Of my 47 years of life, 29 I did cave exploration. This was my life and continue to be. This is what I live for and this is who I am.
Everything started back in 1992 in "Avenul cu gheata din Piciorul Babelor" a full exploration from zero (discovery and exploration and a couple of years later survey) that marked my entire life and vision about nature. There is nothing comparable with exploration, knowledge, the will and the feelings that I live when doing this.
In 1991 I read the BIBLE of romanian speleology "Omul si Pestera" (The man and the cave) by Marcian Bleahu. Never, ever somebody will write such a masterpiece again! Period.
The first chapter of First Part and the Second Part captured me complete. You can't be untouched by such a universe from thousands of years ago created by the author As a teenager hungry for information I read it in a couple of days. Then I went back to it to read it again. Then again, and at several years again. It's like a ceremony every few years, not to forget where I came from.
Mr. Marcian Bleahu died two years ago, in the summer of 2019 when I was in an expedition in Albania, in Maja Arapit. I didn't had time to greed such a loss. That guy changed my life forever I wish, wherever he is, to write the continuation of that book with present days, so I can read it when we will meet again on the other side.
After this bible, followed "Relieful carstic" (The karstic relief) also by Mr. Bleahu, that is a natural continuation of "Omul si Pestera" because beside exploration history and evolution of the equipment you have to understand what's going on in these dark corners of the Earth, called caves.
This book cover geological aspects, designations and several theory of how caves were formed wrote in a normal manner, not academic, so everyone could understand. After I understand the meaning of those books, I started to take speleology serious, not just as an adventure in week-ends.
There are more books, of course, for example "Aventuri sub pamant" (Underground Adventures) by Norbert Casteret, probably the best cave explorer of all times regarding what era he lived. People were afraid of the dark (like today, sic !) and only the idea of passing sumps underground was considered some mental disease. In Europe, E.A.Martel founded the "physical speleology", caving as we know it today.
These pioneers had to fight with a system that was stuck in the past and held back by religion, with a community that considered this activity a dangerous non-sense. Well, because of speleology we now have the history of evolution, almost intact fossils, tools form Pleistocene.. If those objects were outside the cover that the caves provide, the dramatic changes in climate would destroy them. But in caves, time have other scale. In caves, the watch is at geologic scale. One thousand years is a small stalagmite. Ten thousand years could make a column or a human size stalagtite. Human life is just a calcite crust....
Today explorations are more and more difficult because of one simple reason: while the surface of the Earth is the same, more cavers are looking for the new ones. The era of big entrances unexplored situated near villages are over. Either you go in alpine areas difficult to reach, countries with lack of speleologists, or try to find continuation of old passages that were let unexplored by former explorers. Of course there are exceptions, but a few.
Getting older also doesn't help, but the experience can substitute physical condition due to age. I think more where I plant a bolt, how I charge a wall with legs or hands while climbing . The only problem that can't be overcome with experience is the weight of the backpack. Well...I think it is time to write a book !
