Death Valley Anchor Class Curriculum
From ropewiki.com
Station: Cars Welcome to Death Valley[edit]
- Introductions
- Instructors (Ideally 2 students per 1 instructor?)
- Who is everyone?
- Been to DV before?
Good Trips[edit]
- Everyone looks out for everyones safety, especially towards the end of the day.
- However, you and you alone are ultimately responsible for your own safety.
- Efficiency is key. Parallelism is key.
- 10 people x 20 rappels x 1min = 3 hours
- 13 peope x 27 rappels x 4min = 24 hours
- No rushing, people naturally rush as the sun starts to go down
- DV Eats ropes. Should we break a rope, we help the owner replace it.
- Knowing the length of their rope is key (I've been the guy who told people my 100 was a 160)
- Stay with your rope, rig your rope, pull your rope (This is your rope there are many like it)
Medical talk[edit]
- Who has training?
- Who has conditions we need to know about?
- Keep an eye on your teammates for 3 hypos
- We're all going to university. We're hear to learn, not "run" a canyon.
- Today I want to do everything the right way, curtail your shortcuts, no intermediate/expert syndrome
- Replace every anchor, If you've never build a rock cairn, today is your day.
- Load Cell fun:
- Rappel contest
- Squat contest
- Tug of war
- Build and talk about anchors
- Practice and discuss sequencing and backups
- Rope abrasion, management and best practices
- We're going to take some extra extra time at the first rappel, and the last to talk
- We're going to stick together more because we're learning
The canyon[edit]
- Today is X Canyon: 5mi, 1000ft up, 8raps, upto 200ft.
- Not easy, just because it's 30% shorter than other canyons
- Weather
- Death Valley Extremes
- Decisions matter more because you have more rappels
- Bigger, hotter, longer canyons affect your decisions more
- Sequencing matters more because anchors could fail
- Where you place the rope on the edge matters more
Station: First anchor[edit]
Rope Choice[edit]
- Choose the shortest rope available for a drop, this puts wear and tear on shorter less valuable ropes.
- Getting a shorter rope stuck isn't as big a deal.
- Move the wear point after every one or two rappels. Creep rope on long rappels.
Rope Bags[edit]
- Don't catch rope bags
- Don't throw rope bags that don't belong to you
- Don't carry rope bags in your hands (Bring a big enough backpack for your stuff)
- Not worried about floatation
First Rappel[edit]
- Checking everyone all the time for safety
- Rappeller:
- Asks for a backup
- Asks for a belay
- Asks to lower bag
- Meat and sequencing of getting people down to build the next anchor
- Lets you know if they need more material tossed down
- Builds anchors in parallel
- How long it actually takes people to rappel
Station: Rock cairn[edit]
- Demo building cairn
- Trade offs:
- Webbing length / Work near the edge
- How much webbing do you need to use?
- How much material is available to us?
- How bad do we need our rope back?
- We don't expect them to fail predictably, we expect them to fail unpredictably.
Station: Dead man[edit]
- Demo deadman
- When to pick a deadman
- How to check a deadman
Station: Sand Trap[edit]
- Demo sand trap
- Reiterate building confidence
- When to pick a sandtrap
- How to check a sandtrap
Station: Releasable rigging[edit]
- Demo smooth operator
- When to pick a SO
- How to check a SO
Station: Pitons if time and materials?[edit]
- Explain history of their use, and that they're found in many canyons
- How to check a Piton
- When and how to rappel off them
Station LaMAR:[edit]
- Generally rope owner, owners have (more) financial incentive to move the wear point of their rope and more incentive not to get it stuck.
- but sometimes the lightest person.
- Removes courtesy rappel point
- Sends pack ahead
- Pay attention to pull on long or
- Backup for everyone else
- Changes wear point
- Responsible for managing pull
- Makes sure they have enough material for the pull
- Asks for test pull if necessary
- Sets rope length with help (And how and when to do it)
- Too much rope, for belays
- Set length before or after penultimate person (so the get a backup) depending if they need a belay
- Dieting so you don't die.
Station: Canyon Exit[edit]
- One thing you did well
- One thing you could have done better
- Thanks for coming!
