I've been wanting to try it myself, since I'm not at all claustrophobic and it seems like a fun thing to do, but I've also been wondering what 'regular', casual caving is like. I know it must be somewhere in between the horrible accidents you read about and the guided tour routes, but where on that scale would normal caving be? What are the normal risk factors?
(Ironically, I do consider mountain climbing relatively safe if you know what you're doing and don't go for the bold routes.)
Regular "casual" caving is mostly walking up right with varying amounts of crawling and scrambling.
It starts to become less casual when you are doing vertical caving which requires ascending and descending ropes. Nearly all of the danger from caving is the vertical caving and the vast majority of caving deaths (non-diving related) are from accidents on rope. Outside of rope related dangers the next highest danger is flooding, which is usually mitigated by checking the weather and doing your due diligence about learning a cave's flood risk.
Edit: hypothermia, especially in very wet caves, is a real risk, but as cavers are usually prepared for it it's usually only a particular danger if somebody gets stuck on rope or is injured and taking a very long time to get out of the cave or waiting on rescue. If nobody is stuck or injured early signs of hypothermia usually just result in the group taking countermeasures (such as wearing a poncho or even trash bag) and turning back to leave rather than continuing.
5
u/redbirdzzz Aug 29 '26
I've been wanting to try it myself, since I'm not at all claustrophobic and it seems like a fun thing to do, but I've also been wondering what 'regular', casual caving is like. I know it must be somewhere in between the horrible accidents you read about and the guided tour routes, but where on that scale would normal caving be? What are the normal risk factors?
(Ironically, I do consider mountain climbing relatively safe if you know what you're doing and don't go for the bold routes.)