Backup for a child while caving or canyoning

[michael.11]

I'm planning to do some very simple caving and canyoning with a 9 years old boy.
While he is capable of using a descender and ascenders quite well, I still prefer him to have an additional backup.
Is it an acceptable setup to run an additional static rope from his harness through a pulley at the top station to a belay device on myself?
Will it allow raising or lowering him in case he messes something up with his gear and stuck midway, or am I missing something?

 

[Rachel]

When my daughter was that age, I used to double rig easy caves (like Calf Holes or Valley Entrance), so we could SRT side by side with our long cowstails clipped together for safety. It meant that if she messed up, I could talk her through getting herself unstuck, so better for learning than being hauled up when things go wrong. That would only work in certain caves though and I wouldn't do it anywhere wet.

 

[aricooperdavis]

I don't think there's one foolproof way of doing this with just the two of you, but there are a few options.

- You could rig the pitch rope through a locked off descender and belay him down on a seperate lifeline. If he goes too fast then you belay him on the lifeline, and if he stops halfway down then you can lower the pitch rope (although then you'd effectively be simultaneously belaying him on both the lifeline and pitch rope, which would be a handful). It requires a lot of kit and 3 times the pitch length in rope!
- You could rig his descender on the rope first, then descend and firemans belay from the bottom, but it doesn't help if he stops descending halfway down the rope, and firemans belays aren't foolproof. It doesn't require any extra kit though.
- Rachel's suggestion is a good one, but you have to have a plan for if he stops descending and you need to take over (such as tie off your descender, operate his so that you take his weight, remove his from the pitch rope, and abseil you both the floor).

You'd also want to have a plan for assisting/hauling him back up pitches if needs be. As Rachel says, choosing very simple pitches would be very important.

 

[IanWalker]

Michael - this seems a reasonable idea. It needs thinking through to make it safe and usable, and I think you are starting off well by gathering opinions from a number of sources. (I would hope and assume that you are asking elsewhere)

You would of course need to be able to hold a fall (which assumes you yourself are secure) and lower off. You may need to cut the SRT rope depending on your partners predicament. This suggests you would be best placed at the top, and ensuring there are no rebelays, deviations, rock encubrances, waterfalls to snag your lowering partner.

Being at the bottom may give you greater visibility of your partner, and make you better placed to offer advice and encouragement.

Belaying from your harness makes you part of the safety chain, resulting in your being stuck at the belay station and unable to move to get a good view, offer physical assistance, or retreat to summon help. Belaying directly from an anchor may help in that regard.

Hauling from your own harness may be awkward, depending on the pitchhead setup and the weight of your partner. Are you thinking of a counterbalance? Alternatively, a direct belay (i.e. belaying from the anchor) allows you to easily set up a Z-rig hauling system.

I would suggest using a different coloured rope for the safety line, if you have one available, to differentiat the two ropes with different purposes.

What did your own instructor provide whilst you learned (if anything) and what advantages and disadvantages did that have?

Lastly, are there other people with you to provide assistance and simplify some of the above considerations?

 

[mikem]

I don't think there's one foolproof way of doing this with just the two of you, but there are a few options.

- You could rig the pitch rope through a locked off descender and belay him down on a seperate lifeline. If he goes too fast then you belay him on the lifeline, and if he stops halfway down then you can lower the pitch rope (although then you'd effectively be simultaneously belaying him on both the lifeline and pitch rope, which would be a handful). It requires a lot of kit and 3 times the pitch length in rope!

You don't have to belay on both if you totally release his rope & lower on the safety - works fine for single pitch descents, not rebelays.

- You could rig his descender on the rope first, then descend and firemans belay from the bottom, but it doesn't help if he stops descending halfway down the rope, and firemans belays aren't foolproof. It doesn't require any extra kit though.

You'd have to ascend back up to them & clip yourself in before using their descender to get back down (or you might climb past & ascend with them attached, depending on situation)

 

[aricooperdavis]

You don't have to belay on both if you totally release his rope & lower on the safety - works fine for single pitch descents, not rebelays.

That's very true!

 

[andrewmcleod]

I've never understood why cavers belay through pulleys. It probably made sense for ladders where the belays were well back from the edge using hemp ropes. For everything else, friction is your friend... why make it harder to hold a fall and also introduce a comparatively delicate and weak device to your safety system?

 

[andrewmcleod]

Standard British group abseiling practice (for kiddies going down crags etc) is as follows:

Leader at the top.
One abseil line on a tied-off Italian hitch, tied off in the middle so it just reaches the ground; rope twice the length of the pitch.
One belay line on an Italian hitch belayed by the leader.

Should the abseiler panic, you hold and lower them on the safety line.
Should the abseiler get their hair stuck in the device, you tie off the belay rope, then unlock and lower on the abseil rope until hair is not stuck. Tie off abseil rope again and lower on belay rope until they are abseiling again.
Should the abseiler refuse to go down, you tie off the belay rope, then untie the abseil rope and feed through lots of slack. Then lower to the ground on the belay rope. PS obviously you don't lower people against their will until all other options have been exhausted!

You could replace the tied-off Italian hitch with a locked-off Stop or similar.

For someone going to the top of a pitch, you could certainly give them a top-rope belay (e.g. Italian hitch direct from a top anchor) as they ascend. It's probably best if you are at the top so that you can help them off the top of the pitch safely.

 

[mikem]

The pulley is just redirecting the load, so no problem if the climber is lighter than yourself - as long as it isn't just reliant on the bearings (direct belay off the anchors is usually much easier though)

The abseil rope doesn't need to be double the length, you can totally release it & either carry it back up or get someone to attach it to the safety.

 

[Steve Clark]

A simple method is to have a rope 3x the pitch length (say 10m pitch = 30m rope).

Rig as normal and keep a 10m loop at the pitch head.
Use a releasable knot (locked-off Italian hitch) or ideally put it in a Petzl Rig or similar.
Have them use a braking krab.
Newbie abseils on the rope whilst you feed out the 'dead' rope from the pitch head. If they let go of the rope or grab the stop handle and plummet you can control from the top.
If they get hair or something else caught you can lower the pitch rope.

For prussicking out, if they get stuck/tired you can direct counter-balance on the pitch rope or if they are at least half way up you can drop a Z loop.

This has the advantage that there is no additional obvious 'safety rope' / novice stuff going on.

 

[mikem]

If I understand this correctly then you only need a rope that's twice the pitch length, as long as you can use an ascender to haul them back up (a Z loop would reach the floor if it was 3x) - not sure how you lower the pitch rope though if it's rigged normally?

 

[Steve Clark]

Sorry, to be clear, I was assuming you use the rope to rig as normal (traverse in + y-hang etc.) then create a loop of slack that's as long as the pitch before using a releasable knot/rig (say 10m). Then 10m of 'real' pitch rope and 10m spare that you can use as the back rope to feed out as they descend to the floor.

(Even on a totally normal/minimal pitch rigging, I've started holding the rope for folks new to abseiling. Just holding the 'dead' pitch rope whilst they get established and smoothly descending the first half of the pitch removes most of the risk of being out-of-control. You can then drop the rope once they reach half-way and they continue to the floor by themselves. )

 

[mikem]

That works for a single pitch, but if you're doing multiple then it requires far less rope to just take a separate safety for the longest & use it on all (in fact if you do this as a matter of course you can more easily haul anyone who's struggling at any point).

 

[Fulk]

We seem to be getting a bit off-topic here. michael.11 wants to take a young lad (his son?) caving; I suggest that michael.11 stays at the top of the pitch while the kid gets on the rope, so he can be watched, while on a safety line rigged through a Stop (say) clipped into a bolt. I'm sort of assuming that the pitch(es) will be fairly straightforward, without deviations or rebelays, so he can be lifelined straight down (and, of course, back up). Then when the kid gets to the bottom, michael.11 abbs down. Yes/no? One problem might be the two ropes getting entangled, but on short pitches, at least, and with a bit of care, that shouldn't be a problem.

Incidentally, with regard to Rachel's post about abbing together with her daughter while clipped cowstail-to-cowstail, many years ago I took my daughter (who must have been a bit older – maybe 14) to Alum Pot; she'd been down the Dolly Tubs and by pure chance witnessed a guy prussiking out of the Main Shaft, and expressed a wish to do that herself. So I double-rigged the NW route and she set off down, with a sort of 'umbilical cord', as it were, consisting of a short length of climbing rope stretching from her harness to mine, and I followed keeping the umbilical not quite taught so that she went through all the motions herself (including the rebelay) without any assistance from me. Well, it worked (we tried it out first in Jingling Hole).

 

[mikem]

For once all posts are actually on topic, just different ways of doing it depending on what you want to achieve

 

[michael.11]

yeah thanks, I'll probably use different methods described here as we progress

 

[michael.11]

We seem to be getting a bit off-topic here. michael.11 wants to take a young lad (his son?) caving; I suggest that michael.11 stays at the top of the pitch while the kid gets on the rope, so he can be watched, while on a safety line rigged through a Stop (say) clipped into a bolt. I'm sort of assuming that the pitch(es) will be fairly straightforward, without deviations or rebelays, so he can be lifelined straight down (and, of course, back up). Then when the kid gets to the bottom, michael.11 abbs down. Yes/no

Exactly. We will try this today on a small ~10m cliff

 

[andrewmcleod]

Here's a long video demonstrating the group abseiling techniques I was alluding to earlier. This is what is used in climbing for 'group abseils'; the video here is intended for people training for their 'Rock Climbing Instructor' award (the first level of outdoor climbing instructor).

This would actually work fine underground without modification (other than probably the abseiler using a Simple/Stop instead of a Fig 8), but cavers might want to:
a) use a sling for rigging the Y-hang instead of a short bit of rope - or use one end of the abseil rope or whatever
b) use a locked-off Stop or similar instead of an Italian hitch for the abseil rope
c) use dynamic ropes throughout (which is fine with care, and if the possibility of a fall at the top of the pitch is minimised)

and so on.

 

[Fulk]

c) use dynamic ropes throughout (which is fine with care, and if the possibility of a fall at the top of the pitch is minimised)

did you mean static ropes?

 

[mikem]

It's possible to rig the whole thing with a single rope (if that's all you've got), provided it's at least 3 times the length of the pitch, either as Steve described, or use one end for abseil, with the same amount of slack above, to be able to lower, & other end used for belaying (this has to be carefully controlled whether it's static or dynamic - people have hit the floor on slack dynamic safety when they let go of the abseil rope - although most light people could let go of abseil rope & not move!)