RRC Archives

Today at Military two guys were simul-repelling and one of them went off the end of the rope, and so of course the other guy decked too. I wasn't there to see it happen, but one of the injured guy's brother told me everything. The guy who repelled off the end of his rope fell about 15 feet and his back landed on a rock, and he might have possibly shattered his tail bone. The other guy might have broken his wrist, but at least they both are still alive. The guy I talked to said he was going to give his brother hell about not tying knots in the end of the rope. He said that the fact that their rope got stuck in a tree below them might have been what triggered the incident, but we decided that didn't make any sense considering knots in the end of the rope would have avoided the entire incident.

The entrance trail(I forgot the name of it) was closed, so nobody was allowed to take it to Military or Left Flank during the rescue operation. A group of people were acting all bitchy about it and I told them we were going to bush-wack around the blockade so that we could pick up the trail and go hike to Grey's arch, and that we would be happy to take them to the trail to Left Flank where their friends were waiting for them. They decided not to follow and just sit in the parking lot and wait for their friends instead... (insert gumby remarks here).


Not that I trad climb, but I am curious; what do you do if you are simul-repelling and you both get to the end of the rope and it isn't long enough to reach the bottom?

I guess in some situations one person could go indirect and have the other person just climb back up, and then he could top belay you and you two could figure out a better way to repel down, for instance in two pitches instead of just the one, but what if you are repelling where there was no way to climb back up?

get out your prussiks.

wha? why? i can see doing this off a featureless arch (maybe) but otherwise it seems the doublemint twins take on sport rappelling. sorry, what am i missing? hey buddy!- when we get down lets play yo-yo's together?

Simul rapping isn't that hard but its easy to mess up. i generally only due it when i have a lot of pitches to rap and/or when i need to get down fast for rain or darkness. I don't understand why there would be a need to do that at military however, i know very little of the facts and coming from Redpoint I know I should be extra cautious.

Knots will definitely help prevent accidents. More importantly though is to be very competent and have a competent partner. I would be interested to know what % of user error accidents like this occur to people with less than 2 years of experience. my guess is that it would be significant

I like to smack against my partner when I simul repel. Kind of like those clacker things that kids used to have. You smack against each other repeatedly all the way down. It's sooo cool

I guess that explains why we had left flank all to ourselves today

apologies for interrupting a perfectly good hijacking.

HITTING THE GROUND SUCKS.

I fully encourage people to always tie a knot in the ends of their ropes when rappelling.

I am glad they are ~ok. This occasion sounds easily avoidable and unnecessary. A few things I hope are taken away from the experience:

-Know how, when, where your rappel ends. IF UNCERTAIN (or just to be in the habit of practicing safety)-tie the ends.
-IF UNCERTAINTY exists-assess the limitations. Take these variables into account. Learn the prussik.
-UNCERTAINTY EXISTS.

ok, sorry for the obvious. Enjoy.

If the tails of your rope(s) dont reach the ground you have a couple of options.
1- if you have the gear: build an anchor, go to the deck, reclimb the route, get your gear back, rap with proper length ropes.
2- if you have a prusik: go back up, dont fukc it up this time.
3- if you dont have a prusik: batman back up the rope (sucks if its overhanging) or downclimb pulling the rope with you.
No matter what, you will only do it once.

I'm sorry these guys got hurt, but don't people look where they're going when they rappel? I always tend to look down, and hence look at my rope.

my question is, what rout were they on at military that a double rope repel did not reach the ground? Were they 40 meter ropes? How many times did they cut their 60? Or where they really trying to get off a two to three pitch climb (jungle beat 180 ft) with only one 60?