Extreme Sports Tourism
The cave is a popular vertical caving destination. The high side of the mouth is covered with heavy foliage, so cavers most often fix their ropes on the low side, where bolts have been fixed into the rock and the area is clear of obstructions. Rappelling to the floor takes about twenty minutes, in which time abseil equipment and rope can heat up to hazardous levels. Climbing back out may take from forty minutes to more than two hours. A person without a parachute would take almost ten seconds to freefall from the mouth to the floor, hence the pit is also popular with extreme sports enthusiasts for BASE jumping. An average-sized hot air balloon has been navigated through the 160-foot (49 m) wide opening and landed on the floor below. Base jumpers can get out in about 10 minutes using an extraction rope. (video: Journey to the Earth's Core-History Channel). Base jumping, or being extracted by rope is no longer allowed. Local villagers are focused on protecting the birds.
Read more about this topic: Cave Of Swallows
Famous quotes containing the words extreme, sports and/or tourism:
“I would rather go to any extreme than suffer anything that is unworthy of my reputation, or of that of my crown.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“It was so hard to pry this door open, and if I mess up I know the people behind me are going to have it that much harder. Because then there’s living proof. They can sit around and say, “See? It doesn’t work.” I don’t want to be their living proof.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.”
—Robert Runcie (b. 1921)