Garage work bails me out of my own stupidity

After going down my 1st technical canyon last spring (Neon) it quickly became obvious that the sport demanded a lot more techincal skills than I had. So with that in mind I installed a few bolts in my garage ceiling so I could practice new techniques in the relative comfort and safety of my garage instead of when I really needed them in a canyon. One of these just happened to be passing a knot.

Fast forward to this weekend and our group is making our second trip down Imlay (sneak route) for the year. We did it about 6 weeks ago and found it beautiful and fun, but slightly easier than we were expecting. Because it didn’t seem to get much if any rain over the past 6 weeks we decided to do it again at a lower water level to see how that would change things. Most potholes seemed to be about 2-3′ lower than last time so while certainly more physically demanding and technically challenging, we still didn’t run into anything that really wiped us out. We made good time to and through the canyon and were all feeling pretty good, if tired, when we got to the final rap.

I happened to be using my backup ATS since my SQWUREL had developed a sharp edge that concerned me a bit earlier in the day. I used the ATS almost exclusively last year but this was the 1st canyon I had used it this year. Worked just fine throughout the day though. After setting up the last drop I was first out on rappel and honestly misjudged my initial friction setting. I think the ease of adjustment on the SQWUREL made me a bit lackadaisical with my initial setting. Once the rap when free-hanging it was apparent I didn’t have enough friction so I was fussing a bit with adjustments and could really tell that I was getting more fatigued than I thought. After a bit of work I got things worked out and comfortable again and was about 20′ off the deck when I my hand hit a baseball sized rats nest that had developed in the rope. Typically we use a rope bag and rarely have issues with the rope, but because we decided to dry bag the 120′ rope so we didn’t have to carry a water soaked rope through the whole canyon for the final drop, we tossed without bag. Despite our best efforts at flaking it out well obviously it knotted up a bit down low. Knowing that there may be an issue with the rope one thing on my mind when I first started was to check the rope for knots, but with the friction issue it left my mind unfortunately.

Once I noticed it, I was way too close to stop and tie off and clear it. So I rapped into it and pulled out my ascenders, jugged up bit and undid the knot. Rapping into the knot was unfortunate as it really tightened the rope and jammed it up pretty good. I ended up having to take the ATS off my harness in order to get it unjammed. Probably took me a good 15-20 minutes to clear it and get down the final 20′ to the ground. Meanwhile every person in the narrows got a nice show and will have the photos to prove it. Mainly I felt like an idiot for not noticing the problem soon enough, but I was also happy that I had the tools and actually practiced the techniques I used that got be down safely. 14 months ago I would have been in deep trouble. It also was really surprising how much harder it was at the end of a long day dealing with that than it was in my garage. Made me realize that not only do I need more practice, but I need more practice when I am tired and wet and my gear is packed away instead of easily accessible on my harness.