Vertical caving terminology and methods > SRT basic terms
Head of state of the German empire pre-1919, or something like that. I forget.
Going up (ascending) a rope using ascenders or friction hitches. There are several prusiking systems, with the main one used in Britain (and in fact most of the world) being the frog system. As a general rule, prusiking relies on having at least two ascenders or friction hitches, and alternating which one is gripping the rope. For it to be considered prusiking, motion should be done using strength rather than using a motor, and one ascender normally holds the weight of the person, while they move a short distance upwards. The one ascender or one knot method would normally be considered prusiking, since the ascender is essential to the process, and it is really just a way to recreate a standard prusiking system without one of its ascenders. Doubled rope technique would not normally be considered prusiking when the rope is manually pulled to ascend, even if an ascender or friction hitch is used to capture progress, as the ascender performs only a secondary function, and motion could continue without it being present.
Originally, ascending a rope consisted of using manual strength to pull yourself up the rope. This was described as early as 170-180 CE by Ancient Greek author Claudius Galen in what is now Turkey, in a health guide intended for the whole Roman empire, De Sanitate Tuenda, book 2, chapter 9. The original Latin text is lost, but a few slightly different transcriptions remain ("Præterasi, quis per funem manibus apprehensum, scandat, sicuti in palæstra pueros exercent, qui eos ad robur preparant." or "Præterea, quis per funem manibus apprehensum, scandat, sicuti in palæstra pueros exercent, qui eos ad robur præparant."). The text translates literally to "moreover, one climbs up, holding a rope in his hands, just as boys are trained in the wrestling gymnasium, which prepares them for strength". It does not mention whether the feet were used. Much later investigations by Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths in 1793, suggest that the rope had been fixed at the top and bottom, and kept fairly tight. Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths wrote that in the Holy Roman Empire in 1793, later Germany, climbing a loose rope might be done with hands only, or by passing the rope between the thighs and trapping it between crossed-over ankles, and also depicted the rope being wrapped several times around a foot instead of trapping it (though this seems impossible to use more than once). When using feet, the rope was grabbed with the hands, the knees were lifted, and the rope was trapped between between the feet or wrapped around a foot. The hands were then moved further up, and the process was repeated. Another common approach mentioned in 1826 is to twist the rope around a foot with the other foot to get more grip. It is not known when each of these approaches developed, but they are all likely to have been developed several centuries earlier at least, and several books since 1803 stated that the approaches of trapping the rope between the feet originated with sailors. To make it easier, the rope could be looped over a higher object, tie yourself to one end and pull the other end, a form of doubled rope technique without any safety. Although it is not known when this technique began to be used, it was mentioned as a way to descend rather than ascend in 1778, and may have been used by sailors or well diggers for many centuries before then. The traditional Polynesian and Indian methods to climbing trees are very old approaches that are very similar to prusiking, recorded in writing from at least the early 1800s, but almost certainly several centuries older. They tie the feet together in a way that makes them clamp the tree, then grip the tree with their hands. In some variations, they loop a rope around the tree which is held in the hands, sometimes also looping around the body. They then alternate whether they are hanging from the rope loop or hands while moving their feet up, or clamping with their feet and lifting their hands or the rope loop up.
The earliest known use of prusiking was by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) in about 1520-1530, using ascenders he had developed that worked like a pair of forceps. And no, those dates were not typos, prusiking is extremely old! The exact date is not known precisely, but is presumed to be while he was adding details of how to cast metals to his book series De Occulta Philosophia, and definitely before his death in 1535. The ascenders were intended to be used with the two ascender variation of rope walking, but without being able to slide the ascenders up the rope, so they had to be manually disconnected, moved, and reconnected for each step, which would have been very clumsy. This was described in 1549-1550 by Gerolamo Cardano in the Holy Roman Empire (now Italy), in great detail. The intended purpose of prusiking was not stated, but Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim had recently finished a career in the Spanish and Holy Roman Empire militaries (1508-1515), and that could well have been an inspiration, though the only reference to it comes from the world of academia, in Latin, not Spanish. He was an academic lecturer from 1509 to 1519 and continued with academic research afterwards in many parts of the Holy Roman Empire, and was established as a polymath, well known for having a great interest in science, mechanics, natural magic, alchemy and philosophy. He is likely to have developed prusiking simply out of curiosity, believing it to have numerous practical uses, all of which would have related to rope access. Knowledge of it, however, seemed to remain entirely within academic circles, and it was not described as being used anywhere.
The next known use of prusiking was by French inventor Nicolas Grollier de Servière, using a clamping jaws ascender that he had developed. The exact date of its use is not recorded, but it was during his retirement which began in 1642 and ended with his death in 1689. It is likely to have been shortly after obtaining the 1647 French translation of a book by Galileo Galilei, which inspired the inventor's research into rope access. The details of his creations were then included in a book by his grandson Gaspard II Grollier de Servière in 1719, along with instructions for its use, which show that it was intended for use with the hands and feet system. The book did not include any information to suggest that Nicolas Grollier de Servière had learned about either ascenders or prusiking systems from anyone else, and it is likely that he had independently redeveloped both of them. The prusiking technique and ascender design were completely different from what Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim had used, suggesting that there had been no transfer of knowledge between them. There was only a single foot jammer, designed for use with both feet at once, while gripping the rope directly with hands, without any safety measures. Its purpose was to ascend a castle wall during an invasion, or ascend into the window of a tall building.
French roofers and plumbers have been described using a knotted rope to climb buildings from as early as 1684, though the technique is almost certainly much older, as roofers had been described as "dancing on ropes" and "holding firm at places they pass" by René Le Pays in 1664. The technique was described rather poorly in 1723, and described and clearly depicted in two separate publications in 1762. They would stand in footloops which they attached using suspension hooks hooked above the knots of a knotted rope, alternating from one footloop to the other while moving the hooks to the next available knot, and holding on with their hands. This could be used to climb upwards or downwards. It was essentially the same general idea as the two-knot version of the Gérard Alpine technique. This method was described being used by French exterior decorators in the early 1800s, and continued to be described into the 1900s. It was known as "echelle de corde" (rope ladder), "echelle de couvreur" (roofer's ladder) or "corde nouée" (knotted rope), sometimes using the older spellings eschelle or echele.
In 1725, German engineer Jacob Leupold from the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) adapted Nicolas Grollier de Servière's technique, adding a top jammer for the hands, creating the standard hands and feet system, and adding a tether between the ascenders to avoid accidentally dropping the foot jammer. Reverse prusiking required pulling a string or pushing a lever to release the ascender. The spring made bottom weighting difficult, and the suggestion was to hang a rock on the bottom of the rope, but the lever would also have worked. Prusiking was suggested as a way to escape a fire using a rope, by reverse prusiking. He specifically stated that he had learned from the book by Gaspard II Grollier de Servière.
Various hitches were developed, often by sailors, which would have made it possible to save the climbing progress when pulling up manually on a rope, such as the rolling hitch by 1794 and a variation called the Magnus hitch soon afterwards, (both of which were originally used to connect a rope to a spar - a wooden pole), but there is no record of them being used for this purpose until much later. In 1863, Scottish steeplejack and former sailor James Duncan Wright, better known as Steeple Jack, was described climbing a lightning conductor cable to the top of a church steeple, using the same basic approach as the French roofers. He needed to use a lark's foot or a noose as a friction hitch to grip the cable, the same way sailors used to connect things to masts, and at that point, it could be considered prusiking. It was described as being done "by means of loops of spun yarn inserted around the conductor step by step up". It is very likely that he had learned about the footloops from France. Presumably he used the same approach again in 1869 to climb a flagpole, given that he was able to lean on top of it with one foot, suggesting that he had some kind of foot support for the other foot. This technique was used by steeplejacks in the USA by the end of the century, referred to as flagpole stirrups. This method was depicted in an illustration, being used in New York in 1901 to climb a flagpole. In that illustration, an additional loop of rope is passed around the waist and the flagpole, to avoid falling off backwards, since several accidents had occurred that way.
Some time before 1824, French arborists had developed a method to climb trees or poles using metal spikes called "tree climbing spikes" or "spurs" attached to their feet (known at the time as "climbing-spurs" in English, or "griffons" meaning "griffins" or "griffes" meaning "claws" in French). They dug them into the wood, while they would grip the trunk with their hands. Telegraph workers then used the same approach for climbing telegraph poles, but this damaged the wood. This inspired a set of clamping jaws ascenders for wooden poles, which were created by German inventor Ed. von Mengden in 1878. Again, they were intended for use with the hands and feet system, which he had probably learned from one of the books that had discussed it. He then adapted that to prusiking on rope, using the same idea for the ascenders, and created the inchworm system for use with rope in 1879. American inventor William E. Burke reimagined the hands and feet system in 1897, using an ascender for the feet and just gripping the rope with hands, regressing to what Nicolas Grollier de Servière had done 2 centuries earlier. New Zealand inventor Robert Cockerell reinvented the two ascender variation of rope walking in about 1901. American inventor Charles E. Knop also used the hands and feet system in 1902, with an ascender for the feet and nothing for the hands.
In 1905, steeplejacks in New York had developed the Texas system as a safer alternative to what they had previously used to climb flagpoles for painting or servicing, as it held the body upright more reliably if the legs accidentally swung to the other side of the flagpole. They still used a pair of nooses to grip the flagpole, and as a result, they called this approach steeplejack's flagpole slings. One foot was used with a footloop connected to the lower noose, and the other had a loop of canvas around the thigh instead of a sit harness, connected to the upper noose. In 1910, American inventor Iver J. Westad re-described using the hands and feet system with two ascenders on a rope. In 1913, Austrian inventor Johann Machek re-imagined the inchworm system with the body held in a boatswain's chair below the ascender. By 1918 (probably since around 1910), the boatswain's chair was also being used by steeplejacks when using the Texas system, as a better sit harness than the leg loop, and the method was advised to American steeplejacks by the American government.
French caver Léon Pérot developed the frog system in 1920 for use with his prototype ascenders (see that section for more details of the developments there), but did not use them for caving. Antoine Joseph Marius "Paul Cans" Barthelemy developed his own ascenders in 1920 and revealed them at the start of 1921 by ascending to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower in France. They were intended to be used to paint buildings, using rope walking, which he had clearly adapted from the inchworm system used by Austrian Johann Machek and Robert Cockerell's technique. French mountaineer E. Gérard invented the Gérard hitch in 1928, and described how it could be used with the Gérard Alpine technique, which he independently reinvented as a variation of rope walking, for mountaineering. His article was published in 1928 in French publication La Montagne, with more information later in the same year relating to footloops and glacier rescue. It was translated into English in the Alpine Journal in 1929, as part of E. R. Blanchet's article "The Spare Rope In Theory And Practice". The Austrian mountaineering journal Österreichische Alpenzeitung described it in an article by W. F. in December of 1929, and referenced the Alpine Journal translation. Astrian mountaineer Karl Prusik would have read that journal, since he was a prominent member of the Österreichischer Alpenklub that published it (later the vice president of it), and which distributed both La Montagne and the Alpine Journal to its members, and it can be safely concluded that he knew about it. Henri "Kiki" Brenot created the Singes Mécaniques (mechanical monkeys) ascenders in 1929 in the Grenoble region of France, using rope walking, intended for mountaineering. These were the first ascenders and first system used underground, in the Félix-Trombe cave system in the French Pyrenees, along with Pierre Chevalier in 1934.
The classic Prusik knot was supposedly independently reinvented by Austrian mountaineer Karl Prusik in 1931, something sailors were already using (see that section for more details of the developments there). He invented the Jumar system of prusiking, the one knot improvised rescue technique and reinvented the frog system. At the time, he stated that the existing "climbing lock" belay devices, presumably those created in 1904 and 1911, could also be used for prusiking, suggesting that either he had tried to do so earlier during 1931, or that another Austrian mountaineer had tried it, such as Adolf Noßberger, who had told him about them in that year. Karl Prusik did not provide details of whether other mountaineers had tried prusiking with them, or what techniques they might have used. However, he was was almost certainly heavily influenced by E. Gérard's article, though he completely failed to credit anyone, and significant parts of his article could almost be considered plagiarism. At the time, his clubs were openly racist, having been early adopters of what would later become Nazi ideals since 1921 (Karl Prusik himself served as a Nazi captain), and it is extremely likely that they would not have wanted someone from France to get the credit for developing something that they would end up using. According to his climbing partner Wolf Kitterle, he started work on it in the late 1920s, "he guessed 1928", and this is completely consistent with him having learned the technique from E. Gérard.
Mountaineers then conveniently ignored four centuries of prusiking developments in Germany, France, the USA, Sweden, New Zealand, Britain and Austria. They overlooked the fact that mountaineers and cavers (who were also mountaineers) had already been using it with ascenders and friction hitches, and acted like nothing had existed before Karl Prusik, even though they still used the techniques that others had come up with before him. The main reason that his name is associated with prusiking, is that he wrote in German instead of French, and so his article could be read by mountaineers from Austria and Germany. Although cavers had already started to develop their own version of it, mountaineers became the more active users of prusiking for a while, but its use slowly grew within caving. After their use in 1934 by Henri "Kiki" Brenot and Pierre Chevalier in Félix-Trombe, the Singes Mécaniques ascenders started to be used by Pierre Chevalier, Hélène Guillemin and François Guillemin in the Dent de Crolles system near Grenoble in France in 1935. All of them used the ascenders as handholds for a rope climb during the first trip, and during the second trip, Pierre Chevalier prusiked each pitch with them, while the others used a ladder. After that, they were then used mainly as a backup system, with most exploration taking place by using a rope as a pull-up cord for a ladder. If that pull-up cord failed, then they would use the Singes Mécaniques to prusik up the pitch instead, and correct the ladder, so at most, only one person would use them. Most of the time, nobody would use the ascenders at all.
Some time before 1936, American arborists were using the rolling hitch and a variation with an extra turn, which they called a locking hitch, for storing their climbing progress. The rolling hitch also gets called a tautline hitch when it is tied back to its own rope, and American arborist Karl Kuemmerling was apparently using the tautline hitch for this purpose in the 1930s, probably as early as 1932, when he developed a sit harness. This was the first suggestion of prusiking in arboriculture, but ascending still needed them to climb upwards manually using some other method. This idea was brought into British arboriculture in 1936 but most British arborists continued to ignore it, as they preferred to work without ropes. In 1938, Pierre Chevalier used the Gérard Alpine technique with prusik loops made from strands of the main hemp rope to prusik up a pitch in the Dent de Crolles system after a ladder failed to pull up correctly, which is the first known use of them underground. In 1944, American steeplejack Laurie Young described in The Ashley Book of Knots (#454) how steeplejacks from Massachusetts, USA were climbing poles using the Texas system, so it had clearly become common among steeplejacks on the eastern coast of the USA. While this was still used with poles such as flagpoles, the steeplejack's hitch (which the steeplejacks also used by then) would have worked just as well on ropes. In the same publication, a sketch by American sailor Clifford Warren Ashley (#480) shows American arborists looping the rope that they were tied to over a branch, and pulling on the other end in order to ascend, with a variation of the Magnus hitch or a Prusik knot used to save their progress. This is the first time they are conclusively shown using this method, rather than manually climbing the tree. The singe system and two-knot variation of the Gérard Alpine technique were created by cavers in the Grenoble region of France, both described by Henry P. Guérin in 1944, but very poorly in the latter case. They used the Singes Mécaniques ascenders for the singe system, and the Prusik knot for their version of the Gérard Alpine technique. The singe system was probably created by Henry "Kiki" Brenot, and possibly others such as Robert de Joly and Henry P. Guérin.
By 1952, American cavers Bob Handley and Charlie Fort had also used Prusik knots with the Gérard Alpine technique in caves with pitches of up to 30 metres. Other American cavers including Larry Sabatinos, Bob Barnes and Roy Charlton had all used prusiking, but not underground. All had viewed it as something to use in emergencies, not regularly underground. They refused to teach American caver William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington how to prusik, so he learned their technique from a mountaineering book, and first used it in a cave in 1952. Those techniques may have worked, but they were a significant step backwards compared with what had already been developed in France. However, it is the approach that initially took place in North American caving, and prusiking became synonymous with "climbing on knots". While other American cavers shunned the idea of prusiking, and would use ladders, he started using prusiking heavily in Tennessee in 1953, and started teaching it to friends. His ideas and approaches then spread throughout North America.
Americans started adapting the Gérard Alpine technique into new prusiking systems. In 1955, while creating a method to get over the lip of a pitch, American caver Dan Bloxsom re-invented the frog system as a way to recover from an abseiling emergency, which he called the fourth sling. American caver Huntley Ingalls created the idea behind the Plummer system "years ago" before 1960, probably in 1957. The Texas system was independently redeveloped by cavers from Austin, Texas, USA, in 1960. The first commercial mechanical ascender used for caving, the Jümar, was released in 1958 by Adolph Jüsi and Walter Marti, who ran the company Jümar Pangit in Reichenbach, Switzerland. This made SRT more accessible, and cavers around the world started experimenting with it more heavily. They were used in a cave for probably the first time in the early 1960s, in Biolet Cave in the Grenoble region of France, but it was about 1965 before they were used for caving in the USA. The Jumar system was recommended for use with them, and despite being originally created for use with prusik loops, cavers initially seemed to almost completely separate the two systems; if using Jumars, cavers used the Jumar system in North America or Europe, or rope walking or the singe system in parts of France. If they used prusik loops, they used the Gérard Alpine technique or Texas system in the USA and Britain, or the two-knot variation of the Gérard Alpine technique in France. American caver Bill Plummer developed the Plummer system between 1960 and 1966, and it was initially used exclusively for prusik loops.
Inspired by the Gérard Alpine technique, Americans Robert E. Henshaw and David F. Morehouse (presumably cavers) recreated rope walking for their Climbing Cam mechanical ascenders in 1965, which became known as cams on feet, since each foot had an ascender strapped directly to it. An unknown American caver recreated the singe system some time around 1965 for prusik loops. Even after American cavers started using them in 1965, many cavers in America initially shunned mechanical ascenders, assuming they would cut through ropes, and mechanical failures could not be dealt with. Some said that it was safer to teach new cavers to use prusik loops, so that they could recover after an ascender inevitably fails, since they might stop working or break at any moment due to the relatively low quality aluminium manifacturing methods compared with modern ascenders. That attitude persisted well into the 1970s, and while the mechanical ascenders that American cavers used in the 1960s were a little unreliable, the use of prusik loops had in fact been responsible for several serious incidents, because of the natural instinct to grip them when something goes wrong, which causes them to disengage. They are also very difficult to get over a lip, and incidents often happened there. At least one fatal incident happened at the Devil's Sink Hole in the USA, when prusik loops came untied from a caver. These incidents contined, and in 1985 in Fourth Of July Cave, Alabama, a caver using the Gérard Alpine technique had their chest prusik loop break, resulting in them falling upside down without a safety cord or chicken loops to catch them, and had caught themselves upside down using their toes in their footloops, which fortunately were tight enough for them not to slip off. This was most definitely luck rather than clever design, and by 1985, there was plenty of knowledge about safety measures that could have been used. They had to wait, hanging upside down, while somebody else gently reverse prusiked down to them, and connected them to a proper ascender. They were extremely lucky to have survived.
1966 was a busy year! The Wisconsin system was created for Jumars independently by American cavers Dick Boyd, Carl Poster and Bob Olmstead from the University of Wisconsin in 1965-1966, which was incredibly close to being the frog system. At the same time, they stated that people were occasionally using mechanical ascenders with the Plummer system and Texas system. American Charley Townsend re-invented the inchworm system in 1965-1966, as an ascending method for Jumars, after a mishap during the 1965 American National Speleological Convention. William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington created the Kaczmarek version of the Plummer system in 1966, still aimed at prusik loops. Rope walking was adapted again for mechanical ascenders from the Gérard Alpine technique in America by caver Charles Gibbs and Cleveland Grotto members including Warwick Doll and Lee Watson, some time around 1966. They created the precursor to the three Gibbs ropewalker arrangement, with the knee jammer strapped to the knee, and a prusik loop tied to a very basic chest harness instead of the shoulder jammer. The frog system was redeveloped between 1966 and 1968 by French caver André "Ded" Meozzi, in the Grenoble region of France.
During the exploration of Sótano de las Golondrinas in 1967, cavers used either prusik loops, or Jumars with various prusiking systems that would normally have been used with prusik loops. One caver was told not to use a club-made copy of a Jumar, as it was deemed to be sharp enough to damage the rope. The Mitchell system was invented by Richard "Dick" L. Mitchell in the USA in 1967, and very quickly became the dominant system in southeastern USA, winning over some prusik loop users including William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington. Mike Kaczmarek separately recreated the Kaczmarek system variation of the Plummer system in 1967. Unknown American cavers recreated the singe system from the inchworm system, and called it the number one Texas system, some time between 1967 and 1972. In 1967, American cavers held the first rope climbing contest at the National Speleological Society Convention, which is responsible for many of the efficiency improvements that subsequently happened with prusiking. Over the years, it also started to draw increasing criticism for how it encouraged cavers to build impractical or downright dangerous configurations, where safety features and functionality were sacrificed for speed, so that a single piece of equipment failure might result in death, and prusiking rigs might not allow cavers to cope with obstacles, leaving them in need of improvised rescue. For some competitors, this became the sport, racing up pitches, rather than actually going caving to see the cave. Also in 1967, British and Canadian students explored Sótano del Río Iglesia in Mexico, and seem to have used rope walking.
The spiderweb system variation of the Plummer system was created by an unknown American caver somewhere between 1968 and 1972. The chest roller was added to the Mitchell system in 1969 by American Keith wilson. William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington briefly used the ropewalker configuration around 1969, while it still used a prusik loop tied to the chest harness. During 1969, the ropewalker configuration changed to replace the prusik loop with a third Gibbs ascender, at which point it was called the three Gibbs ropewalker. William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington developed and taught the three phase system variation of the Mitchell system between 1969 and 1974, making it more common to use mechanical ascenders with the Plummer system and Texas system. The Jumar system was poorly depicted in the British Descent magazine issue 10 in 1970, without showing that a chest harness was needed. The idea of a floating cam was developed by Kirk MacGregor in Toronto, Canada some time around 1970 (it set a speed record at the start of 1971), using surgical tubing instead of bungee cord to pull a knee jammer upwards. This revolutionised rope walking. Between 1971 and 1974, he added a chest roller to rope walking, adding a further speed boost. This configuration would go on to be the most popular, and rope walking started to dominate the other prusiking systems in America. This configuration would become known as the Howie rig in Britain. Prusiking played a crucial role during the British expedition to Ghar Parau in Iran in 1971, using Jumars with the Jumar system (then considered the normal method of prusiking in Britain), Jumars or Clogs with the Texas system, or Gibbs ascenders with the three Gibbs variation of rope walking. During the 1971-1972 preparation for the 1972 return expedition, cavers also reinvented the frog system, seemingly without realising that it existed in France already, and it was the most commonly used system on the expedition. Peter Standing wrote about it, and John Allonby was one of the ones using it, while Glyn Edwards may have helped develop it.
The frog system started being taught to cavers in other regions of France starting from 1972, and rapidly spread to other countries. Some time around 1973, an incredibly silly variation of the singe system was created from the inchworm system, which used a rocking motion to gain a little extra height. At the same time, someone else recreated the Kaczmarek variation of the Plummer system. The pygmy system was created by American Vern Smith in 1974, as an adaptation of the Mitchell system that ended up being identical to the Gérard Alpine technique, for mechanical ascenders. Prusiking finally became the dominant approach for ascending pitches in Britain, with the major change starting since 1974. The Italian technique was developed in Italy in 1974. In 1975, Petzl's Jean-Louis Rocourt suggested making a dedicated chest ascender based on Bruno Dressler's earlier design, allowing the frog system to rapidly become dominant across Europe, from where it spread to the rest of the world. The main reason for its dominance is that it can cope with Alpine rigging that was being developed at that time, as well as most other obstacles. It also relied on minimal equipment, that could be put on and taken off quickly for caves with awkward passages between pitches.
"Some years" before 1979, presumably around 1976, American caver David R. McClurg had started using a prusik loop as a quick attachment safety with the three Gibbs variation of rope walking. The another prusiking system was developed and named by British caver Mike Cowlishaw, combining the Mitchell system and the static knee jammer from the three Gibbs ropewalker variation of rope walking, in 1976, with details published in 1977. The Gossett system variation of the Jumar system was created by American Jim Gossett in 1977. The floating cam approach was then combined with the Mitchell system, described by British caver Nick Thorne in 1978. In 1978, American Gary D. Storrick described a four Gibbs system, adding a handheld ascender to a Howie rig, and making the floating cam optional. The Ded-Mao-pompe variation of the Italian technique was first described by French cavers Bruno Dressler and Pierre Minvielle in 1979. In 1979 Ron Simmons added a mechanical quick attachment safety to the rope walking system. The Murphy system variation of rope walking was used by Russian cavers from Pluton Caving Club some time before 1981, as a method to climb cables, with the quick attachment safety connected to a backup rope.
Rope walking developed into the common double bungee configuration in 1981, announced by American Kathy Williams. A foot jammer was suggested for the frog system by John Forder in 1982, using the floating cam approach from rope walking. The singe system was recreated by Bruce W. Smith in 1983 as the portly prusik. By 1987, the double bungee variation of rope walking used a pulley, producing the most popular and most efficient version of it, which remains dominant in some parts of the USA. The Murphy system was recreated by American William Shrewsbury in 1987. In 1989, American Bill Farr independently recreated the another prusiking system and called it the rope hopper. The dedicated foot jammer for use with the frog system appeared in 1990, with the French Millet 9400 Aphanicé-Boulourd. The frog system spread to North America, and started to take over from the other systems during the early 1990s, but there are still significant parts where rope walking or the three phase system variation of the Mitchell system are dominant. Actual prusiking finally started to appear in arboriculture after 1990. During 1991 and 1992, the RAD system variation of the frog system was developed by Canadians Robert Chisnall and Michel Goulet, for use by rescue services, when trying to adjust position relative to a stretcher. The stair climbing method, a conversion between the frog system and rope walking, was originally described by Georges Marbach and Bernard Tourte in Alpine Caving Techniques, 2000. By 2007, the Mitchell system with floating cam had merged into the another prusiking system.
This history section only covers prusiking. 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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