I was surprised to discover that many cavers keep a log of their caving trips, either as just a date and cave or with a bit of a report too and a few people have mentioned to me in recent months about not having a good place to keep this record. Some people prefer an actual book, others use an Excel or Google Docs spreadsheet.

So what do people think of a bespoke website to keep your trip log on? Something quite simple. It could be private just to you or you could choose to make it public. I've not put too much thought into it yet but there is scope for all sorts of things like adding photos etc. It could also be a quick way to copy/paste your select trip reports onto UKC and link to photos etc too! It could potentially become an interesting archive.

I'd just like to get a feel from people - is this something you'd use? Crap idea? Great idea? I'm sure you'll be brutally honest.

I'd use it. Could take a few ideas off the UK climbing logbooks, seems to be similar to what you're proposing: https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/latest_ascents.php
Needs to have a field for Sporkotrons, that's very important.

Since I can account for my last 536 trips underground, I wouldn't use it because I already have all the data I could want available but I can see how it could be useful, both in terms of putting the idea of record-keeping in front of people and also for specific projects - it would be interesting to be able to look at the full scope of work gone into the ongoing Eldon Hole project, for example.

Having already parsed my trip details from one (excellent) website in order to make my current log, I wouldn't like to go through the reverse process and enter many years worth of trips again on a new type of log. It would have to have a really easy interface to mass upload data.

Equally, I would want assurances that the data can easily be retrieved should I choose to go back to an offline log, or worse, should the website be taken down. It would also need to cope with long periods of inactivity, no account lockouts and an easy way to get a password back if forgotten!

Will the data be available to CNCC / BCA/ other parties? Will the caving police come after me for all those unpermitted university trips I did many years ago when I really didn't know any better?

Kevlar said:

Having already parsed my trip details from one (excellent) website in order to make my current log, I wouldn't like to go through the reverse process and enter many years worth of trips again on a new type of log. It would have to have a really easy interface to mass upload data.

Equally, I would want assurances that the data can easily be retrieved should I choose to go back to an offline log, or worse, should the website be taken down. It would also need to cope with long periods of inactivity, no account lockouts and an easy way to get a password back if forgotten!

Will the data be available to CNCC / BCA/ other parties? Will the caving police come after me for all those unpermitted university trips I did many years ago when I really didn't know any better?

Click to expand...

Kevlar, thanks, some interesting thoughts. I hadn't considered easy transfer from another system but I'm sure that could be possible, as would a download option for users to store a backup (as a Excel file for example).

In terms of the "caving police", the site would be 100% my personal project and have no connection with BCA / CNCC etc. You would have my assurance that data would not be shared unless a user chose to do so. In the same way that you wouldn't expect UKC to share non-public data.

So this is the sort of thing climbers do on our sister site UKClimbing, I can't see why not an on-line log entry would be quite a good feature. The only thing would stop me using it through is if the permit police use it to check if I had the relevant paper work on a given day.

Climbing logs aren't generallly of historic interest as new routes are usually recorded elsewhere, whilst caving logs can contain details that aren't recorded anywhere else, so having the option of keeping some of it for posterity is important - not many websites survive for more than a few years.

UKClimbing also has the option of sharing with others on an individual basis for a limited time, rather than just allowing everyone or nobody else to see your data.

Mike

I have kept a scribbled log since July 1966. Some were in old desk diaries. I refer to them a lot when updating caving stuff. Some of the clearest and most detailed caving logs were kept by Willie Stanton and these have been uploaded to the MCRA website. Surprisingly some cavers do not keep logs as we found when writing up the history of Reservoir Hole. Personally I would not keep anything like that exclusively on line as I retain the fear that one day in a huge solar storm all will be lost. I guess it depends on how you approach caving. Purely caving as a sport might not be a valuable form of activity worth recording but digging and exploration of new sites certainly is.

I would certainly use it. I think it would be great to have a central place for this sort of thing.

Is that not what this forum is for ?

Sounds like a great idea, I'm keen!