I am currently a student at Loughborough Uni conducting an investigation into designing a cooking product aimed at cavers doing long trips underground.

I am in need of getting these questions answered, a reply to these would be extremely helpful.

• How long have you been caving?
  What is your typical caving trip like?
  Why do you go & what do you get out of it?
  Who goes caving?
  How long underground do you typically spend?
  What was your best experience of caving?
  What was your worst experience of caving?
  What equipment do you typically bring?
  What do you do about food during caving expeditions?
  Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity
  Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground?
  Would you want the meal to be warm?
  Do you ever use open flames underground?
  If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it?
  How much would you be prepared to pay for it?

adamtills said:

I am currently a student at Loughborough Uni conducting an investigation into designing a cooking product aimed at cavers doing long trips underground.

I am in need of getting these questions answered, a reply to these would be extremely helpful.

• How long have you been caving?
  What is your typical caving trip like?
  Why do you go & what do you get out of it?
  Who goes caving?
  How long underground do you typically spend?
  What was your best experience of caving?
  What was your worst experience of caving?
  What equipment do you typically bring?
  What do you do about food during caving expeditions?
  Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity
  Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground?
  Would you want the meal to be warm?
  Do you ever use open flames underground?
  If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it?
  How much would you be prepared to pay for it?

Click to expand...

Hi Adam, I think you may need to make your questions more specific.  I started to answer your questions but soon gave up.  Hope the following comments help:

?How long have you been caving?                                          Since 1984
What is your typical caving trip like?                                      There isn't a typical one. My last one was down Heron
                                                                                          Pot in The Dales, next will be in China - chalk & cheese
Why do you go & what do you get out of it?                            That's such a subjective question
Who goes caving?                                                                Erm, cavers??
How long underground do you typically spend?                        A few hours
What was your best experience of caving?                              What relevance does this have to cooking underground?
What was your worst experience of caving?                            Ditto
What equipment do you typically bring?                                Depends on the cave/trip
What do you do about food during caving expeditions?            Depends on the expedition.  Mulu included fruit cake and
                                                                                          (disgusting) processed cheese.  China we had Mountain
                                                                                          house meals when camping

Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity  Often depends on what can be bought locally
Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground?          Bigger than what??
Would you want the meal to be warm?                                  Snacks no, camping yes - you don't really differentiate
Do you ever use open flames underground?                            Yes - camping stoves.
If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it?  Why isn't a normal gas canister camping
                                                                                          stove not a 'caving stove'??
How much would you be prepared to pay for it?                    Not enough detail to know how much I'd pay

In summary, I'm sure folks would like to help you however you're asking them to write an essay. Good luck with the project, Pegasus

How long have you been caving? About 4,000 trips
What is your typical caving trip like? fun
Why do you go & what do you get out of it? fun, enjoyment
Who goes caving? cavers
How long underground do you spend? depends on the trip
What was your best experience of caving? see below
What was your worst experience of caving? see above
What equipment do you typically bring? standard caving kit
What do you do about food during caving expeditions? on expeditions usually just have cashews/water and lose quite a lot of weight, plus dextrose for additional energy
Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity    energy/salt (to avoid cramping) & more energy
Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground? wouldn't say no
Would you want the meal to be warm? wouldn't say no
Do you ever use open flames underground? not so far
If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it? if it was already there, possibly yes; if I had to carry one with me, probably no
How much would you be prepared to pay for it? I'd get someone else to buy it

For a typical British trip (say 3 - 8 hours) the vast majority of cavers will probably just a take a  Mars bar / cereal bar or similar.  It really isn't worth the hassle of taking anything bigger or more complicated particularly if you are already dragging a lot of kit along.  The key is probably to have a reasonable meal before going underground.

If you are designing a cooking product for longer trips I would suggest it needs to tick the same boxes as the Mars bar i.e. compact, robust, minimal packaging, easy to prepare, reasonably tasty, cheap.

By "cooking product" do you mean "something to cook" -  as in sausages and bacon or haricot oxtail?

Or do you mean "something to cook with" - as in log fire, meths stove or "Tommy cooker"?

Until fairly recently open flames - aka carbide lamps - were quite commonly used in caves for lighting.  People tend to use LED lamps these days, though. (Although rumour has it that you can use one of Roy Fellows' lamps to heat up a tin of baked beans at a pinch!)

As folks have said, caving trips vary greatly, and what people would want to take to eat or cook with on a long expedition  is one thing - what they would want to take on a trip lasting a few hours is quite another.

How long have you been caving? Since 1986
What is your typical caving trip like? There isn't a typical caving trip. Trips vary in duration from a couple of hours to long weekends (camping in Daren Cilau). Could be wet or dry, muddy or clean washed, spacious or tight.
Why do you go & what do you get out of it? Enjoyment. Challenging. It's both a team and solo activity at the same time, camaraderie, similar reasons that climbers climb, ramblers walk, mountain bikers ride etc. etc.
Who goes caving? A complete cross section of people from young to the more mature (but I would suggest that there is not much of cross over between football fans and cavers )
How long underground do you typically spend? 2 - 50 hrs
What was your best experience of caving? Oh to pick one - new passages found, or perhaps first big abseil/descent, or free diving a couple of reasonable length sumps.
What was your worst experience of caving? Near death 
What equipment do you typically bring? Depends on the trip - food wise, one or two snicker bars for trips measured in hrs, but for camping underground, cooked breakfast, packed lunch, cooked evening meal with 1/2 a bottle of wine (beer is too heavy and I don't do cocktails at Hard Rock).
What do you do about food during caving expeditions? Eat it. For Daren camps (not that I call a Daren camp an expedition) we tend to take in dried food (good water supply available underground), cheese, bacon sausages, pitta breads, choc bars and other snacks.
Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity - What you can fit into a Daren drum along with replenishing camping kit and still be able to carry it in.
Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground? Not on short trips, and I feel we already eat quite well on Daren camps.
Would you want the meal to be warm? Warm Snicker bars? No not on short trips. We already have cooked breakfast/evening meal on Daren camps.
Do you ever use open flames underground? Yes, on Daren camps.
If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it? Not for caving trips measured in hrs as opposed to days.
How much would you be prepared to pay for it? Silly question - I'm a caver - so as little as possible or free 
Regarding the stoves we use at Hard Rock in Daren Cilau:- We use Paraffin Primus stoves, because they are robust, reliable and can survive many years underground. Spare parts can be carried in to repair and service as required. We also still use (paraffin) Stormlite Tilley lamps for the same reasons.
I think you perhaps you need to be looking at a  couple of different application for stoves underground:-
1. To be carried during a long trip for that specific trip - weight, fuel, compactness and robustness would be important factors.
2. Where as if a permanent/semi permanent camp or emergency kit was left underground. Then weight and compactness would be less important, but reliability, serviceability and fuel would be more critical and if for emergency use by cavers unknown, ease of use (something like a primus would be no good to someone who hadn't used one before).

Hope some of this is of interest.
Cheers,
Maj.

I either don't eat underground or do it properly. Given that most of my trips seem to be going 10+ hours at the moment, I did the French thing and invested in a stove.

I have yet to use it...

I think most people don't eat loads because it'd be like eating during a marathon. So something small and simple is probably the key. Also able to take an absolute battering.

I used to be partial to chocolate but now being 'wheat disabled' vie for red meat and nuts.

What you really need to know about cooking underground is that anything going into a cave needs to be able to handle some major abuse without damaging the cave ecosystem.

If your fuel can leak...it will leak all over the inside of your pack. The fuel canister needs to be able to survive a 6+ foot drop (just in case).

You need to be able to remove all remains from the cave. You need to limit the amount of damage you do to the cave through chemical releases.

How long have you been caving? 40 odd years!
What is your typical caving trip like?fun
Why do you go & what do you get out of it? see above
Who goes caving? err cavers!
How long underground do you typically spend? HOW long is a bit of string.....
What was your best experience of caving? NOT dying
What was your worst experience of caving? see above
What equipment do you typically bring? CAVING KIT
What do you do about food during caving expeditions? eat it all beforehand!
Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity If you don'eat, you don't shit, if you don't shit YOU die!
Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground? I have cooked a 3 course banquet underground
Would you want the meal to be warm? I hate cold soup from the tin!
Do you ever use open flames underground? for cooking of course
If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it? ONLY if its cheaper than my home built penny stoves.
How much would you be prepared to pay for it? AS little as possible

Jeez these questions a rheeely tedious, did you just copy and paste them from some dumbass questionnaire?? we're notoriously more skinflint than an Aberdonian, sitting round the candle to get warm.........one day I might reach for the matches!

I'm not convinced that asking someone how long they have been caving provides anything useful. For example, someone doing a summer caving trip for youth camps who only does one trip a year, but has done so for a decade; do they have ten years' experience, or ten days? The latter, logically.

I'm a student at Loogaboora thinking of changing my mind.......

ther did not seem a lot of connection between all of the questions
chris makes a very valid point to time/experience
I have been caving since 1979 but living in sussex does not see me in a cave that often where as someone living on mendip might in 1 years caving every weekcould rack up more trips.
as for cooking/eating, there is already plenty of choice of types of cookers available
and plenty of choice of food, I have on underground camps taken army food packs, very good boil in the bag, but heavy to carry, and dehydrated stuff, the last lot was 4 different rice dishes, which in my mind all tasted the same, haute cuisine not, edible well left long enough to hydrate it filled a hole, tasted of a rice dish.

Apologies for sounding what might appear to be a negative note, but why do you think, adamtills, that ? given the plethora of stoves on the market today . . . gas stoves, petrol stoves, paraffin stoves, solid fuel stoves ? it is necessary to design a stove specifically for caving?

Well, I posted this with long dashes (en-rules) that have come out as question marks, so re-read it substituting a long dash for the first 2 ?s!

All this discussion seems a bit utilitarian, and this probably isn't what you were thinking of....

Ian cooking steak in Sand Cavern with CPC this Summer....you could smell it at the T Junction.
The gas stove did very nicely.

Been caving since err 199? or so. Never yet been on a trip that needed/wanted hot meal. Snacks and drink do fine.

If someone else bought and brought one I'd certainly have been glad of the warmth on some trips, but you never really know in advance. Minimising weight and tackle remains the highest priority.

Surely hot meals are only ever going to be considered when an underground camp is an essential part of the trip.

Poor guy asked some simple questions and got himself a focus group

And, probably, a few personal messages.

Im not so much a caver as i am a mine explorer, but have answered the questions the best i can.

How long have you been caving? since 2008
What is your typical caving trip like? wet, muddy
Why do you go & what do you get out of it? exploring places that few people have gone before us
Who goes caving? In what sense?
How long underground do you typically spend? 1-4 hours
What was your best experience of caving? Discovering a whole new level to a mine with artefacts all left in situ
What was your worst experience of caving? Roof coming down on top of me whilst digging...
What equipment do you typically bring? Full SRT kit, Ropes, tonnes of rigging gear including bolts and occasionally a drill
What do you do about food during caving expeditions? Ex MOD rat packs
Why do you choose this food? E.g. performance, pleasure, necessity? takes up no room and no fuss as can be eaten hot or cold.
Would you consider eating a bigger meal underground? Probably not
Would you want the meal to be warm? Depends on what we are doing or how long we are staying.
Do you ever use open flames underground? Yes
If a caving stove was available for cooking underground, would you use it? Depends on the size, weight and practicality. in all honesty a small cheap gas stove or trangia is ideal.
How much would you be prepared to pay for it?