I must admit, I am a budget caver. I wear a $30 rock climbing helmet with two $10 headlamps from Walmart and Target. I carry a Target bookbag as my gear bag and wear either worn out hiking pants or, at times, jeans, to explore a cave. After all, you're just going to destroy it all with mud, right?
[Caveat: vertical gear. If that is budget, I might fall into a 100'+ pit. Kind of a no-brainer.]
Then there's knee pads. After about 30-60 minutes worth of straight up crawling in Howard's Waterfall cave on Sunday afternoon, I must say I am about ready to retire the $5 Wilson volleyball knee pads and upgrade to some real caving pads. The reason for this decision (which will be postponed until I have recovered from the colossal expenses of purchasing a kayak and hiking in Germany) is threefold:
1. They bunch. They bunch bad. And it makes you sore in the back of the knee if you don't adjust them every 5 minutes while caving.
2. They offer no shin protection. After dropping and climbing out of a 90' pit in Alabama last fall, I ran into the wall so many times my shins looked like a leopard print. A week later I had to attend a wedding, in a knee-length dress. It was NOT pretty.
3. KNEE BLISTERS! I didn't know this could even happen before Howard's Waterfall. I got a giant blister on my left knee, which conveniently popped during work. I bled all over the knee of my $90 dress pants. Think of all the money I will be saving on dry-cleaning if I just buy the expensive pads!!!
As for gear recommendations, stay tuned!
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