Vertical caving terminology and methods > Rigging methods and equipment
Putting ropes or ladders on a pitch. The person who does this is known as a rigger. When rigging a ladder, the ladder is slowly and carefully lowered down the pitch, not thrown or dropped, to avoid damaging it, to avoid it failing to unroll part way down (which often happens), and to avoid it tangling around rocks or obstructions in the cave. When rigging a rope for SRT using Alpine rigging, the rope is normally packed in a tackle bag held below the rigger on a donkey's dick, and allowed to feed out showly as the rigger descends. This avoids tangles forming in the rope or around obstructions, avoids it dislodging shrapnel, and stops it from taking the wrong route down a complex pitch. It also means that the weight of the rope does not have to be lifted to tie knots. A safety knot must be used, just in case the rope is not long enough. In regions where indestructible rope technique is used, it is quite common to simply drop the tackle bag containing the rope down the pitch, and hope for the best. This does allow cavers to see which route they will end up taking, but since they cannot really adjust that normally anyway, it is often not a useful feature. It allows them to see if the rope has ended up being long enough to reach the pitch base, assuming it is close enough to see.
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