2014 Picture of the Year

Although I do not disagree that RMR is at the top of the food chain, and that prussics and pulleys have been SOP for well over half a century, alot of that has been written off as "Old School". The common mindset is that if a system has more modern mechanical hardware in it then it must be better. Most of the guys and gals that I worked with basically said that they were taught to rig up a high line with handled ascenders, pro traxions and rope grabs. They have heard of using pulleys and friction hitches but didnt really understand the concept so they would just go with what they know. One thing about the floods last year was that it wasnt just isolated to one location, or even one county. Rescue workers and available gear were spread thin for the first couple days. Vern cleaned out the Estes Park Mountain Shop of static ropes and hardware on day 1. On day 3 a SAR unit from Los Vegas showed up and started breaking down our high lines and replacing the friction hitches with toothed handled ascenders while we were patrolling on the other side of the river doing welfare checks. Vern just about flipped his lid when we got back with an elderly man that we had to evacuate on a stokes litter and caught them in the act just as the Medivac was inbound. Bottom line is that although it may be a SOP to use a non-mechanical tryolean, most rescue workers are more familiar with using mechanical hardware and when thrown in to a disaster situation they just go with what they know.
 
kstreehuggerco said:
Bottom line is that although it may be a SOP to use a non-mechanical tryolean, most rescue workers are more familiar with using mechanical hardware and when thrown in to a disaster situation they just go with what they know.
Click to expand...

In a widespread disaster, all kinds of people show up and claim they know rope rigging, though most of them know only personal rigging and not rescue rigging. And, while some mountain rescue groups train people in self-rescue using the normal gear they would have with them (a very useful skill set), I know of no formal mountain rescue organization that allows the use of toothed ascenders (other than the smooth-ribbed rope grabs designed for rescue) for high-tension systems such as high lines (tyroleans) or for vertical raising/lowering of two-person rescue loads.

This is what happens when toothed ascenders are used for a rescue load:
MRVAS Ascender Failure 4.webp
 
Your preaching to the converted my friend. I am only reporting what I personally saw. I doupt the SAR unit from Las Vegas was a "formal mountain rescue organization". I do know all to well however, that even the most well planned and rehearsed operations orders and SOP's go to hell once the feces hits the fan on a grand scale. Confusion and lack of communication make command and control difficult at best. I noticed your pic in a previous thread and thought about mentionioning this story, but thought better of it. Now that the can of worms is opened..........
 
kstreehuggerco said:
Now that the can of worms is opened..........
Click to expand...

I responded to your comment that "When I showed him a simple z-rig using pulleys and simple friction hitches it blew his mind."

You made it sound as if a tree climber had taught something to a mountain rescue professional that he didn't know.
 
I think what blew his mind was that some schmuck, (me), just showed up onsite and started speaking his language. We worked well together. He had honestly never seen a distal hitch and thought it was pretty slick. I mean, I could have tried to show him how we used to teach setting up a one rope bridge using a transport tightening system like back in the day when I was a Ranger Instructor at the mountain phase of U.S. Army Ranger School but that is "Old School", and quite frankly, just barbaric. And yes, I was a R.I at Camp Frank D. Merrill, 5th Ranger Training Bn.
 
OK, I hear you now. There is no better general rigging manual than the Army FM5-125.

But I've got to ask, what was the function of the barbells at the tyrolean site? Was it used as a throw weight to get the rope across the stream? o_O
 
I have no idea what they were doing there. There was debris everywhere. Glen Haven volunteer fire dept was scrambling around wondering what to do days before the water reached its peak. It was pretty chaotic. But all in all everyone came together and it worked out. I still cant believe that we didnt have more fatalities. Alls well that ends well.
 
It's the "more than a half Century" pooh poohed by yours truly. But regardless, I have been (tree) climbing for coming up on a half century...and never really needed ANY help from any alpine or rescue or caver techniques or applications nor do I remember anyone else way back in the day needing any. but cheers to ya anyway. RE rescueman's last post
 
kstreehuggerco said:
I still cant believe that we didnt have more fatalities. Alls well that ends well.
Click to expand...

It was like that with Hurricane Irene here in Vermont in 2011.

We had every stream in the state at the highest flood levels since 1938, 260 local roads in 41 towns closed or washed out, almost 2000 local road segments and 300 local bridges damaged, 135 state roads and 33 state highway bridges damaged or destroyed, 2 covered bridges washed away, 13 communities completely isolated and requiring helicopter airlifts for food, water and medical evacuations, more than 100 homes destroyed or washed away, the VT State Hospital flooded and evacuated, $1 million dollars of corn lost from farm fields, total property damage more than $1 billion, but only 3 people drowned.

Ironically, we had to have the National Guard fly out from the Midwest to assist us because our Vermont Air Guard was deployed in Iraq.
 
treevet said:
It's the "more than a half Century" pooh poohed by yours truly. But regardless, I have been (tree) climbing for coming up on a half century...and never really needed ANY help from any alpine or rescue or caver techniques or applications nor do I remember anyone else way back in the day needing any. but cheers to ya anyway. RE rescueman's last post
Click to expand...

Your ignorance of the history of vertical rope technique notwithstanding, all modern vertical technique began with alpinists and cavers in the 1930s. Knotcraft and rope splicing was developed over thousands of years by mariners.

The ONLY thing that arborists uniquely contributed was DdRT - the most awkward and least efficient of them all.
 
RescueMan said:
Your ignorance of the history of vertical rope technique notwithstanding, all modern vertical technique began with alpinists and cavers in the 1930s. The ONLY thing that arborists uniquely contributed was DdRT - the most awkward and least efficient of them all.
Click to expand...
Though I know nothing of alpinists and cavers, I would hardly say that Ddrt is awkward and unefficient. It is simply "another way." I still find it very useful, even with all the beauty of Srt.
 
RescueMan said:
Your ignorance of the history of vertical rope technique notwithstanding, all modern vertical technique began with alpinists and cavers in the 1930s.
Click to expand...

I guess if that guy (what was his name again?) didn't invent the wheel...we all would be driving around with great difficulty...cars with square wheels huh?

Me thinks you are full of IT.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Kask Stihl NORTHEASTERN Arborists Wesspur TreeStuff.com Teufelberger Westminster X-Rigging Teufelberger
Back
Top Bottom