Caving is a fun and adventurous sport that leads you to places deep underground that few people have seen. We follow winding streamways, through narrow passages carved out in the rock. There are tight squeezes and enormous caverns, beautiful ceilings covered with delicate stalactites, underground waterfalls, wet crawls, and deep drops into darkness which we descend into on a rope. Exploring cave systems brings a sense of challenge and lets you conquer your fears like nothing else.
We go caving in different areas around the UK, usually Yorkshire, northern Scotland (Assynt area), and the Peak District since these are the closest caving areas. Some caves are mostly crawling, walking, and scrambling, but in many we need to rig ropes to descend and ascend, which is called single rope technique (SRT). This involves lots of equipment which we have as a club and can teach you to use. If you’ve been caving before, let us know, but most people who join us don't have any experience and we will teach you what you need to know and ensure your safety in the cave.
Trips
Our main activity is our caving trips - we run regular trips approximately once a month for the weekend. We take a minibus and leave on Friday evening and drive to a caving hut where we stay for two nights. We all go caving on Saturday, and then have a social evening in the hut, and some of us cave again on Sunday while some just go for a walk or have a relaxed day, then we drive back to Glasgow.
Training
We do weekly training sessions in the Stevenson building Studio 3 to teach single rope technique (SRT), which involves learning how to put on a caving harness and ascend and descend on a rope, as well as learning knots and how to rig the ropes if you’re interested in learning more! You don’t need any prior knowledge at all to come to training. A few times a year we also run training outdoors where we use our ropes and equipment to climb trees, which is great for practising these skills at height.
Socials
We are a very social club and have weekly pub socials as well as various different fun and more specialized socials throughout the year, including bouldering and roped climbing, swimming, film nights, our yearly pub crawl, and lots more fun stuff!
Additional Info
For more details, check out our Instagram (@gusacaving) where we let you know what is coming up, and have a Linktree for much more information. We also have a WhatsApp chat for our members to keep in contact, which can be found on the Linktree and Instagram. Please get in touch if you have any questions or want to get involved!
Insurance
It is your responsibility to ensure that you have the appropriate insurance cover for any activity you take part in. Upon joining, please check the level of insurance cover we, as a club, provide to you.
GUSA recommends that all students playing high risk sport, go abroad to compete/train, or are playing in governing body leagues, may want to consider/need to take out personal liability insurance, or join the sports governing body to be covered. Some insurance providers also offer specialist sports cover.
