Geary Schindel in San Antonio posted the following to PBSS & TX Cavers but is not on the SWR remailer. Interesting… Jacqui
Begin forwarded message: > From: Geary Schindel <gschin...@edwardsaquifer.org> > Subject: Re: [PBSS] [SWR] Climbing gear damage > Date: June 13, 2013 8:09:56 AM CDT > To: "'Jacqueline Thomas'" <jlrtho...@verizon.net>, "p...@caver.net" > "Texascavers@texascavers.com" <Texascavers@texascavers.com> > > Nice article and evaluation. > > I know that some folks think I’m paranoid (which may be true) but I’ve always > carried my ropes and vertical gear in protective bags. The possibility of > damage to ropes and vertical gear thrown in the back of pickup trucks is much > too great. Reminds me of a trip I was supposed to go on when I was in > college. A bunch of friends put together a trip to do the big pits in Mexico > over Christmas. I really couldn’t afford to go and had to cancel. However, > my friends went. The group bought a long rope which they thought was too big > to place in a pack so they stuffed it loose in the back of the van. They did > El Sotano and everyone climbed in and out with no problem. > > They then went over to Golondrinas. Two folks rappelled in with no problems. > The third person rappelled in and the rope sheath separated and jammed into > the rack, about 100 feet over the lip. So, here he was dangling about 900 > feet off the floor of the cave with the rope starting to part. He didn’t want > to place his safety ascender on the rope as that was where the rope sheath > separated. The folks up top lowered down the tail of the rope and he was able > to change over and ascend out of the pit. > > The top crew than pulled up the rope, threw down some notes asking what the > two guys on the bottom wanted to do. The choices were, wait about a week in > the bottom of the pit while the cavers hiked a day out to the road, drove > back to the US to get another rope and to return. > > Second option was to lower the bad portion of the rope into the pit and use > the end that was in the bottom to anchor the rope and let the cavers on > bottom climb out. That is what the cavers decided to do. They climbed out > without incident. > > A government chemist on the trip took the damaged part of the rope back to > his lab and did some tests and found the rope had been exposed to battery > acid. The owner of the van had said that he had carried a car battery in the > back of the van about a month before and that it must have leaked. > > Tough lesson learned. > > Geary > > From: swr-boun...@caver.net [mailto:swr-boun...@caver.net] On Behalf Of > Jacqueline Thomas > Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 9:37 PM > To: p...@caver.net; Southwest Region Region; Texascavers@texascavers.com > Subject: [SWR] Climbing gear damage > > Below is a link to a Black Diamond investigation into initially inexplicable > harness failure. It's climbing gear, not caving gear, but is very > interesting. Jacqui > > QC Lab: The Electric Harness Acid Test > _______________________________________________ > PBSS mailing list > p...@caver.net > http://lists.caver.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pbss > _______________________________________________ > This list is provided free as a courtesy of CAVERNET
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