, you don't worry about breathing in caves: if you can get there unaided, then so can ambient air. The risks are mainly when you're traversing a completely flooded portion of the cave (a "sump"), since you can't be certain that the dry passages on the other side have any exposure to the outside atmosphere. Edit: You do have to be wary of rain and flash flooding in the Driftless Area. It's not fun to see little twigs and leaves plastered to the ceiling in, for example, Goliath's Cave, since it means that the entire system can flood under the wrong circumstances. Caves are great fun, but they don't mess around. I'd encourage anyone interested in caving to reach out to their local clubs; we're friendly! For folks in the US, the National Speleological Society maintains a list of "grottos" at https://caves.org/committee/i-o/grottos/new_grotto_page-v2.shtml https://caves.org/committee/i-o/grottos/new_grotto_page-v2.s....
- hanselot 6y agoI didn't know they classify caves by their owner's weight.
- robbyt 6y agoSt. Paul in the late 90s, there was a series of underground (literally) parties, known as the "rave in a cave". They took place in the Wabasha caves: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabasha_Street_Caves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabasha_Street_Caves The entrance to where the parties were being held has been sealed, but there are other various entrances near the river. Every few years some kids get stuck, and the city tries to restrict entrance. Caves are just too interesting.
- Accujack 6y agoCertain caves were used as speakeasies in the 1920s, too. Mobsters who had an "agreement" with the Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul to not cause trouble in exchange for not being arrested/pursued up here could spend time drinking and gambling in peace.
- etherealmachine 6y agoFor an interesting contrast, check out the history of cave temples in the karst formations of Southeast Asia. I'm most familiar with those in Malaysia, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves. There it's common for religious groups (Buddhist or Hindu) to purchase a cave and develop it into a temple, complete with concrete floors and living spaces for the monks. It's a completely different attitude towards transforming yet conserving the natural environment that really shocked me coming from American caves where everything is "look but don't touch."
- 8bitsrule 6y agoThese caves in SE MN are in whats called the 'Driftless Area' [0] because it was -not- covered by ice (which would have left 'drift' behind) during recent glacial periods. But it -was surrounded- by ice. You might guess that as a result many of the caves may have been created by draining meltwater. As a result, Ackerman may not have enough money to corner the market! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area