DEEPCAVE
Into the dark — caving gear, pitch planning, and the geology underfoot.
From sizing the rope for a pitch and checking a headlamp’s runtime to layering for a cave’s temperature, reducing a passage survey, and gauging the air underground, DeepCave pairs free hands-on calculators with plain-spoken guides and a richly illustrated museum. Plan smarter, go deeper.
Caving Calculators & Tools
Free tools for planning a trip underground — rope length calculator, headlamp runtime, cave temperature layering, passage survey distance, air & ventilation guide, and a gear checklist generator.
Rope Length Calculator
Work out the rope you need for a pitch from its depth, rebelays and deviations, a rigging-knot allowance, and a safety margin — plus how much to carry for the whole trip.
Headlamp Runtime Calculator
Turn a battery's capacity and a light's draw at a chosen brightness into real burn-time hours, with an efficiency factor for cold and aging cells.
Cave Temperature Layering Guide
Get a clothing-layer recommendation from a cave's year-round temperature, trip length, activity level, and whether the route is wet.
Passage Survey Distance Calculator
Reduce compass, clinometer, and tape shots into horizontal distance and depth change per leg, and total them into a passage's length and depth.
Air & Ventilation Guide
Estimate airflow through a passage and a rough CO₂ build-up for a group sitting in a poorly ventilated space over time.
Caving Gear Checklist Generator
Build a packing list scaled to trip type — horizontal, vertical (SRT), or wet — trip duration, and party size.
Caves & Speleothems Museum
Wander an immersive museum of the world underground — famous caves and record-breaking systems, the stalactites and stalagmites that decorate their passages, the prehistoric art painted deep inside them, and the show caves opened for visitors to explore, each in its own gallery, so you can get to know the stories behind every chamber: how they formed, what lives in them, and why people have been drawn underground for tens of thousands of years.
Tour the museum →From the Journal
Fresh guides on cave geology, rigging and vertical technique, underground life, and the history of exploration, plus practical tips for gear, lighting, and staying safe underground.
How Caves Actually Form: A Field Guide to Karst and Speleogenesis
Most of the world's great cave systems owe their existence to one unglamorous process: slightly acidic water slowly dissolving limestone over hundreds of thousands of years. Here's how it actually works.
Single Rope Technique Basics: Rigging Your First Pitch Safely
SRT lets one caver descend and ascend a fixed rope independently, without a second person belaying. Here's what the technique actually involves, and why it demands real training before your first pitch.
Choosing and Running a Caving Headlamp: Lumens, Runtime, and Backups
A caving headlamp lives a harder life than any headlamp you've owned for hiking. Here's what actually matters when you're picking one, and why every serious caver carries a second light.
Layering for the Underground: Staying Warm (and Dry) on a Multi-Hour Trip
Caves sit at a near-constant temperature year-round, which sounds like it should make dressing easy — but activity level, water, and trip length change the real experience more than the thermometer does.
Reading a Cave Survey: Compass, Clino, and Tape, Explained
Every cave map starts as a string of raw numbers — a bearing, an angle, a length — read off three simple instruments, one leg at a time. Here's how those readings become a map.
Foul Air Underground: What Cavers Should Know About CO2 and Ventilation
Bad air is a real, if uncommon, caving hazard — and unlike a slippery ledge or a loose rock, it's completely invisible until it's already affecting you. Here's how it happens and how cavers manage the risk.
Keep Learning
Plain-language explainers on how caves form, the life that thrives in total darkness, the gear and technique behind vertical caving, and the explorers who mapped the deepest systems on Earth — everything you need to dig deeper before your next trip.
Visit the Learn hub →