Caving images generated by DALL-E

Wow. I've seen DALL-E's pictures from other topics elsewhere previously, but now I tried it myself for caving. And since we just had the pre-Xmas party of our association in the cave, I gave the AI the task of imagining what it would look like. True to its style, the generated images are mixture of amazing with some very disturbing undertones.

DALL-E is of course the image-generating AI that takes natural language descriptions as input. It is created by OpenAI, and you can read more about it ​here.

The first task was to imagine "Finnish Caver's Association's Annual Pre-Christmas party in a frozen cave in the woods with mood lights and a dog. Mulled wine was served, along with cookies." See the picture at the top! It is somehow right ... yet disturbingly right because the dog is too human, and the human is reminiscent of my friend Jaakko, who is one of the owners of the actual dog we had in the party. How would the AI know this?

The next question was "A cavers' association Christmas party in a small but warm cave in the frozen Finnish forest". The first picture is kind of nice, well done DALL-E.

But the second one is just wrong somehow ....  what is the contraption in the head, a helmet or a hat?? And the thing in front is surely not a lamp? And the human seems definitely wrong somehow, like an alien is about to jump out. Scary.

The final question was about something the AI surely would not know about, and we didn't do this year. But sometimes we have a squeeze box competition. I asked DALL-E to draw pictures of "Squeeze box competition in a caver's party. Box was set to only 16 cm, and it is very difficult for people to squeeze through. They have to empty their lungs to be able to push forward." But I don't think DALL-E really knew what a squeeze box is:

But in this picture it is somehow getting there... 16cm box that people try to squeeze their head through? But again some disturbing imagery:

This was so much of a mixture of fun and worry about our new AI overloads, that I had to give it a bonus task: "Red granite stalactites, wish we had them! But the rock is too hard." Reliably, DALL-E cave us red stalactites and cave bacon, in a style reminiscent of some aliens:

This article has also been published at TGR. Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, models, maps, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Caver's club Xmas in a cave

 

The Finnish caving association, Luolaseura, has a tradition to hold pre-Xmas parties. This time we started it in a warm place ... in the Grottberget cave in Siuntio. And it was surprisingly warm, I guess because the cave entrance is lower than the cave itself. And with a dozen cavers in this small cave, it also heated up quickly. I really liked the old style oil lamps. And the cave dog!

The Grottberget cave is in coordinates N 60.161948 E 24.137638.

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, models, maps, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

London skiing. On a side of a building.

 

One thing you do not expect when strolling in London is a huge mural on the side of a building, depicting skiing and ski lifts. Well done, South Kensington!

The building is in coordinates 51.493248, -0.176785, at 9 Reece Mews, South Kensington, London SW7 3HE.

This has also been reported by the In The Snow.

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko.

Season is on again! Only six months break in Vihti and Hyvinkää

 

I opened my official Finnish ski season on 16th of November in Vihti. Vihti actually opened already on the 14th and Hyvinkää had already had sessions from October 24th. The last seasons ended on May 10th in Vihti and May 9th in Hyvinkää, so only 5.5 - 6 months summer break! Well done!

And I was really glad skiing in Vihti now. Only the small slope for the kids was open, with a magic carpet lift but ... it's a start. And all the snow guns started in the night that was getting colder and colder... so soon there's more!

See the video here:

This article has also appeared in TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko.

October turns at the x-country ski hall

 

The city of Helsinki maintains a previously commercial Kivikko indoor ski hall. It has been scheduled for closing, however, due to rising energy costs and small number of users. Hopefully that decision can be turned! But. It is an *x-country* ski hall, how can one enjoy it for downhill skiing? To begin with, I was wondering if I'd be allowed in with my ski boots and alpine skis. But no one batted an eyelid... and I put them in touring mode, which made progress on the track nice. And then .. there is about a 4-5 meter slope along the track... I switched to "skating" mode and side of the track... voilà!

Video:

Ski hall building:

Inside:

The slope that runs between the two levels in the ski tracks:

Author:

Funny character:

This article has also appeared in TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko.

Lost River Caverns

On my work trip to Philadelphia, I also managed to visit the Lost River Caverns, an hour and half from the city. What a wonderful display of colors and cave forms!

The most interesting room that you can visit is the Crystal Chapel, a site of more than 100 underground weddings. And the site of dance parties in the 1880s... on a wooden platform (!). The room has some stalactites but is mostly covered with flowstone, including a massive light-colored flowstone area that one has to navigate around when moving about in the room.

There's actually another, even more interesting room but it isn't accessible for visitors, due to the access to it being most of the time under water. The Queen's Room was discovered only in 1963 during a drought.

Lost River Caverns is a Karst cave, i.e., limestone cave carved through chemical processes. The cave was discovered in 1883 and has been operated as a show cave since 1930. But the age of the cave is estimated to be 250 000 years. The cave length is 370 meters.

The cave has gotten its name from the small stream that runs through it, but neither its source or where it goes has not been determined.

Read more about this cave from their official website (also linked above), World of Caves website, and wikipedia. There's also a nice set of facts about the cave in this "teacher's information package" for the cave and the PA Bucket List website. The cave is in Hellertown in northern Pennsylvania (coordinates N 40.58081 W 75.33099).

Crystal Chapel pictures:

Other cave forms, including cave bacon and a helictite:

Cave passages:

The cave ticket hall has a large shop with a remarkable collection of memorabilia and souvenirs from rocks to photographs. And caving "helmets" for kids:

Overview of the ticket sales hall and shop:

Signs:

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, models, maps, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Taking the chairlift to September runs

I try to ski every month and September is always a difficult one. Today’s run was short, but with full service.

This article has also appeared in TGR. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko.

Jabba the Hutt makes an appearance in a Philadelphia cave!

Crystal Caves here, there, everywhere! I had an uncanny feeling that I've been before to a Crystal Cave, but hey, everybody's entitled to have a crystal cave, no? And this everybody isn't just anybody, it is somebody. Jabba the Hutt, to be precise!

Crystal cave is a nice, spectacular and friendlily run show cave in Pennsylvania, about an hour and twenty minutes drive northeast from Philadelphia (see the google maps link). Their website is here, and the Wikipedia article has some more information. Admission on a tour is 19$.

Other Crystal Caves can be found from the Wikipedia list, as well as the one in California was described in my earlier article.

Jabba's body seems to have some medical issues:

And yet another view of Jabba the Hutt:

Here are some funny signs from the cave:

Main cave hall views:

And more beautiful cave forms:

This form was remarkable, and it is not exactly know what happened here. No, it is not someone sticking a washing sponge or rice cookie on a stalactite:

The house outside the cave:

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, models, maps, and text (c) 2021-2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.