March 12, 2023 • 18 mins
Part 1: Learn the benefits of releasable rigging, the 3 essential parts of any releasable rig, and which releasable blocks we prefer.
Resources:
Compact Secure figure 8 block rigging video
Eight Mule Overhand (EMO) figure 8 block rigging video
Totem Block rigging and releasing video from Rock Exotica (starting @ 2:07)
Totem Block rigging Facebook photo from @totemrigging
Totem Block rigging video from North Wash Outdoors
Hoodoo Block user manual from On Rope
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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!
Carma (00:45):
In the last episode we talked about double strand
rigging sometimes called tossand go, and we talked about
single strand rigging using acarabiner block.
Those are both static riggingoptions.
Today we are going to talk aboutour favorite rigging type, which
is releasable rigging.
Katie, have you ever heard ofsomeone getting their hair
(01:06):
caught in their repellingdevice?
Katie (01:08):
I have, um, over years of canyoneering.
I've actually seen it threetimes.
Carma (01:12):
I saw it happen to a friend of mine about a month
ago.
We were in just a really chilllocal canyon and she was about
halfway down a repel that wasabout 175 feet.
She has probably like mediumlength, curly hair and a couple
of her curls had just gottenzipped right up into her device
(01:33):
and got caught.
Katie (01:34):
Oh my gosh, karma.
I remember you telling me aboutthis, and wasn't her hair
pulled.
Carma (01:38):
Yeah, it totally was.
Katie (01:40):
Yeah, and just those pieces fell out of her ponytail
while she was looking down.
Carma (01:45):
Now, she was lucky that on the second half of this
particular repel, there are aseries of ledges.
And so she was able to find aspot where she could get her
toes on the ledge and stand upenough where she could unweight
her device and she could justyank those curls out of the
device and tuck them back.
And then she was able tocontinue down to the bottom of
(02:07):
the repel without any problems.
Now, if this had happened on thefirst half of that repel, she
would've been stuck.
Stuck because the first half ofthe repel was just a sheer
cliff, so she wouldn't have beenable to unweight her device so
easily.
And when I got to the bottom,cuz I came down after her, she
showed me the curls that hadgotten stuck and they were
(02:28):
straightened out.
Like they hung down quite a bitfarther than the rest of her.
Katie (02:33):
Oh
Carma (02:34):
Yeah, than the rest of her ringlets.
It was like very obvious,
Katie (02:37):
is not the hair straightener you wanna use
Carma (02:39):
no no not a good option.
Katie (02:44):
I remember being totally baffled the first time I saw
this happen and just wonderinghow the heck did that even
happen.
I was at a rock climbing gym andsomeone was learning how to
repel off of a platform and theywere free hanging.
So I thought, what is there evento get caught on?
that Day.
I started doing the math.
I looked at her harness and Ijust thought, oh, wow.
So If you start at your hips,belay loop adds three inches,
(03:05):
then the carabiner adds threeinches, then the device adds
three or four inches, and all ofa sudden your device is sneaking
closer and closer to your face,and then you go ahead and look
down and it's, it's very likelythat you can get your hair
caught in there because it'scrept up so high.
And even if everyone in yourgroup has short hair, let's not
forget the backpack straps andclothing are also notorious for
(03:26):
getting stuck in the rappeldevice.
Doesn't matter how experiencedyou are, this type of thing
could happen to anybody.
Everyone gets tired in canyonsand sometimes we get in a hurry
or we didn't realize thatsomething that we tucked back
has flopped out.
So having a friend to check youbefore you go over, that should
be part of that partner check.
if a person who gets stuck onrepel is able to self rescue,
that's awesome, and hopefullythey can fix the problem on
(03:48):
their own and continue down therepel.
But if the person stuck onrepel, isn't carrying gear on
their harness or doesn't havethe knowledge to self rescue,
then we have a problem.
If you've rigged, releasable,then you have a solution
Carma (04:00):
yeah, a quick and easy solution.
Katie (04:02):
for sure.
Carma (04:03):
Having someone stuck on repel isn't the only issue that
releasable rigging can solve.
Honestly, for me, releasablerigging is my number one go-to
when I get to repel and I can'tsee the bottom.
So if I cannot visually confirmthat the rope is on the ground,
I just go automatically torelease bill rigging because
then I know for sure thatwhoever I send down first, if
(04:27):
they end up coming up short onthe rope length, then I can
easily lower them and it doesn'thave to turn into a ascension
process for that first person ora conversion rescue.
It's super easy to just adjustthe rope length on the fly.
If you've rigged, releasable,and that person who's on repel,
that first person on the ropecan then just confirm for you
(04:50):
when the rope is touching theground and when it's safe for
them to go all the way down.
Katie (04:53):
Yeah, we saw this happen in, I think it was Birch Canyon,
where we had read in the betathat there was a spot where it
was a rope stretcher for a 200foot rope because it was a 100
foot repel.
We came up to the repel and ithas a ton of webbing to get it
over the edge.
So what people are saying is,well, if there's about 30 feet
of webbing there, then it'sgonna be a rope stretcher, but
(05:15):
it's gonna touch.
But it's really hard to know forsure so when karma went over the
edge, we rigged her releasableso that she could just let me
know if she was touching or not.
And we didn't have to have anyother problems there.
Carma (05:26):
Katie, you've recently been in a lot of class C canyons
on your trip to Costa Rica, andI hear that releasable rigging
is just like standard for ClassC canyons.
Katie (05:37):
Yeah.
Releaseable rigging is really anessential skill for doing
aquatic canyons.
It's most helpful I think, insetting the rope length.
Costa Rica had some, probablysome more mild waterfalls and
Seattle had some ragers wherethey just really have a lot of
power behind them.
And one of the techniques thatyou can use for that is to set
(06:00):
your rope length right at orjust above the water level so
that you can repel right off theend.
It makes it so that you don'thave to try to do a wet
disconnect while a waterfall ispounding your head.
So in order to achieve that in aplace where you still might not
be able to see the bottom fromthe anchor, What has become kind
of a, a really cool practice isto set your rope length short by
(06:21):
about five feet or, or so, andthen send the repeller over
knowing, you know, you've,you've communicated that we're
doing this right, knowing thatit's going to be short, and they
can then put their whistle intheir mouth and whistle up that
they need more rope.
And then as soon as it's rightwhere they want it, they whistle
stop.
Then everybody after that justgets to repel right off the end
of their rope and swim awayreally helps.
(06:43):
Not to have a crap ton of ropein the water.
That waterfall is creating thisbig old mess of movement that if
you have extra rope in thewater, it can tie it around a
log that's in the pool.
Then you could lose your rope.
You could get stuck there tryingto get off.
You know, you just can't get offthe rope because the water's
pounding you.
It can create a lot of problemsto have extra rope down there,
(07:03):
so setting it at just the rightlength is really, really
helpful.
Releasable riggings also helpfulin Class C Canyons.
In the event of a rescue, uh,you have a lot more options to
work with in lowering somebodyand getting'em out of a hairy
spot.
It doesn't solve every problembecause like if you have a foot
entrapment or something likethat, if someone's foot stuck,
(07:24):
then lowering them might justend up water boarding them.
So it's not always the rightanswer, but it is something that
really helps because you haveoptions at the time.
If you can communicate withthem, if you can see what's
going on, then you really can doa lot to help.
Carma (07:39):
Yeah, you're just ready to go for whatever comes up.
Another thing that releasablerigging is handy for is allowing
you to creep the rope over sharpabrasion points.
And this helps minimize ropedamage.
So if you have a sharp edge thatyou're going over, you can let a
little bit of rope out inbetween each rep Propeller.
So that that high friction areaisn't going to be on the exact
(08:01):
same spot of the rope for everysingle repeller because if you
leave that rope in the samespot, that damage can compound
like each person goes over.
And especially if it's a longrepel, there's kind of a sawing
effect that happens when peopleare, bouncing as they go down.
And you could end up cutting thesheath of your rope and have a
(08:21):
core shot, meaning the sheathhas been sliced through and now
the white core of the rope isvisible.
And a rope with a core shot isnot safe to be repelling on.
It could lead to total ropefailure.
Katie (08:36):
A rope with a core shot's done.
I mean, you have to isolate thatcore shot and that rope is done.
There are a whole bunch ofreleasable rigging setups.
When we first started looking atreleasable rigging, we were
overwhelmed by the options thatwere available out there.
Looking at all the differentways to do things, all the
different variations on things.
It was really hard to understandwhat was right and why it was
(09:00):
right and differentiate betweenJoe Blow, just showing something
cool in his garage and someonewho actually is using a tried
and true method.
What we wanna break down for youis the three parts of releasable
rigging setups so that you cankind of start to see the common
thread through all of these.
It really helped us tounderstand releasable rigging to
see these three essential parts.
Carma (09:20):
The first essential part of any releasable rigging setup
is the friction.
So if you think of your rappeldevice and how you have an
initial friction setting on yourrappel device, this is similar
to how a releaseable rig is setup.
So you have that first frictionsetting, and this is what you
use to control the belay whenyou are lowering someone on
(09:42):
rappel.
The second essential part of anyreleasable rig is the lock off.
The lock off is used to securethe rope, so that doesn't move
until you want it to move.
This is usually done by addingadditional wraps around or
through the repelling device anda cleat, or by tying a hitch.
So this is similar to likelocking off your device when
(10:03):
you're on repel.
The third essential part of anyreleasable rigging setup is the
safety.
This makes sure that the lockoff can't come undone by
accident.
Usually you do this by clippinga carabiner or a canyon quick
draw to the device to preventthe rope from popping off from
around the device.
Katie (10:21):
Right, and Today we're gonna talk about two kinds of
releasable rigging, and thesystems we're gonna talk about
are releasable blocks and twinreleasable systems.
There are a whole bunch ofoptions within these two
categories, but today we're justgonna focus on a few of our
favorites.
and We are actually gonna postsome videos.
You'll be able to get thosethrough the links in the show
(10:42):
notes, we'll make thoseavailable on youTube, and on our
Facebook page, so that you cansee in detail what we're gonna
talk about in the next fewminutes here.
But just remember, we're gonnatalk briefly about it in this
podcast and then you canactually go look at the details
for yourself, uh through those.
Releasable blocks are mypersonal favorite and I
specifically like to do them ona figure eight descender.
(11:05):
much like a carabiner block.
Releasable blocks are tied on tosome descending device and put
on the pole side of the rope sothat they will butt up against
the quick link and lock out therope for the rappel side.
What I love about this riggingoption is that the anchor
manager's job is pretty simple.
They can be hands free unlessthe rope length needs to be
adjusted.
(11:26):
And also the last person downdoesn't have to change anything
if they don't want to.
They can toss the pull side downand repel on the same setup that
everyone else did.
it examples of releasable blocksare highly popular.
Figure eight blocks the totemblock.
The hoodoo block, and I'm surethere's even more than that.
Carma (11:44):
within that more specific category of figure eight blocks.
If you look online, there are somany variations in how to set
them up.
That's why it made it hard forus when we were trying to learn
it at first, because we couldn'treally tell who had a cool way
of doing it and who was justdoing it
Katie (12:04):
Yeah.
Right.
Carma (12:05):
like we really weren't comfortable learning that way.
There's not like one setestablished way to do it.
So for figure eight blocks, whatwe are gonna focus on are the
two most popular figure eightblock options that have a
generally accepted way ofrigging them correctly.
Katie (12:23):
for dry Canyons, I like the compact secure Figure eight
block.
It's tied on a figure eightdescender.
When I first started riggingwith figure eight blocks, I
started with kind of a variationthat now I think is maybe a
little harder to check than Ireally like.
So I moved on to the compactSecure, and what I like about
(12:44):
this one is it's really prettyand what I mean by that is it's
symmetrical.
and easy to inspect because it,has so much, symmetry to it.
You can tell if you missed, apiece or a step or anything like
that.
So This one I feel like iseasier to teach two other people
and just know that you have itright.
The only downside to this one isthat it can potentially be a
(13:07):
little more sticky, and that'swhy like it in dry canyons where
you usually have all the time inthe world rather than in aquatic
canyons where time might be ofthe essence.
the compact secure basicallytakes a figure eight descender
and you pull a bite of ropethrough the big hole and over
the horn and then flip it aroundand pull another bite of rope
the other direction through thehole and over the horn.
(13:28):
And then you add your safety tothat.
So with this one, you have a lotof twists that end up on the
front side and the backside.
And the only downside to doingthat is that the ones that are
on the backside add a lot offriction when you actually wanna
release it.
So the carabiner is actuallysuper helpful cuz you can use it
to wrench it around a littlebit, because it does have a
slight more propensity to getstuck and it might take some
(13:50):
more time to get it to release.
Usually with that carabiner youcan pull it off the wall and,
and get everything set up prettyquick.
So It sticks a little more, butusually you have time
Carma (13:59):
yeah.
In a dry canyon you have kind ofall the time in the world
compared to in an aquaticcanyon, right?
Katie (14:05):
exactly.
And if that is a worry, then Iwould definitely go with the E M
O, and that's that eight muleoverhand.
So it starts with a, a figureeight block as well, and it's
just wrapped differently.
So instead of coming back overitself and creating a lot of
rope friction on the backside ofthe device, instead the rope
comes through the big circle andover the horn and then wraps a
(14:28):
couple of more times before itis muled off.
And then the overhand is added.
That one is really cool becauseit releases super smooth, but it
does have a large loop of ropethat comes off the end of it.
it's awesome to be able tosafety off, of that but I do
worry about that one a littlebit more, getting caught in crap
(14:49):
on the way down.
And so I'm more likely to maybere rig that one for the last
person down or just to need toconsider that loop of rope
that's hanging out.
It's a little less compact, um,but also very releasable.
So those are kind of the prosand cons of the two and my two
go-tos.
Carma (15:08):
That's awesome.
Where you've had a lot ofopportunity to use those in
aquatic canyons and to know thesubtleties and the differences
between them
Katie (15:17):
Yeah,
Carma (15:17):
Along with the many figure eight block options, we
also have the totem block andthe hudu block.
The nice thing about those twoblocks is that they are simple
to learn just because there isone clear, established way to
set them up, and that way ispublished by the manufacturers
of the device.
So you can look it up andthere's just one way
Katie (15:39):
Yeah, and someone can check that one way before you go
over the repel, just say, isthis right?
Oh, I see it.
Carma (15:45):
Yeah, I have used the totem block a little bit.
I've experimented with it some.
And the downside of the totemblock versus a figure eight
block is that it is a littlebigger of a device to be hauling
around all through a canyon anda little bigger of a device to
pull over an edge, although it'snicely rounded like a figure
eight.
So I, I haven't had it getcaught or anything.
(16:05):
The Hudu device is similar insize to a figure eight
descender, but it has arms likea critter that you use to add
friction when you're using it torepel with.
And so the nice thing is that itcould do double duty in your kit
as your backup repel device ifyou drop your other one.
But because it has those armsthat stick out, we do worry that
(16:28):
it could be more likely to getcaught on a lip or in a tree or
whatever.
We haven't actually tried it, soif you love the HOO device, let
us know.
Or if the totem block is yourgo-to, let us know because we
will be experimenting with themmore in the future to get more
familiar with them.
Katie (16:45):
In fact, I'm asking for a hudu for my birthday this month.
Carma (16:48):
woohoo.
Katie (16:49):
because it's lock off just looks so simple and clean,
like it's, it's this reallysimple cleat and that's not
gonna slip off of anything.
That's one of the big, problemsthat people worry about.
The eight, like, oh, is it gonnaslip off?
Or, how, how much do you have tolike, work at that safety?
How complete does that safetyneed to be?
Really comes up in a lot ofpeople's opinions and the hudu
(17:11):
might solve that problem.
So I'm gonna go test that outand bring back some
Carma (17:15):
Sweet
Katie (17:16):
awesome.
That finishes out releasableblocks.
And when you're thinking about areleasable block, it's like a
carabineer block, you're gonnarepel on one side and the other
side's for polling, and it'sreally cool because you can.
Move through a cannon prettyquickly that way, and you don't
have to change it over for thelast person down.
Carma (17:34):
Remember that if you're using any kind of block, whether
it's a static carabiner block ora releasable block, you can also
add an additional measure ofsafety by taking the pull side
of the rope and tying a figureeight knot on a bite and
clipping that back to theanchor.
And that just isolates the pullside so that no one can, you
(17:56):
know, repel off the wrong sideof the block.
And then the last person goingdown on repel just has to
remember to take that offbecause otherwise you won't be
able to pull your rope down.
If you're totally hooked oncanyoneering like us, remember
to subscribe, so you don't missany episodes and you can also
(18:18):
reach out to us on Facebook.
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!
Carma (00:45):
In the last episode we talked about double strand
rigging sometimes called tossand go, and we talked about
single strand rigging using acarabiner block.
Those are both static riggingoptions.
Today we are going to talk aboutour favorite rigging type, which
is releasable rigging.
Katie, have you ever heard ofsomeone getting their hair
(01:06):
caught in their repellingdevice?
Katie (01:08):
I have, um, over years of canyoneering.
I've actually seen it threetimes.
Carma (01:12):
I saw it happen to a friend of mine about a month
ago.
We were in just a really chilllocal canyon and she was about
halfway down a repel that wasabout 175 feet.
She has probably like mediumlength, curly hair and a couple
of her curls had just gottenzipped right up into her device
(01:33):
and got caught.
Katie (01:34):
Oh my gosh, karma.
I remember you telling me aboutthis, and wasn't her hair
pulled.
Carma (01:38):
Yeah, it totally was.
Katie (01:40):
Yeah, and just those pieces fell out of her ponytail
while she was looking down.
Carma (01:45):
Now, she was lucky that on the second half of this
particular repel, there are aseries of ledges.
And so she was able to find aspot where she could get her
toes on the ledge and stand upenough where she could unweight
her device and she could justyank those curls out of the
device and tuck them back.
And then she was able tocontinue down to the bottom of
(02:07):
the repel without any problems.
Now, if this had happened on thefirst half of that repel, she
would've been stuck.
Stuck because the first half ofthe repel was just a sheer
cliff, so she wouldn't have beenable to unweight her device so
easily.
And when I got to the bottom,cuz I came down after her, she
showed me the curls that hadgotten stuck and they were
(02:28):
straightened out.
Like they hung down quite a bitfarther than the rest of her.
Katie (02:33):
Oh
Carma (02:34):
Yeah, than the rest of her ringlets.
It was like very obvious,
Katie (02:37):
is not the hair straightener you wanna use
Carma (02:39):
no no not a good option.
Katie (02:44):
I remember being totally baffled the first time I saw
this happen and just wonderinghow the heck did that even
happen.
I was at a rock climbing gym andsomeone was learning how to
repel off of a platform and theywere free hanging.
So I thought, what is there evento get caught on?
that Day.
I started doing the math.
I looked at her harness and Ijust thought, oh, wow.
So If you start at your hips,belay loop adds three inches,
(03:05):
then the carabiner adds threeinches, then the device adds
three or four inches, and all ofa sudden your device is sneaking
closer and closer to your face,and then you go ahead and look
down and it's, it's very likelythat you can get your hair
caught in there because it'scrept up so high.
And even if everyone in yourgroup has short hair, let's not
forget the backpack straps andclothing are also notorious for
(03:26):
getting stuck in the rappeldevice.
Doesn't matter how experiencedyou are, this type of thing
could happen to anybody.
Everyone gets tired in canyonsand sometimes we get in a hurry
or we didn't realize thatsomething that we tucked back
has flopped out.
So having a friend to check youbefore you go over, that should
be part of that partner check.
if a person who gets stuck onrepel is able to self rescue,
that's awesome, and hopefullythey can fix the problem on
(03:48):
their own and continue down therepel.
But if the person stuck onrepel, isn't carrying gear on
their harness or doesn't havethe knowledge to self rescue,
then we have a problem.
If you've rigged, releasable,then you have a solution
Carma (04:00):
yeah, a quick and easy solution.
Katie (04:02):
for sure.
Carma (04:03):
Having someone stuck on repel isn't the only issue that
releasable rigging can solve.
Honestly, for me, releasablerigging is my number one go-to
when I get to repel and I can'tsee the bottom.
So if I cannot visually confirmthat the rope is on the ground,
I just go automatically torelease bill rigging because
then I know for sure thatwhoever I send down first, if
(04:27):
they end up coming up short onthe rope length, then I can
easily lower them and it doesn'thave to turn into a ascension
process for that first person ora conversion rescue.
It's super easy to just adjustthe rope length on the fly.
If you've rigged, releasable,and that person who's on repel,
that first person on the ropecan then just confirm for you
(04:50):
when the rope is touching theground and when it's safe for
them to go all the way down.
Katie (04:53):
Yeah, we saw this happen in, I think it was Birch Canyon,
where we had read in the betathat there was a spot where it
was a rope stretcher for a 200foot rope because it was a 100
foot repel.
We came up to the repel and ithas a ton of webbing to get it
over the edge.
So what people are saying is,well, if there's about 30 feet
of webbing there, then it'sgonna be a rope stretcher, but
(05:15):
it's gonna touch.
But it's really hard to know forsure so when karma went over the
edge, we rigged her releasableso that she could just let me
know if she was touching or not.
And we didn't have to have anyother problems there.
Carma (05:26):
Katie, you've recently been in a lot of class C canyons
on your trip to Costa Rica, andI hear that releasable rigging
is just like standard for ClassC canyons.
Katie (05:37):
Yeah.
Releaseable rigging is really anessential skill for doing
aquatic canyons.
It's most helpful I think, insetting the rope length.
Costa Rica had some, probablysome more mild waterfalls and
Seattle had some ragers wherethey just really have a lot of
power behind them.
And one of the techniques thatyou can use for that is to set
(06:00):
your rope length right at orjust above the water level so
that you can repel right off theend.
It makes it so that you don'thave to try to do a wet
disconnect while a waterfall ispounding your head.
So in order to achieve that in aplace where you still might not
be able to see the bottom fromthe anchor, What has become kind
of a, a really cool practice isto set your rope length short by
(06:21):
about five feet or, or so, andthen send the repeller over
knowing, you know, you've,you've communicated that we're
doing this right, knowing thatit's going to be short, and they
can then put their whistle intheir mouth and whistle up that
they need more rope.
And then as soon as it's rightwhere they want it, they whistle
stop.
Then everybody after that justgets to repel right off the end
of their rope and swim awayreally helps.
(06:43):
Not to have a crap ton of ropein the water.
That waterfall is creating thisbig old mess of movement that if
you have extra rope in thewater, it can tie it around a
log that's in the pool.
Then you could lose your rope.
You could get stuck there tryingto get off.
You know, you just can't get offthe rope because the water's
pounding you.
It can create a lot of problemsto have extra rope down there,
(07:03):
so setting it at just the rightlength is really, really
helpful.
Releasable riggings also helpfulin Class C Canyons.
In the event of a rescue, uh,you have a lot more options to
work with in lowering somebodyand getting'em out of a hairy
spot.
It doesn't solve every problembecause like if you have a foot
entrapment or something likethat, if someone's foot stuck,
(07:24):
then lowering them might justend up water boarding them.
So it's not always the rightanswer, but it is something that
really helps because you haveoptions at the time.
If you can communicate withthem, if you can see what's
going on, then you really can doa lot to help.
Carma (07:39):
Yeah, you're just ready to go for whatever comes up.
Another thing that releasablerigging is handy for is allowing
you to creep the rope over sharpabrasion points.
And this helps minimize ropedamage.
So if you have a sharp edge thatyou're going over, you can let a
little bit of rope out inbetween each rep Propeller.
So that that high friction areaisn't going to be on the exact
(08:01):
same spot of the rope for everysingle repeller because if you
leave that rope in the samespot, that damage can compound
like each person goes over.
And especially if it's a longrepel, there's kind of a sawing
effect that happens when peopleare, bouncing as they go down.
And you could end up cutting thesheath of your rope and have a
(08:21):
core shot, meaning the sheathhas been sliced through and now
the white core of the rope isvisible.
And a rope with a core shot isnot safe to be repelling on.
It could lead to total ropefailure.
Katie (08:36):
A rope with a core shot's done.
I mean, you have to isolate thatcore shot and that rope is done.
There are a whole bunch ofreleasable rigging setups.
When we first started looking atreleasable rigging, we were
overwhelmed by the options thatwere available out there.
Looking at all the differentways to do things, all the
different variations on things.
It was really hard to understandwhat was right and why it was
(09:00):
right and differentiate betweenJoe Blow, just showing something
cool in his garage and someonewho actually is using a tried
and true method.
What we wanna break down for youis the three parts of releasable
rigging setups so that you cankind of start to see the common
thread through all of these.
It really helped us tounderstand releasable rigging to
see these three essential parts.
Carma (09:20):
The first essential part of any releasable rigging setup
is the friction.
So if you think of your rappeldevice and how you have an
initial friction setting on yourrappel device, this is similar
to how a releaseable rig is setup.
So you have that first frictionsetting, and this is what you
use to control the belay whenyou are lowering someone on
(09:42):
rappel.
The second essential part of anyreleasable rig is the lock off.
The lock off is used to securethe rope, so that doesn't move
until you want it to move.
This is usually done by addingadditional wraps around or
through the repelling device anda cleat, or by tying a hitch.
So this is similar to likelocking off your device when
(10:03):
you're on repel.
The third essential part of anyreleasable rigging setup is the
safety.
This makes sure that the lockoff can't come undone by
accident.
Usually you do this by clippinga carabiner or a canyon quick
draw to the device to preventthe rope from popping off from
around the device.
Katie (10:21):
Right, and Today we're gonna talk about two kinds of
releasable rigging, and thesystems we're gonna talk about
are releasable blocks and twinreleasable systems.
There are a whole bunch ofoptions within these two
categories, but today we're justgonna focus on a few of our
favorites.
and We are actually gonna postsome videos.
You'll be able to get thosethrough the links in the show
(10:42):
notes, we'll make thoseavailable on youTube, and on our
Facebook page, so that you cansee in detail what we're gonna
talk about in the next fewminutes here.
But just remember, we're gonnatalk briefly about it in this
podcast and then you canactually go look at the details
for yourself, uh through those.
Releasable blocks are mypersonal favorite and I
specifically like to do them ona figure eight descender.
(11:05):
much like a carabiner block.
Releasable blocks are tied on tosome descending device and put
on the pole side of the rope sothat they will butt up against
the quick link and lock out therope for the rappel side.
What I love about this riggingoption is that the anchor
manager's job is pretty simple.
They can be hands free unlessthe rope length needs to be
adjusted.
(11:26):
And also the last person downdoesn't have to change anything
if they don't want to.
They can toss the pull side downand repel on the same setup that
everyone else did.
it examples of releasable blocksare highly popular.
Figure eight blocks the totemblock.
The hoodoo block, and I'm surethere's even more than that.
Carma (11:44):
within that more specific category of figure eight blocks.
If you look online, there are somany variations in how to set
them up.
That's why it made it hard forus when we were trying to learn
it at first, because we couldn'treally tell who had a cool way
of doing it and who was justdoing it
Katie (12:04):
Yeah.
Right.
Carma (12:05):
like we really weren't comfortable learning that way.
There's not like one setestablished way to do it.
So for figure eight blocks, whatwe are gonna focus on are the
two most popular figure eightblock options that have a
generally accepted way ofrigging them correctly.
Katie (12:23):
for dry Canyons, I like the compact secure Figure eight
block.
It's tied on a figure eightdescender.
When I first started riggingwith figure eight blocks, I
started with kind of a variationthat now I think is maybe a
little harder to check than Ireally like.
So I moved on to the compactSecure, and what I like about
(12:44):
this one is it's really prettyand what I mean by that is it's
symmetrical.
and easy to inspect because it,has so much, symmetry to it.
You can tell if you missed, apiece or a step or anything like
that.
So This one I feel like iseasier to teach two other people
and just know that you have itright.
The only downside to this one isthat it can potentially be a
(13:07):
little more sticky, and that'swhy like it in dry canyons where
you usually have all the time inthe world rather than in aquatic
canyons where time might be ofthe essence.
the compact secure basicallytakes a figure eight descender
and you pull a bite of ropethrough the big hole and over
the horn and then flip it aroundand pull another bite of rope
the other direction through thehole and over the horn.
(13:28):
And then you add your safety tothat.
So with this one, you have a lotof twists that end up on the
front side and the backside.
And the only downside to doingthat is that the ones that are
on the backside add a lot offriction when you actually wanna
release it.
So the carabiner is actuallysuper helpful cuz you can use it
to wrench it around a littlebit, because it does have a
slight more propensity to getstuck and it might take some
(13:50):
more time to get it to release.
Usually with that carabiner youcan pull it off the wall and,
and get everything set up prettyquick.
So It sticks a little more, butusually you have time
Carma (13:59):
yeah.
In a dry canyon you have kind ofall the time in the world
compared to in an aquaticcanyon, right?
Katie (14:05):
exactly.
And if that is a worry, then Iwould definitely go with the E M
O, and that's that eight muleoverhand.
So it starts with a, a figureeight block as well, and it's
just wrapped differently.
So instead of coming back overitself and creating a lot of
rope friction on the backside ofthe device, instead the rope
comes through the big circle andover the horn and then wraps a
(14:28):
couple of more times before itis muled off.
And then the overhand is added.
That one is really cool becauseit releases super smooth, but it
does have a large loop of ropethat comes off the end of it.
it's awesome to be able tosafety off, of that but I do
worry about that one a littlebit more, getting caught in crap
(14:49):
on the way down.
And so I'm more likely to maybere rig that one for the last
person down or just to need toconsider that loop of rope
that's hanging out.
It's a little less compact, um,but also very releasable.
So those are kind of the prosand cons of the two and my two
go-tos.
Carma (15:08):
That's awesome.
Where you've had a lot ofopportunity to use those in
aquatic canyons and to know thesubtleties and the differences
between them
Katie (15:17):
Yeah,
Carma (15:17):
Along with the many figure eight block options, we
also have the totem block andthe hudu block.
The nice thing about those twoblocks is that they are simple
to learn just because there isone clear, established way to
set them up, and that way ispublished by the manufacturers
of the device.
So you can look it up andthere's just one way
Katie (15:39):
Yeah, and someone can check that one way before you go
over the repel, just say, isthis right?
Oh, I see it.
Carma (15:45):
Yeah, I have used the totem block a little bit.
I've experimented with it some.
And the downside of the totemblock versus a figure eight
block is that it is a littlebigger of a device to be hauling
around all through a canyon anda little bigger of a device to
pull over an edge, although it'snicely rounded like a figure
eight.
So I, I haven't had it getcaught or anything.
(16:05):
The Hudu device is similar insize to a figure eight
descender, but it has arms likea critter that you use to add
friction when you're using it torepel with.
And so the nice thing is that itcould do double duty in your kit
as your backup repel device ifyou drop your other one.
But because it has those armsthat stick out, we do worry that
(16:28):
it could be more likely to getcaught on a lip or in a tree or
whatever.
We haven't actually tried it, soif you love the HOO device, let
us know.
Or if the totem block is yourgo-to, let us know because we
will be experimenting with themmore in the future to get more
familiar with them.
Katie (16:45):
In fact, I'm asking for a hudu for my birthday this month.
Carma (16:48):
woohoo.
Katie (16:49):
because it's lock off just looks so simple and clean,
like it's, it's this reallysimple cleat and that's not
gonna slip off of anything.
That's one of the big, problemsthat people worry about.
The eight, like, oh, is it gonnaslip off?
Or, how, how much do you have tolike, work at that safety?
How complete does that safetyneed to be?
Really comes up in a lot ofpeople's opinions and the hudu
(17:11):
might solve that problem.
So I'm gonna go test that outand bring back some
Carma (17:15):
Sweet
Katie (17:16):
awesome.
That finishes out releasableblocks.
And when you're thinking about areleasable block, it's like a
carabineer block, you're gonnarepel on one side and the other
side's for polling, and it'sreally cool because you can.
Move through a cannon prettyquickly that way, and you don't
have to change it over for thelast person down.
Carma (17:34):
Remember that if you're using any kind of block, whether
it's a static carabiner block ora releasable block, you can also
add an additional measure ofsafety by taking the pull side
of the rope and tying a figureeight knot on a bite and
clipping that back to theanchor.
And that just isolates the pullside so that no one can, you
(17:56):
know, repel off the wrong sideof the block.
And then the last person goingdown on repel just has to
remember to take that offbecause otherwise you won't be
able to pull your rope down.
If you're totally hooked oncanyoneering like us, remember
to subscribe, so you don't missany episodes and you can also
(18:18):
reach out to us on Facebook.
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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