My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya
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Not SyncedSo how many of you have been in a cave before?
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Not SyncedOkay, a few of you.
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Not SyncedWhen you think of a cave,
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Not Syncedmost of you think of a tunnel
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Not Syncedgoing through solid rock.
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Not SyncedIn fact, that's how most caves are.
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Not SyncedAround this half of the country,
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Not Syncedmost caves are made of limestone.
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Not SyncedBack where I'm from,
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Not Syncedmost of our caves are made from lavarock
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Not Syncedbecause we have a lot of volcanoes out there.
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Not SyncedBut the caves I want to share with you today
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Not Syncedare made completely of ice,
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Not Syncedspecifically glacier ice
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Not Syncedas formed in the side of the tallest mountain
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Not Syncedin the state of Oregon
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Not Syncedcalled Mount Hood.
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Not SyncedNow, Mount Hood is only one hour's drive
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Not Syncedfrom Portland,
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Not Syncedthe largest city in Oregon,
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Not Syncedwith over two million people live.
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Not SyncedNow, the most exciting thing
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Not Syncedfor a cave explorer
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Not Syncedis to find a new cave
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Not Syncedand be the first human to ever go into it.
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Not SyncedThe second most exciting thing
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Not Syncedfor a cave explorer
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Not Syncedis to be the first one to make a map of a cave.
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Not SyncedNow, these days,
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Not Syncedwith so many people hiking around,
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Not Syncedit's pretty hard to find a new cave,
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Not Syncedso you can imagine how excited
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Not Syncedwe were to find three new caves
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Not Syncedwithin site of Oregon's largest city
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Not Syncedand realize that they have never
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Not Syncedbeen explored or mapped before.
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Not SyncedIt was kind of like being an astronaut
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Not Syncedbecause we were getting to see things
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Not Syncedand go places
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Not Syncedthat no one had ever seen or gone before.
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Not SyncedSo, what is a glacier?
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Not SyncedWell, those of you that have ever seen
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Not Syncedor touched snow,
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Not Syncedyou know that it's really light
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Not Syncedand it's just a bunch of tiny ice crystals clumped together
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Not Syncedand it's mostly air.
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Not SyncedIf you squish a handful of snow
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Not Syncedto make a snowball,
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Not Syncedit gets really small, hard, and dense.
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Not SyncedWell, in a mountain like Hood
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Not Syncedwhere it snows over twenty feet a year,
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Not Syncedit crushes the air out of it
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Not Syncedand gradually forms it into hard, blue ice.
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Not SyncedNow, each year more and more ice
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Not Syncedstacks up on top of it
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Not Syncedand eventually gtts so heavy
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Not Syncedthat it starts to slide down the mountain
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Not Syncedunder its own weight,
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Not Syncedforming a slow-moving river of ice.
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Not SyncedWhen an ice pack like that starts to move,
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Not Syncedwe call it a glacier
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Not Syncedand we give it a name.
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Not SyncedThe name of the glacier these caves were formed
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Not Syncedis the Sandy glacier.
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Not SyncedNow, each year as new snow lands on the glacier,
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Not Syncedit melts in the summer sun
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Not Syncedand it forms little rivers of water
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Not Syncedon the flow along the ice
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Not Syncedand they start to melt
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Not Syncedand bore their way down to the glacier,
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Not Syncedforming big networks of caves,
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Not Syncedsometimes going all the way down
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Not Syncedto the underlying bedrock.
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Not SyncedNow, the crazy thing about glacier caves
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Not Syncedis that each year new tunnels form,
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Not Synceddifferent waterfalls pop up
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Not Syncedor move around from place to place
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Not Syncedinside the cave.
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Not SyncedWarm water from the top of the ice
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Not Syncedis boring its way down,
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Not Syncedand warm air from below the mountain
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Not Syncedactually rises up,
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Not Syncedgets into the cave,
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Not Syncedand melts the ceilings back
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Not Syncedtaller and taller.
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Not SyncedBut the weirdest thing about glacier caves
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Not Syncedis that the entire cave is moving
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Not Syncedbecause it's formed inside a block of ice
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Not Syncedthe size of a small city
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Not Syncedthat's slowly sliding down the mountain.
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Not SyncedNow, this is Brent McGregor,
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Not Syncedmy cave exploration partner.
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Not SyncedHe and I have both been exploring caves a long time
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Not Syncedand we've been climbing mountains a long time,
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Not Syncedbut neither of us have ever really explored
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Not Synceda glacier cave before.
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Not SyncedBack in 2011, Brent saw a YouTube video
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Not Syncedof a couple of hikers
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Not Syncedwho stumbled across the entrance
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Not Syncedto one of these caves.
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Not SyncedThere was no GPS coordinates for it
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Not Syncedand all we knew was that it was somewhere
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Not Syncedout on the sandy glacier.
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Not SyncedSo, in July of that year
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Not Syncedwe went out on the glacier
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Not Syncedand we found a big crack in the ice.
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Not SyncedWe had to build snow and ice anchors
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Not Syncedso we could tie off ropes
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Not Syncedand repel down into the hole.
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Not SyncedThis is me looking into the entrance crevasse.
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Not SyncedAt the end of this hole,
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Not Syncedwe found a huge tunnel
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Not Syncedgoing right up the mountain
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Not Syncedunderneath thousands of tons of glacier ice.
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Not SyncedWe followed this cave back
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Not Syncedfor about a half mile until it came to an end.
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Not SyncedAnd then with the help of our survey tools,
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Not Syncedwe made a three-dimensional map of the cave
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Not Syncedon our way back out.
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Not SyncedSo, how do you map a cave?
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Not SyncedWell, cave maps aren't like trail maps or road maps
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Not Syncedbecause they have pits and holes
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Not Syncedgoing to overlapping levels.
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Not SyncedTo make a cave map,
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Not Syncedyou have to set up survey stations
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Not Syncedevery few feet inside the cave
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Not Syncedand you use a laser to measure the distance
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Not Syncedbetween those stations.
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Not SyncedAnd you use a compass and an inclinometer
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Not Syncedto measure the direction the cave is heading
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Not Syncedand measure the slope in the floor and the ceilings.
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Not SyncedNow, those of you taking trigonometry,
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Not Syncedthat particular type of math
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Not Syncedis very useful for making maps like this
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Not Syncedbecause it allows you to measure
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Not Syncedheights and distances
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Not Syncedwithout actually having to go there.
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Not SyncedIn fact, the more I mapped and studied caves,
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Not Syncedthe more useful I found
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Not Syncedall that math I originally hated in school to be.
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Not SyncedSo, when you're done surveying,
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Not Syncedyou take all this data,
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Not Syncedyou punch it into the computer,
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Not Syncedand you find someone
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Not Syncedthat can draw really well,
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Not Syncedand you have them draft up a map
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Not Syncedthat looks something like this.
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Not SyncedAnd it will show you both a bird's eye view
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Not Syncedof the passage
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Not Syncedas well as a profile view of the passage,
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Not Syncedkind of like an ant farm view.
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Not SyncedWe named this cave Snow Dragon Cave
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Not Syncedbecause it looks like a big dragon
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Not Syncedsleeping under the snow.
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Not SyncedNow, later this summer
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Not Syncedas more snow melted off the glacier,
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Not Syncedwe found more caves
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Not Syncedand we realized they were all connected.
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Not SyncedNot long after we mapped Snow Dragon,
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Not SyncedBrent discovered this new cave
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Not Syncednot very far away.
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Not SyncedThe inside of it was coated with ice
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Not Syncedso we had to wear big spikes
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Not Syncedin our feet called crampons
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Not Syncedso we could walk around without slipping.
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Not SyncedThis cave was amazing!
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Not SyncedThe ice in the ceiling was glowing blue and green
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Not Syncedbecause the sunlight from far above
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Not Syncedwas shining through the ice
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Not Syncedand lighting it all up.
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Not SyncedNow, we couldn't understand why this cave
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Not Syncedwas so much cooler than Snow Dragon
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Not Synceduntil we got to the end
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Not Syncedand we found out why.
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Not SyncedThere was a huge pit or shaft called a moulin
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Not Syncedgoing a 150 feet straight up
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Not Syncedto the surface of the glacier.
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Not SyncedCold air from the top of the mountain
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Not Syncedwas flowing down this hole,
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Not Syncedblasting through the cave,
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Not Syncedfreezing everything inside of it.
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Not SyncedAnd we were so excited about finding this new pit,
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Not Syncedwe actually came back in January the following year
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Not Syncedso we could be the first ones to explore it.
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Not SyncedIt was so cold outside,
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Not Syncedwe actually had to sleep inside the cave.
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Not SyncedHere's our camp on the left side
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Not Syncedof this entrance room.
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Not SyncedThe next morning we climbed out of the cave
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Not Syncedand hiked all the way
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Not Syncedto the top of the glacier
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Not Syncedwhere we finally rid and repelled this pit
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Not Syncedfor the very first time.
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Not SyncedBrent named this cave Pure Imagination, I think,
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Not Syncedbecause the beautiful sights we saw in there
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Not Syncedwere beyond what we could have ever imagined.
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Not SyncedSo, besides really cool ice,
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Not Syncedwhat else is inside these caves?
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Not SyncedWell, not too much lives in them
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Not Syncedbecause they're so cold
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Not Syncedand the entrance is actually covered up with snow
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Not Syncedfor about eight months of the year,
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Not Syncedbut there are some really cool things in there.
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Not SyncedThere's weird bacteria living in the water
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Not Syncedthat actually eat and digest rocks
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Not Syncedto make their own food
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Not Syncedto live under this ice.
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Not SyncedIn fact, this past summer
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Not Syncedscientists collected samples of water and ice
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Not Syncedspecifically to see if things called extremophiles,
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Not Syncedtiny lifeforms that have evolved
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Not Syncedto live in a completely hostile conditions,
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Not Syncedmight be living under the ice,
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Not Syncedkind of like where they hope to find
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Not Syncedin the polar icecaps of Mars some day.
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Not SyncedAnother really cool thing
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Not Syncedis that as seeds and birds land
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Not Syncedon the surface of the glacier and die,
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Not Syncedthey get buried in the snow
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Not Syncedand gradually become part of the glacier,
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Not Syncedsinking deeper and deeper into the ice.
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Not SyncedAs these caves form
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Not Syncedand melt their way up into the ice,
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Not Syncedthen these artifacts rain down from the ceiling
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Not Syncedand fall into the cave floor
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Not Syncedwhere we end up finding them.
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Not SyncedFor example, this is a notal first seed we found.
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Not SyncedIt's been frozen in ice
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Not Syncedfor over a hundred years
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Not Syncedand it's just now starting to sprout.
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Not SyncedThis mallard duck feather
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Not Syncedwas found over 1800 feet
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Not Syncedin the back of Sleep Dragon Cave.
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Not SyncedThis duck died on the surface of the glacier
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Not Syncedlong, long ago
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Not Syncedand its feathers have finally made it down
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Not Syncedthrough a hundred feet of ice
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Not Syncedbefore falling inside the cave.
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Not SyncedAnd this beautiful quartz crystal
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Not Syncedwas also found in the back of Snow Dragon.
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Not SyncedEven now Brent and I find it hard to believe
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Not Syncedthat all these discoveries
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Not Syncedwere essentially in our own backyard,
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Not Syncedhidden away just waiting to be found.
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Not SyncedLike I said earlier,
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Not Syncedthe idea of discovery
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Not Syncedin this busy world we live in
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Not Syncedkind of seems like something
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Not Syncedyou can only do in space travel now,
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Not Syncedbut that's not true.
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Not SyncedEvery year new caves get discovered
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Not Syncedthat no one has ever been in before.
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Not SyncedSo, it's actually not too late
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Not Syncedfor one of you to become a discoverer yourself.
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Not SyncedYou just have to be willing to look and go
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Not Syncedwhere people don't often go
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Not Syncedand focus your eyes and your mind
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Not Syncedto recognize the discovery when you see it
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Not Syncedbecause it might be in your own backyard.
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Not SyncedThank you very much.
- Title:
- My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya
- Description:
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View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/my-glacier-cave-discoveries-eddy-cartaya
Snow Dragon. Pure Imagination. Frozen Minotaur. These are the names Eddy Cartaya and his climbing partner Brent McGregor gave three glacier caves that they were the first to explore, caves that are morphing constantly thanks to warm water and warm air. At TEDYouth, Cartaya takes us inside these magical spaces where ice glows in bright blues and greens, and where artifacts rain from the ceiling.
Talk by Eddy Cartaya.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED-Ed
- Duration:
- 08:03
TED edited English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya | ||
Jessica Ruby approved English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya | ||
Jessica Ruby accepted English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya | ||
Jessica Ruby edited English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya | ||
Jessica Ruby edited English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya | ||
Andrea McDonough edited English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya | ||
Andrea McDonough edited English subtitles for My glacier cave discoveries - Eddy Cartaya |