Vertical Caving and the Curvy Caver by Amy Hinkle, MS.  NSS News March 2013 pp 16-17, illus!

This article could well have come from Men Only.  ?For simplicity, I have used my own body.  I started with a digital photograph of my own naked form, ...?  Oh to be a fly on the wall.  But there is more, ?My right breast weighs 12 pound, my left breast weights 13 pounds.?  At this point I collapsed and the nurse had to give me oxygen.

Maybe she'll post the relevant material on here & save your life.

Almost 2 stones worth of norks are more likely to do him in imho!

It's actually quite difficult to weigh your body segments (when attached). IIRC from my anatomy days there's a formula you can use, based on weight, height, sex etc.

An old joke on the subject of weighing breasts springs to mind but I'll refrain from besmirching this thread by posting it.

After a quick bit of 'research', it appears that Archimedes' displacement principle is the way to do it, and assuming a density of 90% that of water.

S. G.?
In cold water I find a discrepancy in one of my buddy parts, Yes it's my best buddy .......still




























You try holding ya head under cold water :tease: :tease: :tease:
O.wrinkley G.

I must say the most common comment I get is men especially old cavers saying "I didn't know they weighed that much!" I sure hope the review and information is helpful though. I have gotten more...professional feedback from quite a few actually including some of your outdoor instructors!

I will say another benefit to my climbing system is it converts to a Texas very easily which means technical rigging is a breeze.

Amy, you should be commended for staying positive and continuing to contribute, despite receiving some harsh reactions in certain Internet forums.

Yet I can understand why people are struggling to see past the boobs (so to speak). You have a good point to make, but the article (has it changed much since this version?) doesn't get far beyond your body measurements and their effect on posture. The implications for "curvy caver SRT" are mostly relegated to a dense final paragraph. By this point most male readers have stopped reading and are fixated on tits & arse.

I suspect people would take the article more seriously if it were presented slightly differently; maybe tone down the "my naked form" bit, and skip the anti-BMI ranting (you don't need to justify anything about your body to anyone). The article needs less focus on your body and how you feel about it, and more focus on how to adapt SRT for various body shapes and physical capabilities.

I thought the point about chest rollers was interesting: these are often touted as the "fix" for top-heavy cavers, yet you point out they can squash down on breasts and interfere with breathing. Perhaps fixing the chest roller higher, and using a slender plate, might help? I'm working on something similar for my single-bungee system...

Well said Mike. Whilst I don't share Amys body shape (mine is more spherical. ..) the points she raised went a long way toward me getting to a workable srt system. So bravo Amy.

I'd also like to mention that Amy's work on this subject -- particularly her videos -- has changed how I teach SRT with some people.

I still start with a "standard" (frog) approach, as that will be more efficient if it suits the individual. But if they're struggling with that, then maybe it's time to look at adjusting the harness and letting the attachment point move higher.

This approach might also benefit people who have poor upper body or core strength -- even if they are slim. Not everyone needs to be a super-efficient, hardcore expedition caver. A good teacher brings out the best in all his students, not just the superstars.

The same philosophy can be applied to techniques. For example, some people find it very physically difficult to do a "standard" down-to-up changeover; so I show them a slower but physically easier method (with one significant caveat).

The article did change a bunch from its original form. Like, a LOT. Much more comprehensive and focus on solutions rather than the problems.

If men are so unevolved that they can't take something scientifically about how weights and body distributions affect climbing that's their problem not mine. It is important to understand such things to understand the problem and hence solutions so it was determined necessary to leave in.

I do struggle a lot with simply being female in a mans world. And I don't fit in with typical outdoors women shape either so I'm constantly stared at guffawed at leered at jeered At you name it i have to deal with it. The very least I can do is try to make others lives easier with what ive learned. and perhaps my persistence will encourage other females who are (rightly!) scared to joint this world simply becuse of, well think about what reactions I've gotten! I'm lucky, I have support surrounding me to encourage me in my quest. Many have no support. Hopefully reading things I write can also help males to learn a out differences and support females wanting to get into this hobby. If you need better encouragement, well, don't you want a cave girl girlfriend?! 

We don't need to be stuck in the dark ages anymore.

Must be different in Amerikay.

Plenty of females doing the hard trips and getting involved over here, and have been for many years.

Maybe 1 woman for every 20 males or so. I didn't cave with a female caver until I was in the UK. The numbers vertically trained are slimmer still. Even in the most popular vertical cave area of the us, I am the only female who does the verticals trips . A few do a short drop here and there but really I'm the only one.

Amy said:

Maybe 1 woman for every 20 males or so. I didn't cave with a female caver until I was in the UK. The numbers vertically trained are slimmer still. Even in the most popular vertical cave area of the us, I am the only female who does the verticals trips . A few do a short drop here and there but really I'm the only one.

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Wow, I find that unbelievable .... I've always appreciated caving as an area where women are just getting on with doing what they want to do without any fuss. The big question is why is it so different in the US compared to the UK?

I have no clue. But I think in general, perhaps it is a societal as a whole thing. In the UK I feel much more at home for many reasons, and I think it is because I don't notice the weird looks and derogatory views of women. Not that the caving community here is bad, I just mean society as a whole in the states is much more backwards than you'd think. All this religious shit isn't doing us any favours. I mean you do know they are trying to take away our rights to birth control and such again, yes? Old world extreme religious views permeate society here, so I think it's just a trickledown effect perhaps. I find the UK much more progressive. Also, here caving isn't very widely accepted, we dont have uni clubs and things like that, so we aren't getting to the younger and more empowered generations where women /would/ want to cave.

I mean, that being said, our grotto (cave club) executive board is probably one of the best ratiowise in the nation, haha. Myself and four others are female ^.^ so exactly half our e-board! The particular grotto I am in has some decently active females, much better than the typical norms or national averages.

For vertical stuff though, still, severe lack of skilled females. I"m the only one I know in this area with the experience and training to do long rope, for example. At our team practices there is sometimes one to three other females...one from Alaska, one from Indiana, and one from Virginia. there is another in North Carolina I think. Offhand though, so that's five total females i know of in the entire united states who are well trained for long rope. Ignoring population size differences, that would be like the equivalent of five females in the UK qualified to do your deep push expeditions in Europe. CRAZY!!!! I mean there are quite likely those I don't know who are in the US who do such things - the US is huge after all - but the point stands...if that's as few as I know and I'm on the team that holds world long rope records....clearly they are not common. 

The Alberta Speleological Society, in the Canadian Rockies, has always had a small number of serious female cavers.  Within the last five or ten years I'd say that half of our dozen truly hardcore exploration cavers are female.  And we have some of the most challenging caving conditions in the world here.

The group I generally cave with is probably 50:50 or at most 60:40 male/female on most trips - I'm so used to it being like that, it seems weird to hear otherwise. When I first started caving I was worried I'd just be hanging out with beardy weirdy guys, but far from it. Gender issues just don't happen, and it's completely equal on all tasks. And all the females are expert at SRT, and put many of the guys I know to shame, especially prussiking.

Though she may generally be right, I do think Amy overstates the case somewhat.  When I was active internationally in the 80s and 90s, I met several competent US female cavers, and I still know of a few.  Perhaps they are mostly out west rather than in TAG.

I should also point out that I've not met that many beardy weirdy guys in caving either, thankfully - even the ones who do have beards are very cool, so I gess that's one stereotype which can be put to bed.

pwhole said:

I should also point out that I've not met that many beardy weirdy guys in caving either, thankfully - even the ones who do have beards are very cool, so I gess that's one stereotype which can be put to bed.

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Thats only because you have not spent enough time this side of the pond, they're all over here!!