Hello all
Sorry for the slow response to this, but we?ve been out caving and enjoying the nice weather
Several points raised in this thread so far to respond to with our perspective.
Where the booking system is currently in operation there were, until very recently, some very restrictive permit agreements requiring advanced notice and with less overall availability (including closed seasons, or no access to non-club cavers in some areas). The system was introduced as a compromise with landowners to move away from the previous permit system, while sustaining good relations (and good relations are desirable for many other reasons).
The booking system is therefore a tool to facilitate cave access in a way that satisfies three major landowners and shows the respect that we have always encouraged cavers to show. We encourage cavers to use it, but as the caves are all on open-access land, we have no intention of ever insisting upon use of the booking system. The caves are open access and require no permission to visit.
The decision on whether to use the booking system lies very much with the caving community.
In terms of booking system etiquette, it isn?t our place to make recommendations; but it would seem prudent that if you are doing an exchange trip via two heavily SRT-orientated entrances, to book both, to avoid disappointment to another group who may be using the booking system as a means to avoid underground traffic. Likewise, only book what you need, and cancel any bookings you will not be using as much in advance as possible. Our statistics show that a large proportion of bookings are made less than two days prior to the trip, so cancelling even a few days before the date will free up availability for others who might be planning their trip the night before. There is plenty of availability to go around; there are a lot of caves on Leck/Ingleborough/Casterton fells and some of the less SRT-orientated entrances accommodate two bookings per day.
We did explore the idea of allowing groups with bookings to contact eachother to discuss routes etc, but that just entered a GDPR minefield that we had no desire to explore.
We would like to emphasise that having a booking for a cave does not guarantee you exclusivity, and we urge respect towards any other group who turns up without a booking while you are there. Many people will not know about the booking system, will be there due to an unexpected change of plan, or will have decided not to use it for whatever good reason.
Lots of cavers seem to appreciate the system to pick a trip where you are less likely to encounter congestion. The more people who use the booking system, the better it works for this purpose, although we never installed the system for these purposes.
We suggest common sense, courtesy, and respect.
If you wish to use the booking system, it takes a matter of minutes to register, and even less to make a booking. We have tried to make it as hassle-free as possible, and we welcome feedback (webmaster@cncc.org.uk).
With respect to the rigging topo for Dihedral:
Firstly, a reminder that the CNCC has a reporting tool for such things (missing deviations, inaccurate rope lengths or misleading topos). This can be found here:
https://cncc.org.uk/caving/report/topo-error.php
Many of our topos originate from the early CNCC rigging guides. They are unaudited and we rely on cavers to report issues and errors. In the last year we have updated dozens of our online topos and descriptions in response to feedback from the caving community. They are far from static documents.
One of the UKCaving moderators has kindly submitted this dihedral discussion to our attention.
Langcliffe is spot on that the CNCC has not historically acknowledged anchors that were not placed by approved installers. The reasons for this are a separate discussion altogether and would bore the pants off most cavers (us included!) as it spans horribly into realms of liability and insurance.
However, this is something we are actively discussing, with a view to including selected non-CNCC anchors on our topos where they may be appropriate. These missing deviation anchors, providing they are resin-bonded and stainless steel, may fall into this category.
From what we can gather from the discussion above, there is a feeling the CNCC rope lengths for dihedral could benefit from an additional 5-10m adding to each (maybe 60+60 instead of 55+55)? This is an easy change to implement. Secondly, we surmise there are some deviations that could benefit from being noted on the topo. Anyone who is familiar with the current situation including where these deviations are, what they are (what anchor type) and what condition they are in, please get in touch (pr@cncc.org.uk or use the link above) and we may be able to note these on the topo depending on how the current discussions about non-CNCC anchors proceeds.
Alternatively, we may be able to send a few of our installers to take a look... we?ve sent them to far worse places over the past year.
In general it never hurts to carry a little but more rope and a few more krabs/slings than the topos show, it creates a bit of redundancy and covers many eventualities and enables greater flexibility in the rigging.
