March 26, 2023 • 18 mins
There are an endless number of ways to get a rope stuck in a canyon. We talk about how to mitigate several common causes of a stuck rope and share techniques for getting a clean pull. We hiked around to retrieve our stuck ropes, but we're hoping that you won't have to!
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Episode Transcript
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Katie (00:08):
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Katie
Carma (00:10):
and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be
canyoneering.
Katie (00:14):
We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon
rigging and beautifully slotcanyons.
Basically we'd always rather becanyoneering.
But when we can't, we spendevery spare minute, we have
talking about it.
Carma (00:26):
This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
Please seek professionalinstruction and practice
technical skills in a controlledenvironment before entering slot
canyons.
Your safety is entirely your ownresponsibility.
Katie (00:41):
Welcome to our canyon crew! one of the biggest fears
we have as Canyon Ears isgetting our ropes stuck at the
repel and being trapped in thecanyon.
Trying to fix a stuck rope hasbeen the cause of multiple
fatalities for beginning andadvanced canine years alike.
Instead of trying to ascend astuck rope, We suggest carrying
extra rope.
(01:01):
But the best option of all isnot getting the rope stuck in
the first.
Carma (01:05):
Right?
So that's why in this episodewe're gonna share some tips for
getting a clean pull.
And these all come from ourexperience, or from examples
shared by our friends in thecommunity.
Most of us, after getting a ropestuck.
Really badly had to descend thecanyon on our spare rope and
then hike back to the top tofind out what exactly went wrong
(01:26):
and how to avoid it Next time.
We hiked around, so we're hopingthat you won't have to if you
use these tips and tricks.
So, uh, Katie, give us thegoods.
Katie (01:38):
One of the main causes of a stuck rope is the twists that
accumulate in the rope as yourepel.
These are particularly bad ifyou're repelling on some sort of
a classic eight device.
All of those twists arebasically gonna get stored in
the rope.
And when you finally try to pullthe rope through the anchor, the
wrap ring will start to push allof those twists down the rope.
But if too many twists start toaccumulate at the ring, it'll
(01:58):
create a barrel type knot thatwill block the rope from being
pulled down at all.
Carma (02:02):
Bummer.
Katie (02:04):
Major bummer.
If you're lucky, you might beable to reach the other side of
the rope and kind of saw it backand forth to untwist it, but
once that rope is outta reach,you're outta luck.
So Some of the things you can doto mitigate the twists in the
rope or choosing your devicespecifically.
I really like it when the lastperson goes down on some sort of
a stitch plate.
device.
Something that looks like yourclassic attc.
(02:25):
It has two distinct holes foreach of the ropes, and it keeps
'em separated the whole way downand helps to push those twists
out of the rope even if otherpeople had some sort of a figure
eight type device These twiststhat accumulate in the rope are
usually happening not justbecause of the Circle eight
descender that you're using, butalso because the rope.
At the bottom of the repel issitting on the ground.
(02:48):
When it's sitting on the ground.
It's not free to move and letthose twists out as each person
comes off rope.
If you have set the length ofthe rope, that will also be
super advantageous and helpfulin letting those twists untwist.
Each time somebody gets off ropeand the rope goes slack again.
Another thing you can do is havesomebody at the bottom stand
(03:08):
there as the rope goes up andjust put their hand on the rope
side that's going up, up andaway.
That way you have their handpushing those twists out the
bottom of the rope instead ofthem all accumulating up top.
Carma (03:18):
Yeah, that's super simple.
Katie (03:20):
Just remember whoever's standing there doing that needs
to stand far enough back so thatthey're not getting hit by rocks
or any other debris that'scoming down from the top.
Carma (03:29):
Another super common cause of sticking the rope is
when you have one strand layingon top of the other strand when
you go to pull.
So one strand can be trappingthe other side against the rock,
usually at the friction point ofthe rappel where the rope lays
across an edge or across, somesloping rock.
(03:51):
But it's especially tricky whenit happens like in a crack or a
deep rope groove.
One rope is pinning the otherone down, there's just too much
friction to be able to pull theropes through.
When you're in that situationsomething you can do really
quickly is trying flicking oneof the strands.
See if you can get it to like,jump off the other one.
(04:12):
Try to separate them.
You might have to untwist themif they've kind of gotten
twisted together.
Do what you can to try to sortthem out before you start
yanking on that rope.
Katie (04:22):
You can even have two different people walking
different ways each with one endof the rope flipping and pulling
and seeing if you can get it tomove.
Carma (04:28):
Another super common culprit for snagging your rope
is when your rope gets tangledaround a bush or looped around a
rock.
If possible.
Try not to have your ropepulling in the direction where
it's gonna fall on potentialbushes or protruding rocks that
the rope could loop around asit's falling.
Katie (04:51):
Yeah, if I'm afraid the rope's gonna get snagged in a
whole bunch of bushes.
I'll also try to watch the ropeand then pull really fast when
it gets to that bushy part sothat it's nice and smooth and
has less of a chance of gettingtangled in all that.
Yuck.
Carma (05:05):
Yeah, kind of try to get it to whip away from whatever
the obstacle is.
Katie (05:10):
Another really notorious way of sticking your rope is to
have a piece of gear, like acarabineer block, a figure eight
block, or an end cap.
Get caught in a pinch.
Most people can imagine a pieceof gear getting caught.
So let's focus on that end cap.
now.
If you can picture the end ofyour canon earing rope.
a lot of them have been dippedin a little bit of silicone on
the end to keep the ends fromfraying, and that adds dimension
(05:32):
to the rope.
So if you come to a little VSslot or something in the canyon,
that little piece can get lodgedin there and jam up your rope.
If you're a climber, you canpicture it working just like a
climbing nut, getting slotted inthe rock.
It gets stuck in there, pulleddown and set, and it does not
wanna move after that.
Karma and I actually had thishappen to us, it was in Portal
(05:55):
Canyon.
The repel was fairlystraightforward.
It was small and probably like10 feet.
We were able to just kind ofscramble up and grab it.
It wasn't really a big deal, butif that had happened much
higher, we would've been in alot more trouble because it was
not budging for the life of us.
So a tip to help out with that.
Cut that end cap off and secureyour rope in other ways put glue
(06:17):
on the inside and you can findthat on, canyoneering forums to
make sure that has a smooth slipover instead of catching on any,
parts that are sticking out.
Carma (06:27):
Yeah.
Honestly, if we hadn't been ableto reach it so easily, we
would've had to leave that ropebehind
Katie (06:34):
Yeah, or cut 20 feet off the end and go with the rest.
So to recap, four common ways ofgetting your rope snagged
include twists, accumulating atthe top one strand, trapping the
other strand against the rock.
The rope tangling aroundsomething or gear or end caps
getting caught.
The longer you can in ear, themore ways you'll find a stick a
(06:55):
rope, but those are the commonpitfalls you can try to avoid
from the start.
Carma (06:59):
Now with those problems in mind, we want to share with
you five techniques that we useas often as we can to get a
clean poll.
Katie (07:07):
First things first, one of the most important things you
can do is have a good angle ofpull.
When you are at the bottom of arepel and getting ready to pull,
you'll often be tempted to pullfrom right where you can reach
the rope.
We would suggest stepping back alittle bit if you step back.
20, 30 feet to a place where youcan see the rappel ring above
(07:28):
you.
Then when you go to pull yourrope, you're gonna have far less
edge friction on that pole, thatyou're gonna have to overcome
that really is probably the besttip I can give for a clean poll.
Carma (07:39):
Yeah, the farther down canyon you can go, usually the
better.
Katie (07:43):
A simple technique that took entirely too long to occur
to us is to have someone do atest poll before the last person
comes down.
You can have the second to lastperson take the pole rope down
and set everything up how it'llbe in the end.
Then someone at the bottom canpull a few feet of rope through
the anchor just to make sure itmoves.
If it doesn't move smoothly,then you can play with having
someone hold the pole rope offto one side or move to a
(08:06):
different location to pull andtest it again.
You might not test every repel,but when the pole looks a little
tricky, it can really help youcatch some problems and make
changes before the final.
Carma (08:17):
Another way to help make sure that you get a clean poll
is to have.
Your last person going down beyour most experienced person.
And there are a lot of reasonsyou should do that.
But in regards to pulling yourrope, the reason why you want
this person to be your mostexperienced person is cuz
they're probably the mostcomfortable on repel, which
(08:40):
means that they can payattention to where they're
setting the rope as they go overthe friction point A newer
person going down.
Can barely control their owndescent they can't be paying
attention to where one rope ortwo ropes are gonna be laid down
on a friction point.
So the last person can try tomake sure that the ropes stay
(09:02):
separated and that they're notlaying on top of each other and
they can just pick their spotsbetter for laying the rope down.
Katie (09:09):
Now for those of you who are maybe more on the advanced
side, courtesy rating can bereally helpful.
Kind of quickly, we'll talkabout courtesy rigging in
another episode, but courtesyrigging is when you have a hairy
repel that has a lot of edgefriction, maybe if the tree was
way like 10 feet back from theedge that you wanna repel over.
and there's not really a goodspot.
(09:32):
To repel from, then what youmight set up is courtesy,
rigging, and that allows theanchor point where the rope goes
through, where that wrapper isto be pulled up short for
everyone but the last person.
So a lot of people can starttheir repel from up near that
tree or whatever, walk down.
(09:52):
canyon a little bit, go over theedge, and then for the last
person, they actually unclipsomething and extend that
webbing so that the rapper isnow hanging over the edge and
they're gonna have a much harderstart.
It's gonna be more tricky forthem, but if they're your most
experienced person, then they'llprobably be able to handle that.
(10:13):
And then only one person had todo the tricky.
and you don't have a whole 10feet of friction to wear scar
marks in the rock or to addfriction that might be hard to
overcome when you do your pole.
Carma (10:28):
And like we mentioned before, the rope can get caught
in rope grooves.
Those types of starts often havedeep rope grooves.
and so you can avoid all ofthat.
By using courtesy rigging.
Katie (10:42):
There are some places where it's gotten so bad that
they're starting to refer tothat as the comb in the rock
because so many rope grooveshave scarred the rock that it
looks like a hair comb.
So we'd love to be respectfuland responsible in the canyon
and not leave a bunch of thosegrooves.
And also it's gonna help us tonot stick our rope.
A newer trick that I've pickedup pretty recently is to orient
(11:03):
the block down canyon when it'sa single stranded repel.
and that is Common practice inClass C or aquatic canyoneering,
might sound a littlecounterintuitive and I'll
explain how that looks a littlebit more.
So If you can picture, you'vegot maybe two bolt and you're
setting up a carabiner block,you would put the carabiner down
(11:26):
canyon from the two rings andthen you would have to repel off
the backside.
That kind of feels like theropes are crossing and it
doesn't necessarily feel correctat first.
But the reason that that we dothat is because when you go to
pull that rope, If the carabinerin front, it just pulls straight
out.
If the carabiner is on thebackside, you have to get the
(11:48):
rope to make a 90 degree turnbefore you're actually pulling
that carabiner into the freeair.
And so it's much more likely toget caught as opposed to when
it's down canyon.
When it's out in front.
It makes it a lot easier to pulland a lot less likely to get.
Carma (12:04):
Yeah, I like that.
That makes sense.
Cuz then it's a straight shotfor that carabiner to get pulled
down to you.
It's not having to whip aroundfirst.
Katie (12:14):
So what do you do when you do stick your rope?
I mean, this has happened.
I don't know if it's a rite ofpassage for canyons that someday
you will probably stick a ropeand have to deal with it.
What do you do?
Carma (12:28):
Well, first off, don't panic Don't just start going
crazy, yanking it to crapbecause you might make it worse.
If you didn't remember to godown Canyon before you started
pulling go down Canyon.
Have two people take each end ofthe rope and try to separate
them and try to figure out whatit is that is causing it to be
(12:52):
stuck.
Katie (12:53):
if it's good and stuck, you could use mechanical
advantage to help you get therope unstuck.
I've done this in an aquaticcanyon in Costa Rica where.
We got the ropes stuck.
The anchors are not alwaysgreat.
In those canyons where flashfloods just tear them apart
constantly.
And in this one, there was a lotof roots in the way and we knew
(13:14):
there was a chance it was gonnaget stuck and it did.
But there was a tree down at thebottom of the rappel, and so we.
Made an anchor out of that tree,and we used mechanical advantage
to pull that rope free.
When you do this, there is thechance that you're gonna pull it
over a sharp edge and get a coreshot, so know that that's,
that's in there.
But we had a pretty big angle onit, so we weren't rubbing
(13:37):
against very much at all, and wewere able to go ahead and pull
that free.
Carma (13:40):
So what if even with mechanical advantage, you can't
get your rope back.
Katie (13:45):
The next idea that might jump in your head is to climb
that stuck rope and try to freethe rope.
But this al actually been thecause of fatalities from really
experienced canyon beginners andeven guides who have climbed
their rope.
And it has broken loose asthey're climbing up it, it just
opens you up to a lot ofproblems, so be really cautious
(14:06):
when you're consideringsomething like that.
Carma (14:09):
Yeah, I would say if you're not a hundred percent
sure what is going on up at theanchor, and if you don't still
have both ends of that rope inyour hand, uh,
Katie (14:20):
it.
Carma (14:21):
Just leave it there.
You can.
Come back for it later, or thenext people down the canyon may
pick it up for you.
So I've often seen Facebookposts on canyoneering groups
saying, I stuck X, Y, Z rope inX, Y, z canyon.
If you find it, please return itto me.
Katie (14:40):
and you may be thinking, well, if I leave my rope, how do
I continue down the canyon?
pull out your extra rope Weusually go into canyons with at
least three times the length ofour longest repel.
that can be in all ropes or acombination of ropes and pole
cords.
It just depends on how forgivingthe canyon's gonna be.
It may seem like a lot of rope,but consider that it takes two
times the length of your repeljust to have enough rope to do
(15:02):
the repel and then pull it downafter.
So bringing three times thelength of the longest repel is
just a little bit of addedinsurance.
Carma (15:09):
Yeah.
When you're planning yourcanyoneering trip, you want to
be thinking about what you woulddo if you stuck your rope on the
longest repel.
So if the repel is known forsticking ropes, you might want
to be sure that you use a pullcord so that you're not risking
two repel ropes.
If it got stuck early on in thepole.
Katie (15:28):
Exactly.
So when you're deciding how manyropes to bring, think about how
many repels there are in thecanyon.
the more repels Means morechances for rope to get stuck.
So we like to bring a littlemore rope in canyons that have a
lot of repels Bringing thatextra rope just allows you an
option to leave the rope behindif you get one stuck.
Instead of taking the dangerousrisks of trying to climb up and.
Carma (15:50):
If you can't proceed down the canyon, then don't! Leave
the rope there and stay whereyou are, which means you're
gonna have to wait.
Katie (16:03):
And waiting's not the worst thing in the world.
In fact, after we startedcanyoneering more, we realized
that had we stuck to some of thetrade routes in our beginning
years of canyoneering, there area whole lot of other people with
permits in Zion who are gonnafollow you down at Canyon.
You will not be spending thatmuch time by yourself if you're
on trade routes.
(16:23):
So waiting can really be a goodoption in those areas.
Maybe a little less so if you'reout in the roost or far away.
That's why we've inventedsatellite communicators.
Carma (16:34):
right?
So hopefully you have yourinReach or whatever other
satellite communicator you use,and hopefully you've also
brought enough food andemergency gear that you can
spend the night in the canyonwhile you wait for help, from
either subsequent canyon yearsor from search and rescue.
To avoid all of that trouble, doeverything you can not to stick
(16:57):
your rope.
Try to get the twists out of therope.
Make sure one strand isn'ttrapping the other.
Remember that carabiners orother gear can get snagged.
Where possible avoid draggingyour rope down through bushes
and cracks Also, rep refinishyour end caps If they're thick
Katie (17:14):
some good techniques for getting a clean poll include
getting a good angle by steppingdown Canyon, doing a test poll
before the last person comesdown.
Saving the most experiencedperson for last to set the ropes
cleanly using courtesy riggingwhen the anchor is far back from
the edge and orienting the blockdown canyon.
Carma (17:31):
And if your rope does get stuck, it happens to the best of
us.
Don't panic and use your extra.
If you're totally hooked oncanyoneering like us, remember
to subscribe, so you don't missany episodes and you can also
reach out to us on Facebook.
(17:53):
with questions, comments, topicsyou wanna talk about, or just to
say, Hey, cuz We would love tohear from you.
Thanks for dropping in with usand we'll catch you on the wrap
side.
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Katie
Carma (00:10):
and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be
canyoneering.
Katie (00:14):
We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon
rigging and beautifully slotcanyons.
Basically we'd always rather becanyoneering.
But when we can't, we spendevery spare minute, we have
talking about it.
Carma (00:26):
This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
Please seek professionalinstruction and practice
technical skills in a controlledenvironment before entering slot
canyons.
Your safety is entirely your ownresponsibility.
Katie (00:41):
Welcome to our canyon crew! one of the biggest fears
we have as Canyon Ears isgetting our ropes stuck at the
repel and being trapped in thecanyon.
Trying to fix a stuck rope hasbeen the cause of multiple
fatalities for beginning andadvanced canine years alike.
Instead of trying to ascend astuck rope, We suggest carrying
extra rope.
(01:01):
But the best option of all isnot getting the rope stuck in
the first.
Carma (01:05):
Right?
So that's why in this episodewe're gonna share some tips for
getting a clean pull.
And these all come from ourexperience, or from examples
shared by our friends in thecommunity.
Most of us, after getting a ropestuck.
Really badly had to descend thecanyon on our spare rope and
then hike back to the top tofind out what exactly went wrong
(01:26):
and how to avoid it Next time.
We hiked around, so we're hopingthat you won't have to if you
use these tips and tricks.
So, uh, Katie, give us thegoods.
Katie (01:38):
One of the main causes of a stuck rope is the twists that
accumulate in the rope as yourepel.
These are particularly bad ifyou're repelling on some sort of
a classic eight device.
All of those twists arebasically gonna get stored in
the rope.
And when you finally try to pullthe rope through the anchor, the
wrap ring will start to push allof those twists down the rope.
But if too many twists start toaccumulate at the ring, it'll
(01:58):
create a barrel type knot thatwill block the rope from being
pulled down at all.
Carma (02:02):
Bummer.
Katie (02:04):
Major bummer.
If you're lucky, you might beable to reach the other side of
the rope and kind of saw it backand forth to untwist it, but
once that rope is outta reach,you're outta luck.
So Some of the things you can doto mitigate the twists in the
rope or choosing your devicespecifically.
I really like it when the lastperson goes down on some sort of
a stitch plate.
device.
Something that looks like yourclassic attc.
(02:25):
It has two distinct holes foreach of the ropes, and it keeps
'em separated the whole way downand helps to push those twists
out of the rope even if otherpeople had some sort of a figure
eight type device These twiststhat accumulate in the rope are
usually happening not justbecause of the Circle eight
descender that you're using, butalso because the rope.
At the bottom of the repel issitting on the ground.
(02:48):
When it's sitting on the ground.
It's not free to move and letthose twists out as each person
comes off rope.
If you have set the length ofthe rope, that will also be
super advantageous and helpfulin letting those twists untwist.
Each time somebody gets off ropeand the rope goes slack again.
Another thing you can do is havesomebody at the bottom stand
(03:08):
there as the rope goes up andjust put their hand on the rope
side that's going up, up andaway.
That way you have their handpushing those twists out the
bottom of the rope instead ofthem all accumulating up top.
Carma (03:18):
Yeah, that's super simple.
Katie (03:20):
Just remember whoever's standing there doing that needs
to stand far enough back so thatthey're not getting hit by rocks
or any other debris that'scoming down from the top.
Carma (03:29):
Another super common cause of sticking the rope is
when you have one strand layingon top of the other strand when
you go to pull.
So one strand can be trappingthe other side against the rock,
usually at the friction point ofthe rappel where the rope lays
across an edge or across, somesloping rock.
(03:51):
But it's especially tricky whenit happens like in a crack or a
deep rope groove.
One rope is pinning the otherone down, there's just too much
friction to be able to pull theropes through.
When you're in that situationsomething you can do really
quickly is trying flicking oneof the strands.
See if you can get it to like,jump off the other one.
(04:12):
Try to separate them.
You might have to untwist themif they've kind of gotten
twisted together.
Do what you can to try to sortthem out before you start
yanking on that rope.
Katie (04:22):
You can even have two different people walking
different ways each with one endof the rope flipping and pulling
and seeing if you can get it tomove.
Carma (04:28):
Another super common culprit for snagging your rope
is when your rope gets tangledaround a bush or looped around a
rock.
If possible.
Try not to have your ropepulling in the direction where
it's gonna fall on potentialbushes or protruding rocks that
the rope could loop around asit's falling.
Katie (04:51):
Yeah, if I'm afraid the rope's gonna get snagged in a
whole bunch of bushes.
I'll also try to watch the ropeand then pull really fast when
it gets to that bushy part sothat it's nice and smooth and
has less of a chance of gettingtangled in all that.
Yuck.
Carma (05:05):
Yeah, kind of try to get it to whip away from whatever
the obstacle is.
Katie (05:10):
Another really notorious way of sticking your rope is to
have a piece of gear, like acarabineer block, a figure eight
block, or an end cap.
Get caught in a pinch.
Most people can imagine a pieceof gear getting caught.
So let's focus on that end cap.
now.
If you can picture the end ofyour canon earing rope.
a lot of them have been dippedin a little bit of silicone on
the end to keep the ends fromfraying, and that adds dimension
(05:32):
to the rope.
So if you come to a little VSslot or something in the canyon,
that little piece can get lodgedin there and jam up your rope.
If you're a climber, you canpicture it working just like a
climbing nut, getting slotted inthe rock.
It gets stuck in there, pulleddown and set, and it does not
wanna move after that.
Karma and I actually had thishappen to us, it was in Portal
(05:55):
Canyon.
The repel was fairlystraightforward.
It was small and probably like10 feet.
We were able to just kind ofscramble up and grab it.
It wasn't really a big deal, butif that had happened much
higher, we would've been in alot more trouble because it was
not budging for the life of us.
So a tip to help out with that.
Cut that end cap off and secureyour rope in other ways put glue
(06:17):
on the inside and you can findthat on, canyoneering forums to
make sure that has a smooth slipover instead of catching on any,
parts that are sticking out.
Carma (06:27):
Yeah.
Honestly, if we hadn't been ableto reach it so easily, we
would've had to leave that ropebehind
Katie (06:34):
Yeah, or cut 20 feet off the end and go with the rest.
So to recap, four common ways ofgetting your rope snagged
include twists, accumulating atthe top one strand, trapping the
other strand against the rock.
The rope tangling aroundsomething or gear or end caps
getting caught.
The longer you can in ear, themore ways you'll find a stick a
(06:55):
rope, but those are the commonpitfalls you can try to avoid
from the start.
Carma (06:59):
Now with those problems in mind, we want to share with
you five techniques that we useas often as we can to get a
clean poll.
Katie (07:07):
First things first, one of the most important things you
can do is have a good angle ofpull.
When you are at the bottom of arepel and getting ready to pull,
you'll often be tempted to pullfrom right where you can reach
the rope.
We would suggest stepping back alittle bit if you step back.
20, 30 feet to a place where youcan see the rappel ring above
(07:28):
you.
Then when you go to pull yourrope, you're gonna have far less
edge friction on that pole, thatyou're gonna have to overcome
that really is probably the besttip I can give for a clean poll.
Carma (07:39):
Yeah, the farther down canyon you can go, usually the
better.
Katie (07:43):
A simple technique that took entirely too long to occur
to us is to have someone do atest poll before the last person
comes down.
You can have the second to lastperson take the pole rope down
and set everything up how it'llbe in the end.
Then someone at the bottom canpull a few feet of rope through
the anchor just to make sure itmoves.
If it doesn't move smoothly,then you can play with having
someone hold the pole rope offto one side or move to a
(08:06):
different location to pull andtest it again.
You might not test every repel,but when the pole looks a little
tricky, it can really help youcatch some problems and make
changes before the final.
Carma (08:17):
Another way to help make sure that you get a clean poll
is to have.
Your last person going down beyour most experienced person.
And there are a lot of reasonsyou should do that.
But in regards to pulling yourrope, the reason why you want
this person to be your mostexperienced person is cuz
they're probably the mostcomfortable on repel, which
(08:40):
means that they can payattention to where they're
setting the rope as they go overthe friction point A newer
person going down.
Can barely control their owndescent they can't be paying
attention to where one rope ortwo ropes are gonna be laid down
on a friction point.
So the last person can try tomake sure that the ropes stay
(09:02):
separated and that they're notlaying on top of each other and
they can just pick their spotsbetter for laying the rope down.
Katie (09:09):
Now for those of you who are maybe more on the advanced
side, courtesy rating can bereally helpful.
Kind of quickly, we'll talkabout courtesy rigging in
another episode, but courtesyrigging is when you have a hairy
repel that has a lot of edgefriction, maybe if the tree was
way like 10 feet back from theedge that you wanna repel over.
and there's not really a goodspot.
(09:32):
To repel from, then what youmight set up is courtesy,
rigging, and that allows theanchor point where the rope goes
through, where that wrapper isto be pulled up short for
everyone but the last person.
So a lot of people can starttheir repel from up near that
tree or whatever, walk down.
(09:52):
canyon a little bit, go over theedge, and then for the last
person, they actually unclipsomething and extend that
webbing so that the rapper isnow hanging over the edge and
they're gonna have a much harderstart.
It's gonna be more tricky forthem, but if they're your most
experienced person, then they'llprobably be able to handle that.
(10:13):
And then only one person had todo the tricky.
and you don't have a whole 10feet of friction to wear scar
marks in the rock or to addfriction that might be hard to
overcome when you do your pole.
Carma (10:28):
And like we mentioned before, the rope can get caught
in rope grooves.
Those types of starts often havedeep rope grooves.
and so you can avoid all ofthat.
By using courtesy rigging.
Katie (10:42):
There are some places where it's gotten so bad that
they're starting to refer tothat as the comb in the rock
because so many rope grooveshave scarred the rock that it
looks like a hair comb.
So we'd love to be respectfuland responsible in the canyon
and not leave a bunch of thosegrooves.
And also it's gonna help us tonot stick our rope.
A newer trick that I've pickedup pretty recently is to orient
(11:03):
the block down canyon when it'sa single stranded repel.
and that is Common practice inClass C or aquatic canyoneering,
might sound a littlecounterintuitive and I'll
explain how that looks a littlebit more.
So If you can picture, you'vegot maybe two bolt and you're
setting up a carabiner block,you would put the carabiner down
(11:26):
canyon from the two rings andthen you would have to repel off
the backside.
That kind of feels like theropes are crossing and it
doesn't necessarily feel correctat first.
But the reason that that we dothat is because when you go to
pull that rope, If the carabinerin front, it just pulls straight
out.
If the carabiner is on thebackside, you have to get the
(11:48):
rope to make a 90 degree turnbefore you're actually pulling
that carabiner into the freeair.
And so it's much more likely toget caught as opposed to when
it's down canyon.
When it's out in front.
It makes it a lot easier to pulland a lot less likely to get.
Carma (12:04):
Yeah, I like that.
That makes sense.
Cuz then it's a straight shotfor that carabiner to get pulled
down to you.
It's not having to whip aroundfirst.
Katie (12:14):
So what do you do when you do stick your rope?
I mean, this has happened.
I don't know if it's a rite ofpassage for canyons that someday
you will probably stick a ropeand have to deal with it.
What do you do?
Carma (12:28):
Well, first off, don't panic Don't just start going
crazy, yanking it to crapbecause you might make it worse.
If you didn't remember to godown Canyon before you started
pulling go down Canyon.
Have two people take each end ofthe rope and try to separate
them and try to figure out whatit is that is causing it to be
(12:52):
stuck.
Katie (12:53):
if it's good and stuck, you could use mechanical
advantage to help you get therope unstuck.
I've done this in an aquaticcanyon in Costa Rica where.
We got the ropes stuck.
The anchors are not alwaysgreat.
In those canyons where flashfloods just tear them apart
constantly.
And in this one, there was a lotof roots in the way and we knew
(13:14):
there was a chance it was gonnaget stuck and it did.
But there was a tree down at thebottom of the rappel, and so we.
Made an anchor out of that tree,and we used mechanical advantage
to pull that rope free.
When you do this, there is thechance that you're gonna pull it
over a sharp edge and get a coreshot, so know that that's,
that's in there.
But we had a pretty big angle onit, so we weren't rubbing
(13:37):
against very much at all, and wewere able to go ahead and pull
that free.
Carma (13:40):
So what if even with mechanical advantage, you can't
get your rope back.
Katie (13:45):
The next idea that might jump in your head is to climb
that stuck rope and try to freethe rope.
But this al actually been thecause of fatalities from really
experienced canyon beginners andeven guides who have climbed
their rope.
And it has broken loose asthey're climbing up it, it just
opens you up to a lot ofproblems, so be really cautious
(14:06):
when you're consideringsomething like that.
Carma (14:09):
Yeah, I would say if you're not a hundred percent
sure what is going on up at theanchor, and if you don't still
have both ends of that rope inyour hand, uh,
Katie (14:20):
it.
Carma (14:21):
Just leave it there.
You can.
Come back for it later, or thenext people down the canyon may
pick it up for you.
So I've often seen Facebookposts on canyoneering groups
saying, I stuck X, Y, Z rope inX, Y, z canyon.
If you find it, please return itto me.
Katie (14:40):
and you may be thinking, well, if I leave my rope, how do
I continue down the canyon?
pull out your extra rope Weusually go into canyons with at
least three times the length ofour longest repel.
that can be in all ropes or acombination of ropes and pole
cords.
It just depends on how forgivingthe canyon's gonna be.
It may seem like a lot of rope,but consider that it takes two
times the length of your repeljust to have enough rope to do
(15:02):
the repel and then pull it downafter.
So bringing three times thelength of the longest repel is
just a little bit of addedinsurance.
Carma (15:09):
Yeah.
When you're planning yourcanyoneering trip, you want to
be thinking about what you woulddo if you stuck your rope on the
longest repel.
So if the repel is known forsticking ropes, you might want
to be sure that you use a pullcord so that you're not risking
two repel ropes.
If it got stuck early on in thepole.
Katie (15:28):
Exactly.
So when you're deciding how manyropes to bring, think about how
many repels there are in thecanyon.
the more repels Means morechances for rope to get stuck.
So we like to bring a littlemore rope in canyons that have a
lot of repels Bringing thatextra rope just allows you an
option to leave the rope behindif you get one stuck.
Instead of taking the dangerousrisks of trying to climb up and.
Carma (15:50):
If you can't proceed down the canyon, then don't! Leave
the rope there and stay whereyou are, which means you're
gonna have to wait.
Katie (16:03):
And waiting's not the worst thing in the world.
In fact, after we startedcanyoneering more, we realized
that had we stuck to some of thetrade routes in our beginning
years of canyoneering, there area whole lot of other people with
permits in Zion who are gonnafollow you down at Canyon.
You will not be spending thatmuch time by yourself if you're
on trade routes.
(16:23):
So waiting can really be a goodoption in those areas.
Maybe a little less so if you'reout in the roost or far away.
That's why we've inventedsatellite communicators.
Carma (16:34):
right?
So hopefully you have yourinReach or whatever other
satellite communicator you use,and hopefully you've also
brought enough food andemergency gear that you can
spend the night in the canyonwhile you wait for help, from
either subsequent canyon yearsor from search and rescue.
To avoid all of that trouble, doeverything you can not to stick
(16:57):
your rope.
Try to get the twists out of therope.
Make sure one strand isn'ttrapping the other.
Remember that carabiners orother gear can get snagged.
Where possible avoid draggingyour rope down through bushes
and cracks Also, rep refinishyour end caps If they're thick
Katie (17:14):
some good techniques for getting a clean poll include
getting a good angle by steppingdown Canyon, doing a test poll
before the last person comesdown.
Saving the most experiencedperson for last to set the ropes
cleanly using courtesy riggingwhen the anchor is far back from
the edge and orienting the blockdown canyon.
Carma (17:31):
And if your rope does get stuck, it happens to the best of
us.
Don't panic and use your extra.
If you're totally hooked oncanyoneering like us, remember
to subscribe, so you don't missany episodes and you can also
reach out to us on Facebook.
(17:53):
with questions, comments, topicsyou wanna talk about, or just to
say, Hey, cuz We would love tohear from you.
Thanks for dropping in with usand we'll catch you on the wrap
side.
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