How To Set Up A Rappel Extension

hi i'm olivia reis and this is Dale Remsburg and we're members of the AMG instructor team the first and what tends to be my go-to most of the time because I have it with me all the time when I'm going up it's just a simple double length runner in this case nylon I want to keep this sewn part back near my harness so it's not my way I matched two ends in my basket hitch and then tie it off with an overhand knot this is a good extension for simple short repels it is a little on the short side so if I'm going to be clipped in for the anchor here another option and one of my primary to go to use is also a 48 inch runner or double length runner and what I like to do is girth hitch it through my tie endpoints I do try and keep the sewing part down here as well keep that out of the way it's just easier to work with and then overhand about half way through a little bit shorter than half can work as well you what you don't want to do is get too long out and this just creates a shelf or a place to put my repel device once I start repelling this is my favorite for Block E repels or terrain that's undulated because it gives me a lot of working distance when I need to clip into the anchor so in this case you know even though we're on the ground here it demonstrates well kind of blocky terrain and this gives me a lot of distance so I can move out and work around pull ropes and and be mobile on the terrain when it does come time to repel this is where it goes on the shelf here and this is a great point here it creates separation from my repel and my backup which is going to go onto my belay loop a common mistake with this technique is to clip the locking carabiner into both which does create redundancy in the repel but it also creates a problem that when you're in tighter terrain or hanging off your anchor it can trap the locker in here and that's hard to work with so I tend to avoid this technique it's not necessarily wrong but your anchor or your tether is already non-redundant when you're clipped into the anchor and this is where the highest forces could occur if something if you were to shock load on the anchor and then when I go to rappel I'm on the nice dynamic rope and so I'd like to have it just like this simple clean easy to work with a third option for our double length extension is to growth hitch it clip it back to the harness this allows me to measure my length out and then I'm going to tie an overhand on a bite and this short bite will give is where I'm going to clip the rappel and the part that I had clip back to my harness is the tether and this is going to keep me into the anchor a little bit tighter which is better for steeper terrain to load the rappel I'm gonna make sure that my I'm at the middle mark in my rope take a bite of rope and then it's always good to consider at least adding a backup to articles I'm going to do that with a hollow block tied as an auto block anytime I use a friction hitch I want to test it make sure it's gonna hold and one thing that's great about this particular tether is I can load the rappel and feel that it's holding before unclipping from the anchor another extension that I use a lot of the time on routes that have a lot of steep technical decending example black velvet law here in Red Rock is a dedicated extension like the chain reactor I won't use it on the way up it lives in my backpack or on the back of my harness but it's a dedicated tool for the descent it adds a little weight but sometimes that extra weights worth it because it gives me a known quantity easy to adjust lengths very versatile and strong Eiger hitch it into my tying points similar to the other extensions this is something that a lot of climbers use on a regular basis sport climbing which what they're taught and so it makes a lot of people feel comfortable as well but it's a great tool and it gives me a lot of options for length nice and long gives me a lot of room to move if I wanted it to be shorter I could clip up a loop and be tight into the anchor and then I can choose any number of spots here for my rappel device I could go tight here gives me a nice length gives separation from my rappel device and my backup when I use that or if I want a little more extension I could go out here as well a final example another designated tether is the Petzl Connect unlike all of the examples we've shown so far this one we actually Herridge through the belay loop I liked that Dale said that he kept his chain reactor in his pack throughout the day because I do think some of these designated tethers as you're going up you have the rope to connect in with which is a great tie end point and it keeps things less cluttered but for long descents designated tether can be a nice thing I'm gonna put a nice round stock at teshe for my rappel and this is gonna be my tether the nice thing about this is I can adjust it tight I can loosen it out if I want to extend myself out to look you know one of the concerns with all these tethers is that they're static material and that creates a little more vulnerability out the anchor if something were to happen and we shock load the anchor the forces can get high really quickly the one thing that Petzl does really well is that this will slip under certain loads and reduce force and then just the fact that it's made out of climbing rope itself makes it absorb energy better than a lot of the other materials there are lots of different choices for rappel extension and what we choose to use is going to come down to the material that we have the terrain that we're working in but it's good to have a lot of different tools and your bag of tricks that you can work with depending on what you're given it's all about application and here Olivia has chosen to go with a short a short nylon sling I chose to go with a longer Dyneema sling they have their pros and cons they both have nots in the system that do weaken the material but knowing how much they weaken them is important and in this case we're not worried about it we want to try and avoid shock loading of course but it's going to be hard to reach the limits of this material on any practical climbing applications one thing that we have in common in all of these different tethers is they're all sewn pieces of fabric as opposed to tied together cord like Dale said they're not redundant when we're using them we are trusting our lives to them so it's important to have that material be very strong you

Channel: Outdoor Research

Views: 182,549

Keywords: outdoor research, or, amga, how to, learn, instruction, american mountain guides association, guide, rock, climbing, ice, mountain, technical, tips, rappel, extension, technique, anchor, runner, sling

Id: jmCNNsjDrVA

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 11 2018