mdocod
Flashaholic
Hello SteveG,
I went on my first "serious" caving trip over a year ago, I hope to do it again someday, but am still recovering from a back injury and am always tight on time and money, someday I hope to go back to it and try it again.
Here's some pointers I learned on my "new/old" experience:
*Brightness is really more for fun and comfort. I found that a comforting reasonably bright incan really soothed me when negotiating tight crawls. The biggest danger in a cave for a "new" person to caving, is panic attack [read: claustrophobia]. I was able to keep myself in control by having the ability to "sooth" myself with a powerful incan that seems to "open" things up a bit.
*For most activities, brightness is not important. The headlamp should have a low mode with a few lumens that you can leave on without any worry of running dry on batteries. I ran my Argo HP on low through most of the trip, with occasional flips to high mode, without any need to swap in a new battery. You will find that a few lumens are more than enough to do just about anything in a cave, more than that is convenience and comfort. High output is generally used in short bursts to get a feel for large areas or check out cool features of the cave. I actually brought 2 spare headlamps with me to start off the trip, and my good friend who organized and invited me on the trip wound up using one of those spares as his was dead from the get-go. That "spare" was a simple $20 LED job from walmart, and it worked just fine for him and works to this day.
-As a flashaholic, I packed things along that impressed some very serious cavers that I went along with, they said they had not seen the cave in such detail before my flashlights came along with them. Powerful flashlights don't have to be big either. A nice wow light can be in the form of a 2xCR123 form factor, both incan and LED have options that are really bright in this size (500+ lumens). I would suggest bringing one just for fun and to show-off
*I made the mistake of trying a "fanny" pack as my first cave trip primary "storage" solution. I was able to make it work, but there were many situations where I was removing it and dragging it through tight crawls. I think the ideal cave pack would be a PVC or other heavy duty plastic "dunnage" sack with a simple strap or 2, that you could alternate from being hooked on for dragging (like to your boots) or slung over the shoulder/neck when walking/climbing. Honestly, I bet almost every caver struggles with finding an ultimate solution to the storage solution, but holstering or hanging things from your person/clothing you will quickly find to be an annoyance as you will be rolling over on those things and getting tangled in them as you roll and position yourself in tight crawls/climbs.
*I bought one of those Petzl Ecrin Roc helmets that Marduke has pictured above. They are very popular in the caving community for good reason. They are comfortable and convenient. However, you don't need to spend that kind of money if you don't want to. If I had to do it over again I don't think I would have bought one considering that I probably won't be spending a *lot* of time in a cave in my life. Anything with a chin strap that has some isolation between your skull and the outer later will work fine. Most hardware stores will have "hard-hat" construction helmets that will work reasonably well for under $10. The Petzl has some built in strap-hooks that make it possible to mount just about any standard headlamp to without problems. If you go with regular construction helmet or something like that, you may need to work out a solution for mounting the headlamp to it.
Have fun
-Eric
I went on my first "serious" caving trip over a year ago, I hope to do it again someday, but am still recovering from a back injury and am always tight on time and money, someday I hope to go back to it and try it again.
Here's some pointers I learned on my "new/old" experience:
*Brightness is really more for fun and comfort. I found that a comforting reasonably bright incan really soothed me when negotiating tight crawls. The biggest danger in a cave for a "new" person to caving, is panic attack [read: claustrophobia]. I was able to keep myself in control by having the ability to "sooth" myself with a powerful incan that seems to "open" things up a bit.
*For most activities, brightness is not important. The headlamp should have a low mode with a few lumens that you can leave on without any worry of running dry on batteries. I ran my Argo HP on low through most of the trip, with occasional flips to high mode, without any need to swap in a new battery. You will find that a few lumens are more than enough to do just about anything in a cave, more than that is convenience and comfort. High output is generally used in short bursts to get a feel for large areas or check out cool features of the cave. I actually brought 2 spare headlamps with me to start off the trip, and my good friend who organized and invited me on the trip wound up using one of those spares as his was dead from the get-go. That "spare" was a simple $20 LED job from walmart, and it worked just fine for him and works to this day.
-As a flashaholic, I packed things along that impressed some very serious cavers that I went along with, they said they had not seen the cave in such detail before my flashlights came along with them. Powerful flashlights don't have to be big either. A nice wow light can be in the form of a 2xCR123 form factor, both incan and LED have options that are really bright in this size (500+ lumens). I would suggest bringing one just for fun and to show-off
*I made the mistake of trying a "fanny" pack as my first cave trip primary "storage" solution. I was able to make it work, but there were many situations where I was removing it and dragging it through tight crawls. I think the ideal cave pack would be a PVC or other heavy duty plastic "dunnage" sack with a simple strap or 2, that you could alternate from being hooked on for dragging (like to your boots) or slung over the shoulder/neck when walking/climbing. Honestly, I bet almost every caver struggles with finding an ultimate solution to the storage solution, but holstering or hanging things from your person/clothing you will quickly find to be an annoyance as you will be rolling over on those things and getting tangled in them as you roll and position yourself in tight crawls/climbs.
*I bought one of those Petzl Ecrin Roc helmets that Marduke has pictured above. They are very popular in the caving community for good reason. They are comfortable and convenient. However, you don't need to spend that kind of money if you don't want to. If I had to do it over again I don't think I would have bought one considering that I probably won't be spending a *lot* of time in a cave in my life. Anything with a chin strap that has some isolation between your skull and the outer later will work fine. Most hardware stores will have "hard-hat" construction helmets that will work reasonably well for under $10. The Petzl has some built in strap-hooks that make it possible to mount just about any standard headlamp to without problems. If you go with regular construction helmet or something like that, you may need to work out a solution for mounting the headlamp to it.
Have fun
-Eric
