Dangerously long upper ascenders?

[Scott McCrea]

I just finished reading the Self-Rescue article in the Sept 2006 issue of the NSS News. The sample incident mentioned that the patient's upper ascender [lanyard] was too long and was out of reach when he weighted it. I have heard of several other incidents where this is mentioned as being some part of the problem.

So, why is this a dangerous problem? Obviously, it's inconvenient and poor technique, but dangerous–huh?

If you weight your upper ascender, what benefit is it to being able reach it? Why can't they just stand up or climb up to it? What am I missing?

[ian mckenzie]

One supposes that a petty annoyance to you might be a more serious issue for a novice.

Assuming as Frog... Perhaps if your jammer is up too high to reach (because your croll has slipped), it's also impossible for some to stand up as their feet will be uncomfortably high. Or perhaps they use the loose-footloop style rig and have (also) fallen out of them.

Also a long lanyard is a tangle annoyance which I suppose might be dangerous.

[mgmills]

I just finished reading the Self-Rescue article in the Sept 2006 issue of the NSS News. The sample incident mentioned that the patient's upper ascender [lanyard] was too long and was out of reach when he weighted it. I have heard of several other incidents where this is mentioned as being some part of the problem.

So, why is this a dangerous problem? Obviously, it's inconvenient and poor technique, but dangerous–huh?

If you weight your upper ascender, what benefit is it to be able reach it? Why can't they just stand up or climb up to it? What am I missing?

Scott - the article says the guy was climbing with a ropewalker but forgot to attach the roller to the rope. The upper ascender was most likely a handled petzl on a long lanyard attached to the seat harness. The caver got tired and "sat down" to rest hanging from the ascender.

Remember he was tired. Have you ever tried climbing a ropewalker without a chest harness. . .it requires a lot of upper body effort to do so. What you are missing is that the guy apparently he was too tired to stand in his foot loops to reach the ascender and attempt to attach the roller to the rope.

Attaching a roller while suspended off the ground can be a difficult manuever, especially for a newbie or someone without much upper body strength. I once had to assist a "newbie" on a ropewalker who was about 2 feet off the ground to do this. It took two cavers helping her. I pushed her in toward the rope from behind while a tall guy attached her roller

[Scott McCrea]

Scott - the article says the guy was climbing with a ropewalker but forgot to attach the roller to the rope. The upper ascender was most likely a handled petzl on a long lanyard attached to the seat harness. The caver got tired and "sat down" to rest hanging from the ascender.

Agreed.

Remember he was tired. Have you ever tried climbing a ropewalker without a chest harness. . .it requires a lot of upper body effort to do so. What you are missing is that the guy apparently he was too tired to stand in his foot loops to reach the ascender and attempt to attach the roller to the rope.

If that is the case, then why would he need to stand up? Just pull some slack thru the foot/knee and put it in the chest roller. He wouldn't need to have a hand on the upper.

Attaching a roller while suspended off the ground can be a difficult manuever, especially for a newbie or someone without much upper body strength. I once had to assist a "newbie" on a ropewalker who was about 2 feet off the ground to do this. It took two cavers helping her. I pushed her in toward the rope from behind while a tall guy attached her roller

Granted, I'm Monday-morning quarterbacking and things are completely different in a 'for real' situation. But I still don't see how having a too-long lanyard contributed to this situation or others like it.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Too long an attachment to a hand ascender is a killer for change-overs from ascending to descending at least on a frog as the hand ascender will be out of reach and you will be unable to release it whilst your weight is on your descender.
If it is too short and your're doing a change-over you'll be left hanging from the hand ascender with no weight on your descender and you won't be able to release it. It also depends on where you positioned your hand ascender before releasing your chest ascender you want just enough to release the Croll but no more.
Long descenders make it more difficult too (long live the Stop and bobbin )
It gets more difficult still when your doing a pickoff

Note we do changeovers with no QAS.

If they had been able to do this properly they could have lowered themselves to the ground.

I guess we need to know what ascending rig they were using? It sounds like a Mitchell? (Ropewalker wouldn't have an upper ascender unless it was a hybrid something or other) in which case I agree I can't see why they couldn't attach the roller whilst hanging off the upper ascender. on the other hand I've never seen a Mitchell in the flesh before.

EDIT: there must have been some other ascender other than the chest ascender / roller and upper ascender otherwise they wouldn't have left the ground which rules out a pure frog rig not that it would generally use a roller anyway. So that leaves a ropewalker with a hand ascender added (for whatever reason) or a Mitchell doesn't it?

[Ralph E. Powers]

My own (frog) lanyard or safety is long but not so much that I can't reach my hand ascender from a sitting position by stretching myself a bit or doing a quick (half) step up in the foot loop and moving the croll up an inch or so to do what I need to do.
It is a danger when the safety for a double bungee is so far out of reach from a sitting position that you can't manipulate the gibbs or hand ascender. But then I usually make sure that my chest roller is attached to the rope before I begin my ascent(s) anyway should I be using that mode of climbing, which I rarely do now-a-days for drops less than 150 feet.
I don't have a problem with change-overs either way (frog or double bungee) but then I get out and practice as much as I can. I find that helps quite a bit when you're in a for-real situation.

[chh]

yep, changeovers. If you have to do one, there's a reason, and it's probably necessary. If you can't reach the upper ascender you've just made your necessary task that much more difficult (presuming you are mid-changeover). And if you don't have the experience, presence of mind, strength, whatever, to solve it quickly; difficult just became dangerous.

[cave rat]

The artical refers to the incident at Raulstons Pit, in Tennessee, that I led during the 2005 SERA event. There was me and 2 other cavers involved. One of the cavers and myself was using Frogs and the caver that got hung up on rope, was using a Rope Walker System.

Raulstons is a broken drop pit. The first drop is around 60 to 70 feet. When you get to the bottom of the first drop, you are on a ledge. The second drop is around 70 feet deep. You rebelay of a bolt, to do the second drop.

The 2 cavers and myself got to the bottom with no trouble. We then did the cave at the bottom.

I was the first to climb. I made it to the ledge and passed the rebelay. The Rope Walking caver was the next to climb. He was experienced on the system. He had done Neversink and Valhalla the year before, so I knew he could handle the pit.

As I stood on the ledge, I could see him climbing. I noticed something wrong in the way he was climbing. Then I figured it out, he did not have his chest roller on.

After I told him to put the roller on, he tried, and then started to get tired out. Plus he did not adjust the pursik knot on his adjustable laynard before he started to climb. So it was stretched all the way out.

As he got more tried out, the more he strugled and soon was in a horizontal posistion, unable to reach his QAS. He was only 10 feet off the bottom of pit, just out of reach of the 3rd caver on the bottom.

The 3rd caver claimed the be Level 1 NCRC trained in picking someone off rope. He attempted to do so, but could not, then switched over and went back down.

About 10 minutes later, he attempted again, and somehow got his gear hung up in the trapped cavers gear. I believe the RW Caver panic and when he did, that is when they got stuck together.

I then decieded to route the pit and call for a rescue. After gettting help to the pit, it took rescue personnel 6 hours to get the 2 cavers out of the pit.

The Rope Walking caver spent around 4 days in the Hospital getting fluids pump into him to remove the toxins from his system, due to Harness Hang.

[Randyrn]

Remember he was tired. Have you ever tried climbing a ropewalker without a chest harness. . .it requires a lot of upper body effort to do so. What you are missing is that the guy apparently he was too tired to stand in his foot loops to reach the ascender and attempt to attach the roller to the rope.

Attaching a roller while suspended off the ground can be a difficult manuever, especially for a newbie or someone without much upper body strength. I once had to assist a "newbie" on a ropewalker who was about 2 feet off the ground to do this. It took two cavers helping her. I pushed her in toward the rope from behind while a tall guy attached her roller

Was this "newbie" standing up while trying to attach the roller? If so, of course that's gonna be difficult and require some strength. I personally used to do that exact method, until one day I was on rope trying to figure out how I would do a one-arm changeover in both directions if I had a non-functional broken arm (a friend had just broken his arm in a cave). I fumbled for awhile before I realized that instead of fighting to pull myself into the rope, I could just sit down and hang from the QAS as Scott mentioned. That slackens the rope beneath where the QAS is attached and makes it a piece of cake to just grab it and attach the roller. THEN I could stand back up and start climbing. Now I can do that so-called difficult technique with one hand (you know...in case I ever misplace the other one ) Don't know why it took me months to figure that one out. I have a top-heavy climbing buddy who has difficulty pulling himself into the rope to attempt such maneuvers, and he had been doing things the hard way too. The next time I saw him muscling himself into the rope to attach his roller, I said, "Dude, STOP! Put your QAS on and sit down!" He had no idea why I was telling him to do that, but he did it nevertheless. Then I said, "Now grab that limp rope and attach your roller!" He got the same blank look on his face as I did initially and said, "And how long have I been fighting to pull my fat ass into the rope to attach that freakin' roller?!!!" I said, "Me too man!", and we just laughed together.

In the case of the guy who was rescued, maybe I'm not understanding everything. I have a habit of doing that! But even if he insisted on doing things the hard way by pulling himself into the rope to attach the roller while standing up, he would NOT need to be able to grab the ascender itself to do that. So the fact that it was out of reach wouldn't be a problem. He would only need to grab the same rope that he intends to attach his roller to and pull himself forward. Better yet, just do what Scott and I are referring to, because in that case, the out-of-reach ascender could be 100 feet up the rope and it wouldn't matter. All that would matter is that he was hanging from it so that the mainline beneath the ascender is slack and VERY easy to place behind the roller. IF he was attempting to change overs to rappell, he would need to be able to reach the upper ascender (QAS), but changing over, descending to the bottom, reattaching your ascending gear and starting over seems a bit more challenging than just doing the simple task of sitting down on the out-of-reach ascender, attaching the roller, standing up, and climbing to freedom. But again, maybe I'm missing something.

[Ralph E. Powers]

I think the RW person couldn't but help to try and be standing so he could (attempt) to attach his chest roller. It's out of habit. You're standing on the cave floor next to the rope and attaching everything... including the roller... in a standing position, (ok ok you gotta bend over to put the knee and foot ascender on... but you know what I mean). So it was "force of habit" that got him to make the attempt while standing on his knee/foot ascenders.
But yeah sitting down is one of the easier ways to get the rope on the roller. Practiced that myself during change over. Often times, it's the last thing to go on. But I make sure that it is on before I stand up and start climbing.

[Randyrn]

This story makes me wonder how this gentleman attached his chest roller when practicing changeovers. Unless perhaps he never did such practice. I hate to ASSume this, but the predicament he found himself in sounds like the typical scenario when doing a changeover from rappelling to ascending: He was dangling from an upper ascender and in need of attaching his roller. IF he had practiced changeovers, he would have been in this EXACT same position before. And if he had practiced changeovers as often as vertical cavers SHOULD, then he would have been in this position a TON of times before and been forced to solve the dilema. But instead, attaching the chest roller appears to have become an unsolveable riddle. I guess when I began learning vertical techniques, I was fortunate to have had a friend reinforce over and over the importance of practicing changeovers in both directions until I could do them in my sleep (and then do some more!)

[johnlhickman]

Something that's missing here is the importance of having an upper ascender (or QAS) that is properly measured. Having the ascender out of reach can be deadly, as has been demonstrated in the past). A changeover can not be easily performed, and you can not hang on your ascender. There isn’t much point having an ascender if you can’t reach it.

In the situation that is being discussed here, the climber appeared to have attached all of his ascenders and began climbing. As it typical at the beginning of a climb, he was probably gripping his upper ascender to help keep his balance. After about 10-15 off the floor, became aware that he hadn't attached his chest roller. He was gripping his upper ascender to keep his balance and stay up right. You are right that it easier to hang off your upper ascender to attach your chest roller.

After spending several minutes trying to attach the rope, the climber became fatigued and sat down. This is where the safety length became a problem, which was over 3 feet long. As he sat down, his feet were raised up under him because of the slack. He had safety tether attached from his harness to his knee ascender. This shared his weight with his now tensioned upper ascender. In the position he was in, he was unable to attach the chest roller.

When I arrived (I was the first rescuer on the scene), the third climber was above the second (Van was the first). It is my understanding that he had planned to perform a pick-off but hadn’t. The climber with the ropewalker was basically in a ball with numbness in his legs due to his position. After an initial assessment, I unhooked his two lower ascenders, so that he could move his legs. He remained hanging in his harness due to the likelihood of harness hang syndrome and the complications associated with removing the pressure. The upper climber was able to move his legs and periodically standup in his footloops, so he wasn’t as critical a patient.

A haul rope was lowered down, and the climbers were individually raised to the surface where they were treated medically to stave off the effects of HHS. The climber using the rope walker spent several days in the hospital. His stay was probably lengthened from having his legs tucked up under him for so long and a lack of circulation.

I think that learning to perform a changeover is critical to vertical caving. I also think that learning the changeover helps you “tweakâ€

[Randyrn]

Hey, thanks for shedding some light on things, John! So am I correct in guessing that he was, for whatever reason, unable to pull some slack through his lower ascenders to get his feet back below him and regain an upright position? And if so, do you think the rescue would have been avoided if he had been able to do so? Thanks again for the input. Nice to hear your perspective since you were on the scene.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

[quote="johnlhickman"]
I think that learning to perform a changeover is critical to vertical caving. I also think that learning the changeover helps you “tweakâ€

[Ralph E. Powers]

This goes back to someone's statement that a trip-leader should know everyone's abilities initmately before going caving with them. But taking their word for it is a crap-shoot. They're either sincere or so full of it that it makes their blue eyes brown.
I've had this happened to me with a group that assured me that they were practicing regularly and have tried different systems. When one of them was having difficulty with (their own) system I rigged him up with a "on the spot" frog ... it still took him a couple of minutes to figure out how to use it.
Ended up having to haul him up the rest of the way out of a deep (130+foot freehanging) pit when he ascended up more than 2/3rds of the way and wore himself out.
Practice does make perfect and perfect practice makes for no rescues.