Caving Gear Checklist Generator
Pick a trip type, a duration, and a party size to build a categorised gear checklist — essentials, lighting, food and water, group safety, and gear specific to horizontal, vertical, or wet trips.
Why the list changes with your inputs
Trip duration scales the consumables — water, snacks, and spare batteries per person grow with the hours underground, and a part hour rounds up. Party size scales the shared, group-level items — first-aid kits and rescue gear are sized to reasonable ratios rather than duplicated for every caver.
Trip type adds a dedicated category on top of the shared core: vertical trips add full SRT rope gear, wet trips add a waterproofing and thermal layer, and horizontal trips add knee and elbow protection for crawling passages.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the gear checklist generator work?
Pick your trip type — horizontal, vertical (SRT), or wet — and your trip's duration and party size. It builds a categorised list: always-on essentials like a helmet, a primary light and two independent backups, and an oversuit; lighting and food and water scaled to your numbers; group safety items scaled to party size; and gear specific to your trip type, like a harness and descender for a vertical trip or a wetsuit layer for a wet one.
How does the list size lights and spare batteries?
Light is personal: every caver gets a primary headlamp and two independent backup lights, the three-light rule, because a light that fails cannot be shared in a crawl. Spare batteries for the primary lamp scale with trip length, enough for each caver to cover twice the planned trip on a mid-range lamp (the same figure as the Trip Planning Reference), so a long trip gets more spares. Check your own lamp on the Headlamp Runtime Calculator. Shared items such as first-aid kits scale by headcount, one per party of up to six.
What's different about a vertical (SRT) trip's gear?
Rope work adds a harness rated for single rope technique, a descender, ascenders for climbing back up, cross-safety lanyards (cowstails) for clipping in at rebelays, rope protectors for edges, and — scaled to party size — rescue or haul kits in case someone needs assistance on the rope.
Is this list complete enough to skip my own trip planning?
No — treat it as a solid starting checklist, not the final word. Every cave system has its own quirks, and a qualified leader or your local caving club will know specifics this generic tool can't: known hazards, required permits, or gear conventions particular to that system.
A starting point, not gospel — adjust for the specific cave system and confirm rigging and safety gear with a qualified leader or your caving club before a trip.