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Revision as of 16:40, 27 September 2012
The caving club has been more than 60 years showing around the exciting underworld to many who had never visited a cave and who just wanted a new, completely different experience. Many of them got addicted to the challenge and to the sense of adventure posed by caving and grew their caving abilities, which go more or less in this order: walking within the cave terrain, scrambling, free climbing, climbing ladders, moving vertically on ropes using SRT, and overcoming vertical re-belays, deviation and knots.
Once you feel competent with it (which takes very different periods for each person) the following may come at different order: helping a leader to derig, rigging already bolted pitches, navigating your way using surveys, surveying newly discovered cave by using measuring instruments and specific computer software, bolting both by hand and with drills, and leading groups.
CUCC organises caving trips every other weekend during Full Term time, so there is plenty of choice for you to try. Longer trips take place the rest of the year. A one week trip is organised in Easter to somewhere in Europe, usually to Ardeche in France, and a five weeks expedition happens every Summer to explore new caves in Austria (http://expo.survex.com/). These longer trips take place in great environments, so there is plenty of choice for other outdoor activities as well, such as cycling, hiking, climbing...
In addition to physical fitness and vertical progression techniques, caving can help you develop your endurance, focus, team working, decision capacity, planning and organising, pacing yourself, orientation, identifying and minimising risks, etc. And once you get experience moving up, down and through caves, you could seek for a whole new range of activities to keep excitement up: exploration and topography, photography, rescue techniques, bio & geospeleology, speleo-anthropology... so it's not just about getting muddy!
And CUCC is not just about caving: while in Cambridge there are plenty of activities and socials which are regularly announced on the email list, including pub meets, training sessions, curry nights, talks, other outdoor activities...
In any case, the website offers a whole range of information including:
Decided yet? See CUCC's Guide for Novice Caving