Canyon Rope Rescue Testing 2021 In February 2019, a team of people from the NZ Canyoning Association got together for a weekend to discuss setting up CanyonSAR for New Zealand (as a specialist discipline under New Zealand Land SAR). As part of this weekend, we discussed and practised rope rescue in the canyoning context with […]
Introduction As part of writing the Canyoning Technical Manual, I needed to find out more about flat bends. For my own peace of mind, I had to make sure what I was putting in the book was suitable. We undertook some testing in 2015 including a control test and five flat (offset) bend variations. In 2020, […]
Time to meat Human Anchors A temporary human (meat) anchor is used in sports such as caving and canyoning, to get the first or all but the last person down, using a person (or people) that is suitably positioned in a stance where they can use the friction of rope on the rock, their own […]
Vlad to help – a replacement for the master carabiner Back in November 2018, I decided to purchase a Grivel Vlad and put it on my harness to see if it was going to be a useful addition. The Vlad could be helpful as a master carabiner for anchor station organisation for multiple clip-ins. There are […]
The perfect storm – keep an eye on your rigging We were on a canyoning trip recently when we were using a figure-8 abseil device as a block. Over the last eight years, I have probably rigged it over 500 times and never had an issue. However, on this occasion, all the holes in the Swiss […]
The American Death Triangle in the real world Recently (Feb 2018) I wrote a blog on the forces involved in the American Death Triangle. I questioned if there were some occasions we can use this style of rigging. Note: I would recommend reading this first article before diving into this one: American Death Triangle and […]
Deploying the rope for a big canyon pitch Using rethrow and out of the bag techniques Over the past few years, we have been descending some bigger canyons. By this I mean the pitch is longer than half the length of your rope, e.g., 30m for a 60m rope. On these big pitches, it can be […]
Have you ever been told never to use the American Death Triangle for 2-point anchor rigging as it has a pulley effect on the anchors and is considered ‘bad’ or is ‘dreaded’? In this article, we will consider the American Death Triangle in more detail and see what’s going on. What sparked my interest was […]
Double fisherman’s vs. overhand rethread Tying Prusik loops with a bend for your Prusik Minding Pulley For tying Prusik loops I have always used the double fisherman’s bend. However, the double fisherman’s is bulky and as a result, never sits quite right on the body of the Prusik Minding Pulley (PMP). I decided to try […]
A knot that drives you around the bend! On a cave excursion through Bulmer cave system (New Zealand) I noticed, on two occasions, a single sheet bend rigged at the top of a fixed handline but being used as if it was a bowline knot. I suspect the person rigging these handlines meant to tie […]
