caving...

The challenges of the sport depend on the cave being visited, but often include the negotiation of pitches, squeezes, and water (though actual cave diving is a separate sub-specialty undertaken only by very few cavers). Climbing or crawling is often necessary, and ropes are used extensively for safety of the negotiation of particular steep or slippery passages.

Caving is often undertaken for the enjoyment of the activity or for physical exercise, as well as original exploration, similar to mountaineering or diving. Physical or biological science is also an important goal for some cavers. Virgin cave systems comprise some of the last unexplored regions on Earth and much effort is put into trying to locate and enter them. In well-explored regions (such as most first-world countries), the most accessible caves have already been explored, and gaining access to new caves often requires digging or diving.

Caves have been explored out of necessity (for shelter from the elements or from enemies), out of curiosity or for mystical reasons for thousands of years. However, only in the last century or two has the activity developed into a sophisticated, athletic pastime. In recent decades caving has changed considerably due to the availability of modern protective wear and equipment. It has recently come to be known as an "extreme sport" by some (though not commonly considered as such by its practitioners, who may dislike the term for its perceived connotation of disregard for safety).

Many of the skills of caving can also be used in the nature activities of mine exploration and urban exploration.

History

Caving was pioneered by Édouard-Alfred Martel who first achieved the descent and exploration of the Gouffre de Padirac, France as early as 1889 and the first complete descent of a 110 metre wet vertical shaft at Gaping Gill, in Yorkshire, England in 1895. He developed his own techniques based on ropes and metallic ladders. Édouard-Alfred Martel visited Kentucky and notably Mammoth Cave National Park in October 1912. Famous US caver Floyd Collins made in the 1920s important explorations in that area. In the 1930s, as caving became increasingly popular, small exploration teams both in the Alps and in the karstic high plateaus of southwest France (Causses and Pyrenees) transformed cave exploration in both a scientific and recreational activity. Robert de Joly, Guy de Lavaur andNorbert Casteret were prominent figures of that time. They surveyed mostly caves in Southwest France. During WWII, an alpine team composed of Pierre Chevalier, Fernand Petzl, Charles Petit-Didier and others explored the Dent de Crolles cave system near Grenoble, France which became the deepest explored cave in the world (-658m) at that time. The lack of available equipment during the war forced Pierre Chevalier and the rest of the team to develop their own equipment, leading to technical innovation. The scaling-pole (1940), nylon ropes (1942), use of explosives in caves (1947) and mechanical rope-ascenders (Henri Brenot's "monkeys", first used by Chevalier and Brenot in a cave in 1934) can be directly associated to the exploration of the Dent de Crolles cave system.

In 1941, American cavers organized themselves into the National Speleological Society (NSS) to advance the exploration, conservation, study, and understanding of caves in the United States. American caver Bill Cuddington, known as "Vertical Bill", developed the single rope technique (SRT) in the late 1950s. In 1958, two Swiss alpinists, Juesi and Marti teamed together, creating the first rope ascender known as the Jumar. In 1968 Bruno Dressler asked Petzl, who worked as a metals machinist, to build a rope-ascending tool, today known as the Petzl Croll, that he had developed by adapting the Jumarto the specificity of Pit caving. Pursuiving these developments, Fernand Petzl started in the 1970s a small caving equipment manufacturing company Petzl, which is today a world leader in equipment for both caving, mountaineering and at-height safety in civil engineering. The development of the rappel rack and the evolution of mechanical ascension systems, notably helped extend the practice and safety of pit exploration to a larger venue of established cavers.