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gdstorrick
Trad climber
PA
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Nov 15, 2007 - 04:36pm PT
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> "Since 1966, there has been no real progress in rappelling."
> Well, I wouldn't really call it 'progress' but K. Macgregor and others did come up with the "squeeze plate". I would agree with your accessment of rack usage and the lack of knowledge. Spacers are becoming the norm! caveman
Kirk and I are long-time friends. He didn't invent the squeeze brake, he just came up with a safety modification that allowed him to usie it on Mt. Thor. Earlier versions tended to suddenly lose friction (which is how Sara Corrie broke her back, as I recall). Marmex had a commercial squeeze brake in the 80s, it never caught on.
----> Gary
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Nov 15, 2007 - 11:12pm PT
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There was no rappel at all until late in the 19th century. You downclimbed. Or you took an extra rope, tied it off, and climbed down, hand over hand. As late as the first ascent of the Grepon, in 1892, on that terrifying exposed rap, they used that method.
The Purtscheller brothers, out of the Tirol, placed the first recoreded piton for a rappel on the first traverse of the Meije in the 1870s. They used a ring piton for rapping a gendarme on a double rope, and then pulled the rope to continue up the ridge. That was the first use of both modern pitons and the double rope. But they didn't use a device: Purtscheller's 1895 instruction manual showed hand-over-hand as the proper method for the abseil.
Hans Dulfer, of Munich, gets the credit for the Dulfersitz. We don't have a solid date, but best guess would be after 1900 but before WW1. So the Dulfer was the hip new thing when the Sierra Club learned it in the 1930s.
Presumably, not long after folks started using carabiners (central Alps in the '30s), they learned that you could generate friction a lot of different ways.
The Dulfer still works great with a thick rope and tweed clothes. When I started climbing, I was coached to wear a collared shirt to guard against sunburn on the glacier and ropeburn on the Dulfer. A little over a year ago, in the Sierras, I was forced to use one (under duress) with a skinny rope and clothes. It wasn't nearly as fun, but it still works.
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jstan
climber
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Nov 23, 2007 - 07:01pm PT
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I first learned a caving rappel in 1959 in which the rope is wound through a three biner chain. The argument was made a single biner with a cross member was hard on the rope. I think the argument may have some weight when the rope is caked with sand and mud.
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john hansen
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 23, 2007 - 10:30pm PT
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Scuffy B mentioned above Robbins/Fritchen et al using a break bar system on the second ascent of the nose.
How far up did they fix, and how many times up and down (days) did it take them before they cast off thier ropes and committed.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Nov 23, 2007 - 10:32pm PT
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Kirk M. is arguably the Most Anal Person on the Face of the Planet. Amongst cavers it is common to do "Kirk Macgregor imitations," so, um, unique, is his way of speaking. [I apologize if I have misspelled his surname] His real initials are GWK.
A real conversation with Kirk back in the late 70's at Bon Echo, Ontario, where the Toronto Caving Group conducts its annual Bon Echo Yo-Yo. As you read this, remember to insert your Kirk imitation:
Me: "So Kirk, how high is Bon Echo, anyway?"
Kirk: "85.15 metres, with a standard error of 0.1 metre."
Me: "Standard error? Don't you mean standard deviation?"
Kirk: "Well you'll realize that with a sample size of one, the standard error and standard deviation are identical. Uh-hah, uh-hah!"
Didn't Kirk come up with using a bungy cord from shoulder to knee cam to create the "floating cam" on the Ropewalker ascending system?
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Nov 23, 2007 - 11:20pm PT
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Being new back to climbing after ions away...
The idea of simul-rapping is totally new to me.
When did simul-rappelling begin ?
Did I just miss it way back when ? or is it a new thing ?
(new being within the last 20+ years)
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Nov 24, 2007 - 12:06am PT
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There are times where a small belay device is deffinitely unsafe: long drops (see my earlier definition), or very sandy ropes.
I'm not sure anything is safe with sandy ropes. A few decades ago I was working in a climbing store in Vancouver, and a guy came in with a Figure 8 (don't remember which brand, there were two or three) he'd bought there, wondering if it was defective. He had rappeled from the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col to the glacier -- about two full rope lengths. At the halfway point when he was passing the knot he saw that his 8 was chewed halfway through the metal. So he tied himself off to the rope, and reset the 8 with the rope running over all the opposite surfaces. By the time he'd rapped the rest of the way, the 8 was chewed through on all those surfaces as well.
He said the rope was wet and full of grit, and it just ate through the metal like... well, like a gritty rope through soft metal.
Be careful out there.
D
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