That does look interesting actually, if a bit pricey - but if the pricey translates into tough, then I guess it's worth it - certainly for work. But it's a lot of money for caving use only.

This guy has sort of a skateboard:

Isn't that the case with all insurance everywhere though? Statistically, I suspect most people paying insurance 'lose their money' - in the sense that nothing bad ever happened, and so they never made a claim, and just paid off their premium. It's much rarer for something bad to happen, and you...

More than once in the last couple of months I've had to shoo people away from deep open holes on CROW land - and their dogs in some cases, which weren't on leads, and with sheep grazing on the same land. In that case the owner was completely uninterested in my reasoning, so I walked away and...

Same here! From the amount still stuck on me from work, Sikaflex All-in-One is probably the best bet. But yes, don't get it on your carpet... I also use clear Gorilla Glue for repairs, which is very flexible.

On a roof in Settle and this just went past.

90% of my caving is (inevitably in Derbyshire) on very dirty ropes ;)

Yep - pretty much sums up all my concerns! Aluminium is too soft for much friction - I replaced my Banana bobbins with custom stainless ones for that reason - only recently flipped them after four years of solid use. Plus you can use a Raumer Handy for - well, I've had mine six years, and I...

I use Excalibur 8mm screws and have generally been happy with them. Last week I pulled some out of a bolt-climb and reinstalled them higher up, but they'd only been in a week, and not in very hard rock, so I figured they'd be OK. I always use a nylon washer between the screw and the hanger as...

I've never used a Freino, partly as I was so happy with the Raumer Handy I've never used anything else. My main concern with the Freino is the friction spur appears to be 90° off-line for the descender rope path. But I know Andrew swears by them, so I wouldn't want to diss them when I've not...

I coincidentally just stripped and serviced my setup, so it's shown below. But basically two Petzl Lockers on the short and long cowstails - 13 years old and still good - a snapgate on the short loop, which I replace regularly as that does get worn, as I use it to hang on quite a lot. Screwlock...

One more - the right wall of this passage is sediment, and the vein above looks decidedly waterworn, and is breaking out into another pipe at this point. The shape of the passage suggests natural, but who knows? But the sediment had to get in somewhere.

I did get a Nokia smartphone though ;)

It's also worth remembering that aside from the mining, there are several fragments of quite significant natural cave in Odin, which by definition, are in solid rock. These have never been properly documented - ironically the trip we discovered the floor collapse on, in Feb 2011, was meant to be...

I was using the Nokia 800 Tough until a year ago, which is great, but it only uses 3G for messaging, and Vodafone essentially told me that as they would be switching off 3G completely soon, I needed to upgrade to keep all that - so I had to bite the bullet and get a smartphone.

You're on the list! And both these are not Odin for context - photos by Gaz