From Tree Climbing to Vertical Caving

[rbreesems]

TLDR: I got into Vertical caving with no previous caving experience, and learned some interesting stuff. Skip this if you have no interest in caving or already a caving veteran (this will sound like the blathering of an excited Kindergartener after their first day at school).

I am not getting any younger, and for a long time, have had this itch to do some ‘caving’. I finally decided to scratch that itch, and here is what I learned.

Horizontal caving is a exploring a cave that requires no rope descent, Vertical caving requires rope descent (this is what I was interested in).

Caving is not a solitary activity; you need the support of experienced cavers who are willing to instruct and take you on their trips. To me, this came in the way of a ‘Grotto’, which is a local chapter of the National Speleological Society (NSS). I am lucky enough to live near Huntsville AL, which is a caving mecca and home of the NSS, and has a large, active Grotto who welcome new members. They hold one horizontal and one vertical trip each month. Huntsville is also home to the Huntsville Cave Rescue Unit, which is a volunteer organization, and they hold SRT and cave rescue training for anyone who is interested.

I found out about the Huntsville Grotto through web search. I contacted them, explained my tree climbing background and asked how could I get involved. They said I should come to their next ‘vertical climbing practice’, which I did. I naively thought that my tree climbing gear would suffice for vertical caving. However, at that practice, I was introduced to the gear and techniques they use, and realized that I needed to make some purchases! I have since been on two vertical caving trips with the Grotto.

Here is what I learned about vertical caving gear:

• A caving harness is different from a rock climbing harness or tree harness, in that it is mostly made out of webbing for weight purposes, and has a single ‘omni-carabiner’ that essentially serves as the bridge (everything life support attaches to this, see photo). I purchased a MTDE ‘Pico’ harness from ElevatedClimbing.com. There are other harness types, this one is relatively comfortable.
• For ascent, the Grotto members either use a frog technique, or a rope walker, but their rope walker involves offset dual ascenders with foot loops, with the bungie attaching to a chest roller plate. I eventually settled on a tree-climbing style rope walker, using a HAAS knee ascender, foot ascender, chest roller, and camp Turbo chest ascender on the omni-carabiner bridge providing a low attachment point. I added the chest roller for my second vertical trip and it reduced my arm strain to practically nothing and made ascent much easier.
• For descent, the overwhelming choice by Grotto members is a rack, either full sized or micro (less horizontal bars than a full size rack, shorter). The rack is most flexible in terms of accommodating wet/muddy rope, and different rope sizes. It is fairly straight forward to use, but still requires practice to get comfortable with it.
• The Grotto members use PMI ‘pit rope’ exclusively either, 9 mm or 11 mm. This is a really tough rope made for caving, and is stretchy on long descents. I understand why they use it, but I don’t like the rope, poor hand and its rough cover means it does not pass through your ascender gear very smoothly (true for 11 mm at least).

I have been on two vertical caving trips. The first was to Varnedoe cave (8 cavers, 7 guys, 1 gal), which is managed by the Southeastern Cave Conservancy, and which is located in the Huntsville metro area. This is a multi-drop cave with descents of 73’, 15’, 41’, 72’. At the bottom is a large horizontal cave portion which we did not explore. There were a couple of tight squeezes in the cave in the sections we went through, but nothing too bad. The second vertical trip was to War Eagle cave (southeast of Huntsville, 8 cavers on trip, all guys). This has one initial drop of 137’, and then a large ‘subway’ tunnel at the bottom with a stream which you can follow in either direction. We spent about three hours exploring the horizontal cave portion. This cave has many beautiful formations in it.

Things I learned about caving in general:

• These two caves were BIG. My mental model of caves were all tight passages, close spaces. These caves have huge spaces in them, especially in War Eagle, the stream tunnel was easily the size of a subway, if not larger in most places. There are plenty of caves in AL with tight passages, squeezes but I have not been in them yet.
• I did not realize that the vertical drops were so long, I am told the average vertical drop in Alabama is 100’.
• You are going to get wet and muddy.
• Modern LED head lamps make lighting in caves not an issue. I was a bit concerned about this being new to caving. I was surprised at how just a little bit of light makes a big difference.
• The temperature in AL caves is 58F degrees. It is perfect.
• Going over the edge on descent, and getting back over the edge on ascent, is the toughest part. If the edge is a ‘knife edge’, where you do not have a place to put your feet to help out, makes it harder. The edge in War Eagle was a knife edge, and I had a difficult time on ascent getting over it, need more practice.
• The Varnedoe cave had pre-installed bolts at the drop points to be used for rigging the descent rope. Seems that most caves the Grotto members frequent have pre-installed bolts if it is a multi-drop cave.
• Trees used at cave entrances for rigging are padded to prevent injury to the tree, since they are used so much by the cavers visiting the cave.
• Rope pads are very important at edges if the edges are sharp to prevent ropes from being damaged.

So far I have had a lot of fun on these trips and plan on more, and I am thankful to the supportive members of the Huntsville Grotto.

Below is couple of links to poorly-lit Youtube of videos of my two trips, plus some photos of my gear. On Youtube, I found that videos by ‘Derek Bristol’ were very helpful for caving-related gear/techniques, and he also has some videos of some epic trips that he has been on.

Varnedoe Cave (youtube)

War Eagle Cave (youtube)

 

[Dan Cobb]

Welcome to the wonderful world of caving. I grew up in Huntsville, but didn't get into caving until I was in college in Birmingham.

I went to War Eagle last month. Had two newbie ladies in our group of 5. Rigged 2 ropes so we could have someone next to them in case they had difficulty at the lip. Was surprised you referred to it as a knife edge. I usually describe it as a hemispherical flowstone. Either way, it can be a little challenging the first time or two.

If that's your rack in the pic, you might consider getting steel bars for #2 thru 6. I like the SMC U-shaped bars. Some folks don't want you on their ropes with aluminum bars since they turn ropes dark gray, which also gets all over your hands when handling the rope.

Don't pass up trips to Neversink or Stephen's Gap. Very scenic. You'll be amazed at Surprise Pit and Fantastic Pit if you get the opportunities; will definitely want your climbing system dialed in for those two.

Maybe I'll see you at the TAG Fall Cave In.

 

[rbreesems]

Welcome to the wonderful world of caving. I grew up in Huntsville, but didn't get into caving until I was in college in Birmingham.

I went to War Eagle last month. Had two newbie ladies in our group of 5. Rigged 2 ropes so we could have someone next to them in case they had difficulty at the lip. Was surprised you referred to it as a knife edge. I usually describe it as a hemispherical flowstone. Either way, it can be a little challenging the first time or two.

If that's your rack in the pic, you might consider getting steel bars for #2 thru 6. I like the SMC U-shaped bars. Some folks don't want you on their ropes with aluminum bars since they turn ropes dark gray, which also gets all over your hands when handling the rope.

Don't pass up trips to Neversink or Stephen's Gap. Very scenic. You'll be amazed at Surprise Pit and Fantastic Pit if you get the opportunities; will definitely want your climbing system dialed in for those two.

Maybe I'll see you at the TAG Fall Cave In.

Yes, that is my rack, will look into the steel bars. We had two ropes in War Eagle, I descended the one on the left if looking into the pit. One of the guys in the group described it as knife edge, I think he was referring to the fact that it was cut away when got over it.

 

[JeffGu]

My wife often descends into caves, but she will usually just fly back up to the top and hang from the ceiling by her feet.

 

[Woodwork]

Thanks for posting up. That sounds really interesting and a lot of fun.

Do large quantities of bats and/or birds live down in those caves? If so, is guano/ammonia a problem with breathing/stink?

 

[Dan Cobb]

Birds, no. Bats yes, depending on the cave. Some caves are bat hibernaculums and some host maternity colonies. Some caves have few to no bats. Caves that host large numbers of bats are often protected and entry may only be permitted during certain times of the year (like the cave I manage.) A number of bat species are federally protected. Bats are important pollinators and unfortunately are being decimated in many areas by a fungal disease, White Nose Syndrome.

Some caves do have huge guano deposits. I've heard most avid cavers will test positive for histoplamosis, even if never suffering an active case. Usually, guano deposits don't stink too bad, but there are caves you can smell before you see the entrance. One cave in particular brings that to mind. It hosts a mating colony numbering in the hundreds of thousands and often draws a small crowd at the entrance during summer to watch them fly out. (Pro tip: take an umbrella.)

 

[Fivepoints]

I'm also in the Huntsville area and have some cave experience as well as tree climbing. I've gone through cave rescue training myself. It's an interesting training class if you can find the time when they do it.

 

[evo]

Sounds like a blast. The two things that wig me out are squeezes and long pitches with ‘nothing but net’ and then add the lack of light the nothing but net part seems like it would freak me out

 

[Dan Cobb]

For my wife, the lack of light is a plus. She's done many of the big pits in the Tennessee-Alabama-Georgia area, including Fantastic (586'), but has no interest whatsoever in rappelling off a cliff where you can see exactly how high you are. In the (mostly) dark, you don't get the same sensation of height as you do outdoors.

Being slim, I'm not as squeezed as most people in tight places. One of the worst things I've been through was a passage about 15" high with just enough airspace above the water for your nose and eyes when on your back. Went like that for about 30 feet and led to about 0.5 mile of previously unknown passage in a well known cave.

 

[rbreesems]

I'm also in the Huntsville area and have some cave experience as well as tree climbing. I've gone through cave rescue training myself. It's an interesting training class if you can find the time when they do it.

I am signed up for the HCRU rescue class that is being held at the end of July, non-certified version. Looking forward to it. They held an SRT training for Grotto members in mid-June, I did that, was interesting, got more familiar with the rack.

 

[rbreesems]

Sounds like a blast. The two things that wig me out are squeezes and long pitches with ‘nothing but net’ and then add the lack of light the nothing but net part seems like it would freak me out

I was thinking the 'nothing but net' might bother me some, but it did not - as Dan said, you can't see very far, so everything is localized. At the top of the 137' drop, I did look down, and saw a couple of teeny-weeny caving lights down there, and thought -- 'Whoa, that is a long way down'.

So far I have only been through a couple of small, short squeezes, and it was ok. Pretty sure that I will not be doing any long, really tight squeezes, not for me.

 

[rbreesems]

Thanks for posting up. That sounds really interesting and a lot of fun.

Do large quantities of bats and/or birds live down in those caves? If so, is guano/ammonia a problem with breathing/stink?

The two caves I was in did not have bats or any sign of them in the areas that we visited.

 

[colb]

Sounds like a blast. The two things that wig me out are squeezes and long pitches with ‘nothing but net’ and then add the lack of light the nothing but net part seems like it would freak me out

I unwittingly descended onto a snake once in a Nevada cave. You know how you get your butt close to the dirt to let yourself stand up with a little slack? Yeah, not the best way to start a spelunk.

 

[surveyor]

In my 20's I went caving with a good friend, who was always challenging me to do things I would usually not do. He knew of a cave near Chattanooga Tenn. The entrance was a mere slit, and he proceeded to enter backwards and upside down, saying that was the best way, as after a small drop, the narrow passage turned sharply horizontal which your body could then negotiate, even though the "floor" had a deep narrow slit. after about 30 feet this opened into a large passage, which lead to a drop of about 15-20 feet. Once we made it down into the bowels of the earth, there was a small pool with water spurting in from higher up on the wall. Following another passage, Ben saw a crack in the ceiling above, which we could just reach by standing on a boulder. This was the most difficult part, hauling ourselves up through this "chimney" which opened into what we though was another passage, but after some investigating around we realized was the original passageway before the drop. We had in fact traversed a shortcut back to the starting passage.

 

[Fivepoints]

I unwittingly descended onto a snake once in a Nevada cave. You know how you get your butt close to the dirt to let yourself stand up with a little slack? Yeah, not the best way to start a spelunk.

I was doing a horizontal crawl that had a kinda ledge about 6 to 8 inches tall at the top right corner of the cave entrance. It was about 3 ft tall total so you couldn't stand up and would just crawl on hands and knees. I had a 4 ft timber rattler drop off the ledge about 5 to 8 ft in front of me. I can indeed crawl backwards.