Caving Equipment - History

History

The earliest cavers in Europe and North Americawere limited in their explorations by a lack of suitable equipment. Explorers of the early 1800s, when caving began to become more common, caved in tweed suits and used candles for illumination. Exploration was usually limited to drier caves as there was little to protect cavers from the cold once they became wet. Later, cavers began to adopt miners lamps, which were designed for underground use and were reasonably reliable, though their light was not especially powerful. Lighting magnesium strips was a popular way of illuminating large chambers. E.A. Martel, a French caver, created a collapsible canvas canoe which he used to explore several caves containing long flooded sections, such as the Marble Arch Cave in Northern Ireland. His expeditionary equipment was describe in 1895 as: "a canvas boat, some hundreds of feet of rope - ladders, a light portable folding wooden ladder, ropes, axes, compass, barometer, telephone, map etc.'". Acetylene lamps, powered by carbide, was one of the main light sources used by cavers during the 20th century. Electric miners headlamps, powered by lead-acid batteries were later used, eventually superseded by LED lighting, which offers superior duration and brightness and is considerably lighter.

Vertical caving was undertaken with rope ladders. These were cumbersome and unwieldy, especially when wet and sometimes requiring teams of donkeys to carry them. The French explorer Robert de Joly pioneered the use of ever lighter rope ladders until developing the Elektron Ladder, a light wire ladder with aluminium rungs. The lightness and portability of these ladders revolutionised the exploration of deep caves, paving the way for the exploration of the Gouffre Berger, the first cave in the world to break the 1 km depth limit. Early systems of ascending ropes were developed by Pierre Chevalier in the Dent de Crolles cave system in France in the late 1930s, Chevalier also being the first to use nylon rope in a cave as opposed to natural fibre rope. Single Rope Technique SRT began to be developed in the US in the 1950s, a similar system was developed in Europe in the late 60's, which was quickly standardised and is still in use today. SRT offered the advantage of greater speed and versatility in the descent of vertical shafts, previously one caver would have to remain at the head of the final pitch to belay the returning cavers up a ladder climb.

The increasing popularity of caving during the 60's and 70's led to the creation of specialist caving equipment companies, such as Petzl, which made equipment specifically for cavers. Previously, cavers adapted equipment from other sources, such as using miners helmets and electric lamps, or made their own equipment. Caving equipment made today conforms to high safety standards, decreasing the amount of injuries and fatalities experienced by cavers.