Vertical caving terminology and methods > Personal SRT gear
A loop of webbing tape or car inner tube (known as a "snoopy loop" in the scuba diving and cave diving world) which is wrapped aroung the ankle and footloop, holding the footloop in place so that it does not slip off the foot accidentally. Sometimes suggested as a load bearing strap to keep you attached to the rope via a footloop if the upper ascenders disconnect from the rope, and the footloop ascender is all that is left - a situation which should never be allowed to happen in the first place! It would also leave you helplessly hanging upside down by your feet, unable to recover, so is not particularly useful for that purpose anyway. Not normally used with Alpine rigging, since it makes several manoeuvres very awkward, and for this reason they are very rarely seen in Britain. Prevents the use of both feet in the same footloop. The term is rarely used in Britain, and will generally get you funny looks. The term comes from the USA, but there seems not to be a British alternative.
Chicken loops were used soon after 1953 by American cavers, and an improvement to them was described by American caver Daniel Hartline in 1967, for use with prusik loops. Initially, they were tied to the footloop, but by 1969, cavers were using footloops with a chicken loop sewn to them. The term was already well in use by 1973. The term comes from the idea that only someone who is afraid (chicken) would bother to add a strap for safety - a notion that was soon replaced with the idea that safety cords are actually a good idea. Once safety cords became common, it was no longer necessary for a chicken loop to be load bearing, but having chicken loops sewn to a footloop remained very common in American caving for several decades. They were progressively demoted to being just a convenience that could be used with indestructible rope technique. The term later appeared in other sports such as kite surfing, mocking anybody who needed an escape device from their kite in order to avoid dying as being "chicken", because it is apparently a bad thing to want to live.
This history section only covers chicken loops. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
<< Footloop | Safety cord, shock cord >>
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