The Sutro Baths were luxurious swimming pools on the San Francisco seafront, in an almost all glass building, built in the 1890s. Complete with salt and freshwater pools, slides, and 30 swinging rings, and a springboard. It was served by two rail lines, one of these being the Sutro Railroad, another creation of Adolph Sutro, a famous engineer and industrialist and mayor of San Francisco! In the 1900s the facility fell into disrepair and it burned down in 1966. Today only ruins remain, including the pool basins, a settling pool, and tunnels.
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May 2022, Sutro Baths, San Francisco, USA
Urban-Exploration (Ruins, Tunnels); Caving (Basic, Man-Made)
Went to the Amos Rex art installation today, on the topic of subterranean matters... with friends from the Finnish Caving Association. Only that it wasn't just about subterranean, it was underground things but also hell, evilness, and devilish matters. It took a while for me to understand this, because I of course associate underground things as interesting and fun, not as dark hellish situations.
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May 2022, Amos Rex, Helsinki, Finland
Caving (None, Media, Social)
Moaning Caverns is a limestone-marble solutional cave in Vallecito, California. It is about 200 kilometers east of San Francisco, on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The main show cave attraction is the 165-feet high massive hole, but the cave extends further down in smaller passages under the big room, getting to a depth of 410 feet or 120 meters. An adventure tour explores some of these parts, which is why I was here. But there are other interesting aspects of the cave as well -- at the bottom of the main room there's a large pile of animal and human bones, presumably from whoever fell down to their fate here.
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May 2022, Moaning Caverns, Vallecito, California, USA
Caving (Basic, Rock, Surveying, Rock-Limestone, Morphology-Karst)
Croatian islands have had a military past. During World War II when Tito held his headquarters on the island of Vis. After the war, Vis was turned into a defense bastion, and only opened for foreigners as late as in 1989. Today we toured a maze of tunnels on the Zagrebenje mountains on the southeast corner of the island, connecting a number gun positions.
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April 2022, Zagrebenje gun positions, Milna, Vis, Croatia
Urban-Exploration (Bunkers, Military); Caving (Man-Made)
I needed some exercise, so went for a snowshoe walk with Jarmo. On his suggestion we ended up going to Laitamaa, an area of Kirkkonummi where we've previously seen many small caves.
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April 2022, Kakarpuron pikkukolo, Kirkkonummi, Finland; Kakarpuron lippaluolanen, Kirkkonummi, Finland; Kakaraukion lippaluolanen, Kirkkonummi, Finland; Kakaraukion pikkukolo, Kirkkonummi, Finland
Snowshoeing (Basic); Caving (Rock, Basic, Surveying, Rock-Granite, Morphology-Boulders, Morphology-Crack)
The main newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, published a story from visiting three caves in the Helsinki region with Harri-Pekka Pietikäinen, the author of a recent caving book.
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April 2022, Torholan luola, Lohja, Finland; Grottbergetin luola, Siuntio, Finland; Högberget, Kirkkonummi, Finland
Caving (Surveying, Basic, Rock, Media)
Running into an unexpected cave during travels? Very nice. To a show cave that was opened in 1646? Even nicer! We were on our way to visit the ski hills in the Harz region in Germany when there was a sign for a show cave -- the Baumannshöhle. Upon returning from skiing, we were able to visit the cave as well, just before it closed.
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March 2022, Baumannshöhle, Harz, Germany
Caving (Basic, Rock, Morphology-Karst, Rock-Limestone)
I had an opportunity to visit Cyprus this week, and, of course, there were also some caves. The Cyclop's Cave is on the south-east end of the island, a nice 23 m x 24 m cave with a sand floor and a thin rock cover above. Right on the beach, with great sunset views. But this is also likely not the "real" Cyclop's cave from the historic tales, that is in Greece.
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February 2022, Cyclop's Cave, Paralimni, Cyprus
Caving (Basic, Rock, Surveying)
What's this? A mysterious packet in the mail ... wonder what it is?
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February 2022, House Arkko, Kauniainen, Finland
Caving (None, Media)
Coming back from the skiing on the Mount Olympus and Troodos Mountains in Cyprus, I was driving by an area that had reported some kind of underground passage. I stopped to find out what it was about. From the map it looked like it was near a road, but it turned out to be only near some kind of agricultural path, and a kilometer or two from the drivable public roads. Well, why not walk to the darkness on the first night in a country you've never been to...
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February 2022, Σπηλιά του Μούλου, Troodos Mountains, Cyprus
Urban-Exploration (Other, Bunkers); Caving (Basic, Rock, Man-Made)
In August I visited Austria, and was able to hike to the Tischofer höhle and Hyänen höhle caves. Back then, I took 3D scans of the caves. Having worked with automatic construction of cave maps since then, six months later I'm now starting to have a capability to run these models through the Cave Outliner and get plan and cross section views out. Pretty interesting work, by no means done but lets see where this path leads us to!
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January 2022, Tischofer Höhle, Kaisertal, Kufstein, Austria; Hyänen Höhle, Kaisertal, Kufstein, Austria
Caving (Basic, Rock, Surveying, Equipment, Researching, Rock-Limestone)
Großer Bunkerberg is the name of the Berlin ruble mountain in Volkspark Friedrichshain. It housed previously one of Berlin's air defense 'flak towers', the Flakturm II G. Only a small corner of the blown up tower is still visible on the site, at the top of a large hill.
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December 2021, Großer Bunkerberg, Berlin, Germany
Urban-Exploration (Bunkers); Caving (None, Man-Made)
Just before the caver's pre-xmas party, I visited 'Kollinluola' - the cave of the tomcat. Or, the cave of Juho Korkiakoski who was also called Kolli. It is a small cave under rocks.
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November 2021, Kollinluola, Jalasjärvi, Finland; Pirunpesä, Jalasjärvi, Finland
Caving (Basic, Rock, Rock-Gneiss, Surveying); Caving (None)
My article on 3D modelling in Lummelunda was published in the Swedish Caver's Association's 'Grottan' (cave) magazine. Nice! The magazine was delivered to me rolled :-)
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November 2021, House Arkko, Kauniainen, Finland
Caving (None)
Caver’s meetup, warm even if -17 and interesting short films at Kino Jalasjärvi. And my Volvo made it 350 km away, furthest it has been! But will it last the way back? The summer’s trip reliability was 85% - what we call in the industry with the technical term “almost one nine reliability”. So the odds are pretty good!
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November 2021, Jalasjärven Kino, Jalasjärvi, Finland
Caving (None, Social, Research)
Grafenloch -- also called Luegsteinhöhle -- is a cave on a massive cliff face above the villages of Luegstein and Oberaudorf. A smallish cave, maybe 22-25 meters deep. But an interesting small hike of about 40 minutes to get to it. And an interesting last few meters to climb to the cave on the cliff face. Assisted with a rope and metal stairs, but still.
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September 2021, Grafenloch, Oberaudorf, Germany; Rossstall, Oberaudorf, Germany
Caving (Basic, Rock, Rock-Limestone, Surveying); Hiking