Vertical caving terminology and methods > Personal SRT gear
The belt that cavers wear over their oversuit. Despite the common term, there is no belt that is rated for use as a belaying attachment, even if people have been known to use them for attaching cows tails on a traverse, belaying someone on a ladder, or even the occasional abseil on an Italian hitch. Shock loading onto a belt is painful and dangerous, and they are not intended to be used in that manner. They are designed to attach non-essential gear to, such as a tackle bag.
The original belay belt was one of the steps that ended up creating the sit harness (see that section for more information). Belay belts as they are currently used developed in the 1970s, once harnesses started to get more elaborate, because cavers still wanted a load bearing belt that could be used for less demanding tasks. Once PPE rating came into force during the 1990s, cavers still wanted a belt that could serve this purpose, so belts got rebranded as battery belts or lamp belts - a belt that could hold the large lamp batteries which were used at the time. These belts exactly matched the belts that used to be sold as belay belts, because they were the same belts. However, the manufacturers could correctly state that they are not good enough to be considered PPE, even if they might sometimes be used for PPE tasks.
This history section only covers belay belts. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
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