Technical cave climbing

Is there such a thing? When I was a kid, I remember a trip to the Carlsbad caverns and hearing a tour guide tell stories of guys climbing up and into holes in the ceiling. Any place something like this would exist? Thanks a bunch.

without sounding like a smartass.....its called caving

Thanks for the input Sam. Anything else you would like to contribute?

its a lot of squeezing through tight spaces, more advanced stuff can include waterfall rappels, some climbing, swimming etc. alot of the same scenarios you could find yourself in canyoneering except your underground and its always 55 degrees

I've done a bit of that but I've never seen anything worthy of bringing a rack. Are there caves out there that have vertical crack systems leading places or is it all just dirty, wet, tight and unappealing?

Sharma has a route...

13 pitch, 14a, looked like a big chosspile.

I saw Sharmas route and, while still very cool, agree with the chosspile comment. Anything out there in the 5.10 to 5.12 range or up to A3?

Some impressive climbs have been done underground, Jim Erickson did some hard stuff exploring Colorado caves, currently Mike Frazier, Derek Bristol and others are still doing hard stuff.
But the climbs are solely to find new cave, not done as climbs for themselves.

Caves are commonly limestone, (not the best stone for ground up onsights), dark, cold (some a lot colder than 55 degrees!) loose and muddy. Plus rescue from underground is extremely difficult.

Finally, cavers are understandably protective of caves and will go to great lengths to keep them as pristine as possible. Doesn't leave much opportunity for recreational climbing.

spelunking is pretty cool, cavers can be interesting group to say the least but on a long cave adventure climbing skills can speed up your travel in the ground.
Always an added bonus especially if you have a short rappel on relatively easy ground.That can be down climbed! Its a cool experience. Its super muddy most of the time & slick. Still its dangerous when your really far in.

Chris sharma just did a crazy route in a cave.
climbing.com/video/chris-sh…

A few of the Petzl Roctrips featured climbing in some amazing caves... The Mexico, China, and Kalymnos ones stand out in my mind.

When I lived in the TAG area (Tennesse, Alabama, Georgia), I did some technical climbing in caves. I'm not talking about the normal rappelling and climbing of fixed ropes. I'm talking climbing up vertical walls to get up to virgin passages. The walls are usually wet, or have fine dust layer on them, with mud in the cracks. You have boots on. There was some free climbing, but it was mostly aid climbing, using pitons and nuts.

The folks in the Huntsville Grotto (chapter of the NSS) were super helpful. When we moved there, my wife and I were experienced climbers, but had never caved before. We learned fast under their tutelage. They knew places that they hadn't been able to climb up to to check out, and that had air or water flow associated with them. They'd help lug our climbing gear through the cave to the spot they were interested in. They'd help with belaying etc. Sometimes the aid was pretty hard, including rurps, hooks etc. When/if I got up to a passage that actually went somewhere, I'd fix a rope safely. Then, guys who are into cave mapping would come there and use the rope to explore and map the passage. Once the rope was there, nobody ever repeated the actual climbing for fun. It wasn't fun. But finding new places is wild.

Yes, it's called "vandalism"
Because of people like you the caves will stay shut! Boys and girls don't try this at home.

thegoodcop wrote: That's a bunch of BS!

Why BS?

thegoodcop wrote: Because that's not how it's done.

Don't know where you've caved, but that's exactly how it's done.

This is what's typically called dome climbing, or bolt climbing by cavers. The term bolt climbing is used because it is pretty rare that cavers use removal trad gear. This is because the rock very rarely offers cracks or other usable features that take gear, and when there are cracks, they're usually full of mud and the rock is rarely solid. You're also limited on the bulk you can carry since you're likely to be spending a lot of time pushing your pack through small crawlways. The exception is a few heavily regulated caves like Lechugilla, where you can't use a power drill. Even with a drill, rock can get bad enough to make things interesting. I've had a 5-inch bolt blow out under bodyweight.

If you're interested to know what big dome climbs of the east look like, this was my first project: flickr.com/photos/masneyb/4…

Mark E Dixon wrote: But the climbs are solely to find new cave, not done as climbs for themselves.

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)

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.

caves.org/brochure/NSS%20Gu…

Spend some time reading through this if you're interested in caving.
cavediggers.com/Intro.pdf

caves.org/brochure/NSS%20Gu…

Spend some time reading through this if you're interested in caving. Click "continue"
cavediggers.com/Intro.pdf

also see cavechat.org/

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.

Ok, thanks. Was just wondering.

I grew up caving in Indiana but gave it up after I started rock climbing. That was decades ago & I don't claim to know anything about caving in the modern world Never did any technical climbing in caves, beyond rapping down and jumaring back out.

My brother is the chairman of the board for the Cave Research Foundation and has been actively mapping Mammoth Caves for years. I'll have to ask him what he knows about technical climbing underground....