DCA
Well-known member
Crossing another job off the long to-do list at DCA!
P8's First Pitch has had 3 new resin anchors installed and tested in the last week. Whichever way you used to descend the pitch, you were usually weighting only a single resin anchor above the drop, which was not ideal on safety grounds and made for a bottleneck of rigging when more than one team (and the digger's rope) were down there. Two options now exist for Y hangs, with a far one allowing a straight drop down in dry weather, and another closer to the start allowing you to go down the last big step and swing around onto the traverse, or rebelay for a dryer descent of the pitch. The third new anchor was placed back up the passage in the wall directly opposite the iron bar, so that no longer needs to be used. As a bonus, the rigging now stays on the same side of the passage all the way to the pitch head, so no more need to limbo under zig-zagging ropes as you approach!
It's a bit of a birds nest of theoretical rigging options around that area, and it would not have been feasible to include them all in the topo, but I hope I've made it as easy to follow as possible. Ignoring the topo for a minute, just standing there at the pitch with a 25m rope you should now see that there are a range of ways to safely rig for SRT (with or without rebelays), ladder & lifeline, or to access the traverse. Let us know if you spot any errors.
The new rigging topo is available for download now on the PDCi website: https://www.peakdistrictcaving.info/home/the-caves/castleton/p8
Pete Knight, DCA Equipment Officer
P8's First Pitch has had 3 new resin anchors installed and tested in the last week. Whichever way you used to descend the pitch, you were usually weighting only a single resin anchor above the drop, which was not ideal on safety grounds and made for a bottleneck of rigging when more than one team (and the digger's rope) were down there. Two options now exist for Y hangs, with a far one allowing a straight drop down in dry weather, and another closer to the start allowing you to go down the last big step and swing around onto the traverse, or rebelay for a dryer descent of the pitch. The third new anchor was placed back up the passage in the wall directly opposite the iron bar, so that no longer needs to be used. As a bonus, the rigging now stays on the same side of the passage all the way to the pitch head, so no more need to limbo under zig-zagging ropes as you approach!
It's a bit of a birds nest of theoretical rigging options around that area, and it would not have been feasible to include them all in the topo, but I hope I've made it as easy to follow as possible. Ignoring the topo for a minute, just standing there at the pitch with a 25m rope you should now see that there are a range of ways to safely rig for SRT (with or without rebelays), ladder & lifeline, or to access the traverse. Let us know if you spot any errors.
The new rigging topo is available for download now on the PDCi website: https://www.peakdistrictcaving.info/home/the-caves/castleton/p8
Pete Knight, DCA Equipment Officer
