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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Rope Skills 25-Nov-2004 At 8:41:57 PM jjobrien

Message

I've been in many sticky canyon situations my self and one thing to remember is it's never as easy in practice as in theory. Being pumbled with water can make the simplest opperation almost impossible, and the cold in a water fall means you've only got a couple of minutes to do something.
The other thing to remember is that it's very easy to make situations worse in a canyon.

When guiding I set up a double rope with alpine butterfly knots at the top and clip them together to make two single ropes. This is the fastest way to get a group down. I dispatch one abseiler at a time leaving one side of the rope clear for rescue.
If however your scenario involves an abseiler stuck on a double rope (should've known better) then I would descend the rope hand over hand with a back-up sling or ascender, I would clip into the victims descender and cut all remaining slings/prussics. This would take just a couple of seconds, and that's all you've got.