Caving Ladders - An Overview of Use and Inspection

In this video I'm talking about caving ladders. This one is aimed at those starting their journey to becoming LCMLA Level 2 holders and covers the basics of ladder safety, their use on pitches and inspection. Many thanks for watching. Please leave a comment if you have any feedback or suggestions for future videos. If you find the films useful, consider subscribing and sharing as that really helps others find these films.
@CaverPete
www.undergroundspecialist.co.uk
www.peakinstruction.com/blog/
Any views expressed in these video guides are my own unless stated otherwise. Use of these video coaching guides should be as part of a training programme and they should not be taken to be an exhaustive training resource as many topics cannot be covered fully. There will be other safety factors to consider with any technique and item of equipment, so you should seek proper training, read all manufacturer’s information and practice in a safe and controlled environment prior to relying on any of the skills or equipment demonstrated in these videos.

[@isntimportant]

Bro's back yard decorations look like he's preparing for the day of the rope.

[@harrylong-up2nw]

Harry Long Straining the ends round the outside of the ladder to fasten them (i,e. the very short length between the last rung and the splice) as shown in some of your footage puts an excessive strain on that very short length of wire. This leads to potential damage and is very bad practice. When I became leader for UWFRA I found they were using stainless steel wire - as advocated at the time. hopefully, no longer in use anywhere. Looking at this I found that I could break the wire by hand with a minimum of effort and thus binned all their ladders! The only really safe way of fastening the ends is by threading one side wire through the coil to mesh with the C Link on the opposite side and the same for the other side.

[@PeakinstructionPeteKnight]

Stainless wires are more brittle than galv in repeated flexing. I've seen stainless zipwires need replacing much faster than galv ones. Anyway, if you have to strain the wires to join the links because the ladder is not coiled well or too large to do this with, then yeah, it's probably going to stress them, but all my ladders are short and can be coiled tight enough so the last links easily connect together. Not bad practice at all, you just need to not force things.

[@kmonnier]

Great video

[@veritalba]

Not quite how we used them back in the ‘70’s & ‘80’s lol

[@rosshilton]

Same here, Peak district, late 70s early 80s, Waterway Swallet etc. Home made ladders made from cheap aluminium tubes , TV arial rigging wire, trapped in the tube by wooded pegs hammered into the ends of the tube. Safety rope? We sometimes used truck ropes if it looked really bad. Had a ball, but all so long ago now.