Hi,

I was wondering what people's thoughts are on cairns in caves? This is something I've picked up from mountaineering and have never actually seen another caver do. But I find it immensely helpful in caves that are difficult to navigate where I know I'll be coming back the same way. In these situations I build small cairns to mark the route, and then remove the cairns on the way back so as not to leave any trace behind. Was wondering if anyone else did this or is it just me?  :alien:

Anna

I have been known to place some pebbles as a waymark for my own use, and scatter them as I return. I usually try and fix the look of the junction by viewing it from the return angle

We place small reflectors to indicate the way. In large systems you can see several reflectors with your light.

In systems that we explore (over several years) these  are permanently glued. In systems we visit (with several teams or over several days) we remove them during the last trip in the system.

I have marked passage in some way on occasions but the rule I follow is look behind you and fix the view and that is what I have always taught to people new to caving. The classic place to lose the route is if you drop out of a roof into a horizontal passage junction and forget you did it! That catches people out regularly I'm sure. Some people hate cairns on the surface full stop. I remember a friend tearing down some random cairns on a Scottish mountain on one occasion.

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When exploring some of the more complex hypogenic maze caves I tend to use Theaksons and Blacksheep beer bottle tops. It?s an excellent excuse.

Sometimes handy to stand on to change levels.  I can think of several examples locally including the enormous one in Lamb & Fox Chamber to reach Indiana Highway most directly, or vice versa.

As to mountaineering, we don't have fog in caves.

Stuart France said:

As to mountaineering, we don't have fog in caves.

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You clearly haven't been in Dan yr Ogof on November the First!

In general, my first instinct is to be strongly against cairns. On the surface I don't think there's almost ever any need (I might allow the set on Ben Nevis for historical reasons if nothing else).

But... then I think it depends on context.
The reflective markers in Daren are useful (and we have the same in WUG in Austria) without being too offensive.
Tape can be a useful navigational aid as well as a conservation measure - I never did the Daren through trip before there were tram lines in Price's Chamber (or whatever it's called) but surely it would be very hard not to find Ogof Cwnc now...
The lines of stones that people occasionally put across (generally crawling) side passages that are almost always the 'wrong way' are often useful, but generally those are in passages that are a long way from natural anyway (a floor made by a combination of digging and the passage of thousands of cavers, for example).

mrodoc said:

... the rule I follow is look behind you and fix the view and that is what I have always taught to people new to caving.

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Agreed.    Useful also in mines.

When solo, doing a lot of this is what makes my progress so slow.

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I've noticed a lot more cairns on the surface these days and I think they more harm than good. There are so many that you don't actually know what they are indicating, and there is no guarentee that somebody actually built it in the 'correct' place. It's also getting harder to actually practice navigating in the fog because you end up just following cairns. In the Peak you often see a line of cairns along an actual well-trodden path which is just pointless.

I sometime buid small ones out of pebbles underground but I always dismantle them on the way out.

As long as you do dismantle them afterwards (or perhaps include in the survey). I, as do many, have a real dislike of the proliferation of cairns in the mountains. Too many not mapped and people can follow them into all sorts of dangers unknowing.