Caving Hacks, or things you learn with age?

[Brains]

Thought I would start a thread to collate perhaps less obvious knowledge that an infrequent user or newcomers to a fresh skill set might find helpful. The hive was mind on here must be able to add many more, but here are a few things to be going on with...

- The screw barrel on a harness maillon can be spannered with the end of a simple or stop to undo it when your hands won't work
- A 7mm long maillon can be unscrewed to make a small adjustable spanner
- A Stop can be clipped to a foot-loop and used as an emergency jammer
- A clove hitch round a boot can also work as a jammer
- Climbing harnesses aren't really suitable for SRT
- Long hair or beards don't play nicely with descenders
- Tackle bags are best carried not hauled on pitches
- Tackle bags are best carried on a pitch by a cord from a krab on the main D that lets it hang below your feet
- use a cord ( not a tape!) that is thick enough not to get inside your foot jammer
- Clip the haul cord into the bag when not in use as a krab in the teeth isn't funny
- Neoprene socks and foot jammers are money well spent
- A hat or buff makes for happy teddies
- Don't tighten a loaded krab, and load a seized krab to make it easier to undo
- Even fit newbies aren't cave fit
- You will get wet, always take a change of clothes. Even on that dry and dusty trip

- Newbies love rocks minerals and fossils. Point them out

- Yes we go underground, in the winter, in the evening. Yes its dark out!

- Spar is a miners name for sparkling minerals, and includes felspar, Iceland spar, fluorspar, dogtooth spar, nail head spar, white spar, heavy spar and many others. Sometimes non shiny stuff is called caulk, and zinc minerals might be calamine, but these last two are rarely used nowadays

- Stemples and stulls are basically the same from different areas


So, what little things did wish you had known earlier can you think of? Might add some more later...

 

[Edwardov]

Great idea for a thread!

Thread a small section of garden hose around the loop in your foot loop before tying it - it holds the loop open for you if your foot ever comes out and increases the lifespan.

Also, bike tube is really handy for protecting cowstail knots from abrasion against rock.

 

[Samouse1]

Look behind you, especially at junctions. Makes it easier to find the way back out.

Don’t go down something you wouldn’t want to go back up, even if you don’t plan to! Plans don’t always play out the way they’re meant to and you may have to go back up the tight pitch!

 

[langcliffe]

- Tackle bags are best carried on a pitch by a cord from a krab on the main D that lets it hang below your feet
- use a cord ( not a tape!) that is thick enough not to get inside your foot jammer

I did this for 30 years. I then discovered that attaching the cord from the side of the D-ring and letting the bag hang over my right thigh, with a cord just long enough for the bag to clear the thigh, has major benefits. This may not suit everybody, but it does demonstrate that it doesn't pay to be too definitive.

 

[alanw]

When climbing over a field gate, always do so at the hinge side.

(Prompted by a comment about the new gate at Peakshill Farm)

 

[Brains]

I did this for 30 years. I then discovered that attaching the cord from the side of the D-ring and letting the bag hang over my right thigh, with a cord just long enough for the bag to clear the thigh, has major benefits. This may not suit everybody, but it does demonstrate that it doesn't pay to be too definitive.

I agree, and often switch around on a narrow pitch, unless it's a big bag of wet rope. I don't want that cutting into my thigh...

 

[mikem]

The slot on the stop will work on a 7mm maillon

 

[wormster]

NEVER poke the rotten mine timber!!

 

[langcliffe]

Persuade your mate to go through the smaller entrances first, so he can clear out the Meta menardi.

 

[Pitlamp]

If on a trip in a cave with no pitches, don't wear your SRT harness purely to keep your oversuit crutch up in place (to enable you to lift your legs). Instead make a set of leg loops from thin (e.g 5 mm) bungee, with a small central loop to pass your caving belt through. Works just as well, it's less bulky in wriggly stuff and it saves unnecessary wear on your very expensive and safety-critical SRT harness.

If you know someone throwing out a thin and very stretchy swimming wetsuit because it's got ripped, scrounge the ends of the arms as they make excellent lightweight overcuffs to stop water going up your oversuit arms and can also be used to contain a damaged drysuit wrist seal to enable a dive to proceed which would otherwise have been abandoned (as I did recently at Austwick Beck Head).

 

[Greybeard]

Invite someone on your caving trip 'cos they will be soooo grateful they may carry your bag!

 

[Loki]

When passing a rebelay going up, clip long tail into the loop, knot or whatever but clip the short into something solid like the hanger or krab and hang all your weight off it while swapping jammers past knot. I wasn’t taught that way and didn’t figure it out for years.

Wetsuit hood for ducks of the very minimal airspace variety. Bought one last year for a jolly up poppy passage and wondered why I’d not bought one before.

 

[Pitlamp]

Invite someone on your caving trip 'cos they will be soooo grateful they may carry your bag!

On the Speedwell side of Treasury Sump, tell a certain person they'd never be able to carry that heavy 12 litre cylinder all the way up to Main Risng in the wet conditions. Let them protest that they bet they can. Pursue the argument that they'd never do it. Watch them grab the big tank and stride off determinedly upstream, after informing you that they'll bloody well show you. Then take a gentle saunter upstream yourself, grinning, whilst all the hard work is done by someone else.

Yep, it happened that way . . . .

 

[cap n chris]

Get professional caving training and learn more than you knew existed.

 

[Loki]

Get your footwell mat out and stand on it to keep your feet dry in the car park.
Use a backup light that takes the same batteries as your main light.
Use a cordura suit for anything bar the wettest of trips then pvc it.
If there’s a likelihood of getting flooded in, dump a little gear in to make the experience more pleasurable.
Make a mat from your ropes to insulate yourself from the cold floor in the above scenario 😉
If caving in a flat featureless moor like the allotment, take a compass and take a bearing from entrance back the way you came in case the cloud comes down while you’re underground. Or place something on the edge of the shake hole to indicate the right way. (Hurnel moss)
Pantins are invaluable on very narrow pitches

 

[royfellows]

Lighting (What else from me)
Backup lighting not in kit bag left at the last pitch
Main backup attached to side of helmet
Never be without a light, baby Olite on keyring which you will always have on you.
Loose LiIon cells dont do well in wet caves

 

[flashheart]

You'll be warmer in your caving suit with a belt on. And with a belt, the interior top half of your suit becomes one big pocket.
Always wear elbow pads.
Wait in a comfortable bit while following someone else through a crawl, then shoot through quickly to the next rest...
The top hole of a Croll is a handy bottle opener.

 

[langcliffe]

Always wear elbow pads.

I've been caving for 55 years, and I have never felt the need for elbow pads. One of my caving companions, however, wouldn't dream of going underground without them. Another example of one size doesn't fit all.

 

[Blueberry]

Drill a 4 mm hole on the arch of your welly to let the water drain out.

 

[steviet_scg]

When you get back to the car always take your knee pads off first. If you forget you may struggle to get your oversuit off. Inevitably you will be on Leck Fell in horizontal hail at this point.