Canyon Rope Systems - Rappelling Overview

Welcome to our canyon course set. Like a course, but smaller. We're going to cover all the rope systems that can be used in a canyon and this video is just a big bird's eye overview. This is not going to be your typical how not to episode, but it is going to be very helpful if you're ever going to rappel and ever going to rappel in a canyon. If you watch these videos because you just like the Mythbusters stuff that we do, well we've got 200 other, 300 other videos for you. But this video is actually going to dive pretty deep into all these different systems. Now we're just going to cover all the different categories and our follow-up video is actually going to be us diving deep into each one, how to do it, the variations of each one, where you use it, and why. Because southwest canyoners like totally get along with Pacific Northwest canyoneers because they have the same exact context and so they should be using the same exact systems. We're in the Pacific Northwest right now. Yes. And that's your context of where you're coming from with just any of your biases in anything that you're teaching. Yeah, yeah. I have limited experience in the southwest. I do a lot of friends that have and whatnot. But yeah, the Pacific Northwest is my home and this is where I really love doing the canyon. But you are trying to be holistic in your thinking, covering all the different bases on why you might select certain things. Yeah, exactly. When I was learning and looking at a lot of the stuff that was from this context, which really comes from a European background, I really wanted to know what was going on in the southwest, what are they using, and just looking at a lot of the similarities. So a lot of what I put together here was just my own learning process. Cool. So we have four categories we're going to cover, but you have characteristics for each one. What are they? So as I was looking at all these systems, I realized there was a lot of debates on this one's better than this. And I really was like, well, why? And I kind of narrowed down most of the arguments were around some specific things. One of them was ease of rigging. Is it complicated to build? Is it easy to build? That seemed to be important to people. Rescue. Is it easy to rescue on? Is it difficult to rescue? Is it rescue ready to go? I also looked at efficiency, and efficiency is important depending on the size of your party. How long is it going to take to move people through each pitch? So efficiency of actually using it. Right. Not necessarily retrieval, not necessarily of rigging, but getting people down your canyon. Right. Which up here is important because, you know, we're always working against the cold. You remember that. I don't want to hang out too long. 12 minutes per person for a party of it's going to suck. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So you're freezing your ass off. Yeah. So we want to move. But, and then the last category is abrasion. You know, we're not, we don't have a lot of sandstone. There's not a lot of smooth surfaces here. There is, in some canyons you saw the one we were in, a lot of smooth granite, but there's a lot of basalt with very sharp edge. We're also using pretty thin ropes when we were doing that. Absolutely. The thinner, the better. First category we're going to cover is what? The most basic one, and this is a great example we got here is a single rope system. So it's one rope going down the pitch for somebody to progress on, for example, repel. And it's static, meaning there's nothing I can do about the rope at the anchor. Once it's loaded, I can't release it. I can't, I can't do anything. It's just there. So this first thing here is just a figure eight clipped with the carabiner to the anchor and everything we're focusing on this entire course starts from here down. It doesn't talk about closed systems or open systems or the variety of ways an anchor can be built around trees or anything. And if you were to see this in climbing or even caving, you're going to go down this and probably be coming back up this. Or if I guess somebody is doing this in a canyon, they got to completely re-rig something to retrieve this rope. With this one. But what's the other one that people could have? Yeah. So this, this, like you said, I got to come back up and de-rig this and do something else. So I might want to go with something like this. That was a smooth operation. Another example, single rope, static, nothing I can do about this one. Let's check this one out. Well, that looks retrievable. Yeah. So just, so this is a knot block. One of the more common systems that could be used. The fiddle stick and this are retrievable. That doesn't define whether or not the part I'm repelling is single and not moving once I'm on it. Right. That's, that's kind of where I kind of like narrowed it down. So they're very easy to rig. It's one of the most common systems using canning. So a lot of people will recognize it. As far as rescue goes though, it's a little bit more difficult because if this is the only rope that I have and you go down and you're stuck or something happens to you, there's not a lot I can do from here. Unless I know some advanced skills, like how to transition down the static line. So I put it kind of low on rescue scale. And in a canyon context or scenario, I could be drowning in a river because I, or a waterfall because I'm in and I'm going, whoa. Yeah. We almost saw that. Yeah. And then you're going to flip upside down. So, so in canyoning, being able to rescue people mid repel, depending on what you're going down, you might want a different system. Yeah. Especially up here in the swift water canyons. That's a huge factor. What's abrasion like on this bad boy? Abrasion, again, if this is sawing through, there's not a whole lot I can do about it because I can't lower this. And once you go down past it and you identify it, I need to wait till you're off that rope before I can pull it up or adjust the rope length. How efficient is it? The efficiency isn't really good either because I only have one rope. And if I have a bunch of people and each person is taking 20 minutes to get down this rope. That includes setting up your repel device. You can't get it in your repel device until somebody has completely slacked it up. Right. Even that, even those few minutes of somebody loading up the repel device can save you a lot of time if you have a party of eight, which isn't necessarily uncommon up here. Man, if there was only some more types of categories in which you could do this. I bet we can come up with a few. All right. So the other single system we have is releasable. This opens up a whole new category for me in the, in the characteristics. Okay. But it's still single. Correct. Which you still have the efficiency issue. Yes. You still have the rescue issue or are you, is this a way to rescue? You nailed it. This gives me a rescue option I did not have with a static system. Doesn't mean you're coming down to me. You're just lowering me to get me. Exactly. The best, that's the kind of rescue I want is one that I don't have to get into the problem you're in and I can rescue you from the comfort of my anchor station. Sounds like you're lazy. Abrasion, you can move this point. Right. So because this is releasable, when the rope's weighted, if you run into a problem, even if that problem is abrasion spot, you can say lower the rope or give me some whistle and communicate. And I can start lowering that, moving the abrasion point down. I can change the rope length or provide a rescue from here, which we already talked about. So this is, I hate to use the word superior because there's a context for everything, but this is a fantastic single rope method if you're going to do a single rope method. Right. And this is a great one that a lot of canyoneers, new canyoneers start with. Isn't this what we did in our canyon trip? Yeah. First time you went down a canyon, you helped me with a system like this. That's why I give it a very high rating on the ease of rigging. This is pretty easy to rig and easy for people to learn and identify. Okay. And it's great for all the other ways, but it still doesn't solve the efficiency problem if you're trying to run 12 people down a canyon. You got it. So what's the, here, so you can tug. What's the other way to do that? Let's take a look. So this is a twin system. Okay. So what we've done here is you just took the rope and you pass it through the anchor and I put the end of the rope and the bag down below. So now I've got two ropes going the full length and I need to do something to isolate these two strands. And once I do that, and this is as simple as putting a knot here, I've used an Alpine butterfly. Now this strand, somebody can repel on, and this strand somebody can repel on. That sounds more efficient and better for rescue and a whole bunch of other things. Yeah, for sure. I even, even, I don't even have to, that doesn't mean I need to put two people on the wall at the same time. Yeah. You could just be rigging up while, while one person is working their way down. When they get off rope, you're ready to go. Yes. Uh, I imagine rescue, if I got stuck, you have this strand to come get me. Yep. If you get stuck, I can come down as a direct rescue and provide aid that might just be coaching you through and helping you with what the problem is. Does this help with abrasion? I'm fine. If I find this strand is like cutting through, I can grab a second strand to make me feel better. You think so that is it. It is slightly higher on the brazen scale. I think because of that, if you chose to use both of these strands at the same time, this was, would be redundant, right? Yeah. They are independently. But if you're using this one and you run into an abrasion problem, there's nothing I can do about it because it's a static system. Just like a single room. You can't lower me. If I were to stay here, you couldn't lower me from here. Nope. Not without doing a lot of complicated rigging and a rescue system. Can you have a lowering system with a twin system? Yeah. Check this out. So the Joker is a good example of a twin isolated releasable system. So twin, because I have two ropes going down the pitch that two people can use. Isolated means I've put something in here, kind of isolating these two strands from each other. This is a way of doing it with friction. So that is what allows me to be able to release this and lower one strand or the other. See how that works? Whereas the last system was static, right? There was a knot in it. I could not be lowered at all. Exactly. So this is better for rescue. So if you have a problem, I can release this and lower. If the rope is too short on that end, I can lower it based on what you said. What you got to be careful of though, is that you're kind of on belay. You see that? So if you let go of this, even though there's a lot of friction here, I could potentially start to go and slide down. Right. It's horrible practice to let go of this. So could I repel down this? Well, could someone repel down this if I'm repelling down this? Yeah. And actually that's how it's often used. So it is efficient. It is more efficient because of that. And it's more efficient because I've got two modes of rescue now. I can lower you or I can go down this strand and do a direct rescue. Okay. And it's definitely looks more complicated because you got two, these are two figure eights opposing each other. Yeah. So this is not simple. It takes a little bit more understanding of how this system works, the, what you got to be careful of. And does it look like it's simple to you, Ryan? It's not simple. It definitely has better abrasion because you can move the rope where it needs to be. The rescue is better and it's more efficient to use, but you got to know how to do it. Exactly. I think he's getting it. So now let's show you the other half of the twin system options that you can do. We have a twin system compound static. The best way to explain like what a compound system is, is just to introduce a new rope. So that's what I've done here. And you recognize as a static system you saw earlier, and I've just attached to the anchor. This is another static system that maybe was the first one that I rigged. But they're two separate ropes in this case. You're saying there's more than one way to skin a cat and they should watch the whole series to fully understand? Exactly. Okay. So you have two very independent systems now. They're twin. Where, what's your abrasion and rescue and all that? Well, if we think of these as just like we did a single static, it's pretty much the same. The only thing that I've changed is I have two ropes and now I can move people more efficiently because I've put extra rope in. But your rescues could be easier because you have a rope to get down to somebody. Even though it's not releasable, you can get to them easier. Right. So that's just the option that created. This also seems pretty easy because it's two simple systems. Exactly. But now you want to make a compound system releasable? Yeah. Now let's do it with the same rope. So now I have a twin compound releasable system. Twin. Still with me? Twin. Twin. Two ropes for repelling. Compound. These are not two separate ropes. Check it out because I've got this rope bag that has two ends to it. Okay. That gives me access to both ends of the rope. I assume there's way to undo the bag to get. No. That's a magic trick we're going to demonstrate later. Okay. Nevermind. So you, this is the end of this rope. Yep. Where's the end of it? Ah, this is the end of it. Yeah. Okay. That you're repelling on. Oh, you're repelling on this end. Yeah. Ah, this is releasable. Ah, so you have to have some slack. You have to have some rope in here to lower me if I'm on this. Yes. Okay. Do you want to go into those details? I don't think so. We do actually. In the video we're going to make about it. For a proper rescue you need four times the rope length of the pitch. We'll go into those details later. We're just. Gotcha. Twin compound releasable. Twin. Two ropes. Compound. Two ends of the ropes. They're very independent of each other at this point. Right. And releasable means you've got a munter mule overhand thing going on. Exactly. And you have up here a figure eight with some extra wraps. So this and this are very similarly related. This is what we call an EMO. Okay. Figure eight mule overhand. This is where I have a munter mule overhand. And we'll cover all how to do and when to do and why to do. So cool. So this is our twin. Don't change that. Prematurely tugged it. So now we're going to show you the third category of canyon rope systems. Double rope. The one I'm used to as a climber. This is what I use to repel when I'm repelling as a climber. This is pretty much all I've ever really known. And if I have a Grigri I find this actually is kind of tricky because you have to lock off one and then repel down one. That's a good example. So you would turn it into a single static system. Ah. And then I also could just put it in an ATC and repel down because we don't often use this climber's eights. No. But any device that you could put two ropes in is where you can use this system. Man you should have grabbed a glacier bike one. Someone's trying to get sponsored. Yeah. So a classic canyon eight device I can load up just like you know kind of a figure eight and repel double strand. Right. Pretty common. Most people understand. And then when you get down you can pull one strand and retrieve your rope. Yep. Hopefully we're still not standing here. Make sure you go check out the website. Brent has written a textbook that corresponds with this course. What's great about making these standalone YouTube videos is they're more likely to be found. So 10,000 or even 30,000 people are going to benefit from this information which gets us really excited. Instead of trying to charge for the course where you're only going to get one or 200 people to maybe pay for it. So by being able to do this on a shoestring budget whereas Brent has donated all of his time. Andrea has spent days filming for us and I have edited all these videos myself. We're able to make it super super cheap. But it does cost money to make and we basically need only one percent of the audience to either donate one dollar per episode on Patreon or buy gear on extremegear.org which supports us 10% with whatever you buy. And they do sell canyon gear as well now. As a thank you to my Patreons I give them early access to these videos in this course whereas they come out once a week until they are fully released. We hope you benefit from the content. So what are the characteristics of a double rope in your canyon context? You have it looks pretty easy to rig. It's very easy to rig. So easy I could do it. Yes and you did and I had to correct you. Rescue is pretty challenging right because if somebody's on it you're not going to be able to like go down this without some voodoo magic trick. Right you're starting to get it. So the rescue it's like I have sent all my rope down so unless I have another rope up here with me I could be really screwed if you can't rescue yourself. Because it's pretty hard to get this on repel devices if there's not slack and it's even harder to go down repel devices if someone's more or less fireman belaying you or pulling the tail which is not allowing it to slide through your friction device. Right. Abrasion. Can you like let one thing through and let one the strands move over this one point? That is a good question that actually puts us into a new system. All right in the weeds what about uh what's the what's the other category? So efficient. Is it efficient? Nope you gotta just like a single strand I can only send one person at a time down the pitch. So if you think about it this is a static system. Yeah. Definition of releasable and static was can I lower you from the anchor? Can you up here lower me while I'm on it? No. So it's static. Correct. That has nothing to do with the releasability of it when I'm down there. Correct. A uh releasable system that's double rope. That gets interesting. Is this where I tug? Wait this looks familiar. Looks like a twin compound releasable. Okay twin. Yep. Two ropes are the two ends of this rope. Yep. And it's releasable. Yes. What makes this one different? What's it called first of all? So remember we were talking about a doubled rope system. Yeah. So doubled rope system meant I was progressing on two ropes. Okay. Right. So if I'm saying that this is a doubled rope system I'm moving on two ropes. I'm treating this as one big rope for a very specific reason and that's abrasion. Okay. So I'm not it's not a twin system because I've made. I'm not going to independently do these. No. Gotcha. Right. So I'd put both strands in my repel device. Yep. I see you're already in the ring. Yep. And is that what makes it doubled? Between that and the fact that you're using both of these. I have to use both. Okay. And that's probably because we identified a an abrasion hazard that was like there's nothing we can do about that. Gotcha. In order to move safely past it I want to put you on two ropes and not only that I want to be able to move this on that abrasion point. So I want it releasable. So it's doubled because you're progressing on these two ropes together. So the middle of the rope is going to be at this ring. So you have to have rope that is in your reserve. Correct. And so if you think you've hit the the ground or the pond or the whatever you have your reserve. When you run out you are now stuck at the ring no longer able to release. Correct. So rescue is limited depending on how much you have in reserve. Correct. Abrasion we know is better because you can move it and there's two strands. Ease of rigging is not existent. How and if it's the same as a twin compound. Rocket science too and you know how to do it. And efficiency uh one person at a time. One person at a time not very efficient. And if you decided to every couple feet I go down you're going to lower it maybe a couple inches to keep moving that rub point. Do you have to reset that if you've used up too much of your reserve? So it depends on how much damage happens in that and that's why another reason this isn't very efficient but there's a specific hazard that we're dealing with. You're trying to that's my focus. So we're going to take a look as a rope is it worth or do I need to keep creeping that rope on a new abrasion point. So now we'll cover one little nuance category that is very rarely used. Wait where'd you get a cat? Holly. Let's try that again. So the last system is the system and this is where the tail of the rope is in at least in this device. There's a nice little hole here. Palioka. Palicoa. Palicoa. And if I lower myself it's going to be moving through the ring and I'm going to be feeding myself out avoiding the abrasion myself. You got it. Okay let me see if I got this right. Rescue is pretty hard because I've got my own little setup here. You're kind of on your own. Abrasion is great because there's it's always moving. The ease of rigging is relatively easy. I've done this before and then the efficiency is one person at a time and I'd have to pull maybe rope back up to even reset this. Correct. Now as a climber if you do this on a really popular route at least you're gonna run a groove into these rings these fixed anchors. In canyoning this might just be necessary enough that it doesn't matter because this does take a long time to wear out. Yeah and and where we see it a lot is is on a traverse. We're actually not waiting the rope. I'm using it sometimes called as a self belay to get out to an anchor point. So I'm just walking across letting myself out belaying myself until I can get to the anchor and connect myself and then I would secure this and everybody would use it as a traverse line. So this isn't seeing a lot of weight. Now if you do this around a tree you are going to cut a groove around the tree. Yeah that's just really bad. So that's where you put the sling around a tree or webbing with a quick link on the end. Right and since it's a quick link I can replace it. You can replace it. So now in order to take it to the next level which is maybe rare maybe there's better systems but we're going to cover it in the categories of options is the doubled releasable system. And here is the doubled releasable system. Same doubled system where if I repel it's going through my master point to my fixed point or my belay loop and I am getting all the abrasion benefits this has to offer. You got it. But you have added something from my quick link. I'm not directly into this ring anymore. No essentially I used a secondary rope and made a releasable system. So now I can actually lower you so I get all the benefits of lowering you. And if you notice the way this is working I don't fully have all the brazen protection because only one rope is moving but it's better than nothing but there's two ropes. Now the reason this is not your go-to solution is this is going to get stuck on stuff. More than likely. And this is already not that great of a solution. There's better things out there. So this isn't the go-to thing but it helps complete all the categories and all the concepts that we're trying to teach in this course set. I mean you got you caught on. I actually find ease of rigging of this is not complicated. The lowering system seems to be almost independent from this doubled system. So I'm familiar with this just as a climber in general. This seems really familiar to me because I've seen him rig this way too many times tonight. But there are better solutions out there and I think that's what's great about this course is we can spend a long time diving into each one of these categories and explain what the benefit and how to make the decision on which one to use. Also showing you how to do it. I need a full tug here. Just slap myself in the face. All right we are going to have all this in the Canyon Corset blog and all the follow-up videos are going to be put in there. We're going to make an episode about each one of these categories and we're going to dive in deep into each one. We'll have time stamps so you can just get to part where you want to be. This is not a typical how not to video but more of an A to Z on a concept. The reason we call it a corset is because one we think we're funny and two there's a lot more to learn about canyons before you go into one without somebody who knows what they're doing. Please make sure you go with someone who knows what they're doing before you try dangerous sports. We're just trying to make sure you understand what you're looking at when you do go with an expert. So if you know what you're doing contact us we can go with you. We tug together and then it disappears yeah yeah ready go okay so cheesy