Rappelling? You don't need no stinking safety.

[Princess Butterfly]

Butterfly: hope you opened some crusty eyes with the what-ifs. What if something happens that reduces ones capacity to rappel properly (even if you're a rap-stud(dette) with all the training and stuff)...and you're on your own. Be good to know a backup system - might help you out of a jam.

Thank you Hank.

There are ways to fix #1 and #3 but you have to live through the rappel to do it.

We've gone to 7/16" frames because of the time we did this:


There is an article in the May Flowstone that explains how. I'll post it when they get it linked.

Our racks also now have 8 bars instead of 7. And I was asked if I really wanted 8 bars when I ordered a new set for the 7/16" frame rack. The next question is just how long can we make a rack and still be able to do a changeover.

To further clarify my answer to subter's question, I'm assuming that your broken body is lying there in the cave and your child is the only other one there and would have to rappel alone. None of these techniques help him from getting stuck on rope and not being able to move, only from falling to his death.

[hunter]

Umm, couple of thoughts on this.

-I don't have any solid feelings either way but tinkering with various possibilities is on my to do list at the next vertical practice...

-Why not use one of the newer double action auto-lock devices? This will save you if you are hit by a rock. If your worried about gear failure add the french wrap afterwards.

-How far should safety vs speed/convenience be carried? A top belay with dynamic rope is the safest option for rappelling that I know of. It guards against gear failure(except the harness) and rope failure and you have a seperate person to reduce the chance of user error. This is safe but inconvenient since you occupy two people and need extra gear.
The bottom belay is a comprimise since it can increase the belayers risk and does not guard against rope failure. No backup will be as fast and easy as just a rap device, so once again, how far should one go? (I really don't know the answer to this)


-

Arguments/excuses range from 'adding another device generates more issues than it solves',

Consider this argument carefully. Understanding probability as it relates to system failure can not be disregarded by saying

Come on!

I don't know the answer here but if your safety eliminates rock fall and gear failure accidents but increases the odds of a person getting stuck on rope by a factor 10 is that really better? Will that increase in stuck-on-rope cavers lead to fatalities because people are bad at pickoffs? Like I said, I don't know but I think this should be considered.

-I personally think more knowledge and vertical work can't hurt and when I show people rappeling I at least discuss the possibility of a backup. At the very least a backup could be handy in specific cases(I'd add injury and sickness to the list) as people have mentioned.

Anyway, my .02 (which is probably not worth a gumball anymore)
James

[fuzzy-hair-man]

-Why not use one of the newer double action auto-lock devices? This will save you if you are hit by a rock. If your worried about gear failure add the french wrap afterwards.

Good idea, I had forgotten about the double brake stops etc that are around to me they are possibly the best solution for the type of caving we do here which is Alpine style short drops. Only problem I have heard is that it can be hard to find the sweet spot where you are moving on rappell and they are more particular about rope sizes, but that's not a problem if you use a standard rope size.

-How far should safety vs speed/convenience be carried? A top belay with dynamic rope is the safest option for rappelling that I know of. It guards against gear failure(except the harness) and rope failure and you have a seperate person to reduce the chance of user error. This is safe but inconvenient since you occupy two people and need extra gear.
The bottom belay is a comprimise since it can increase the belayers risk and does not guard against rope failure. No backup will be as fast and easy as just a rap device, so once again, how far should one go? (I really don't know the answer to this)

This further depends on the cave and rigging style in my opinion a short pitch where there are multiple rebelays and redirects a backup is going to be more of a pain than on a 100m free hang drop straight to the bottom.

I don't know the answer here but if your safety eliminates rock fall and gear failure accidents but increases the odds of a person getting stuck on rope by a factor 10 is that really better? Will that increase in stuck-on-rope cavers lead to fatalities because people are bad at pickoffs? Like I said, I don't know but I think this should be considered.

-I personally think more knowledge and vertical work can't hurt and when I show people rappeling I at least discuss the possibility of a backup. At the very least a backup could be handy in specific cases(I'd add injury and sickness to the list) as people have mentioned.

Anyway, my .02 (which is probably not worth a gumball anymore)
James

My opinion is that to a degree we are involved in a dangerous sport, accept it, manage the risks to the best of your ability and take responsibility for your own safety. To some extent I think it is probably a decision each vertical caver has to make, ie how much convenience and efficentcy are you willing to sacrifice for the extra safety.

There are cases / caves where others <edit> as well as your own<\edit> safety can be put at risk if all cavers are not efficent. ie delays leading to exhaustion or hyperthermia.

Lastly, we accept (or perhaps just don't think about it) that if we go unconsious in a car we will crash (and quite possibly die) the same thing goes for a rappel, why do we accept one risk but not the other? For me a rappel device that is the simplest to operate and has the least possibilities to malfunction is the safest.
Further measures to increase safety with the caving I do are either not worth it, better managed by training or safe practices, or introduce more problems.

[Stridergdm]

Umm, couple of thoughts on this.

-How far should safety vs speed/convenience be carried? A top belay with dynamic rope is the safest option for rappelling that I know of. It guards against gear failure(except the harness) and rope failure and you have a seperate person to reduce the chance of user error. This is safe but inconvenient since you occupy two people and need extra gear.

-I personally think more knowledge and vertical work can't hurt and when I show people rappeling I at least discuss the possibility of a backup. At the very least a backup could be handy in specific cases(I'd add injury and sickness to the list) as people have mentioned.

Anyway, my .02 (which is probably not worth a gumball anymore)
James

snipped some stuff.

Anyway, this is a great discussion I think. But you give an example above that I disagree with, but goes to the general discussion.

I would argue for a variety of reasons a top-belay is NOT the safest option since now you risk rope-entanglement. If you have a person descender and they spin at all they run the risk of tangling the two ropes and getting stuck.

So... this goes back to your other point which is a good one (and I'll rephrase here). If the added "safety" makes things less safe, it's time to reconsider it.

Personally I think discussions like this are great. I'm always learning. I don't have the experience some here do and it's great to hear what others have to say.

Oh and Princess Butterfly... that's a hell of a thing to do to a rack. Wow!

[hank moon]

If you had to put your young child on rope on a moments notice with no time to train him/her what would that 'extra' layer of safety be? A shunt, french wrap, prusik, ASAP... a copy of "On Rope".

This question doesn't address the issue described in the first post - see 3rd quote below. Can we drop this question as irrelevant to the discussion and/or start another thread for it?

I'm not trying to stifle a debate or discussion but rather than hearing why everyone thinks certain approaches would NEVER work or are too troublesome, heavy or complicated it would be GREAT to hear what the experts here would stand behind... If anything?

You'll probably be an old man before the "experts" (whoever they are) agree on anything regarding this issue. Don't trust the experts - trust your own good judgment.

it seems reckless to both ourselves and those that we are caving with to not delve deeper into this issue and come to at least SOME consensus on how to improve our level of safety while rappelling.

How about we just try to come up with something you're comfy with? Consensus? That's too much strain on the system.

[George Dasher]

Regarding safety while learning to rappel: My first rappels were completed with a separate top belay, a technique I still use for teaching first-timers. It has the added advantage of teaching people how to belay, a technique that more cavers should learn.

And I've also used a top belay on rare occasions while rappelling into virgin pits.

It is a good technique that occasionally can be used by experienced cavers, and shouldn't be left out of the "mental gear bag."

The extra gear and rope required, and the extra rock fall that can be produced are the technique's main disadvantages. And of course it just plain ain't going to work on a really long, free-fall drop.

[Stridergdm]

Well, as soon as we come up with a consensus on the best way to go UP a rope, we can work on a consensus for going down the rope.

I mean I KNOW a frog is the way God intended for us to climb ropes.


Ok, well I know that until I'm looking at a couple hundred feet of 11mm and thinking, "oh, this is going to take some time...."


Seriously, I'm with Hank. I don't think consensus is possible.

Other than perhaps, "know as much as you can so you can make as good decisions as possible."

Personally, I don't use a safety on rappel. But perhaps I should.

I have a friend who is the opposite, he ALWAYS uses a safety on rappel. But I watch him do change-overs, rebelays, etc.. and see how much more work he has to do (and correspondingly how many more steps that can go wrong) and wonder if it's worth it.

Who's right? I suspect we both are.

[adleedy]

If a safety makes you feel more comforatble buy all means use one, just as long as the reason you are uncomfortable in the first place isnt because of your lack of skills and knowledge.

Frankly i dont see myself using a backup on rappell anytime soon.

[hunter]

Good idea, I had forgotten about the double brake stops etc that are around to me they are possibly the best solution for the type of caving we do here which is Alpine style short drops. Only problem I have heard is that it can be hard to find the sweet spot where you are moving on rappell and they are more particular about rope sizes, but that's not a problem if you use a standard rope size.

I'm pretty sure there is a previous thread on these somewhere but if someone uses one of these devices I'd really like to hear what you think of them. I'm mulling over buying one but the price is painful. I also wonder how well they could be fed for a really large dirty rope. On the stop I can just hold it all the way open and feed but this could be tough on a double action.

I would argue for a variety of reasons a top-belay is NOT the safest option since now you risk rope-entanglement. If you have a person descender and they spin at all they run the risk of tangling the two ropes and getting stuck.

Hmm, good point as is the potential for added rock fall someone mentioned.

Lastly, we accept (or perhaps just don't think about it) that if we go unconsious in a car we will crash (and quite possibly die) the same thing goes for a rappel,

This is true but the odds of dying are going down due to added safety features like airbags and I remember reading about the possibility of a car detecting loss of control and stopping on it's own(A concept that makes me kind of nervous). We accept that many activities will never be safe but people continue to strive for improved safety and I think that is what discussions like this are about.

James

[adleedy]

If you had to put your young child on rope on a moments notice with no time to train him/her what would that 'extra' layer of safety be? A shunt, french wrap, prusik, ASAP... a copy of "On Rope".

First of all, you should never put anyone without rappel experience on a drop without prior instruction. But, in an absolute emergency where you had to put someone with no experience on rope at a moments notice I would use a french wrap if a belay were not possible or if you couldn't rappel with them. If you weight a prusik you will never get it off, to use a gibbs or a shunt requires an action to get it to catch. If the person starts going too fast and panics, what is the first thing they do, THEY LET GO. When they let go the french wrap catches and they stop. I agree with Scott if a bottom belay is possible, use it.

To further clarify my answer to subter's question, I'm assuming that your broken body is lying there in the cave and your child is the only other one there and would have to rappel alone. None of these techniques help him from getting stuck on rope and not being able to move, only from falling to his death.

Why would a person with NO vertical experience be there???

why would you take your child along an a vertical trip if they cannot safely rappel and ascend?

How would this person be able to safely use the safety or even rig their descender with NO experience?

[underdog]

Hi Y'all- I haven't read or posted here in ages!
On bottom belay being the best and only safety....
Of course the first person down gets no bottom belay, then bottom belay is only safe and effective if it is done correctly. I was recently in a long drop scenario where the bottom belay had been set up with a pulley - so the bottom belayer was out of the fall zone - but the pulley was not rigged directly underneath the rope. This caused two problems: one - lots of slack to pulled in, two - the directionality of hte rack could be such that if the rope is not being pulled straight down the lateral pull would actually reduce the friction on the last bar. I could feel this on my bottom belay as the belayer, concerned about all the slack, was trying to find a balance.

[Ralph E. Powers]

Why would a person with NO vertical experience be there???

They shouldn't!

why would you take your child along an a vertical trip if they cannot safely rappel and ascend?

they shouldn't be there either!

How would this person be able to safely use the safety or even rig their descender with NO experience?

they can't!

Those are my short answers to those questions.

Supposedly those scenarios are just hypothetical and even if they aren't then the end result should be left up to qualified rescue trained personnel to get them out of the cave/pit/where-ever!

I've seen a guy bring a group of very young kids (the youngest being four!) far up a steep canyon wall (roughly a 50 to 65 degree slope) then realizing that they were in the wrong place and thus couldn't go back down... safely. Fortunately my group had just finished the cave and was in process of derigging and I assigned one adult to each child and lead them down a (longer) but safer route down the canyon wall.

Come across people inside a pit with no vertical experience as well.

It's exasperating as hell to continually find people doing this, thinking that they'd be alright. Sheesh man!
Common sense is what's sorely needed in a lot of situations.

[adleedy]

Why would a person with NO vertical experience be there???

They shouldn't!

why would you take your child along an a vertical trip if they cannot safely rappel and ascend?

they shouldn't be there either!

How would this person be able to safely use the safety or even rig their descender with NO experience?

they can't!

Those are my short answers to those questions.

.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

I imagine that a fair few people have seen this but for those that haven't here is a pretty well argued case against using a prussik or a mechanical assender as a rappeling safety.

http://storrick.cnchost.com/VerticalDevicesPage/Misc/RappelSafetyPost.html

There are perhaps two weaknesses in his argument and that is that he doesn't like a prussik safety below the rappel device because you need to ensure the prussik does not come in contact with the rappelling device.

Two points with this:
1) The obvious is well make sure that it doesn't everything is subject to some sort of user error so why should it be a fault of the prussik safety if it is incorrectly set up.

2) the second counter point would be that in a unplanned catch by the safety prussik the loop maybe able to make it further up towards the descender than atticipated and hence be difficult to set up correctly (I have no proof of this just thinking).

The second thing I think worth mentioning is that Gary doesn't mention double stop or double brake devices which to me seem the best solution (so far) to the problem, although I fear they rob the device of some of it's versitility (different ropes sizes and possibly conditions). ie a stiff very slow rope and you cannot open up the stop more than the 'middle ground' offered by the descender, indeed if the descender has no way to disarm the stop function you couldn't even pull rope through the descender without letting go of the tail of the rope (not reccomended!) although feeding a stop is as far I am aware not the problem it is with racks.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Oh,

a bit of another idea that might interest some is when we have beginners we get them to place thier left hand(assuming they are right handed) on the device (not on the rope) when it is not otherwise occupied. Two reason that I see (there may be more):

1) they can monitor how hot the device is getting, and adjust thier rappelling accordingly.

2) if you have a fall the instinct is to grab whatever you can as hard as you can, if your left hand is already placed on the device then you are likely going to squeeze the %^$&*^ out of the device and the rope captured inside it, this could stop or slow you. I say could because I have tried it using a rack about 1/2m off the ground and could keep myself stopped by gripping hard around the descender (the rope in my right hand was slack) BUT...... this is a LOT different to stopping or slowing an uncontrolled descent, and it would probably involve considerable rope burn but it might slow it enough save thier life, certainly I think it has a much better chance than gripping the rope above the descender.

This technique maintains thier ability to fend off obstacles whilst still progressing down the rope and doesn't add any complications to rigging or derigging the device, that said I really wouldn't like to have to rely on it.