Double or single strand? You have options!

Do you double strand rappel a lot? Coming from the climbing world we did too until we learned the benefits of single strand rappelling. 

Transcript

Katie: 0:08

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Katie

Carma: 0:10

and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be canyoneering.

Katie: 0:14

We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon rigging and beautifully slot canyons. Basically we'd always rather be canyoneering. But when we can't, we spend every spare minute, we have talking about it.

Carma: 0:26

This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Please seek professional instruction and practice technical skills in a controlled environment before entering slot canyons. Your safety is entirely your own responsibility.

Katie: 0:41

Welcome to our canyon crew! What is the difference between repelling and double strand Reell I've been rock climbing for decade And I have come down plenty of rappels double stranded on my ATC Now somebody's telling me that I need to do something different What are you talking about Why don't you think I know what I'm doing I've got plenty of experience And yet in a new environment there might be some other choices that I wanted to make I realized that I was doing it all wrong When I came into a slot canyon that had a ton of short rappels I later came to call these nuisance rappels I had like most canyon years do a 200 foot rope and I'm going down this canyon And I was about to get out my rope at every single repel That was my plan to get out my rope at every single repel and throw it down set the middle mark and repel down double stranded I came up to the first rappel and I went to set it up as a double strand rappel And here comes my buddy With a carabiner his hand and I said what are you gonna do with that Brett And he hands it to me and told me to put a clove hitch on it So I did And I saw what it looked like to only let out 15 feet of rope at a 15 foot repel And I left the rest of the rope at the top and we repelled single strand the last person chucked the rope bag down We only had 30 feet of rope to deal with And we went on our Merry way repeating this another 15 times saving a ton of time down this canyon And I knew that I needed to upgrade my skills and figure out A lot more techniques that I had been missing out on

Carma: 2:26

Yeah and it really was eye opening when we realized there's another way to do this like we had just been Throwing and going for so long and what we mean by that is taking your rope sticking it through the repeat on the bottom of the anchor and then throwing both ends down and then putting two strands into your rappel device to repel off of And one of the nice things about it is that it's quick and it's easy to inspect Like you Really need a lot of training to be able to see oh the rope went through the anchor

Katie: 3:02

I had actually learned throw and go in a class That was the technique that we we learned and that we were taught And there are so many more options that I don't know why we didn't talk about more I wish we had but I'm really glad that I've learned them now

Carma: 3:15

So that's kind of one we wanna focus on today is single stranding and double stranding riggings And like Whit situation you would wanna choose one over the other where they shine where they don't shine

Katie: 3:30

Yeah climbers I'm gonna give you all a shout out here I get it double strand Repelling makes a whole lot of sense When you're coming back down a climbing route that you just did for one thing climbing routes are usually pretty vertical That's why we climb up them because they're fun and they're challenging In canyoneering the route is often windy and you might get to like some five four climbing that has a lot of ledges and turns and bends and places for the rope to get snagged when you single strand you're able to control those ropes You also have a lot more options in case of emergency A lot of times with climbing We just came up the route We know it's there and now we're going back down There's nothing really to surprise us at the bottom We also know that the rope touched because I was able to be lowered down I know where my rope mark was so that's not always the case in canyon air You can't always see the bottom and you can't always see that your rope is touching it's kind of an added challenge to that Quite a few things that play into it A lot of times in can airing You might be repelling into a pool of water and that's a lot different Most climbers don't start their climate a pool of water And so they don't have that obstacle to navigate when they get down being cold and wet and trying to work with their gear while they're swimming doesn't come up very often for climbers So I if you're doing that you might be doing something wrong or you might be doing something really And uh it just it's techniques that were specific to this canyon environment that I didn't realize how helpful it was to have the extra tools until I really started playing in the new environment

Carma: 4:58

kind of another one of our aha moments regarding double stranding versus single stranding was when I realized that these hand extenders that I had been carrying through all these canyons Could only go on one strand of the rope And I realized that I was carrying them for self rescue and That if I'm double stranding they're basically useless if I get stuck in the middle of the rebel

Katie: 5:33

Oh

Carma: 5:34

and I don't know why it took so long for those dots to get connected by a line but it did and you can self rescue on double strand Set up but you can't do it with mechanical Ascenders you're gonna need two protic knots to be able to ascend a double strand If you are coming down it and get stuck in the middle of it and need to rescue yourself

Katie: 6:00

Right If you're just gonna put those hand of centers on one strand then you're gonna start pulling it through If you're trying to put it on one and then the other you are just going to slide it back and forth So all these ideas that we originally thought oh yeah we're so smart We brought our senders that wouldn't work So karma what are some of our other options that we learned besides just the toss and go or throw and

Carma: 6:23

One of the first other options that we learned was to do a beaner block So that's just taking a carabiner tying a clove hitch And Pulling that up against the repeat so that it blocks one side of the rope and allows you to just go down on one strand And we realized all of the options that are available to you when you do a setup like that as opposed to a double stranded So one of the nice things about doing a beaner block or any single rope system is that you keep The other half of the rope in reserve at the top of the repel say someone goes down and gets stuck halfway through you have a whole other half of the rope that you can use to rescue You can use to go down to them you just have a lot more options for

Katie: 7:16

I think this was one of those systems that as a beginning can and year I hadn't thought all the way through because I had thought okay double strand repel Um Yeah I guess if they get stuck I'll just get on rappel too and go down to them But once both those ropes are weighted you cannot pull a bite of rope into your rappel device And once those strands of rope are weighted even if you could get your device on there you have a fireman belay hanging on below you So the person pulling on that is not gonna let you there's not a way to get down to them on your regular device You're gonna need to do something special like get a protic on there that you can go down on like a VT protic or something like that But there's not a lot of other options And it was one of those things that just hadn't hadn't seen it enough to really play out as many situations as actually can come up in the canyons

Carma: 8:05

And like we were saying it's a little more complicated to self rescue with a double strand with a single strand You can use any of the mechanical senders out there um to rescue yourself in the middle of repel Micro traction or a rope man or a T block you know whatever you've got hanging on your belt is an option for you when you're on a single strand or pile on a beaner block another nice thing about it too is that you really don't need anyone to be like babysitting uh one side of the rope So It's just locked off There's not much to do as far as anchor managing up at the top it's hands free anchor which is really nice to simplify the anchor manager's job And another benefit of the beaner block is that if you have a situation where the pole might be a little touchy You can keep the pole side of the rope kind of out of the way so that you're not getting tangled up with the rappel side as you're going down it can make the rope pull just a lot simpler

Katie: 9:20

The other thing that I really like with using a beaner block or anything to help me single strand a repel is that I can set the rope length And I already told you how that could be advantageous If you have some nuisance repels just some short repels that you can see the bottom of it's also super helpful in wet canyons where you may need to do a swimming disconnect The last thing you wanna do is be at the bottom of a waterfall Be splashing around under the water over the water and try to be getting your device off and drop your device in the water and lose it under that waterfall Cuz you're not gonna find it You're not gonna see it Don't know if you brought your goggles but you're probably not gonna see it ever again So what would be a lot safer would be to set that rope plank right at the water level foot above the water somewhere right in there and be able to repel right off the end into that water And that way you are not Trying to disconnect while your hands are cold and fumbly And you're also not risking tling up the rope in whatever's underneath the water cuz you don't know if there's a log jam under there You don't know if there's a branch and you don't wanna be diving under a waterfall to try to untangle something So it's gonna be a lot easier if you are able to set that rope length especially on the wet canyons it can save somebody's life

Carma: 10:34

there are a couple of things to just watch out for when you're going to pull your rope down With the beaner on the one side on the pole side it is bigger than just you know a rope set up as a double strand And so the beaner can sometimes get caught on something in the pole that's just something to watch out for So you can make that choice you know even if you had a Benet block set up for everybody else the last person coming down could decide to just convert it to a double strand and that's super easy All they have to do is take the

Katie: 11:08

To be honest I've never gotten a beaner caught uh but I know it could happen and I've chosen not to do it sometimes because I think it might get caught a lot of times you're able to navigate that and see it coming over an edge If you have a clean view of it you can avoid those types of things But if you're getting into like a really windy area that's where you might choose something like that double stranded repel for the last person

Carma: 11:29

Yeah And probably the biggest safety concern with a beaner block is you need to be sure that every person going down the repel Is repelling on the rappel side of the rope and not the pull side of the rope the pull side of the rope the side that the beaner is on is not isolated And so it can if someone Puts the repel device on the pull side of a beaner block That means that nothing is keeping the rope up there and it can pull out and they're just gonna go down So one of the things you can do to help people make sure that they're on the right side of the rope is to not throw the rope bag down until the very last person has rigged themselves on that way it's like a really quick visual that the only Piece of rope That's going over the edge is the safe one to go down the the correct side the rappel side

Katie: 12:34

It's a fatal mistake It's a fatal mistake to repel down the wrong side of a beaner block Don't do that really be aware of it You also need to make sure that the knot is tied properly if someone puts a really sloppy clove hitch on there it's gonna roll over itself You don't want it spinning around and being in weird places You want that clove hitch set on the spine of the carabiner and just make sure that it is a well dressed knot that it looks good every time somebody goes down It doesn't require as much babysitting And usually that is just fine and nobody ever has to touch it At the same time It is one that I always check before I go over And I love what karma was saying That keeping that bag at the top lets everybody know the rope That's going down The repels the rope that I'm repelling on and the rope that's at the top is not it's very obvious what what's to be repelled on and not And that your last person down should be one of your more experienced canyon Who knows either to clip that bag to their hip or to throw it and they can convert that to something else So that's one of the things about a beaner block is that you can choose to leave it as is and repel down on that proper side Or your last person could throw both sides and turn it into a double stranded repel where there can be no mistake You do both I guess that's not fair Don't single strand on a double strand either There are mistakes you can make Nonetheless it's a lot more clear if you wanna do that double strand at the end

Carma: 14:01

And most of the time I feel like you can see the beaner block and do like a visual check before you start going down But also It's another good reason to just be in the practice of waiting your whole system before you take off your personal anchor So while you're still clipped in straight to the anchor go ahead and rig up your repelling device and your third hand and try to set your weight on it to make sure that everything's the way it should be

Katie: 14:37

know when I come up to a beaner block I actually have made it a habit that I clip in straight to the anchor with my personal anchor system or my tether whatever you want to call it And then I actually move that block I slide it back and forth and I visually check which side it's smashing up against I give it space I pull it about 10 inches away and then I slam it up against it just pulling it back and forth And then I wait it and I test it that it's weight There have been incidents where people have just done a poll test where they just yank back on it and they're like oh it didn't move And they've repelled on that Based off of the fact that they didn't think it moved well the rope was just stuck a little bit and they were on the wrong side So just be aware that you want to visually check and do the pull check and then go over it doesn't add much to your sequence to just pull unclip and then karma Have you ever seen somebody try to rig on the wrong side of a beaner block

Carma: 15:35

It can be tricky Sometimes I was in a canyon once where the webbing was around a pinch point and over the edge of a chalk stone And so where the repeat was sitting was kind of hanging down in this hole where we couldn't see it So when I set up the beaner block I had to you know reach down and kind of fish for it and fish it out of the hole and set up the beaner block And then I let it go loose again while my friend was getting ready to go down And so I still had the rope at the top and she reached in and grabbed a rope and started rigging her critter onto it And I pulled up on the rope to kind of bring the whole anchor up and out of the hole so we could see what was going on And we realized that she had started rigging on the wrong side It was the side of the rope that looped back up to the bag not the side that was meant to go down the repel So it is easy to get it wrong if you can't see things clearly So make sure in situations like that that you're pulling it up and clearly visualizing which side of the beaner block that you're on

Katie: 16:48

Yeah it's a really good idea No no room for guessing there I'm glad you pulled it up Well when you switch to canyon urine there are some things that you do different And those are the things that I didn't know I didn't know And some of those obstacles are just in a rock climb everything that's five three or harder has a pretty straight drop back down to the ground And You're now exposing yourself in canyoneering to running into more rolling kind of canyons and turning canyons where your rope might get stuck There's reasons you might not wanna come down on a double strand because those ropes might land top of each other and get pinched Or maybe it is that you wanna set the length of the rope so that you are repelling off into water And so you're gonna come down on a single strand and Maybe you're coming down Your rope Diameter was nine millimeters as a climber and now it's eight millimeters as a canyon ear So you're coming down and now you're on a single strand So you're coming down a lot faster and all of a sudden your ATC might not be good enough to give you enough friction to safely come down That repel you might be moving too fast Same thing with a really long repel climbers are usually doing repels with their regular 60 meter rope doubled up So we're talking about about a hundred feet that a climber is going to do Maybe you have two ropes tied together and you're doing 200 feet Okay That's possible But usually that's 200 feet on a double strand Again Now we're gonna switch over and do that 200 foot repel on a single strand That's eight mil and you might even jump up to a 300 foot repel And just the friction really changes the weight of the rope starts to really play And at the top there is a ton of friction from the weight of the rope helping you out And then at the bottom you have almost none as you have no more weight of the rope and it could really fly through your hands at the bottom So that is something that's very different and you might not see it coming until you started to experience it and actually are getting out there canyoneering So it's nice to know ahead of time that there are some skills that are different but other than that you do have a lot of really great skills as a climber And we want you at the table Especially karma And I want climbers to feel comfortable and confident as they're coming in here and also being aware of some of the differences so that they don't get caught by surprise Like we did

Carma: 19:04

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