The most horrific thing I've ever heard

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
an even more stupid hobby than caving is 'cave diving' where you get to die underwater in an enclosed space

We met some people in a bothy in the Cairngorms one winter who were based in South Wales and did bog-standard cave diving in the UK, but were also really into cave diving in ice caves in glaciers in the Alps. Apparently you can only do that between about two and four in the morning because that's when the glaciers are stable enough that the way you came in will probably still be there when you want to get back out. Apparently there's actually a legitimately useful purpose to this, though, because getting a bit more understanding of how water builds up inside of glaciers gives you a bit more chance to predict how flooded things are going to get when the wrong bit of them melts.

Then again, the reason that they were staying in the bothy was because a couple of them had never skied before and wanted to learn for a trip to Arctic Norway, and their mate had decided that a good first ever experience of skiing would be a two day ski tour across the Cairngorms, which probably gives you some idea of their approach to life.
 
Top