Shortly before lockdown, The Caving Crew headed out to help show Matt, Max and Alan the ropes.
Caving ropework is quite different to climbing ropework.
Rather than using ropes to catch you if you fall, ropes are used to help you go up/down/along ropes that are the main route along there. The rope is part of the route and helps you move along.
Your equipment for caving with ropes is called an SRT-kit and is different to climbing kit.
There is a harness, but it’s a caving harness with some differences – including some form of chest harness.
There are two cowstails – like a sling is sometimes used in sport climbing, or via ferrata lanyards – these keep you safe when you need to clip into something.
There is the hand jammer, footloop and security link – that helps you move up ropes.
There’s the chest ascender – that you use in tandem with you hand jammer and footloop.
And there’s also a descender and braking carabiner. For the Caving Crew, that means a Petzl Stop.
On this evening trip to near Castleton, Alan, Matt and Max got their first taste of using caving gear to go up and down simple setups – which will help them visit more interesting and challenging caves!
Once we can, we’ll be doing more skill sharing evenings like this – if you fancy hearing about them – join The Caving Crew group on Facebook – all are welcome!
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
