Mountain Project Logo

Technical cave climbing

Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50

From what I remember from my caving days, I can't imagine doing much in the way of technical climbing on wet, muddy, loose rock. I think clean aid climbing would be pretty sketchy. Bolt ladders would work but I would guess that the bolts wouldn't last long in that environment. (and there is the issue of defacing the cave by placing bolts).
I really have no knowledge about aid climbing underground-just speculating and hoping to learn something ....

Tim Stich · · Colorado Springs, Colorado · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,520
Jim Fox wrote:From what I remember from my caving days, I can't imagine doing much in the way of technical climbing on wet, muddy, loose rock. I think clean aid climbing would be pretty sketchy. Bolt ladders would work but I would guess that the bolts wouldn't last long in that environment. (and there I the issue of defacing the cave by placing bolts). I really have no knowledge about aid climbing underground-just speculating and hoping to learn something ....
Once you rig the high area you explore, either you leave a permanent line for access or you remove the rope. So the only bolts or rigging that need to last are for the top anchor. The ones used to ascend are expendable. Also, don't get confused by these super clean ethics they foist on your when you visit show caves. That is not what is followed in most cave exploration, save a few special rooms that are pristine like in Lechugilla cave. You won't hear someone bemoan a bolt ladder in a cave if it helped pursue a possible lead to more passage.
Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50
Stich wrote: Once you rig the high area you explore, either you leave a permanent line for access or you remove the rope. So the only bolts or rigging that need to last are for the top anchor. The ones used to ascend are expendable. Also, don't get confused by these super clean ethics they foist on your when you visit show caves. That is not what is followed in most cave exploration, save a few special rooms that are pristine like in Lechugilla cave. You won't hear someone bemoan a bolt ladder in a cave if it helped pursue a possible lead to more passage.
Makes sense.
Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50

I asked my brother (caving guru) & he replied:

"I’ll give you a general answer: It’s done as needed. We don’t generally climb just for the sake of climbing. It’s a means to get somewhere. There are a number of large caves that require technical climbing to explore them.

There are several levels of climbing in caves. First, free climbing, which is most generally done. Second would be the use of slings on natural rock projections for setting anchor points to lead a climb. Third would be using cams and the like. Fourth would be bolting. Generally, the least destructive method is used that can safely make a climb. With that in mind, bolts are used but always as a last resort and we work very hard to keep bolts to an absolute minimum needed. Pitons are not much used in caves any more.

The one guy is correct that if a technical climb is done and there’s going to be a need to go there multiple times to map or whatever, we generally leave a fixed rope to simplify getting up again, to enhance the safety of the climb and also to minimize the impact on the cave. He was 100% correct about that.

The guy who mentioned technical climbs in Carlsbad was also correct. I know some of the people doing that kind of work and they just made another significant discovery there last year above the Big Room by doing a very technical climb there.

CRF works mainly in federal lands and national parks, so we have to deal with pretty severe limitations on bolting and altering the cave in any way, but even there, bolts are possible where they are a necessity.

So the short answer is that it happens, but as a means to explore, not just for recreational climbing as a rule."

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65
thegoodcop wrote: Because that's not how it's done. First of all, we don't recruit noobs to map out caves, second of all I don't know about Utah, but in Appalachia we know our shit! We don't vandalize the cave while doing surveys. You see, there are true and dried methods that take years to perfect. The technique is simple. You refine is like an art form, because it is. The sonar technology I used a few times, I did not like that much. Some swear by it. The caves are multidimensional. It's hard to understand for you all if you never tried it.
You're making a lot of assumptions yet you know nothing about me. I moved to Utah 15 yrs ago - prior to that was 23 yrs in NJ where I was born and then 22 yrs in Connecticut. I was a member of the NSS for 25 yrs, having joined in 1974. About a dozen of those years as a member of the DC Grotto - the grotto who taught me how to survey when I was a noob. They did it by bringing noobs on survey trips. I've personally surveyed multiple segments in the Organ Cave system, carried gear in support of Sheck Exley's dive of the sump at the end of Bowen Canyon in Organ, retrieved dye catchers from our hydrological studies, mapped some parts of Friar's Hole, was one of the last parties to go into Hell Hole, and know and caved and climbed with the person who discovered the Roppel Cave System in KY (who also blasted open the original 8" wide crack entrance). I know people who were part of the excavation team that eventually connected Roppel with Mammoth/Flint Ridge. I replaced one of the anchor bolts for the rappel in Cass Cave.

At the time we set survey stations with a soot mark from a carbide lamp. The only electrics at the time were miners lamps that used a sealed lead-acid battery. LEDs as a light source hadn't been invented yet. We ran tapes and used Sunnto inclinometers and compasses and recorded data and drew sketches in our waterproof notebooks. Sonar and other esoteric mapping techniques were still in their infancy and merely research projects at the time. As far as climbing in caves, the other knowledgeable responders have it correct.

In short, I kinda know what I'm talking about when I disagreed with your rather pompous proclamation about "BS!" & "That's not how it's done". True, some things have changed (for the better from an environmental impact standpoint) since then, but your sweeping generalization of "BS" response isn't correct either. (And answering by editing your original post is sort of poor form since it makes any of the initial replies look like we didn't read your stuff.)
Tim Stich · · Colorado Springs, Colorado · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,520
Jim Fox wrote:The one guy is correct that if a technical climb is done and there’s going to be a need to go there multiple times to map or whatever, we generally leave a fixed rope to simplify getting up again, to enhance the safety of the climb and also to minimize the impact on the cave. He was 100% correct about that.
I did vertical caving for ten years, including doing a few direct aid climbs. I have even done a bolt ladder with a Petzl self drive hand drill. This is the kind that has a drill piece that you insert a cone in to expand with a final blow of the hammer once the hole is the correct depth. I think that was ten bolts. Gah, what a pain in the ass that was.

One lead that was rigged for future visits down in Tecolote Cave in Mexico got climbed by a guy I know that originally led it. In the years between ascents, water must have flowed pretty heavily out of the hole where the rope was rigged, because when he climbed up to it the core only had two or three strands left! He screamed out in horror upon discovering that little rope abrasion problem.
Aaron Moses · · Richmond, Va · Joined Aug 2009 · Points: 830
Stich wrote:Don, there's some pretty interesting history to the ascent of various climbing objectives in caves. From a caving forum: "Perseverance Dome, located near the southern end of Hellhole in Germany Valley WV, has been successfully climbed using direct aid techniques. The dome measures 526' to the lip of a ledge near the top, and 533' to the anchor at ceiling level." forums.caves.org/viewtopic.… At least one party repeated the climb just for the hell of it.
Perseverance dome hasn't been repeated. I climbed Pete and Derek's ropes along with a friend the day after they finished it so that he could tape it for an "official" height. A few other's have done the same just to check it out, so I assume that's what is referred to as repeating it(I didn't look too hard to see where that was said).

The only underground climb that I'm aware of anyone repeating or trying to repeat for sport is Topless dome in AL. I'm not really clear on the story there, but I think there was an accident on the 2nd accent attempt and the owners banned climbing in the cave before they could finish. From what I understand, Topless dome is pretty easy to get to, and not nearly the same kind of undertaking as some of the other big domes that have recently been climbed.
Tim Stich · · Colorado Springs, Colorado · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,520

Yes, Topless Dome! That's the one a party repeated later "because it was there."

Mark E Dixon · · Possunt, nec posse videntur · Joined Nov 2007 · Points: 974
Aaron Moses wrote: Mark, not necessarily, there are a few of us out there excited to climb domes just because they look to be big, even though we have no expectation of finding passage(but mostly just Derek, myself, and a couple of our friends it seems, as far as US caving goes)
Derek is a great guy with a creative definition of the word "fun". Sounds like you may be the same!
Mark E Dixon · · Possunt, nec posse videntur · Joined Nov 2007 · Points: 974
thegoodcop wrote: Because that's not how it's done. First of all, we don't recruit noobs to map out caves, second of all I don't know about Utah, but in Appalachia we know our shit! We don't vandalize the cave while doing surveys. You see, there are true and dried methods that take years to perfect. The technique is simple. You refine is like an art form, because it is. The sonar technology I used a few times, I did not like that much. Some swear by it. The caves are multidimensional. It's hard to understand for you all if you never tried it.
Ellanor, is that you?

How did the dive in Peppersauce go? Never did see a trip report.
Aaron Moses · · Richmond, Va · Joined Aug 2009 · Points: 830
Mark E Dixon wrote: Derek is a great guy with a creative definition of the word "fun". Sounds like you may be the same!
He certainly is. That goes for a lot of cavers. It's a different bunch. A bit like offwidth climbers.

Perseverance dome was actually named a couple years before Pete and Derek climbed it. Between the mud, soft rock, and constant rain from the waterfall, it turned out to be a fitting name. I can't imagine hours at a hanging belay soaked to the bone like those guys were.
Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50
Aaron Moses wrote: He certainly is. That goes for a lot of cavers. It's a different bunch. A bit like offwidth climbers. Perseverance dome was actually named a couple years before Pete and Derek climbed it. Between the mud, soft rock, and constant rain from the waterfall, it turned out to be a fitting name. I can't imagine hours at a hanging belay soaked to the bone like those guys were.
Cavers are kinda like alpinists. Pretty stoic bunch.
Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50
thegoodcop wrote: Mind. Blown.
ok....
Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50
Jim Fox wrote: Cavers are kinda like alpinists. Pretty stoic bunch.
Don't really know any "off width climbers", per se.

Cavers and mountaineers seem willing to endure some pretty crappy conditions to get where they want to go.

Not sure why anyone would feel this is "mind blowing" but whatever.....
Dave Cramer · · Greenfield, MA · Joined Aug 2013 · Points: 7

How about exploring caves while doing technical climbing? The cave on the north face of Mt. Alberta in the Canadian Rockies is amazing:

jasonthekruk.blogspot.com/2…

Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50
Dave Cramer wrote:How about exploring caves while doing technical climbing? The cave on the north face of Mt. Alberta in the Canadian Rockies is amazing: jasonthekruk.blogspot.com/2…
That's pretty cool.
Tim Stich · · Colorado Springs, Colorado · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,520
Jim Fox wrote: Don't really know any "off width climbers", per se. Cavers and mountaineers seem willing to endure some pretty crappy conditions to get where they want to go. Not sure why anyone would feel this is "mind blowing" but whatever.....
You are just responding to a nitwit troll we have had to deal with for as long as anyone can remember. It goes by many names(thegoodcop).
Jim Fox · · Westminster, CO · Joined Jun 2014 · Points: 50
Stich wrote: You are just responding to a nitwit troll we have had to deal with for as long as anyone can remember. It goes by many names(thegoodcop).
Yeah. Just want to have an interesting discussion about something I don't know much about, not deal with "nitwit trolls"....

This is why I rarely get involved in discussions on MP...
thegoodcop · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2014 · Points: 5
Jim Fox wrote: Yeah. Just want to have an interesting discussion about something I don't know much about, not deal with "nitwit trolls".... This is why I rarely get involved in discussions on MP...
Don't pay attention to Stich. I did not continue to dive Peppersause because I could not afford the equipment at that time. We were on our way to get the Vansion. It was a year ago. Amazing how some still remember...
Peppersause is an example of a cave that was vandalized. Horribly so. If ever back in the area we will do more exploring of the local cave systems. Then again, I doubt I would ever go back to Tucson hahaha
Mark E Dixon · · Possunt, nec posse videntur · Joined Nov 2007 · Points: 974
thegoodcop wrote: Then again, I doubt I would ever go back to Tucson hahaha
Not until the statute of limitations expires anyway.
Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Colorado
Post a Reply to "Technical cave climbing"

Log In to Reply

Join the Community

Create your FREE account today!
Already have an account? Login to close this notice.

Get Started.