cap n chris
Well-known member
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Fixed Aids and Safety Installations
- Thread starter cap n chris
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cap n chris
Well-known member
Clearly it is unequivocal that fixed aids improve safety and are therefore most definitely safety installations, so I guess the question going begging is whether more of them should be installed in caves where there is a mortal risk on a popular route so that fewer people get injured or (worse case, fill in the missing word).... and therefore keep the pastime of caving out of the news to a greater or lesser extent; the corollary appears to be that some people consider making caving safer is a regressive step away from the purity of caving as a dangerous pursuit. Discuss.
cap n chris
Well-known member
To paraphrase the Old School, "If you ain't 'ard, you shouldn't have bloody well come". My personal view is that caving is hard enough as it is, and if there's a lethal risk involved it should be rendered non-lethal on the basis of it being gross negligence not to do so. And that's sue-worthy right there. Innit.
Use natural belays where possible, oops sorry the safety brigade destroyed them, even red spots were removed and frowned upon, whatever happened to a good piton placement.
Slings with nuts were even used as descent placements. 400ft shafts rigged with ladders on scaff bar with no back up.
Hey oh.
😜
Slings with nuts were even used as descent placements. 400ft shafts rigged with ladders on scaff bar with no back up.
Hey oh.
😜
cap n chris
Well-known member
Good point well made. SI installed by people who know WTF they're doing and with control mechanism(s) in place so that people who are doing their own brain surgery are unlikely to make themselves less intelligent in so doing. This does presume that the users aren't dumbasF though and that's the unknown unknown. If there was a vertical cable on a ViaF would some people just blithely clip into it and leap off? Yes, probably they would.
pwhole
Well-known member
A few years ago we installed some Bolt Products via ferrata staples in an internal mine shaft that was only some 10m deep, with several pronounced doglegs and step-offs, and numerous small ledges as footholds. It was a right royal pain to do it with SRT or ladders, though we bolted it for that if folks preferred, but free-climbing it was just a bit too sketchy for most, and an accident would have been almost certain before too long. So we took the decision to make it 'safer' to take the 'easier but more risky' option - if a bit pricier!
It worked really well - and if folks don't feel totally comfortable unsecured, they can wear just a lightweight harness and cowstails and clip into the staples as they climb up or down. It works really well, is good practice, and no-one's complained so far that it was either too safe or too dangerous
I
It worked really well - and if folks don't feel totally comfortable unsecured, they can wear just a lightweight harness and cowstails and clip into the staples as they climb up or down. It works really well, is good practice, and no-one's complained so far that it was either too safe or too dangerous
I
andrewmcleod
Well-known member
Generally, safer not easier. Anchors not aids.
But if for whatever reason you _need_ to make it easier, then make it genuinely easy.
But if for whatever reason you _need_ to make it easier, then make it genuinely easy.
caving_fox
Active member
I think this is the point - someone has to draw the line between Janja Gabaret being able to free climb it wihtout "mortal danger" so it needs no aid, to a blind quadriplegic can't access it so it needs a lift installing. The Question is then who gets to choose where that line is - The discoverers? the local caving council? the club who is maintaining access? the landlord? the man on the clapham omnibus? or the 'you' who can or can't access a particular passage.
I don't have a clear view, and it probably needs to be case by case basis anyway - but less is generally better on aesthetics and conservation grounds if nothing else.
pwhole
Well-known member
In our case the discoverers were from the local club (including me), who also maintain access, and the local caving council (including me) were also consulted, and after discussing it with the landowner (National Trust), we decided to just do it. We took a couple of their underground-capable staff down on a (non-work) visit afterwards, and they loved it, so I think in that instance it was money well spent and the best solution to the problem. As I mentioned, people who've commented on it all liked it too.
Simon Kenyon-Smith
New member
Ladder and lifeline - with a lifeliner that knows how to life line, a failsafe solution.
cap n chris
Well-known member
Not if the lifeline is a dynamic rope, doubled on, say, an 18m pitch and the ladder actually snaps while the caver.is ascending the first 2-3m. Semi static rope would avoid a ground strike though.
This is even presuming the cavers are wearing harnesses rather than relying on a belt as an attachment for belaying, which is potentially lethal.
badger
Active member
unfortunately Chris I think some of us who think safety, are in a minority. you only have to look at the state of some cavers kit, especially cows tails, who think £6.00 is too much to pay for their life. You also have the mostly the older elements who think that cause the have always got away with it, they always will. do a H&S course in construction the stats will tell you that the newbies or the oldies are the most at danger, newbies cause they know no better, oldies cause they have always been ok. Even those cavers who lead, so have a responsibility, take risks that they dont need to.
cap n chris
Well-known member
Lol. You just reminded me of an SRT tuition session I did and one of the old hands was very enthusiastic and upbeat when I mentioned his safety connectors "looked like they had had a life" (this is my dry way of describing something which should long since have been condemned, btw). His reply was he'd got them for a Berger trip in 1983.
badger
Active member
I except that not every older caver is like this, but I have had many a conversation with, I still body belay cause its never failed, if you cant free climb this climb you shouldn't be down this part of the cave, or I have always free climbed ladders with no lifeline, so I am not going to change now. I would hasten to add that I am not innocent in never done any of the above. especially free climbing ladders, and unless someone has happened to me remove my lifeline at swildons 20, now would never free climb the ladder, even the actual free climb I doubt I would contemplate any more. for the sake of a piece of rope and at the very worse an Italian hitch.
So if you are an older caver like myself, who does think about safety then my sweeping statement above excludes your good selves
badger
Active member
the stats say you are at the most danger, newbies? young people because they don't necessarily understand the dangers, I was like this, although I understood the dangers but accepted the risk but not the consequences, as they would not happen to me, the oldies because they have always got away with how they have done things."the stats will tell you that the newbies or the oldies are the most at danger"
Oh dear - as a "new oldie" (or should that be "old newbie"?), I'd better check my life insurance
It is ok to question and think, go for the extra safety the cost of a belt as opposed to a harness on a ladder is tiny, but if you require help on a ladder I know what I would rather be wearing, and its not a belt, which there is no such thing as a belay belt. But as we live in a democratic society cavers are free to make their choice.
Standard Unit of Tom
Active member
Having been caving for just over a year now and accelerating through the ranks of responsibility in the club (Cardiff) to leading trips and just having done quite a lot of caving already (coming to 100 trips soon!) I think a lot of it has to do with the attitudes we have towards safety. I've done some silly stuff already, descending down a pitch on an Italian hitch, sketchy free climbs, just today I did some solo caving and forgot to bring a spare battery and almost had my light die on me. They all make good stories and all but sometimes it gets the wrong response, a lot of the time it's met with encouragement instead of the appropriate telling off and that sticks with people. I have never lived down the time I ascended cow pot and Babyhagrid found me with my D-ring undone at the top, I felt rubbish at the time being told off after doing an exhausting 10 hour trip but it stuck with me and have never had any of my srt kit not properly done up. We need to be properly bollocking people for doing the dumb stuff instead of just congratulating them, you lived to tell the tale this time but what makes you think you will next time? I think at least within Cardiff though the attitude is good, we enjoy reading old trip reports and commenting how much of a nutcase some of the old cavers are and how we'd never do some of the stuff they did 🤣
cap n chris
Well-known member
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose..
2:45 on is perhaps relevant..
2:45 on is perhaps relevant..