Cantclimbtom
Well-known member
It's only bad if you're fatter than them
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- Thread starter Pegasus
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carpet
Member
A second recentish incident from me that definitely taught the importance of good communication: going through Llanberis Copper Mine on a rainy day, water pouring down the final pitch. Having finished reascending the pitch, yelled rope free and was convinced I'd heard the lad at the bottom of the rope yell "okay" back. Turns out he'd actually yelled "what?" or something along those lines, so there was an embarrassingly long time spent with me sat at the top convinced he was on his way up and having difficulties on the rope with all the water pouring down it, and him at the bottom convinced I was having difficulties on my way up, neither of us wanting to go have a look for fear of knocking a rock down or in his case being hit by a falling rock (I'd already dislodged a rock on my way up). It's truly remarkable how long two people can sit in silence in the darkness convinced someone else is ascending a rope before realising the other person is also sitting in silence in the darkness!
Also realised I didn't add a lesson learned or a tip for the other incident: loads of lessons in that, from always looking for the proper anchors to never trusting random route descriptions from the Internet
Also realised I didn't add a lesson learned or a tip for the other incident: loads of lessons in that, from always looking for the proper anchors to never trusting random route descriptions from the Internet
Relict
Member
Once upon a time three cavers went to descend Hurnell Moss Pot. Theres a big old traverse around the top and Dave was in front. Requesting the spanner to fit the bolt in the spit, i passed it to him smug that i had hung my rigging gear bits on some nice thin kevlar cord. He took it and examined it closely then waved it at the other Dave behind me with a quizzical look. I looked up and realised it was a large teaspoon i had drilled out to accept the cord.
"Whats this?" they asked. "Errr well, its my rigging spoon" i replied glumly. Eyes narrowed and clearly my pals required further details. " Well its not so much rigging, but when your carbide needs sorting, well i tip it out on to my silver foil and spoon the good lumps back into the generator, top it up then the ash goes in a tub"
Lips pursed, then i hand the spanner over.
For many many years years after, long after the demise of carbide, cavers in my club proudly wore drilled- out teaspoons of many types proudly hung from their harnesses.......
"Whats this?" they asked. "Errr well, its my rigging spoon" i replied glumly. Eyes narrowed and clearly my pals required further details. " Well its not so much rigging, but when your carbide needs sorting, well i tip it out on to my silver foil and spoon the good lumps back into the generator, top it up then the ash goes in a tub"
Lips pursed, then i hand the spanner over.
For many many years years after, long after the demise of carbide, cavers in my club proudly wore drilled- out teaspoons of many types proudly hung from their harnesses.......
TITANIC LESSON
I was belaying Moose as he bolted up the obvious aven at the top of Titan, this was well before the top / surface entrance shaft was created. The aven turned out to be blind so Moose installed an anchor station & up I went to join him.
It was obvious there was no way on so an abseil was rigged, Moose looked at me & my Stop said "A rack might be better" & he produced a spare for me... "I've never used one" I explained. After a quick lesson hundreds of feet above the black abyss, down went Moose to the Event Horizon (EH,) & he shouted up on arrival so I started rigging my rack... it was at this point my light failed (note to self - NEVER LEAVE YOUR SPARE BATTERY BEHIND!!), mine was at the EH with my Eccles cakes & flask of hot squash). Not confident about rigging the rack correctly in the pitch black, I removed it (whilst I was still on my cowstails) & reinstalled my Stop, hard-locked it & backed it up with a Shunt. Checking, rechecking & triple-checking by touch, in the dark, that everything was right, my heart was pounding as I cautiously unlocked & then very gingerly squeezed the Stop... all went well so I locked it again, released the cowstails & carried on down to meet Moose at the EH for hot squash & Eccles cakes before going back down & out via Speedwell... lesson learnt!
I was belaying Moose as he bolted up the obvious aven at the top of Titan, this was well before the top / surface entrance shaft was created. The aven turned out to be blind so Moose installed an anchor station & up I went to join him.
It was obvious there was no way on so an abseil was rigged, Moose looked at me & my Stop said "A rack might be better" & he produced a spare for me... "I've never used one" I explained. After a quick lesson hundreds of feet above the black abyss, down went Moose to the Event Horizon (EH,) & he shouted up on arrival so I started rigging my rack... it was at this point my light failed (note to self - NEVER LEAVE YOUR SPARE BATTERY BEHIND!!), mine was at the EH with my Eccles cakes & flask of hot squash). Not confident about rigging the rack correctly in the pitch black, I removed it (whilst I was still on my cowstails) & reinstalled my Stop, hard-locked it & backed it up with a Shunt. Checking, rechecking & triple-checking by touch, in the dark, that everything was right, my heart was pounding as I cautiously unlocked & then very gingerly squeezed the Stop... all went well so I locked it again, released the cowstails & carried on down to meet Moose at the EH for hot squash & Eccles cakes before going back down & out via Speedwell... lesson learnt!
davel
Member
October 1971, ladder and lifeline days ... and six of us from MUSS decided on a trip down Lost John.
All went well until we got to Centipede pitch, where it dawned on us that we had four less ladders than we would need to get to the master cave. Undaunted, we decided to press on and see how far we could get. We quickly discovered that the bottom 25' of Centipede was free-climbable, so that saved one ladder. Candle and Shistol pitches next - we left a knotted rope on Candle and Shistol was laddered leaving me at the top to drop the ladder down and then to climb (or rather drop) down myself, so saving two more ladders. Battleaxe pitch (approached by tip-toeing across the stemples) was laddered next with a double lifeline and the party descended as far as a ledge. At this point we realised that the C-links at the bottom of the top ladder were within reach, so the rest of the ladder was re-hung lower down. This left us with one ladder for the final pitch, although no lifeline as we had left that on Candle.
After a we had a pleasant wander up and down the master cave the return to the ledge on Battleaxe was uneventful. However, at this point when taking in the double lifeline from the top of the pitch, it was noticed that the bottom of the top ladder was starting to ascend with the rope! Fortunately, this was noticed while the bottom of the ladder was just about in reach of the tallest member of the party. That rectified, and the lower ladders reattached, we continued back as far as Shistol pitch. Here the plan was that the lightest member of the party (i.e. me) should be raised up to the top of the 12' pitch by 'combined tactics'. However, at this point another stout member of the party decided he could free-climb the pitch by means of a flake at one side of the chamber - and promptly got his foot stuck behind the flake about 5' from the floor. Entertainment, and him standing with his other foot on my shoulder, ensued while the non-trivial operation of freeing his foot was carried out. Other than that our scheme for getting back up the pitch was successful.
Apart from the fact that the knotted foot loops on the Candle pitch rope were far too far apart for the shortest member of the party (i.e. me), the rest of the trip passed without incident. My log book records it as "Great fun if silly at times".
All went well until we got to Centipede pitch, where it dawned on us that we had four less ladders than we would need to get to the master cave. Undaunted, we decided to press on and see how far we could get. We quickly discovered that the bottom 25' of Centipede was free-climbable, so that saved one ladder. Candle and Shistol pitches next - we left a knotted rope on Candle and Shistol was laddered leaving me at the top to drop the ladder down and then to climb (or rather drop) down myself, so saving two more ladders. Battleaxe pitch (approached by tip-toeing across the stemples) was laddered next with a double lifeline and the party descended as far as a ledge. At this point we realised that the C-links at the bottom of the top ladder were within reach, so the rest of the ladder was re-hung lower down. This left us with one ladder for the final pitch, although no lifeline as we had left that on Candle.
After a we had a pleasant wander up and down the master cave the return to the ledge on Battleaxe was uneventful. However, at this point when taking in the double lifeline from the top of the pitch, it was noticed that the bottom of the top ladder was starting to ascend with the rope! Fortunately, this was noticed while the bottom of the ladder was just about in reach of the tallest member of the party. That rectified, and the lower ladders reattached, we continued back as far as Shistol pitch. Here the plan was that the lightest member of the party (i.e. me) should be raised up to the top of the 12' pitch by 'combined tactics'. However, at this point another stout member of the party decided he could free-climb the pitch by means of a flake at one side of the chamber - and promptly got his foot stuck behind the flake about 5' from the floor. Entertainment, and him standing with his other foot on my shoulder, ensued while the non-trivial operation of freeing his foot was carried out. Other than that our scheme for getting back up the pitch was successful.
Apart from the fact that the knotted foot loops on the Candle pitch rope were far too far apart for the shortest member of the party (i.e. me), the rest of the trip passed without incident. My log book records it as "Great fun if silly at times".
Spaniel on crack
Active member
Rigging practice mixed with underground camping
Some members of the club showed a great keenness for combining rigging practice with their first underground camp in West chamber in the Oxlow/Maskhill system. The night before the bags were packed with the aim to get to the pub as quickly as possible.
There were 4 of us, 2 riggers and 2 teachers. Myself and one rigger went down Maskhill while the other 2 went down Oxlow. The first part went very well. Everything was rigged safely with a good amount of rope at the y hangs and we were going at a speed that allowed me to do my sewing. One of the hangers that the rigger decided to use was a wooden peg with a spinny slider hanger next to a very shiny p bolt. Some crabs also weren't done up but the rigger shouted this up before i got to them, so they were aware they had forgotten and got the problem resolved.
We had a quick break and discussed how to approach the travers and how to rig them for a group that ranged in height. The rigger expressed some annoyance at the fact i just free climbed it rather than using their traverse. They also showed some great acrobatic skills at getting the next pitch rigged and made their annoyance at the bolter very clear. It was just passed here were it was revealed he didn't know how to read a topo as we were meant to swap ropes but he thought the rope was 8m short. Apparently freshers dont come reading a topo and need to be taught this, which is a fail on my part. Apparently he thought the circled numbers were halfway down the rope rather than at the end of the rope. However, we had a great time sitting on a rocky ledge half way down the pitch figuring this out. Here we swapped over, I went up to rerig the pitch with the correct rope and realised the issue with being prepared and packing the bags the night before is that the pub is more motivating than bag packing. How the rigger had packed the bags is that if it was coiled he’d undone the wrap in the middle of the rope and just shoved it in, if it was daisy chained hed undone the chain and shoved the rope in as is. This turned rigging into a wrestling match with the rope. By the time we reached the west chamber we had turned to Dobby impressions to communicate. An example of this is “the ropes free but Dobbeys not”. The next day while leaving we sent the 2 riggers out together to de rig maskhill. On the man made shelf there was a small incident where one of the riggers had used 80lb fishing wire to fix his undersuit and oversuit. This resulted in a very near castration as the 80lb fishing wire was stronger than the undersuite.
Lessons learned: Don't be prepared, spend more time in the pub and pack the bags in the morning, check they can read topos and don't use 80 lb fishing wire to fix your undersuite.
Some members of the club showed a great keenness for combining rigging practice with their first underground camp in West chamber in the Oxlow/Maskhill system. The night before the bags were packed with the aim to get to the pub as quickly as possible.
There were 4 of us, 2 riggers and 2 teachers. Myself and one rigger went down Maskhill while the other 2 went down Oxlow. The first part went very well. Everything was rigged safely with a good amount of rope at the y hangs and we were going at a speed that allowed me to do my sewing. One of the hangers that the rigger decided to use was a wooden peg with a spinny slider hanger next to a very shiny p bolt. Some crabs also weren't done up but the rigger shouted this up before i got to them, so they were aware they had forgotten and got the problem resolved.
We had a quick break and discussed how to approach the travers and how to rig them for a group that ranged in height. The rigger expressed some annoyance at the fact i just free climbed it rather than using their traverse. They also showed some great acrobatic skills at getting the next pitch rigged and made their annoyance at the bolter very clear. It was just passed here were it was revealed he didn't know how to read a topo as we were meant to swap ropes but he thought the rope was 8m short. Apparently freshers dont come reading a topo and need to be taught this, which is a fail on my part. Apparently he thought the circled numbers were halfway down the rope rather than at the end of the rope. However, we had a great time sitting on a rocky ledge half way down the pitch figuring this out. Here we swapped over, I went up to rerig the pitch with the correct rope and realised the issue with being prepared and packing the bags the night before is that the pub is more motivating than bag packing. How the rigger had packed the bags is that if it was coiled he’d undone the wrap in the middle of the rope and just shoved it in, if it was daisy chained hed undone the chain and shoved the rope in as is. This turned rigging into a wrestling match with the rope. By the time we reached the west chamber we had turned to Dobby impressions to communicate. An example of this is “the ropes free but Dobbeys not”. The next day while leaving we sent the 2 riggers out together to de rig maskhill. On the man made shelf there was a small incident where one of the riggers had used 80lb fishing wire to fix his undersuit and oversuit. This resulted in a very near castration as the 80lb fishing wire was stronger than the undersuite.
Lessons learned: Don't be prepared, spend more time in the pub and pack the bags in the morning, check they can read topos and don't use 80 lb fishing wire to fix your undersuite.
Thanks to everyone who has supported this competition. I've received a message from DMM saying how much they are enjoying reading the entries!
DMM generously gave UKC 20 Karabiners - look out 👀 for the second competition which I'll run after this one.
Badlad's comment to me recently 'I don't know how you are going to choose a shortlist' 😁
DMM generously gave UKC 20 Karabiners - look out 👀 for the second competition which I'll run after this one.
Badlad's comment to me recently 'I don't know how you are going to choose a shortlist' 😁
aricooperdavis
Moderator
My second entry: how do we choose how to rig?
N.b. this is all just my opinion, which is probably not yours, and also almost certainly lacking considerable nuance, but it's interesting to think about none-the-less.
The purpose of rigging is to make progress sufficiently safe. "Sufficiently safe" is tricky to pin down, as it's contextual (are you a paid guide or a group of experienced mates?), a matter of personal opinion, and requires an impossibly comprehensive understanding of all of the different risk factors. I imagine, though, that most of us would broadly agree on what constitutes "sufficiently safe" for a given context. A handline/"confidence rope" may be sufficiently safe for a short scramble, a traverse line and cows-tails may be sufficiently safe for moving around a deep pit etc.
For most scenarios there are a range of different rigging options that meet this criteria, so selecting the most appropriate one requires some other considerations (making this a multi-objective optimisation problem). Some likely other considerations include:
So how do we factor rigging for rescue into this paradigm of "as simple as is sufficiently safe"? Well we could think about it as part of our definition of "sufficiently safe" - we're not thinking just about safety if things go well, but also safety if we need to haul, or in the event of bolt failure. Alternatively, my preference is to flip our paradigm around and try and find the "safest solution that remains sufficiently simple".
For example, rigging a y-hang with a two loop knot allows a central crab (such as these one of these DMM PerfectO's 😉) to be clipped between them to provide a haul point. This isn't really any more complex than rigging the same y-hang with a single loop knot (such as an alpine on one strand and a fig-8 on the other), but improves the level of safety considerably (also in the event of bolt failure when clipped into the y-hang). As such it is a safer solution, but still (likely) sufficiently simple.
As we learn more rigging techniques and gain experience, we grow our library of possible solutions that we can select from, and grow our understanding of risk, and what we might want our rigging to protect ourselves from.
This is what I'm trying to do when I rig - find the safest solution that is sufficiently simple. I'd love to hear about your approaches!
N.b. this is all just my opinion, which is probably not yours, and also almost certainly lacking considerable nuance, but it's interesting to think about none-the-less.
The purpose of rigging is to make progress sufficiently safe. "Sufficiently safe" is tricky to pin down, as it's contextual (are you a paid guide or a group of experienced mates?), a matter of personal opinion, and requires an impossibly comprehensive understanding of all of the different risk factors. I imagine, though, that most of us would broadly agree on what constitutes "sufficiently safe" for a given context. A handline/"confidence rope" may be sufficiently safe for a short scramble, a traverse line and cows-tails may be sufficiently safe for moving around a deep pit etc.
For most scenarios there are a range of different rigging options that meet this criteria, so selecting the most appropriate one requires some other considerations (making this a multi-objective optimisation problem). Some likely other considerations include:
- Ease of rigging
- Ease of use
- Weight/bulk/cost of required equipment
- Damage to the cave environment
So how do we factor rigging for rescue into this paradigm of "as simple as is sufficiently safe"? Well we could think about it as part of our definition of "sufficiently safe" - we're not thinking just about safety if things go well, but also safety if we need to haul, or in the event of bolt failure. Alternatively, my preference is to flip our paradigm around and try and find the "safest solution that remains sufficiently simple".
For example, rigging a y-hang with a two loop knot allows a central crab (such as these one of these DMM PerfectO's 😉) to be clipped between them to provide a haul point. This isn't really any more complex than rigging the same y-hang with a single loop knot (such as an alpine on one strand and a fig-8 on the other), but improves the level of safety considerably (also in the event of bolt failure when clipped into the y-hang). As such it is a safer solution, but still (likely) sufficiently simple.
As we learn more rigging techniques and gain experience, we grow our library of possible solutions that we can select from, and grow our understanding of risk, and what we might want our rigging to protect ourselves from.
This is what I'm trying to do when I rig - find the safest solution that is sufficiently simple. I'd love to hear about your approaches!
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Alex
Well-known member
As long as that knot is not a bowline on the bite of course
But I broadly agree simple is generally better provided it's not taken to the extreme of single anchor point pitches, we should always try and use a backup even if the anchor is sound (such as a big healthy tree) because there might be that 1 time in 10000 you tied the knot wrong and no one noticed!
A bowline on the bight is fine to clip a krab through provided you use both loops.
Maj
Well-known member
We were doing a pull through trip and I had just rigged the first pitch. The rope went through the two 'P' hangers and a krab clipped into a knot and around the abseil rope. I proceeded to rig my descender on the rope whilst Gareth who had recently added SRT skills to his caving toolbox, looked on with interest as I was using a rack (which I still use today). Gareth then, very politely said "Is that the right side of the rope". I then realised that I had in fact rigged my rack on the wrong side of the rope. Since I always load my descender and abseil down at least 1/2" (12.7mm for the younger generation) before removing my cows tail, it would only have been a little more embarrassing rather than a much bigger issue if I'd continued on the wrong side.
A reminder to always do that final check that all is in order before unclipping that cows tail.
In addition, never assume the person that has more experience gets it right every time. Better to speak up than think later "I wish I'd said something".
A reminder to always do that final check that all is in order before unclipping that cows tail.
In addition, never assume the person that has more experience gets it right every time. Better to speak up than think later "I wish I'd said something".
Maj's story reminds me of an incident in Meregill Hole . . . but whether it counts for this competition (which is about rigging) or not I'm not sure. Anyway, for what it's worth, I was rigging the first of the underground pitches (which is about 25 m?) and I installed my Stop, having failed to notice that I hadn't put the side-plate back in place. I had in fact removed my safety and had started to abseil when the next person down – who was also called Gareth – said, 'Err, hang on John, I think there's something wrong'. I looked down and had an 'Oh sh*t moment'; it occurred to me that for as long as the Stop was loaded, it would probably (??) be OK. Anyway, Gareth dropped a short bit of line to me, into which I gratefully clipped my safety cord.
AKuhlmann
Member
This day also started with planning to bolt an entirely different place but the first party in there descended the entrance pitch and wallowed through the mud for a very short distance before discovering the entire cave was underwater so we had to drive over to this second mine to salvage the day and do something productive.
My Tale:
It was the trip before Christmas and all of Bangor were at the TSG, having had a few boozy nights with the members. By the time Sunday morning rolled around, all the Christmas dinner was eaten, alcohol drunk, and too much dry coffee granules shotted (terrible decision making, DON'T do it.)
Jonty and I were leading the trips, we'd planned one of us would do an easier trip and the other a harder trip each day. Jonty had had the harder trip on the Saturday - they'd gone down Eldon Hole in the snow and reportedly spent lots of time warming the group shelter with the candles as they waited for people to prussik out. So it was therefore my turn for the bigger trip, having done a round trip of Devonshire Caverns and McDonalds the day before.
Flicking through the battered copy of Caves of the Peak District and scrolling down the list of Peak District Caving's sites I found Knotlow Caverns. The rigging topo looked fun and there was the potential for a great exchange trip. I'd rig the Climbing Shaft and the other party could come down the Main shaft. I got chatting to some members and they told me how hard the traverse at the bottom could be to avoid the waterfall was I made sure to pack extra rope and slings to clip to the bolts as footloops to help my group make their way across. I even managed to persuadea TSG party and our keenest members of Jonty's group the day before to go down the main hang! We got to the parking and this is where our problems started. The mud was incredibly soft and parking the vehicles was really hard - to get home in the end the car was completely unloaded and pushed to escape the mud.
We found the entrances and the bolts for the shaft cap were larger than anything I'd come across before. We got the climbing shaft open but even using cord around the nuts for the main shaft it was slow work. I decided to leave the hungover crew to sort out their own entry so my group could get a head start on the way down. All went swimmingly. I made my way across the waterfall traverse easily - had the rope rigged nice and tight to aid progress and the slings on the bolts made it super easy to make your way across. Even the big Y-hang pitch head I rigged looked great and was as user friendly as the bolts positions would allow. I even remembered to put in the deviation on the way down. For a second year student caver I was very chuffed with myself.
That was until I heard "we can't get it open" shouted down to me from the main shaft. It seemed the hungover, low in psyche group had given up! We'd be going out the way we came in it seemed. I then watched a fresher have a battle on the way down and get sprayed by the waterfall because the person before didn't put the deviation back in. When they saw the deviation put in they then asked me what that is and how they do it. At this point I was thinking "how have you not been taught this when you've done x,y, and z" Luckily I thought, we can send someone up ahead of you and you can watch what they do from here and I'll explain it. What a great idea. Nope. The person we were watching subsequently failed to do the deviation properly.
They got to it, un clipped it from the rope, and let go. We then watched them pendulum, while shouting, straight into the snow-melt waterfall. We then got to experience the doppler effect, as they swung in and out of the waterfall, now loudly cursing, and the shouting turning into a loud gargle when they swung back into the heavy spray. I looked back across at the fresher, her face stony with concern. Great. Not the reassuring demonstration I had hoped for. Thankfully our friend above had stopped swinging so they just ascended up and out the way, themselves and their pride now considerably dampened.
I then got the joy of ascending, putting back in the deviation for the fresher, and doing a changeover in the baltic spray so I was in the right place to dereg. De-rigging was actually quite easy and fun, albeit a tad physical. God was I glad for those slings as footloops to stand in, and for bringing the club Petzl Rig- It would have been a whole lot harder without either of them!
Thankfully, despite the many problems we'd encountered, everyone had a good trip and are still caving today!
Mark
Well-known member
Back in the early days of SRT, using a seat belt webbing harness, we set off to do a Lancaster hole to Top sink through trip. on arriving at the shaft we found it to be rigged with a shiny new looking green ulstron rope, to save ourselves the mither of walking back to Lancaster to recover our rope, we decided to use this one. I clipped in my figure of eight (complete with deep grooves) and set off down the rope, one of the party reminded me to go slowly so the descender didn't get too hot, (it was not long after the Gaping Ghyll incident where the rope melted through).
All went well until just as I was about to land on the top of the old iron ladder, propped up at the base of the shaft I felt a huge splice where the shiny green rope was joined onto a manky red rope to make it long enough to reach the floor, I couldn't get the splice through the descender and hung there for a while imagining the rope slowly melting, the group who's rope it was almost immediately appeared at the bottom of the shaft and managed to get the iron ladder a bit more vertical, so I was able to unclip from the rope and get to the bottom.
They had come in from County and were going out this way and didn't have a rope long enough so spliced the two together.
We offered to rig our rope and let them use that for which they were grateful.
All went well until just as I was about to land on the top of the old iron ladder, propped up at the base of the shaft I felt a huge splice where the shiny green rope was joined onto a manky red rope to make it long enough to reach the floor, I couldn't get the splice through the descender and hung there for a while imagining the rope slowly melting, the group who's rope it was almost immediately appeared at the bottom of the shaft and managed to get the iron ladder a bit more vertical, so I was able to unclip from the rope and get to the bottom.
They had come in from County and were going out this way and didn't have a rope long enough so spliced the two together.
We offered to rig our rope and let them use that for which they were grateful.
My story is from climbing not caving, but since it involves abseiling in the dark and muddy rope it might be relevant.
We went to climb the South Ridge of the Aiguille du Moine, in Chamonix. We had trouble finding the route, and reached the summit shortly before dark. The descent is by abseil down the South face, and is described in the guidebook as tricky, requiring zigzaging down ledges. The South Face is a recognised route, but a lot of the descent line is choss rather than clean rock. LEDs in the 1980s were only bright enough for indicator lights and calculator displays, so headtorches were bulky and heavy, so one between the two of us, and a short battery life, so we took a spare battery. A short conversation on the summit revealed that our arrangement about who would carry the spare battery had been misinterpreted as also implying who would carry the headtorch itself - and so we had a battery but no torch. There was no moon, but the sky was clear so starlight was available and we set off abseiling.
We were using the classic climbing abseil, tie the two ropes together, ensure we knew which side the knot was on and abseil on the double rope. The lighter coloured rope was longer, so it ran through the anchor and the knot was on the side with the darker rope (colours were not distinguishable by starlight). We had nearly 1000m to abseil, so by the end we had run out of slings and resorted to cutting bits of the main rope to make more, being careful to cut an equal amount from each rope so that the darker rope was still the right one to pull down.
Then the rope jammed on the pull down. Careful pulling on either end revealed that it wasn't totally jammed; pulling the dark end, it would move about a metre then stop, and pulling the lighter coloured end it would move again. In fact, pulling the lighter end, it moved further, and actually came all the way. Crisis averted, but how had the knot moved? Had we inadvertently cut more off the lighter coloured rope...?
The post mortem, in daylight, revealed the answer. The longer rope was actually darker in colour than the shorter one, but thinking back to the climb, had been clean when we started abseiling, so had appeared lighter than other which had run through a muddy patch on the ascent. As we dragged the ropes around the dirty rock, it had become just as dirty as the shorter rope, and then was the darker of the two.
We went to climb the South Ridge of the Aiguille du Moine, in Chamonix. We had trouble finding the route, and reached the summit shortly before dark. The descent is by abseil down the South face, and is described in the guidebook as tricky, requiring zigzaging down ledges. The South Face is a recognised route, but a lot of the descent line is choss rather than clean rock. LEDs in the 1980s were only bright enough for indicator lights and calculator displays, so headtorches were bulky and heavy, so one between the two of us, and a short battery life, so we took a spare battery. A short conversation on the summit revealed that our arrangement about who would carry the spare battery had been misinterpreted as also implying who would carry the headtorch itself - and so we had a battery but no torch. There was no moon, but the sky was clear so starlight was available and we set off abseiling.
We were using the classic climbing abseil, tie the two ropes together, ensure we knew which side the knot was on and abseil on the double rope. The lighter coloured rope was longer, so it ran through the anchor and the knot was on the side with the darker rope (colours were not distinguishable by starlight). We had nearly 1000m to abseil, so by the end we had run out of slings and resorted to cutting bits of the main rope to make more, being careful to cut an equal amount from each rope so that the darker rope was still the right one to pull down.
Then the rope jammed on the pull down. Careful pulling on either end revealed that it wasn't totally jammed; pulling the dark end, it would move about a metre then stop, and pulling the lighter coloured end it would move again. In fact, pulling the lighter end, it moved further, and actually came all the way. Crisis averted, but how had the knot moved? Had we inadvertently cut more off the lighter coloured rope...?
The post mortem, in daylight, revealed the answer. The longer rope was actually darker in colour than the shorter one, but thinking back to the climb, had been clean when we started abseiling, so had appeared lighter than other which had run through a muddy patch on the ascent. As we dragged the ropes around the dirty rock, it had become just as dirty as the shorter rope, and then was the darker of the two.
