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Trapped in Squeeze Test for hours [The Age] 14-Apr-2021 At 6:18:58 PM IdratherbeclimbingM9

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On 12-Apr-2021 dalai wrote:
>Appreciate you guys going out to rescue.
>
>Like dan_b I don't understand the attraction and have never considered
>trying... If I want to go through tight squeezes I'd try caving!

+1 on the appreciation of rescuers attending incidents.

Caving... hmm; have done a bit of that...
In early days I considered squeezes a challenge and interestingly with experience over time I became better at them. In my opinion experience includes mastering the relaxation required to truly push ones limits in those situations. Essentially a mental exercise more so than just a physical grunt.

Once the dry squeezes became passe then I progressed to wet ones, ie negotiating syphons in the hope that an air-pocket would present itself to enable continuation... ~> a true adventure due to having an uncertain outcome, and the mind control involved is enormous, akin to my sketchiest leads on solo aid at my highest limit of ability...

In PNG I advanced our knowledge of a couple of unexplored cave systems using this technique, but didn't consider it at the time as hard core as full-on cave-diving!
One of those systems was at Mainamo in Chimbu Province PNG Highlands, and I connected one system to another. In the process I found the first human to have negotiated the passage that I explored... just bones! ... and probably the remains of someone disposed of after tribal fighting, down the sinkhole that I connected to.

It was a significant 'lead' that I established (in climbing terms equivalency), and involved syphoning several times in succession, with the squeezes involved constricting me to removing my helmet to fit through the passage. Air pockets consisted of a max of a half inch air space above water to ceiling that my sideways inclined head was able to suck oxygen through the corner of my mouth within, but not too much, as that would expand my chest too much and cause me to become jammed floor to ceiling in the syphons.

Fortunately at the time that I encountered a true challenge soon after while doing this, the passage ceiling height opened up, and the challenge then became negotiating a squeeze waterfall double step. Envisage if you will lying on the floor at the base of a set of stairs with a foot of space above them a third filled with water pouring down, and trying to worm your way up them, but your body naturally bends forward at ones waist, so the second step involves rolling over... but ones hips jam ceiling to floor in the process, ... so a contortionist full horizontal pivot is required before the roll-over can be accomplished in a feet first manner - kind of a corkscrew manoeuvre.

A squeeze test at Arapiles?
~> Pfft lightweight from the photos I've seen of it!
:-)