One of my favorite places to rappel was beside Lula Falls. Halfway down the cliff I would pull the rope to the top of the rack and sway back and forth with the mist of the falls spraying my face. The final descent was a free fall.
Lula Falls. We rappelled just to the left of the falls
It was a beautiful day to hike the switchbacks to the top of the mountain and walk the flat trail to the rappelling cliff. When we arrived, someone was already there. We either had to find another place to rappel or wait until they were finished. Then something caught my eye.
I stood motionless, except for my eyes narrowing over the grimace on my face, as I watched a grown man loop the rappelling rope under each of the brake bars of the rack. His other companions had already gone off the side of the cliff, one of which was on the trail leading to the top. Warnings flashed in my mind and the thought that formed was, “You’re going to kill yourself!” Though the Smiths were not with us, Mrs. Smith’s warning waved a red flag as it echoed in my head, “Check your brake bars.”
my sister ready to go down a cliff
As I walked toward the man, it was obvious he didn’t know what he was doing. I stepped forward and said, “You’re threading the rope the wrong way. If you try to descend like that, the brake bars will all pop and you’ll fall.” He just looked at me and started telling me that was the way he was told to thread it. I told him again, “You need to loop the rope OVER the brake bars.” To him I was just a scrawny young wisp of a teenager. What would I know?
He was hesitant to believe me, but he made a loop the other way – over the bar – and studied it a minute. It was apparent he was not comfortable rigging himself and did not understand there were two ways to wind a rope – over or under. Yet, he wasn’t about the take my word for it. The encounter at least slowed him enough to keep him from making a fatal error. About that time, one of his companions came up the trail. He intervened and helped his pal get rigged properly.
There wasn’t so much as a “thank you.” I’ve wondered from time to time if he ever realized that some scrawny girl kept him from making a grave mistake.
Check your brake bars! It could be a matter of life or death!
For those of you who don’t what rappelling is, it is jumping off the edge of a cliff with the aid of a rope (of course fastened off {we used a bowline knot}) and the proper aid – such as a set of carabiners with brake bars {that slows the rate of descent}, rope looped around carabiners to act as a brake, a rack or a figure eight. A good seat is necessary – either a purchased one that you just step into {a guy I knew once rappelled off the building and his purchased seat busted and he landed on his rear – good thing it happened at about 10 feet from the ground}, or a seat tied from seat belt material or a strip of narrower webbing designed especially for tying seats {which is what I used}. A belayer is also a necessity for safe rappelling. That is someone, usually at the bottom of the drop, who slows the speed of descent by merely pulling the rope taut.