Vertical caving terminology and methods > Personal SRT gear
Two short tethers made from rope (typically dynamic), one "long" and one "short" that attach to your D-ring or belay belt. Each cows tail has a carabiner at the end, which can be used to attach you temporarily to anything. Normally uses snap-link (non-locking) carabiners, with either straight or bent gates, but some cavers choose to use locking carabiners. It is normal to have a "short" and a "long" cows tail. There are common lengths based on the size of the person using them. When connected to a D-ring, the short cows tail should have the tip of its carabiner hanging in front of your knee and be able to reach up to your chest. This is roughly as long as from your elbow to the start of your fingers. When connected to a D-ring, the long cows tail should have its entire carabiner hanging in front of the middle of your shin. It should be short enough that you can still reach whatever it is clipped into when hanging on it, but long enough that it is above your head when hanging on it.
Vital equipment for traverses, as well as passing Y-hangs and rebelays. Wherever possible, they should be clipped to ropes rather than anchors, carabiners or maillons, to avoid accidental opening of their carabiner. Some cavers connect them to the D-ring via a carabiner, to allow the cows tails to be removed when needed. Some designs have a small loop at the D-ring, which serves as a load bearing gear loop. Some dedicated designs allow cows tails to be adjusted, such as the Petzl Progress Adjust-Y. Others allow the cows tails to elongate when subjected to a sudden load, to provide additional shock absorbtion, such as the Kong Kisa, or Petzl Scorpio Vertigo. These are absolutely vital for via ferrata mountain climbing routes, but not really used much in caves. However, they would be needed if via ferrata techniques have been used in a cave (extremely uncommon).
Mountaineers and early cavers often carried rope attached to their belts or tied around their waists, which could be used to tie to objects for safety. Fire brigades used a tether attached to their belt in exactly the same way as a cows tail, even using a carabiner on the end, which could be cliped to a ladder. This was mentioned as early as 1847 in Berlin, Prussia (now Germany), where the carabiner was attached directly to the belt. However, it soon became a tether, which can be seen in 1880. French arborists were using tethers connected using carabiners in 1896 in much the same way as cavers would end up using cows tails much later. Carabiners were used by cavers to quickly connect to ropes or anchors since around the 1930s, with French caver Robert de Joly first adopting the idea of a cows tail somewhere between 1934 and 1944. Originally, the short cows tail was just a carabiner clipped directly to an attachment point on the belt, and the long cows tail was anywhere between 30 cm and 2 m in length. The short cows tail would also be used as the main attachment point, which would be connected directly to a lifeline or descender. French cavers then largely forgot about cows tails, and they almost fell out of use. However, the use of spits in 1961-1965 in France enabled pitches to be split into multiple hangs, and some French cavers started to use a single cows tail again. Cows tails were not used with indestructible rope technique, so American cavers did not initially use them, but British cavers were using a single cows tail in 1963 (or perhaps as early as 1951 for traverse lines in South Wales), and French cavers still used a single cows tail in 1973, at which point they became quite popular in France. Australian cavers started to use a single cows tail shortly before 1977, but only in specific cases where it was needed, not as a standard part of their SRT gear. The more common lengths used now were established as Alpine rigging became more advanced in the later 1970s. By 1980, British cavers were starting to use two cows tails, one long and one short. American cavers started to use them as Alpine rigging spread into America during the 1990s.
This history section only covers cows tails. 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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