cavedoc wrote:So next question. Is there a standard list of questions for a register? Seems like I've seen an NSS form in the past but it seemed like overkill. I guess I'm mostly interested in visit statistics and differentiating organized cavers from others. I'll talk to the land manager (the BLM) about it but wondered what the rest of you have found useful.
It doesn't matter much if you put a questionaire or form in the register-most folks will generally write whatever they want. When I sign a register, I do so just to say "I made it here, this is the proof." I think the original idea behind registers was to provide people a way to do that without writing all over the walls. It's just human nature. If you try to turn it into a kind of a research tool or survey, I don't know if most people would even fill that out. I for one probably wouldn't, but that's just me. There are too many such things everywhere you go nowadays, (especially on the internet), and since caving is kind of an escape from everyday life, I wouldn't want to be bothered with it when I'm caving. If you do decide to do something like this, I think it would get more response if it was kept very minimal.
One thing you should try to achieve is making it waterproof, even if the cave is not prone to flooding. It drives me nuts when I open the register and the paper in it is all damp. One bad thing about the PVC ones, and also the old steel pipe registers-they tend to be very hard, if not impossible to open. I'm not sure how they could be redesigned to improve that part, but the idea of a Nalgene bottle sounds good.
Trogman