Lighting For Caving

Lighting For Caving
By: Cave Spelunking

Caves are dark places. As a matter of fact, you might say that they are the darkest places on — or in — the Earth. The sun never shines in a cave. You have to take your light in with you. Going into a cave without reliable lighting would be foolish, to say the very least. There are safety headlamps, flashlights, torches, emergency strobe lights, and lamps available today for caving. Led, halogen, waterproof, and portable technologies are all used.

Every caver will have his or her own preference for lighting. Mine is the LED. The latest generation of the LED caving lights are really "state of the art" in cave lighting. This latest generation features an incredibly small maintenance-free rechargeable lithium ion battery in an anti-static housing. But there are other choices — lots of them.

Of course, different kinds of lighting are needed for different kinds of caving. Lighting that would be more than sufficient for a decent into a cave on dry land wouldn't be worth anything to cave divers.

For many years the typical recreational dive light consisted of a self-contained light head that contains the power supply and bulb. There would be a handle attached to the light head. Then, to attach the light to the user's wrist, there'd be a lanyard. It was the combination of the parts of a typical recreational dive light that made it basically unsuitable for serious cave divers.

Things have gotten better over the last few years. The new generation of cave-diving lights are made up of a waist-mounted battery canister that's connected by a power cord to a separate, very compact, light head. This newer design allows the use of larger power supplies so cave diving lights can burn brighter and last longer.

Rock On & Keep Spelunking...
Cave Spelunking.