Over the Edge is a company that puts on fundraisers where they rig up buildings, and people raise money for whatever organization, and then rappel off. It's not srt but the company is run? by some long-time cavers so naturally when it came to Alabama we (the Huntsville Cave Rescue Unit) were asked to volunteer because they need lots of help on rope, and we're basically trained already just have to learn their system. It uses two ropes, and is to rope access standards so kinda different from caving! Both ropes are kinda squishy and much more maliable than we use for caving but remind me of your ropes...which makes sense because guess what the rappel device was?! If you guess "a stop!" you are right! So there you go now I have stop experience for real. 135ft rappel. My thoughts on a stop now that I've actually had some decent experience with it... 1) It sucks. 2) Yeah, really don't like it.
Okay for real...
- Heats up SO DAMN FAST. Holy crap...almost burning my hands through the leather gloves, on only 135 ft? I wasn't pushing it past the 1m/sec "safe speed"
- Difficult to very fine tune control, which I am used to that being effortless on a rack. This could perhaps come with more experience, but having about an inch of "squeeze distance" for the handle, rather than working with multiple bars and 12"+ definitely means fine tune comes from the brake hand unlike a rack which you adjust with the bars, should slide through your brake hand.
- Even on the rope used (meant for stops, unlike our pit ropes here) I'm not sure how it got it's name as a stop. You let go you still move down the rope. "Creeper" would be a better name for it, yeah it'll slow if you let go but it doesn't stop. In fact (and I used three stops over the course of the two days) To make it (mostly) stop, have to actually pull out the handle to make it bite into the rope.
- Between needing to squeeze to go, and utilizing the brake hand more for the fine tune control, my hands were actually a bit tired after 135ft!
So anyway...experience gained...and very glad we dont use them here.
Oh also, LOL I had to check sooo often that it was rigged right because damn you rig it bottom-up! haha (I've seen/run rope through a stop before this, so I knew how to rig it onto the rope, but still messed with my brain!)
Me going "over the edge" on the training volunteer rappel
Rappeling - Me on Rope 4 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
On rappel
Rappeling - Me on Rope 7 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
And then day of the actual rappelling I was on the belay/gear runner team
Belayers 7 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
Woot gear heaven!
Gear Heaven 1 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
Okay for real...
- Heats up SO DAMN FAST. Holy crap...almost burning my hands through the leather gloves, on only 135 ft? I wasn't pushing it past the 1m/sec "safe speed"
- Difficult to very fine tune control, which I am used to that being effortless on a rack. This could perhaps come with more experience, but having about an inch of "squeeze distance" for the handle, rather than working with multiple bars and 12"+ definitely means fine tune comes from the brake hand unlike a rack which you adjust with the bars, should slide through your brake hand.
- Even on the rope used (meant for stops, unlike our pit ropes here) I'm not sure how it got it's name as a stop. You let go you still move down the rope. "Creeper" would be a better name for it, yeah it'll slow if you let go but it doesn't stop. In fact (and I used three stops over the course of the two days) To make it (mostly) stop, have to actually pull out the handle to make it bite into the rope.
- Between needing to squeeze to go, and utilizing the brake hand more for the fine tune control, my hands were actually a bit tired after 135ft!
So anyway...experience gained...and very glad we dont use them here.
Oh also, LOL I had to check sooo often that it was rigged right because damn you rig it bottom-up! haha (I've seen/run rope through a stop before this, so I knew how to rig it onto the rope, but still messed with my brain!)
Me going "over the edge" on the training volunteer rappel
Rappeling - Me on Rope 4 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
On rappel
Rappeling - Me on Rope 7 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
And then day of the actual rappelling I was on the belay/gear runner team
Belayers 7 by Sunguramy, on Flickr
Woot gear heaven!
Gear Heaven 1 by Sunguramy, on Flickr