Vertical caving terminology and methods > SRT basic terms
Silly rope techniques. Wait. Was that right? Oh. Sorry. Single rope techniques. Abseiling and prusiking. A way of navigating down or up a pitch. Also known as "swinging around on silly bits of string". By far the dominant approach used in potholes, as it allows routes to be created away from hazards. Somewhat slower to rig than using ladders, and requires significantly more training, but provides better safety at a pitch head, and does not need a belayer. Requires more equipment than ladders for a cave with only one or two short pitches, since each person needs their own SRT gear. However, once pitches become larger, or if a cave has several of them, SRT requires far less equipment. Sharing SRT gear is not advisable, since it is usually tailored to the needs of a specific caver, and can get snagged on the walls of a pitch when hauling or lowering it. With SRT, the rope remains rigged on the pitch, while the caver and their SRT gear moves up, down or sideways along the rope. This is different from using a lifeline, winch, hauling or lowering, where the rope also moves as the caver moves.
This section concentrates on the use of SRT in caving, with a few mentions of some early devices, rope access and arboriculture. See the sections on abseiling, body abseil, descenders, prusiking, ascenders and the Prusik knot for more details of the specific methods and devices that were used for SRT in general.
The original use of ropes in caves for cave exploration purposes is as handlines, as well as lifelines for ladders once they started being used underground. Prehistoric cave paintings from about 12500 BCE in Atxurra, a cave in Spain, show that explorers were visitng a part of the cave that was quite challenging to access. Geomorphological analysis of the cave showed that the route through the caves, as it would have been at that time, will have needed some kind of assistance for nearly vertical sections. Ropes are most likely to have been used as handlines. In 4200-2700 BCE, Neolithic miners at Rijckholt Flint Mine (now Netherlands) are thought to have used ropes as handlines to access their mines. A depiction of the Greek myth of Orpheus created on a hydria (water carrying jar) in 440 BCE, shows a rope being used to retrieve the head of Orpheus from within a cave. While the myth has no basis in reality, the actual cave where this myth is thought to be based, Σπήλιος ("Spilios" or "Speleos" - meaning "caveman") on the island of Λέσβος (Lesbos), was certainly visited by Ancient Greek visitors, and they may have created the myth based on their actual use of the cave. Ropes are not currently needed inside the cave, but handlines would have been useful for the climb up to it. The floor of the cave is not natural, and originally could have had a deep hole in it, where ropes may have been used. Either way, in 440 BCE, someone thought handlines were needed in caves.
Ropes have likely been used for hundreds of years to access caves during mineral mining operations (as early as 4000 BCE in southern Britain and 1500 BCE in central Britain), for mining guano or for collecting birds' nests (as early as the year 800 in southeast Asia). However, they did not often keep records of what caves they visited, or whether they descended them using ropes, or what techniques were involved. Methods to control descending on ropes had existed since before the 1500s, but it took a while for these to be used in caves.
Ropes have been used for access work, particularly the building trade, for so long that there is no record of when it would have started. In 170-180 CE, Ancient Greek author Claudius Galen described in a health guide intended for the whole Roman empire, De Sanitate Tuenda, book 2, chapter 9, how climbing ropes was used for fitness training. The rope was fixed at the top and the ground, and was held in the hands. It does not mention whether the feet were used. In 1479, Scottish prince Alexander Stewart and a servant slid down a rope made of bedsheets. In about 1460, Aeneas Silvius Bartholomeus Piccolomini (better known as Pope Pius II) wrote Epistola CCCCXXVI (letter 426), "De crudeli amoris exitu Guiscardi et Sigismundi Tancredi salernitatorum principis filie", which was a modified version of the fictional story of Tancred and Gismund. In his version, the prince sneaked into a woman's bedroom via a cave, which he had to climb in and out of, using a handline. Between 1495 and 1497, Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical ascender in the Holy Roman Empire, now Italy. Sailors from the 1500s to the 1800s slid down ropes which they gripped with their legs, and either slid their hands down, or gripped the rope one hand at a time. In around 1520-1530 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim developed both the earliest known descender and ascender in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), and used rope walking. He is therefore likely to be the first person to use both abseiling and prusiking, and therefore could be considered to be the first person to use SRT. In 1556 (but researched from 1528-1550), the book De re metallica (on the nature of metals) listed how metal mining was carried out in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Italy) and Hungary (now Slovakia). It described and depicted how miners would sometimes slide down sloping mine shafts "sitting on leather" as a sledge. To control their speed, they would run the rope under their armpit like a body abseil. Sailors in the Holy Roman Empire (now Italy) were experimenting with a simple stick descender in 1549-1550, as described by Gerolamo Cardano. Separately, he also described how a person could lift themselves more easily using doubled rope technique, and used counterweights to make it even easier.
German explorer Berthold Buchner wrote about an expedition to Breitenwinner Höhle, a cave in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), which was published in 1535, but the date of the expedition is not known. Ropes were used to descend some steep parts, presumably as handlines and lifelines, and this is the first known written account of ropes being used for cave exploration purposes. Since then, ropes continued to be used the same way, but with developments soon including manual lowering or the use of winches. Polymath Galileo Galilei described an early descender in 1638, in what was then the Republic of Florence, Holy Roman Empire, now Italy. French inventor Nicolas Grollier de Servière improved Galileo Galilei's descender, and created a clamping jaws ascender, with which he developed prusiking using just one ascender. He is therefore the second known person to use both abseiling and prusiking, which he suggested could be used for castle invasions and rope access. The date of these events is not recorded, but 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. Details were published in 1719.
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. 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. This would later inspire some forms of prusiking.
In 1669 a quarry worker broke into the top of Pen Park Hole in Bristol (directly at the top of the Main Chamber). British captain Samuel Sturmy and a miner named Dick explored the cave by lowering themselves down the 40 metre pitch on ropes which were attached at the top of the pitch, and climbing into the lower parts of the cave. The pitch is partially sloping, and partially vertical. They used ladders to reach side passages, but both descending and reascending the pitch was done using ropes. The technique for descending the ropes is not specified, but will have involved a combination of handlines and hand over hand body abseil. Ascending involved climbing the rock with a handline, and rope climbing.
In 1717, French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort visited Σπήλαιο της Αντιπάρου (Cave of Antiparos) in Greece, using ropes as handlines. In 1725, German engineer Jacob Leupold from the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) improved Nicolas Grollier de Servière's prusiking system, adding a second ascender. It was suggested as a way to escape a fire using a rope, by reverse prusiking. In 1778, Johann Georg Krünitz described in Berlin, Prussia, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) in the Oekonomische Encyklopädie volume 13, how mountaineers were using doubled rope technique to lower themselves using hand strength, which is the first known mention of that approach. It is likely to be far older, possibly used by some sailors or well diggers during previous centuries. Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier revisited Σπήλαιο της Αντιπάρου in 1782, and again with Elisabeth Craven in 1786, at which time guided tours were being offered, using handlines to descend into the cave. In 1787, Genevan mountaineer Horace Bénédict de Saussure used a walking pole as a descender, while descending from Mont Blanc in the French Alps. In 1793 Rosenmüllerhöhle was explored by German doctor Johann Christian Rosenmüller, using a rope for the surface shaft. Since abseiling and prusiking were not used in caves in that era, it is likely to have been a handline only. From 1793 onwards, several books taught sailing rope climbing and descending techniques to gymnasts. In 1794, an anonymous visitor to an active Cornish mine in Britain described using a rope as a handline to descend a narrow mine shaft. Some time before 1824, French arborists 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. This method is not used in caves, but it would later inspire a form of prusiking.
Italian/Austrian mining engineer Antonio Federico Lindner and water management engineer Jakob Svetina explored Grotta/Abisso di Padriciano/Šeštajevka Jama (then the Austrian Empire, now Italy) in 1839 using only ropes, searching for a water supply. Over a few trips, they reached a depth of 220 metres, descending steep sections and free-hanging pitches (including one of 45 metres in total height), presumably just using strength to climb the ropes! By 1840, French arborists would tie ropes around a tree trunk for safety when resting, but only at the protest of those who preferred to climb without it (this approach was mentioned in 1874 in an unspecified country, 1881 in France and 1883 in Britain). In 1841, Belgian arborists were described using a rope as a flipline when climbing with tree climbing spikes, for pruning trees. The method is not described in detail, but there is enough to know that it is a flipline, as it says that the person "ascends by the assistance of a cord and climbing spurs" by "passing the cord round the stem" of the tree. In normal use, a loop of rope is passed around the back of the tree for grip, and is either tied to their belt at each end, or looped behind their back. They lean back on the rope, step higher using the spikes, lean forward, shake the flipline a little higher with their hands, and repeat. A great many modern tutorials claim that this is the oldest method of climbing trees, but the flipline is a later development than the tree climbing spikes. Many other methods of climbing trees were in use long before either fliplines or tree climbing spikes, such as rigid ladders (both on the ground, and resting on branches to reach higher ones), ropes and manual climbing. The Romans are thought to have used these methods for arboriculture throughout their empire around 2000 years earlier, and they had been used continuously ever since. In 1845, miners, well diggers and mountaineers were described using doubled rope technique to both lower and raise themselves. In all cases, ascenders were not used, and the rope was pulled by hand.
In 1851, fire brigades in Ulm, German Confederation (now Germany) were abseiling with a ring attached to their belt like a carabiner wrap, but an actual carabiner was not yet used for that purpose. By 1855, British egg collectors (who would now be considered egg thieves, and incredibly harmful to wildlife, but who delusionally considered themselves to be ornithologists at the time) were using tree climbing spikes to climb trees, without using fliplines. From 1860 onwards, many descenders were invented, particularly in the USA, for use as fire escapes, with over 150 registered designs in several countries by the 1900s. British mountaineer Edward Whymper used ropes as handlines while climbing in 1862. In 1863, Scottish steeplejack and former sailor James Duncan Wright, better known as Steeple Jack, prusiked up a lightning conductor on a steeple, using the same basic idea as the French exterior decorators, but using a noose as a friction hitch. This technique was then used to prusik up flagpoles, becoming popular in the USA by the end of the century. By 1863, the damage caused by tree climbing spikes was already noticed, and the use of tree climbing spikes and fliplines was reduced. However, in 1865, naturalists trying to study animals would use tree climbing spikes and ropes to climb trees. The exact method of using the rope was not described, but it may have been a handline or a flipline. By 1872, the Austrian fire brigades were abseiling with their belt rings for self rescue. In 1874, British egg collectors described using a substitute flipline made from thin tree branches or iron, combined with tree climbing spikes. In 1875, British caver Joseph Plumley was lowered into Plumley's Hole, using the approach commonly used by miners at that time, which was to have a separate handline in addition to the hauling rope. Before 1875, ropes had been used by American egg collectors. The method used was described in 1885 as pulling thin trees over with a rope until the eggs could be reached from the ground. In 1875, they were described as climbing with tree climbing spikes (which they called climbing irons or climbing spurs), without using a rope to climb the tree. In 1876, French mountaineer Jean-Estéril Charlet-Straton slid down a handline the way that sailors and gymnasts had already learned not to do because it could cause injuries.
In 1877, American egg collectors were described as using a rope to rest when climbing a tree using tree climbing spikes, the way it had been originally described by French arborists. They were also described as using a flipline without tree climbing spikes. In 1878, they were described by American egg collector Fred J. Davis as being used with a flipline on big or smooth trees. From that year, arborists from many countries were shunning the use of tree climbing spikes for the lasting damage that they caused to trees, which spoiled the timber produced by them as they healed around the damage. Their use in Europe and European colonies was limited almost entirely to felling trees, while many American arborists continued to use them extensively for several decades for maintenance work, still damaging the trees. By 1878, fire brigades in southern Germany were abseiling using an actual carabiner wrap. German inventor Ed. von Mengden created clamping jaws mechanical ascenders for telegraph poles in 1878 to avoid the damage from tree climbing spikes, and on ropes in 1879 (but not for caving), using two different prusiking systems, one of which was new. Ropes were used as handlines for tourists in Lehman Caves in Nevada, USA, in 1885. In 1893, Swedish inventor Anders Wilhelm Lewin created a device that could be used as both an ascender and descender. Several other devices appeared during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1893, an American children's magazine documentented the use of a doubled gantline by sailors to haul another sailor up on a boatswain's chair, after which they could temporarily tie it to a cleat on the chair and lower themselves with it, the earliest known definitive mention of doubled rope technique used by sailors. It is not known if this practice started before or after its use by mountaineers in the previous century. In 1884, an American egg collector identified only as "J. M. W." used a fire escape system for climbing a rope which was thrown over a tree branch, and climbed using doubled rope technique. The fire escape they used essentially consisted of a descender rather than an ascender, and would have been very clumsy to use as an ascender. It was also only a single ascender, so some other method of support would still have been needed while sliding it up the rope, such as standing on branches. Nevertheless, this is the earliest known use of SRT to climb a tree. (Presumably, they were trying to hide their actual identity to avoid being shunned for their actions, which were already recognised as harmful. Trade in wildlife would become illegal in the USA in 1900 under the Lacey Act, and egg collection would be more specifically banned in 1918 as part of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.)
In 1891, American arborists in Massachusetts were photographed trying to eradicate a gypsy moth infestation from a tree. They used ladders so reach some branches, but for others, arborists can be clearly seen being hauled up on a boatswain's chair, with a series of pulleys to make it easier. They can also be seen resting on the boatswain's chairs in order to work on the tree. In 1896, French arborists were using ropes looped higher up around the trunk, which would be tied or clipped to themselves (sometimes via a tether) using carabiners, to support them as they walked out onto lower branches. Climbing the tree would still be done manually, or using ladders, or by hanging steps off ropes tied around the trunk. German and French arborists both, however, were still depicted as using the same arrangement as a flipline for resting while pruning trees in 1896. In the same year, American arborists were known to have used ropes to tie a wooden platform to a tree so that they could use it for work, but roped platforms and the use of boatswain's chairs were both very uncommon in American arboriculture, and most American arborists would not use ropes. American William E. Burke used clamping jaws ascenders for rope access in 1897. By 1897, German mountaineers had started using body abseil techniques to descend after a climb, with over 15 new techniques developed over the next 45 years. In 1898, the British publication The Boy's Own Paper included a memoire called Old Portsmouth by George Andrew Patterson. This included a description of a sailor using doubled rope technique with an adjustable hitch to control the position of a boatswain's chair, which he was using to slowly descend a ship's mast after being hauled up it using a gantline. While it does not mention which hitch was used, one knot that was known to be used for this purpose with hawser laid ropes is a lark's foot tied in the down rope around the strands of rope that hold the sides of the seat (known as a lowering hitch in this configuration), where feeding rope in from the tail of the lark's foot allows a controlled descent. The account seems to be based in fact rather than fiction, and would have happened around the time that the story was written. This approach was not mentioned in relation to American sailing but was stated by the British Admiralty as being used extensively by the British merchant navy in 1952, so the use of a lowering hitch seems to have been a recent British development before 1898.
In 1901, New Zealand inventor Robert Cockerell invented a lever cam ascender and descender, and reinvented a much older prusiking system, not aimed at caving, but his inventions would later be used by cavers. Clamping jaws ascenders were in use in the USA again in 1902 by Charles E. Knop and 1910 by Iver J. Westad, neither of which were aimed at caving. In 1903, British inventors P. and W. MacLellan and James Dougall also used them for a prusiking and abseiling device, not aimed at caving. In 1904, a lever cam device was patented by Austrian locksmith Michael Gayer, which was marketed to climbers in that year as a fall arrester for self belaying when climbing, but which could have also been used as an ascender. In 1905, steeplejacks in New York had developed the Texas system as a safer way to climb flagpoles for painting or servicing, called steeplejack's flagpole slings. In 1918, this was recommended by the USA government to all steeplejacks. German mountaineers H. Sixt and Franz Kröner created a lever cam device for mountaineering in 1911, called a "climbing lock". It was intended to be used as a self belaying device while abseiling, but could have been better used as an ascender. In 1912, 15 year old French caver Norbert Casteret descended and ascended ropes in the Gouffre de Planque, including a 35 metre free-hang, just using strength to climb the ropes. He continued caving that way for 20 years. In 1913, Austrian inventor Johann Machek prusiked using a boatswain's chair below the ascender, but this was not used in caves. By this stage, prusiking was in use in several European countries, North America and Australasia, for rope access work (well digging, exterior decorating, building work, quarry work, fire service, etc.), on a relatively small scale. In 1913, American and Canadian lumberjacks were climbing extremely large or tall trees to cut the tops off them, and connect cables or ropes to them for use with logging for timber. This job was known as a high rigger, high climber, topper or top rigger, and had probably existed in some form since the first few years of the 1900s. Although the methods were not described at the time, they were described in 1916 as using tree climbing spikes and fliplines. The flipline was only described as being for safety, but it was actually essential to the process. By 1923, this was already being used for speed climbing races in American carnivals dedicated to lumberjacks (yes, those were a thing!). The actual climbing method was filmed in 1929, showing that it was definitely a flipline.
In 1917, American arborist Leeman F. "Lem" Strout (frequently mis-spelled Lem Stout) is said to have been the first in America to use a climbing line. In current arborist usage, that term refers to a rope that is used for doubled rope technique or stationary rope technique. However, the details of its use by Leeman F. "Lem" Strout are stated incorrectly in virtually all publications, which simply repeat the same mistaken statement almost word for word, while making the same mistake with the spelling of his name, so presumably none of them have actually read the source material, and just copy each other. Despite his claims of being first to use ropes in a tree, others had already been doing so for nearly a century, with some usage dating back 3500 years. Ancient Greeks and Minoans had used ropes to hang their swings from trees since 1450-1300 BCE, and deaths by hanging using ropes in trees was well enough known that it appeared in the Greek play Antigone by Sophocles in 442-440 BC. German children were depicted using ropes to climb trees for exercise in 1793. By 1917, French, Belgian and German arborists had already been using ropes for resting, safety and actively climbing trees for nearly 80 years. They had even developed new techniques over the last 20 years. American egg collectors had been using ropes in trees for many decades, for resting in trees for 40 years, and as fliplines for climbing trees for nearly 40 years. Polynesians had done so for well over a century. Even Roman arborists are thought to have used ropes for climbing trees around 2000 years earlier. Some American arborists from the same region had been hauled into trees using ropes over 25 years earlier, in the same city as Leeman F. "Lem" Strout's first arboriculture job, which was also removing gypsy moths. American lumberjacks, whose job was to cut down trees for timber rather than look after them, had been using ropes for several years too. American arborists were just very slow at realising that ropes had already been used in trees for many decades, and that better and much safer techniques existed than they were using. Apparently there was no communication between American lumberjacks and arborists, or even American arborists and other American arborists, who worked in the same city! It is important to note that Leeman F. "Lem" Strout was not even the first arborist in America to use ropes, and not even the first Arborist in his region of America to use ropes, and may simply have been the first of the arborists that he knew at the Francis A. Bartlett Tree Experts Company that he worked for.
The original source of the myth is an article series that he wrote called "The Good Old Days" in the publication "Tree Topics" by the Bartlett Tree Experts, originally published in 1957, and republished in the spring edition in 1992. In that article, he did not in fact state which years anything happened, and 1917 was probably just assumed by a reader subtracting "when I started in business more than 40 years ago" from 1957, as if it happened at the start of his career, when he was still an apprentice, defying the orders of his instructors. Clearly unlikely, since if anyone were to make a sweeping change to the way arborists worked, it would have been after several years of experience, when they had some authority. He stated that while he "was first to use a rope in a tree" (an astoundingly arrogant claim, given mountains of evidence to the contrary), he did not initially use it to actually climb the tree. He used 6.4 mm clothesline, and only used it for holding a paint bucket, not for climbing! At a later date, the whole team then used 12.7 mm ropes for climbing trees, and the article does not make it sound like they used doubled rope technique or any form of prusiking. From the description, it seems likely that they simply used them as handlines. The article says that Leeman F. "Lem" Strout was one of the people who wanted to use ropes (after breaking a tree climbing spike by jumping down to a lower branch), but it does not say who actually used them first for climbing. His poorly written, rambling text may have been trying to imply that he used his bucket rope for that purpose, but it was not written clearly enough to know. This event, where he must have had some influence to dictate a change in practice within the company, is far more likely to have been around the mid 1920s than 1917. Once they were in use, ropes soon replaced the use of tree climbing spikes. By 1918, it was already common for rope access work to use doubled rope technique with a boatswain's chair for both raising and lowering, and this did not originate with arborists. It was not stated how to capture the raising progress, but the suggestion was that this should be done by the person raising themselves.
A more complete approach to SRT in caves started in France. Cavers first started making mechanical ascenders in 1920, starting with Léon Pérot's prototypes, which were apparently never used underground. French exterior decorator Antoine Joseph Marius "Paul Cans" Barthelemy created his Ouistiti (marmoset) ascenders in the same year, using an approach clearly adapted from Johann Machek's, and demonstrated them in 1921, but these were not used in caves. William Dallimore stated that British arborists were sometimes using ropes as an aid when climbing trees in 1926, but did not say exactly how they were used, and did not describe anything similar to SRT, suggesting that they were only used as handlines. During the late 1920s, the Dülfer-Kletterschluß body abseil had been described in Germany by Zsigmondy/Paulcke, and the classic abseil had been developed by Italian climber Tita Piaz, both of which were later used by French and American cavers respectively. French mountaineer E. Gérard invented the Gérard hitch in 1928, and described how it could be used with the Gérard Alpine technique, and while his hitch was largely ignored, his prusiking technique would inspire most of the prusiking systems that would subsequently be used for caving. His article was translated into English and reprinted in the Alpine Journal in 1929. The Austrian mountaineering journal Österreichische Alpenzeitung then included an article about it in December of 1929. Astrian mountaineer Karl Prusik would have read that journal, since he was a prominent member of the Österreichischer Alpenklub that published it, and his club also distributed the two earlier publications that contained details of it. French caver Henri "Kiki" Brenot developed the Singes Mécaniques (mechanical monkeys) ascenders in 1929, for mountaineering. He then invented the highly advanced Frein de Descente descender in about 1930, which functioned like a rack, and was the ancestor of the modern Simple and Stop. After the reinvention of the Prusik knot by Karl Prusik in 1931, which was evidently plagiarised from E. Gérard's work, it was the mountaineers who made most use of SRT, ignoring the mechanical ascenders that had been developed (because they did not work on ropes that swelled when they got wet), and typically using body abseil.
Henri "Kiki" Brenot and French caver Pierre Chevalier first used the Singes Mécaniques underground in the Félix-Trombe cave system in the French Pyrenees in 1934, descending using a body abseil. The exact method is not recorded, but it was almost certainly the Dülfer-Kletterschluß body abseil, as only two methods were known by French cavers by 1944, and only one of them was suitable for this sort of use. The Puits du Plantillet (Félix-Trombe cave system) in the French Pyrenees was the first cave explored using SRT, by Pierre Chevalier, Gabriel Dubuc, Guy Labour and Félix Trombe in 1934. The Dent de Crolles system in the Grenoble region became the major focus of its use in 1935, by Pierre Chevalier, Hélène Guillemin (most likely the first woman to use SRT, both abseiling and prusiking, in a cave) and François Guillemin, starting with the Trou du Glaz. They frequently used body abseil techniques, and while all three of them used the Singe Mécaniques ascenders as handholds on one rope climb during the first trip, for subsequent trips, they primarily used ladders for ascending pitches, with only one person prusiking up to rig the ladder. A couple of other cavers took part later that year. They were the first to use the approach of trying to get every member of the caving team to bottom the cave, while previous vertical cavers had prioritised one person, with the rest of the team merely waiting at the top of pitches to help that person get back up. Other cavers in the Grenoble region continued to use SRT on a small scale, but would often use a body abseil to descend, then pull a ladder up using the rope as a pull-up cord via a pulley for the ascent, and only use the Singes Mécaniques for one person to prusik up and fix the ladder if it failed to pull up correctly. However, the exploration of the Dent de Crolles system stopped using the Singes Mécaniques after 1936, since their creator and members of the French mountaineering/caving club Les Jarrets d'Acier were involved with other projects where they were used instead. Initially, naturals were used as anchors, or pitons that had been placed by others for use with ladders. It is not known when pitons first started being intentionally placed for SRT, but it is likely to have been extremely early on, as they were being actively used for ladders somewhere between 1924 and 1932.
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 first version of doubled rope technique used by arborists. 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 introduction of something related to abseiling or prusiking into arboriculture, but it is quite different from standard SRT, as it used a doubled rope. Ascending might still be done by climbing upwards manually using some other method, or they might have pulled on the rope, but the actual method is not known. 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 the rare cases when they did use ropes, it was as a handline only, or to tie themselves to a branch. 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, and also the first known SRT improvised rescue.
By 1939, Italian mountaineer/climber Emilio Comici was using carabiners as a descender, running the rope through them and then over the shoulder and around the body like a classic abseil, known as an over the shoulder abseil (confusing it with one of the body abseil techniques), seat rappel, Swiss seat rappel, seat shoulder abseil or carabiner rappel (confusing it with all the other ways to abseil with a carabiner). This damaged ropes fairly quickly, and required thicker ropes. In fact, with modern SRT ropes, this technique does not work at all, because it relies on the hawser laid rope texture and very wide rope to create enough friction at the carabiner, while a modern rope is too thin and smooth, so it transfers most of the stress extremely painfully to the shoulder. Cavers in the Mendip region of Britain were using abseiling during 1942, using an unknown body abseil which sounds like the rope was simply wrapped around the waist, but ascending ropes was still done by free climbing, or hauling, or a winch. In that region, cavers had been using ladders very occasionally, but vastly preferred using ropes as handlines (even on very demanding climbs that would have been better treated as pitches). In 1944, a sketch by American sailor Clifford Warren Ashley in The Ashley Book of Knots (#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 the locking 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. By 1944, many Cavers in the Grenoble region of France were actively using Henri "Kiki" Brenot's very well developed ascenders and descenders, but still preferred a ladder for ascending. It was also still normal to use a winch when more cavers were available. Pitons were often used as anchors.
Cavers in America had also historically used ropes as handlines, or for lowering people down pitches, as well as for ladder lifelines. In 1951, American caver Bob Handley and other cavers from West Virginia, USA, first demonstrated abseiling using the classic abseil to cavers, something they had already been using in caves. Others who had used abseiling in caves at that time included American cavers Earl Thierry, Bob Barnes, Roy Charlton and Charlie Fort, typically abseiling down the lifeline that was intended for use with the ladder. However, they still used a ladder to ascend a pitch afterwards. In 1951, Americans and Europeans used naturals for rigging, while pitons were still very common in Europe, and fixed aids such as traverse lines used expansion bolts in Britain. By 1952, Bob Handley and Charlie Fort had also used Prusik knots with the European Gérard Alpine technique in caves with pitches of up to 30 metres. Other 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. In 1952, Pierre Chevalier taught vertical caving techniques at l'Ecole Française de Spéléologie in France, but it is not known how much of that related to SRT. Subsequent courses took place from 1959 onwards.
American caver William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington had attempted abseiling as early as 1951, but simply slid down a rope using a terrible technique. He was later taught classic abseiling in 1952 by Earl Thierry, Bob Barnes and Bob Handley, but they refused to teach him 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. Though not within caving, carabiners with brake bars already existed in many parts of the USA since the 1930s, and were in use by mountaineers and the military. Although the mountaineering book had described European prusiking techniques, it was significantly out of date (presumably because World War II reduced the flow of information), as German mountaineering manuals had recommended using carabiners with brake bars for abseiling since the early 1940s, and had shown ring descenders since 1913. Over 100 different designs of descender already existed in the USA, and had been actively used for over 90 years as fire escapes, and these included a couple of different designs of racks. Prusiking with ascenders had existed in the USA for over 65 years at that point. Apparently, the American cavers did not notice.
William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington created leather rope guides for parts of the body to avoid rope burns in 1952. While others shunned the idea of doing big abseils and prusiking, and would use ladders in both cases, he started using both abseiling and prusiking heavily in Tennessee in 1953, and started teaching it to friends. He adopted the seat shoulder abseil in 1953. His ideas and approaches then spread throughout North America. Some cavers experimented with the idea of using a dual rope system with a second rope for safety, either as a lifeline or as a self belaying rope, known in rope access work as a backup line. They quickly found that a second rope often causes the ropes to tangle around each other, especially with bigger hangs, narrower pitches, or in caves with waterfalls, and a tangle beneath a waterfall could easily prove fatal. In 1955, American caver Cord H. Link described the use of the Gérard Alpine technique and Prusik knots in The Troglodyte volume 1 number 9, spreading the ideas further. These are the instructions that would be used in British caving in 1958. Dean Abbott invented the first American caving descender, the Rappel Log in 1955, which was actually created in 1956, shared with a caving club in 1957, and announced to other clubs in 1959. It immediately took over. It could burn ropes severely, and actually once set fire to a rope during use. It was also only usable with the hemp ropes which were in use at that time.
In 1958, the American National Speleological Society sent instructions on how to prusik to British cavers, with cavers from South Wales (who had founded The Cave Research Group which later became the British Cave Research Association) being the first to put it to use. The instructions showed the use of the Gérard Alpine technique with hemp prusik loops. It is most likely that the first British cavers to use this approach were members of the South Wales Caving Club, in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu. This was followed in 1959 by the instructions for the fourth sling variation of the frog system.
Americans started adapting the Gérard Alpine technique into new prusiking systems. Other American cavers started using carabiners with brake bars, which became racks by 1966. The release of the Jümar ascender in 1958 made SRT more accessible, and cavers around the world started experimenting with it more heavily, but it was about 1965 before they were used for caving in the USA. William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington stopped using ladders in 1961. The use of spits had started in France with ladders in 1961, and they became widespread in France after 1965. In the early 1960s, Jumars were used in a cave for probably the first time, in Biolet Cave in the Grenoble region of France. During a 1962 expedition by British cavers, mostly from Northern England, to the Gouffre Berger in France, around a fifth of the cavers were happy to use abseiling, but none of them prusiked. David Judson of the Yorkshire Ramblers' Club later stated that prusiking was unheard of at that time, showing that knowledge of it had not yet reached Northern England. By 1963, cavers in the South Wales area of Britain were among the earliest in Britain to actively use SRT. They would commonly use nylon hawser laid rope, pitons, climbing nuts/wedges/chocks and slings made from wire cables for naturals. SRT gear consisted of a belay belt or chest harness instead of a sit harness, and a single cows tail. Descending was done using classic abseil or using the seat shoulder abseil, with complaints about the available descenders burning ropes or disconnecting from them. Prusik loops were used, but more for improvised rescue than active prusiking. The prusiking system is not known, but it is likely to still have been the Gérard Alpine technique. Ascending was done using ladders, or etriers and fifi hooks with piton aid climbing. French caver Bruno Dressler made the Simple descender in the Grenoble region of France in 1963.
In 1964, cavers in the Grenoble region of France visited Scialet de la Nymphe and Scialet Moussu using Jumars. This is the first time that French teams had been able to regularly explore caves with all members of the team using SRT for both abseiling and prusiking, without any use of ladders. A few British cavers had tried SRT (not just abseiling) in the 1960s. The first to do so in the Mendip region are thought to have been Fred Davies and Ray Mansfield, using a hawser laid nylon rope in Lamb Leer Cavern, with prusik loops for prusiking, using the Texas system.
Cavers in America initially shunned mechanical ascenders, assuming they would cut through ropes, and mechanical failures could not be dealt with. However, once they started being used in 1965, they soon brought in an era of experimentation. Americans mainly created stepping systems plus a few sit-stand systems, and Europeans redeveloped sit-stand systems and adapted stepping systems, with the European version of the frog system becoming the world's most popular. In 1967, a British caver had died while abseiling down a mine shaft, after a hemp rope snapped at the lip of the shaft. Also in 1967, American cavers had used SRT to explore Sótano de las Golondrinas, a major Mexican surface shaft with a 333 metre free-hang, and by far the most significant pitch to be explored using SRT at the time. Some had used prusik loops, and others had used mechanical ascenders during its exploration. Also in 1967, British and Canadian students explored Sótano del Río Iglesia in Mexico, and seem to have used SRT with rope walking. In 1968, American Nevin Wilson Davis made the Motorized Ascending Device (MAD), a portable petrol powered ascender with a one horsepower engine, the type that might be used for a strimmer or radio controlled boat. Unlike a winch, the device moved along the rope with the caver. Previous claims by cavers to have made a similar device have not been substantiated. MAD was used for caving, but petrol fumes in a cave just never caught on with most cavers, and the device exists only as a historical marvel. A few cavers made copies or adaptations. Similar petrol and battery powered devices are currently in use by arborists and rope access workers.
During the 1960s, three British cavers used tandem prusiking with Jumar ascenders in the French Gouffre Berger, which encouraged more French cavers to switch from ladders to SRT. The date of this event is not known, but it did not happen during the 1962-1967 expeditions, so it was probably 1968 or 1969. In 1969, British Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Team member Mike Stanton was using Pierre Allain's descender for caving on Cyprus, and had presumably been using it there since at least 1967. It was used to teach Cambridge University Caving Club member Steve Smith to abseil. William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington started using mechanical ascenders after 1969, but had been running many courses before that, teaching American cavers to use Prusik knots. In 1969, French cavers were using SRT, and developing many aspects of it, but it was still normal for cavers to descend using abseiling, then ascend using ladders. Cavers who prusiked up a pitch may carry a single ladder to the top of the pitch, which would then be used by other cavers, allowing a single ladder to be used for the whole cave. The Simple was advertised in the first British Descent magazine in 1969, and was originally known as the "Roulette" in France and Britain. The French approach of using an ascender for self belaying while using ladders, developed in 1965, was described in Britain in the Westminster Speleological Group Bulletin Jan/Feb 1969, referred to as a brake-blocker, which is an early term for an ascender. While not SRT, this gave British cavers another reason to own ascenders, and encouraged more experimentation with them.
British cavers still found ladders more convenient for climbing pitches, even if they were using body abseil techniques to descend them. It was not until the 1970s that SRT began to take over from ladders in British caving, with some cavers having tried it earlier. By 1970, Descent 10 showed the recently released Petzl Basic ascender could be used as a brake-blocker, and also had a less important illustration showing that it could be used for prusiking with the Jumar system. By 1970, Wessex Cave Club and future Cambridge University Caving Club member Nick Reckert had used classic abseil on Mendip. In that year, he was taught to use a Simple to abseil on a single rope in France, by the Spéléo Club de Rouen. While he knew French caver Jean Claude Dobrilla used prusiking underground, and in fact learned it himself on the surface, both he and the majority of the French cavers used ladders to ascend pitches, with a Petzl Basic ascender for self-belaying on a single rope. Since they used a single rope in both directions, this was referred to as SRT, even though it is not what would currently be called SRT. Other members of Cambridge University Caving Club had not used SRT, but on his return to Britain, he and a few others in the club practiced abseiling and prusiking on the surface, including improvised rescue, and the use of Prusik knots. They started using the French approach underground that year, abseiling on pitches, and self-belaying when climbing back up ladders, beginning with Marble Steps Pot. Hawser laid ropes made prusiking more difficult, and people did not like it as much. In 1971, Descent 15 mentioned how to use Penberthy Knot, reminding British cavers that prusiking could be done with friction hitches. However, by then, ascenders had taken their place as the method of choice.
SRT played a crucial role during the British expedition to Ghar Parau in Iran in 1971, but was almost completely replaced with ladders in 1972, even though team members all trained to use it that year. Cavers who had already used SRT (both abseiling and prusiking) were from Northern England, the Midlands, and Mendip. Abseiling was done using a figure of 8 descender, and prusiking might use Jumars with the Jumar system (then considered the normal method of prusiking in Britain). At the end of 1971, Nick Reckert used prusiking underground in Rumbling Hole in Northern England (personal correspondence), and from that point onwards, a minority of the club used it occasionally. SRT with prusiking had now been used by cavers from Wales and most parts of England. By the 1972 expedition to Ghar Parau, cavers were also using Jumars or Clogs with the Texas system or frog system, or Gibbs ascenders with the three Gibbs variation of rope walking. Pitons and expansion bolts were used as anchors. The University of Bristol Spelaeological Society expedition to Slovenia in 1972 also used SRT, with home made figure of 8 descenders, Jumars and Clogs with either the frog system or the UBSS variation of the Jumar system. They used ladders on shorter pitches to save time.
In 1972, Nick Reckert wrote about methods and equipment for potholing, in the Cambridge University Caving Club journal. His most flawed statement was that "prusiking is not all that important since there are relatively few pitches in Britain where it can be used". He stated that the classic abseil was bad, as the rope could slip off. The same was said for the seat shoulder abseil, which he referred to as the "krab abseil". The Pierre Allain descender was said to be dangerous because it could break or disconnect. Linked carabiners and brake bars were said not give enough control. The Simple ("Roulette") was said to be good. The figure of 8 descender twists the rope a little, but was still said to be good. The club president stated more diplomatically that "prusiking has not yet really caught on". In the same journal, British caver Clive Westlake incorrectly stated that in Wales, people climb in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, and do not use ladders or ropes. While it was true that cavers used climbing extensively in that cave, and in fact many cavers tried to persuade others not to rely more heavily on equipment (personal communications), SRT had been used there for 14 years by then, though clearly only by a minority of cavers. In 1966 and 1967, British cavers had been using ladders on two major expeditions to try to bottom the 389 metre Provatina surface shaft in Greece. The British Royal Army Medical Core then reached the pitch base using a winch in 1968. In 1973, a two-man caving team from Texas, USA, managed to reach the bottom in a single day trip of less than 7 hours. British cavers realised that they needed to embrace SRT. In 1973, Nick Reckert had to perform an improvised rescue, using a prusik loop, and a second one constructed from the end of the main rope, when a visiting Canadian caver forgot their ascenders. This most likely took place in Stream Passage Pot in Northern England. In 1973, Bruno Dressler created the Motocorde, a portable chainsaw motor powered ascender that could haul a caver up a pitch, the same way that MAD could. It tried to remove the fumes.
The major change started in 1974 when British company Lyon Ladders (later Lyon Equipment) started distributing Petzl equipment. The initial British attempts at using SRT were hazardous, as cavers did not follow the indestructible rope technique principles properly, and it took some fatal accidents before rope rub protection and appropriate ropes were properly used. In one case, a British caver died after melting through a partially worn hawser laid polypropylene rope while abseiling on a figure of 8 descender down the Main Shaft of Gaping Gill in 1974. In another one, a British caver died whilst prussiking up a shaft in the Spanish Cueva de Liordes in 1975, using a rope which was not very abrasion resistant against a rub point without adequate rope rub protection. Other near misses happened when rope rub protection failed, such as one British incident in Dale Head Pot in 1975 where a Cambridge University rope suffered a severed sheath while Nick Reckert was prusiking, slipping far down the cores, and even though nobody was severely injured, cavers shunned kernmantel ropes as a result. Another event happened at Nick Pot around the same time, where a rope was severely damaged by a rub point, which only survived because it was a BlueWater polyester rope. And another incident around the same time saw a caver fall down a pitch with serious injuries, after picking an inappropriate natural. British cavers absolutely learned from these incidents, and a major change was on the horizon. In 1975, Cambridge University Caving Club were experimenting with better rope rub protectors and anchor placement. They used plastic tubes or rubber tubes with a split up one side, which could be slid over the rope, or sail cloth closed with velcro, an approach still used today with harder wearing tarpaulin material. In 1976, a French caver died when his rope rubbed through on the edge of a cliff, while looking for caves. He did not have appropriate rope rub protection. By 1976, Cambridge University Caving Club expeditions were using prusiking extensively.
The use of Alpine rigging (see that section for more details) had started in France during the early 1970s, and was adopted in Britain and progressively developed after 1975, with many aspects of it developed throughout Europe. The complete approach was largely decided upon by 1977, at which point Australians were using a combination of naturals, pitons, and climbing nuts/wedges/chocks for Alpine rigging. British cavers had taken part in its development too, and it became the main approach starting in 1980. Rope access work is often said to have begun in the 1980s, but prusiking itself started out as a rope access system. However, rope access work began to become a major industry during the 1980s, heavily relying on the advances made in caving. One of the major changes there is that a dual rope system with a backup line is normally used, something that cavers had tried on many occasions, but as well as causing tangles rather too frequently, it made Alpine rigging far more difficult when separate anchors are required (unlike with shadow rigging), issues which are much more serious in caves. That is aside from the added equipment requirements, which would be incredibly limiting in caves. Around the 1980s, American arborists adopted the "flipline" method of climbing trees with tree climbing spikes, when trees were due to be cut down.
Russians had developed their own approaches to vertical caving, and by 1981, they were using a mixture of ropes and cables, abseiling down the rope, and prusiking back up the cables. By 1982, the cabled versions of amarrage souples had already emerged in France. In the early 1980s, spit anchor installation and maintainance started to be officially managed by caving councils in Britain. American arborists finally learned how to use lifelines in 1984! P-hangers were developed in the late 1980s, and they became the normal anchors used in British caves starting from 1991. However, spits were still used for a number of years in various regions. At some point around 1990, an American caver died because the indestructible rope technique approach left a lip that they were unable to get past, and their harness did not allow them to rest. Most development of SRT within arboriculture (actually using a single rope and standard prusiking) took place after 1990, with actual prusiking being first mentioned in arborist books in that year. American caver Carroll Bassett probably made the first battery powered ascender, and while the date of its creation is not known, it is likely to have been after 1997.
This history section only covers SRT. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
<< SRT basic terms | Abseiling (usually pronounced "AB-sale-ing" rather than the more correct "AB-sile-ing" or "AB-zile-ing"), descending, abbing ("rappelling" in USA), dropping (a pitch) >>
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