by Stridergdm » Nov 10, 2012 8:11 am
Honestly, I don't have much fear. Not that I'm naive but I just don't give it much thought.
I'm sort of glad that as of now no-one has selected "doing a change-over" since I think that's a fundamental skill and you shouldn't be near a rope if that's #1 or #2 on your fear list.
While I can certainly understand folks' fear of the rope breaking, I'd argue that stats suggest again it's pretty low on the list of real-world problems.
The other top one seems to be fear of stuff falling on you, and based on experience and the experiences of folks here, that seems like a VERY valid fear.
Roger makes a good point about rebelays possibly being safer. I know in one case, on the way out I had the climber before me put in essentially a rebelay exactly so we could both be on the rope at once and not be hanging below each other. (Of course unknown to me rather than use the nice new shiny bold in FRONT of us, he found an old, rusted one that ended up behind my shoulder (tight narrow crack).)
Now, I honestly have never given much thought to someone pulling up the rope, but I'll have to say, given the reports of that, I think I may move that up on my list!
(Years ago, in one of our old newsletters at the RPI Outing Club/Grotto, I found an article from some of our cavers in the 70s who were caving in Mexico. I believe Bill Stone was among them. I don't recall the details, other than apparently when about 1/2 the group was up, the federalas showed up, speaking no English and the cavers speaking no Spanish. Not knowing what was going on, the federalas insisted on pulling up the rope and detaining the cavers at the top. It took I believe 24 hours before a translator was found who could explain that "Umm, you need to put that rope back... at least for a little while." I've always tried to imagine the feelings of the folks at the bottom as they watched the rope disappear.... and not come back.)
Cavers rescue cavers!