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I agree with Piggy on this one, I have rappelled from towers, helicopters, and the occasionally high crag or water fall, and I have fortunatley not encountered any type of failure if properly clipped into the eight ring. I became a climber by
coming to the Gorge to rappell, I could'nt understand why every climber I asked about rappelling showed severe disgust at the thought of doing it for fun. I use equipment made primarily for rappelling, climbers use atc's and all kinds of different belay devices, that even though I know they work, still hesitate to use them unless I have to. I even get a little sketched when Aussie rappelling using the eight on back of my harness and it's made with an Aussie attachment. I have seen more people taught by dummies, who were shown by idiots, how to rappell. I recently rappelled with some other people and they were killing themselves on a free rappel with a cave mouth, I offered some advice, but beer and ego prevented them from accepting any help. I hope they made it back to Cincy that night, I left for fear of having to carry one of them out.
I pray for this guys sanity, especially if he hooked her up.........

The info provided right now shows she was still properly rigged at the harness, and the two ropes tied in a EDK where together. So some how the anchor failed or she tried to pass over the knot and lost her brake.

rhunt wrote:not to derail this thread because I think it is important...

Has anyone ever heard of the rope coming out of a biner during a fall because of a "back clip"? Is there any actual domumentation of that really happening?

Yes. It happened to a Southern Illinois/ Minnesota climber named Chris Ecklund. In fact, according to him, in that one fall, a backclipped biner came unclipped and the resulting load snapped the lower biner because a fin of rock kept the gate open.

Bad stuff.

Someone on the RC thread said "back up my rappel with a prusick off of my leg loop". I learned to use prusik with autoblock clipped to the main loop on the harness. Anyone know what's the point of clipping to the leg loop? Which is safer?

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this concept has finally worked up to it's potential