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<http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en/qc-lab-acid-harness.html>
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