How times change...

[Brains]

Looking at recent posts from The Caving Crew and others got me thinking about how things have changed during my time caving.
Thinking about photography, back in the 80s when I began serious caving, a select few used SLR cameras with flash bulbs, B settings and light painting. Results were generally poor but some did manage excellent results. As time progressed electronic flash guns with photo eyes made things easier. Some manufacturers even brought out waterproof 35mm cameras! Going on a photo shoot was a long cold day in purgatory. Early digital cameras were atrocious, but I still managed to destroy a few in mud and water. Today, I use a low light optimised smart phone. Ambient light from cap lamps is more than adequate. Candid shots are possible, and miserable waits in pools or under waterfalls are but a distant memory. My photos have always been as an aide-memoire for me personally, never hoping to match the professional outputs of specialists.
What changes do my fellow cavers reflect upon?

 

[Loki]

Has to be carbide in the early 90’s (8h tops per fill) to lightweight single 18650 led lamps cable tied to lid that last 24h plus enabling a 2 week exped with nothing more than a handful of charged cells, or 2 cells and a charger.

 

[Brains]

I used to love the warmth and smell of my carbide, and when I was a smoker lighting up from its flame. Being myopic I never realised how little it illuminated. I need my glasses underground now

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Me 1960's in Swildons. Oily boiler suit and woolly jumpers even through the sumps. Re photography dont forget the BLF rule. I had a Meccano strip screwed to my flashgun to fire it.

 

[mikem]

Mobile optimised for shots in pubs and clubs...

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Make your own wet suit. What a game that was. Hard sheet neoprene . You cut the pattern then butt jointed it with Evostick then taped over the seam. Pete Rose in Shatter Cave 1969.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Note SLR camera with onboard flash.

 

[Lankyman]

Looking back at my 'proper' caving career (as opposed to mucking about in holes with a torch) what strikes me is how much changed in a relatively short period. In the beginning, it was wooly jumper and longjohns under an old boiler suit topped off with a plastic building site hard hat and secondhand NCB Oldham or carbide stinky. Pretty quickly, wetsuits came along (kits at first then ready made). As we headed into the eighties furry suits and over suits arrived and Petzl largely replaced ladder and lines with SRT and expedition carbides. Things seem to have largely stayed the same over the last forty years except perhaps for lighting with LED being the the only real difference I can see since I left caving about twenty years ago.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

.... Things seem to have largely stayed the same over the last forty years except perhaps for lighting with LED being the the only real difference I can see since I left caving about twenty years ago.

We need a sub aqua caver to chime in here as probably they'll have a lot to add about the last 40 years

 

[JAA]

It may not have changed as much underwater as you anticipate, the design of my regs hasn’t changed in those 40 years!
While I wasn’t diving or caving 30 years ago, the stand outs I’d suggest would be…

Lighting - 40 years ago you might with luck find a passage in somewhere big and gloomy like Keld Head by having very good vis or bumping into it. Modern very bright lights have made finding the way on less guesswork.

Line Laying - Refinements to line laying techniques such as the “Derbyshire tube” popularised by folk such as @Pitlamp have made line laying in awkward territory safer and more controlled.

Gases - The circling of the wheel back to smaller more reliable rebreathers and mixed gases becoming more common and affordable and available have enabled some amazing stuff at home and abroad.

Kit - Drysuits coming back after Bear and Geoff reinvigorating them for the Keld Head dives. Good membrane suits with can be transported a long way underground for a warmer and more relaxed swim around.
Scooters for longer and longer dives.

Social Media - where the goal is to take the best photo of yourself flippering about in Joint or KH and then hashtag it as many times as you can with #cavediver and think you’ve now “done” cave diving and received sufficient adulation from the adoring crowds that you actually never bother laying any line in a sump or doing any exploring of your own at all…..

Of course what hasn’t changed at all is that progress is determined by the skill, nerve and to an extent luck of the person with their hand on the line reel!

Better underwater cavers than me will doubtless have lots of other changes they notice.

 

[Loki]

When was the last time anyone hand drilled an 8mm spit sleeve? On the entrance side of a sump anyway.

 

[Pitlamp]

Self drilling rock anchors are incredibly useful and very much still in the armoury. For remote locations where you just need a couple of bolts it’s much more lightweight than carting a drill and battery. Anywhere particularly spray lashed may be better dealt with using self drillers rather than risking killing a battery drill.

But for underwater use, unless you have a Nemo submersible battery drill available (which is no panacea as these items have multiple problems) they’re still the best. Unless you want a bigger hole for a full on Rawlbolt (winching boulders?) then REALLY old technology may be the best option; a stardrill. I bet many folk on here have never seen one!

Which reminds me, when these started to become hard to get, I bought as many as possible. I got the very last one from Footprint in Sheffield. I also got a handful of half inch stardrills from America (with the help of Mr. Williams). As a result I now have a couple spare; free to a good home if anyone has a reason to own one.

I’d say one of the most important advances in underwater caving has been the improvements in lighting. Anyone remember the Aquaflash torches, each “powered” by three D sized batteries? They were so dim it was like having an infinitely heavy nothingness on your head. But at least we all developed big neck muscles.

In the early 80s the “Q-lite” hit the scene but their bulbs were fragile and their duration was rubbish. Then LED torches started to appear and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Lankyman]

I wonder what the future holds? In my experience the rapid transition from ladders to SRT (at least in predominantly vertical caving areas) was a total revolution. I can't think of how moving up/down will make a similar change without straying into science fiction. Jet packs anyone? Then again ....

Might be handy for Golondrinas.

 

[tdobson]

I wonder what the future holds?

I do not predict widespread take up of these anytime soon, but some digging teams may make use of these before jetpacks.

 

[AlexR]

There are definitely eras in caving, defined by the gear which allowed certain types of exploration.
But I definitely wouldn't agree that "Things seem to have largely stayed the same over the last forty years".

When I started caving around 2008, LED lights commonly available were pretty so-and-so (Scurion was founded just one year earlier), certainly the lights on club helmets were halogen and far from bright. A good light is pretty much the only item which, in my opinion, instantly makes you a better caver.
Advances in Lithium Ion technology have significantly changed how we explore caves. I now regularly bolt climb 30m in one session, in a team of 2 without having to lug a prohibitive amount of gear. And we're talking around 3h here, not a day. That would have been completely impossible before high energy density cells, and brushless motors certainly help. Where even 15 years ago you would have considered strategies like bolting platforms and maypoles, this just doesn't make any sense today (other than really specialised cases).
Of course the same benefits go for bolting downwards, but are less important here. Capping as well, put a 5Ah cell in that drill and that will likely do you for one capping session.

Again a very personal thing, but I see spits and hand bolting as completely anachronistic. Other than underwater use, I've just never encountered a scenario where taking a Uneo is more arduous than drilling even just a single spit by hand. Personally I exclusively use hand bolting as a teaching tool when showing people how to bolt, the main issue with a drill is that there is a tendency for the bolter to make their choice about bolt placement a bit too quickly. No such issue when hand bolting

On the SRT front it gets a bit more difficult, but there certainly are teams pushing caves very far from home on Dyneema string. You're in a similar situation to the early ladder days here where the equipment necessary for this kind of exploration doesn't really exist, so you have to make it yourself/ improvise. A lot of the advances here simply aren't visible to most cavers.

I think even more would change, if there simply were more cavers. It's a complete niche, so we basically get the crumbs from rope access/ climbing/ etc..

An interesting question for me is if caving has become more individualistic due to material advances (less weight required, smaller teams feasible), or has simply followed societal trends. Or both.

 

[Lankyman]

There are definitely eras in caving, defined by the gear which allowed certain types of exploration.
But I definitely wouldn't agree that "Things seem to have largely stayed the same over the last forty years".

When I started caving around 2008, LED lights commonly available were pretty so-and-so (Scurion was founded just one year earlier), certainly the lights on club helmets were halogen and far from bright. A good light is pretty much the only item which, in my opinion, instantly makes you a better caver.
Advances in Lithium Ion technology have significantly changed how we explore caves. I now regularly bolt climb 30m in one session, in a team of 2 without having to lug a prohibitive amount of gear. And we're talking around 3h here, not a day. That would have been completely impossible before high energy density cells, and brushless motors certainly help. Where even 15 years ago you would have considered strategies like bolting platforms and maypoles, this just doesn't make any sense today (other than really specialised cases).
Of course the same benefits go for bolting downwards, but are less important here. Capping as well, put a 5Ah cell in that drill and that will likely do you for one capping session.

Again a very personal thing, but I see spits and hand bolting as completely anachronistic. Other than underwater use, I've just never encountered a scenario where taking a Uneo is more arduous than drilling even just a single spit by hand. Personally I exclusively use hand bolting as a teaching tool when showing people how to bolt, the main issue with a drill is that there is a tendency for the bolter to make their choice about bolt placement a bit too quickly. No such issue when hand bolting

On the SRT front it gets a bit more difficult, but there certainly are teams pushing caves very far from home on Dyneema string. You're in a similar situation to the early ladder days here where the equipment necessary for this kind of exploration doesn't really exist, so you have to make it yourself/ improvise. A lot of the advances here simply aren't visible to most cavers.

I think even more would change, if there simply were more cavers. It's a complete niche, so we basically get the crumbs from rope access/ climbing/ etc..

An interesting question for me is if caving has become more individualistic due to material advances (less weight required, smaller teams feasible), or has simply followed societal trends. Or both.

I agree with a lot of what you say (as someone who's been largely an outside observer for twenty years now?). When I said that things haven't changed much over the last 40 years I meant it in the sense of a kind of revolutionary change. A skinny rope is still a rope and an improved ascender is still an ascender. An electron ladder is still a ladder just like a rope ladder. I would argue that the evolution of rope ladder to electron was not a revolution like the onset of SRT was? The only common point was that they both involved upward and downward movement. I have photos of myself caving in 1986 and they could pretty much pass for someone caving in 2026 (apart from the Petzl expedition carbides!). Photos of me in my caving kit from ten years earlier in 1976 would definitely look like from another era.

 

[Slug]

When was the last time anyone hand drilled an 8mm spit sleeve? On the entrance side of a sump anyway.

I can recall some experimentation at the BPC circa 88-89 time, as to whether we could rig an air chisel up to diving cylinders instead of hand bolting. Not long after that battery drills started to become more widely available, hence cheaper, and that idea fell by the wayside.

 

[cfmwh]

This thread reminds me of a two person photography trip from County Pot to Eureka Junction.

Four ammo boxes full of camera equipment and a bit of lunch.

Two Oldham lamps each.

I was buggered from the walk in before even going down the entrance!

These days camera gear, food and a multitude of spare lighting would all fit into a medium sized Peli.

Progress!

 

[Brains]

Clothing has seen a lot of changes. Dry grots still have a place for beginners and also drier mine explores. Ex MoD survival suits came and went, wet suits had a heyday, and currently the furry and oversuit combo is ubiquitous. Cotton boiler suits, with or without old waterproofs underneath have also been popular.

I still have 3 MoD suits somewhere in storage, two unopened and one just unused. Probably all welded in to a solid mass by now!

On one memorable trip with the late Ralph Johnson we were measuring for the rigging guide down Crumble and Beza pots on a fine summers day. My oversuit was safe at home (Oops ) so I did the trip in a furry and fertilizer sack combo.

 

[Lankyman]

so I did the trip in a furry and fertilizer sack combo.

I once did White Scar Cave in a 'wetsuit/dry grot' combo. It was wetsuit trousers with woolly jumper/cheap poly waterproof jacket on top. It was quite good - when I swam the wetter bits the waterproof ballooned up with air like a flotation device. I told my colleagues that this was my cunning plan all along but this was just BS and the reality was that my wetsuit jacket was completely knackered.