The Host is a professional news person and an avid caver. His ability to conduct a great interview is awesome. ( he actually lets the guest speak and sparingly guides the conversation).
The people being interviewed are / will be the legends of this sport. While caves have been explored for hundred of years, the sport is relatively young due to the technological advances that have allowed the big caves to be explored. Lighting and descending equipment have opened up areas that were impossible to explore in the past.
The guests being interviewed are the equivalent of the first mountaineers to summit Mt Everest.
I grew up in southern Indiana cave country in the late 70s, I explored a handful of caves with a high school geology teacher, (Shiloh was our go to cave.). While I really enjoyed caving, I was scared of heights and somewhat claustrophobic, so I was a “fair weather” caver at best. Luckily I understood how my limitations increased the risk of caving and never pushed myself too hard.
I always knew that many of these cave expeditions had to be extreme but I had no idea how extreme! These interviews take you into the caves, into the mindset of these legends, the respect I have for these cavers is beyond description. Many of the guests are in their 60s and older, so they give details that they might not have revealed when they were younger, ( a young man often equates emotions with weakness, an older man understands that emotions are nothing to be ashamed of).
I have listened to a few of these, but in no particular order.
The interview with Rusty Riley is a gem. It starts out a little slow, but in a few short minutes Rusty finds his groove and goes into full story teller mode. He covers the absolute highs and the lowest lows of his experiences,
Thanks Matt for these podcasts, they are entertainment today, they will be priceless history in the future.
I only have one comment/ suggestion/ criticism. If you could record at a little higher output level that would be great, I have serious ear/ hearing problems and at full volume via my Bluetooth headset it’s sometimes a little to low on volume.
Suggestion- I don’t know if podcasts allow for tags for searching, on Apple Podcasts the only way this podcasts appears is using the word Caving, Searching for Cave or Caver it doesn’t appear.
God Bless and may he keep you safe.
