caving_fox
Active member
Are there situations when it's right to do so?
The general 'rule' I've always used is that you leave other people's gear alone, with perhaps two exceptions: a) the trivial one, on ladder pitches rather than double rigging ladders, leave yours coiled at the pitch head use the one that's there, and they'll rig yours if they exit before you do (rig your own lifeline though). b) if you see something obviously unsafe then there is an expectation that you don't just pass on by. The hard bit, and the area I'm interested in people's thoughts is how unsafe* does it need to be, in order to justify altering someone else's ropework?
What sparked these thoughts is a trip at the weekend, passing a popular multi-entrance cave, I observed a line tied off to a single surface p-hanger with a knot I didn't recognise (may have been a fusion, was not bowline or fig8) thrown over a lip to the base of a shaft without other rebelay. I presume without any other evidence, that the party had abseiled on this line intending to exit elsewhere for an easy collection of the rope afterwards.
This is obviously not the safest or best practise. The rigging was clearly dangerous to use for prussicking as it ran directly over the edge. If the party had failed to find their way through or needed to return for any reason they'd have been in trouble. Also being a popular system it's not unknown for other parties to use all available ropes on exiting this way in the assumption (ass U Me) they'd be safely tied at the top, in the same way that in-situ rope is sometimes used.
(As we were planning on exiting this way we just rigged our rope with rebelays for ascent and left that line untouched. It was still there when we exited)
However I'd have been mightily annoyed if I'd returned from a trip to find my rope had been fiddled with, and I'm unsure whether there was sufficient extra length in the rope to rig this pitch 'normally'.
Would you have modified that rope? When would you think it appropriate to do so?
*Bonus marks to anyone who has a justified scale of safeness.
The general 'rule' I've always used is that you leave other people's gear alone, with perhaps two exceptions: a) the trivial one, on ladder pitches rather than double rigging ladders, leave yours coiled at the pitch head use the one that's there, and they'll rig yours if they exit before you do (rig your own lifeline though). b) if you see something obviously unsafe then there is an expectation that you don't just pass on by. The hard bit, and the area I'm interested in people's thoughts is how unsafe* does it need to be, in order to justify altering someone else's ropework?
What sparked these thoughts is a trip at the weekend, passing a popular multi-entrance cave, I observed a line tied off to a single surface p-hanger with a knot I didn't recognise (may have been a fusion, was not bowline or fig8) thrown over a lip to the base of a shaft without other rebelay. I presume without any other evidence, that the party had abseiled on this line intending to exit elsewhere for an easy collection of the rope afterwards.
This is obviously not the safest or best practise. The rigging was clearly dangerous to use for prussicking as it ran directly over the edge. If the party had failed to find their way through or needed to return for any reason they'd have been in trouble. Also being a popular system it's not unknown for other parties to use all available ropes on exiting this way in the assumption (ass U Me) they'd be safely tied at the top, in the same way that in-situ rope is sometimes used.
(As we were planning on exiting this way we just rigged our rope with rebelays for ascent and left that line untouched. It was still there when we exited)
However I'd have been mightily annoyed if I'd returned from a trip to find my rope had been fiddled with, and I'm unsure whether there was sufficient extra length in the rope to rig this pitch 'normally'.
Would you have modified that rope? When would you think it appropriate to do so?
*Bonus marks to anyone who has a justified scale of safeness.