Vertical Bill: The Story of Bill Cuddington and the Development of
Vertical Caving in America. David W. Hughes. National Speleological
Society, Huntsville, Alabama; 2008. ISBN 978-1-879961-29-6. 5 by 8.5
inches, 392 pages, hardbound. $32 (discount for NSS members, see http://nssbookstore.org
).
While single-rope-technique for vertical caving did not originate with
Bill Cuddington, it was definitely Bill who first pursued it, in the
face of considerable doubts by the caving establishment, and made it
popular. While others were exploring pits in Virginia and West
Virginia using rope ladders or windlasses and other hauling systems,
Bill started using body rappels and prusik knots. He was responsible
for testing and promoting various innovations and in fact invented the
steel rappel spool, but he himself sometimes stuck by the old
standbys. In 1967, a couple of years after I'd bought my Jumars, he
used three prusik knots to climb out of Golondrinas during the first
trip that descended that pit.
This book covers the history of Cuddington's caving career and the
development of United States SRT up through the middle-to-late
sixties, when the rappel rack and Mitchell climbing systems were
invented. Since then, the rope-walker climbing system has become more
popular for yoyoing deep pits, and the European "frog" system has
become popular for deep, multi-drop systems. But the principles remain
the same.
Black-and-white photos illustrate the text throughout. Many of them
are of considerable historical interest. Included are several from the
first descent of Golondrinas. The photos, and indeed the amount of
interesting detail in the text itself, testify to the amount of
research that went into the book.
The book has forty-four short chapters full of tiny paragraphs, so it
isn't too surprising that the text is a bit choppy and sometimes
disorienting. But it is still a good read. There are extensive notes
on sources and a reference list that starts, mysteriously, with a
French dictionary. While there are a small number of missing commas
and dangling participles, the editing and production are much superior
to most NSS books. About my only real gripe, besides the lack of an
index to help you find again one of the many caves or cavers
mentioned, is that the inside margins are too narrow.--Bill Mixon
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