Wave Action Rescue Method

[Chaplain242]

Just before the trade show at the ITCC in Salt Lake City, 1997, was closing I crossed paths with Peter Jenkins. Peter told me that he had a concern about a safety issue for the Sunday intro climbs that he hosted with Tree Climbers International. ON alternate Sundays his crew would setup a lot of doubled rope systems in a tree. Climbers would use a foot loop to ascend. They were instructed never to put their hand above the hitch. They were told that at some time everyone would stop ascending or climbing and prepare for descent.

Peter had a few climbers stop, then grab their hitch to slip down the rope. One climber had slid down without control. Fortunately the hitch jammed while they were in free air.

Peter and I had talked about the SRT investigating that I was doing and my involvement with the chapter TCC and ITCC. He wondered if there was a protocol that could be adapted to add a layer of safety -to his event. He could never have enough volunteers to belay the tail of every climber. He knew that there were always some over-achievers who would grab the hitch and descend on their own before getting complete instructions.

Something that I'd read in On Rope or one of the other rock climbing books that I'd read came to mind. Big wall climbers had a practice called 'tying off short' where they would tie a jam knot under themselves in case their ascenders slipped.

My suggestion to Peter was to have the climbers tie slip knots every so often. Fifteen feet apart seemed like a good distance.

Before our chat I'd never heard nor read of anyone tying jam knots on the ascent rope. The technique sure wasn't my invention. After our conversation Peter developed a protocol for tying off short at TCI. It became SOP since then. The protocol has made its way into many other climbing training programs too since then.

These two stories are shared to provide some time-line or historical events to the discussion.

Tying off short when cliff SRT is used anytime you take hands off rope (you also lock off the device) the tying off short is just an extra safety. Auto block Is much the same (a safety on the descender)

 

[chiselbit]

Yes but you have a hand on the rope to self brake, the bottom belayer is just a safety... sometimes a narcissistic evil safety belayer... run downs you are literally sprinting down the face so when you stop quickly you can bruise kidneys/liver etc...

Ok. That sounds slightly better. Thanks for explaining

 

[metaspencer]

I've been using the Rope Runner Pro for several months now and wonder if I rely on it too much? It would make sense to backup the device (at least sometimes) with a simple prusik which would help in this and other potential user-error situations.

 

[Bart_]

A tech view point. If a multivendor is borne of the rope wrench family, tail weight on the rope definitely affects (increases) the upper wrench grab power. If I've done the math right, if you apply as much tension as the climber's hitch would normally apply, (I think this was 2/3 the climber's weight) you would get back the 1/3 weight braking power (failed lower runner rope pinch section is substitute for a hitch). Put your whole weight on it you might get 50% wrench braking power. This was a key distinction of the hitch hiker - rope tail weight didn't affect it. Akimbo is wrench based too. The device bending the rope principle applies. Zig zag would probably be very sensitive to tail weight as it's basically a mini self adjusting rack.

When the guy dove and pulled the line he was probably thinking zip line landing, more of a glancing blow onto the ground.

Some have said the original wrench/hitch combo is bomb proof. Wrench fails, you just stop. Pretty hard to tweak a wrench.

edit: the wrench tether experiences about 2/3 of the weight, I had it backwards. So extra tail weight could certainly bind up a wrench, making up only a needed 1/3 increase. Next time someone is out with a buddy, have them put about 1/2 their body weight on the tail of the SRT line and then confirm, even if you completely release your hitch, you can't descend.