What would you call the opening "room" of a cave that is flush with the face of a cliff (as found here: http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free- ... ge10005247)?

Is it simply... 'You are at the mouth of a cave that is flush with the face of the cliff''? (or some 'similation' to this) is there a better room name for this? Any geologists out there?

Just curious. Thanks!

XanMag

ps... on a side note, a really wanted to use the word similation above but, lo and behold, I guess it is not a word!? Example: "I know I need to solve the problem by doing XYZ, or some similation to that." Is similation a slang word? I swear I've seen/heard it somewhere... is it assimilation? But, that doesn't seem right either. Hmm.

It could be something like "the mouth of a cave embedded in a cliff face" or "the mouth of a cave leading into a cliff face". Buried, contained, penetrating, situated in... stuff like that (if not that)?

The picture you linked to had the cave mouth quite high up. Is that what you envision, where leaving the cave requires either "flight or gravity"? Or could it be a cave at the base of a cliff? If the former, it could be "the mouth of a cave situated high up (in) the face of a sheer cliff".

In the game, there is an overhanging part of the cliff with a hole in the middle. Eventually, the player needs to climb down a rope and swing into the cave mouth below. But, yes, the opening is a "couple hundred" feet above the ground flush with the face of the cliff.

Thanks.

An interesting (and odd) thought that keeps occurring to me: you typically call the opening to a cave the "mouth" because that's where you go in. But if you enter a cave into a system of tunnels (or even one), then an opening like that on the other end could be as much an exit as an entrance. Then I got thinking about what the opposite of "mouth" was in terms of the digestive tract, and well... we don't need to go there.

But I wonder if it helps to look at it more of the cave/tunnel exiting out of a sheer cliff vs entering there in terms of your situation, especially if it is a cave as opposed to the end of a tunnel (since it's really more about getting out).

The first place you can enter the cave (with tunnels) is the cliff face. The other end is in the basement of a church. Once you exit there, both become an entrance and an exit. If I write it properly, one could end up "reading out of one's ass"... not sure if I want my game to go there.

I'll figure out how to word it properly when I get there, which will likely end in a flag set to change the room description at some point.

I liked this one.

Jaynabonne said,
it could be "the mouth of a cave situated high up (in) the face of a sheer cliff"

I use,
"The opening of a cave is set in the middle of a shear cliff face."

The description of the exit or direction from the top could start with,

"Carefully peering over the edge of the cliff, you see the opening of a cave set into the side of the sheer face, far above the ground below."

Then something similar from the bottom....