Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston [151]
After fifteen minutes of sorting the rope into two knot-free stacks, it is ready to go over the edge. I check the knot, clipped into the single carabiner secured on the purple webbing of the anchor, and, one at a time, toss each pile of rope over the cliff. Ordinarily, I would remove the knot and let the rope dangle from the anchor. This would allow me to pull the rope down once I reached the bottom; today, however, I intend to abandon it. I won’t need it after this, and right now I’m truly unconcerned about littering.
Standard practice would have me back up the anchor carabiner with a second one, the gates opposite and opposed, but I’m not worried that this one will accidentally open or fail. There is nothing the ’biner can catch on, and its rating is strong enough that I could hang two pickup trucks off of it. The webbing is new within a month, and I’m satisfied with its strength as well; it hasn’t been chewed on or chafed or significantly degraded by the sun. If I didn’t trust the webbing, I could clip my rope on a ’biner directly into one of the bolt eyelets, but I decide the setup is plenty sufficient to hold my weight on the descent.
Next, I take my Air Traffic Controller (ATC) rappel/belay device and bend each rope strand through one of the twin slots in the mouth of the device. Once they’re through, I clip my main carabiner through the rope loops. After I tighten down the lock on the carabiner gate, I’m finally on rappel. I unclip my daisy chain from the anchor webbing and back up until my weight comes onto the rope and anchor system. Checking my harness, I see that I haven’t doubled back the waist belt through the D-ring that holds it in place. Theoretically, the belt could pull through the ring, and then my weight would be suspended entirely by my leg loops. If I had two hands and weren’t in the process of bleeding to death, I would double back the belt, but right now, with water waiting below, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Looking down at my feet, I back up in jerking motions, feeding six inches of the ropes through my ATC with each stuttering step. At the edge, I can peek down between my legs at the dizzying six-story drop and see that the ledge I’m departing hangs out over the rest of the cliff. I’m slightly nervous about doing this rappel with just my left hand. If my grasp slips or for some reason I let go, I have no backup; I’ll accelerate down the rope, only slightly slower than in free fall, and take a hard landing next to the pool, probably breaking my legs or worse. It’s very important that I take the overhanging section slowly.
Just ease back. Little more. Little more. That’s it, Aron. Step down onto that block. No, left foot first. Good. Steady. Now your right foot. Excellent. Lean back on the rope. Trust it. Push your butt out. Straighten your legs. Now feed a little more rope out. Slowly. Sloooowly. Good. Now hold on tight.
The pucker factor is high on the upper part of the rappel. With the rope’s weight putting additional friction on my rappel device, I have to fight and pull the strands to feed them through the device bit by bit—a significant effort that saps my remaining strength—but not so much that I slide down the rope and lose my balance. It’s like trying to drive a car in 5-mph stop-and-go traffic while pressing the accelerator to the floor and controlling the vehicle’s speed by releasing the hand brake. I have to let off the brake to get going, but it’s dangerously easy to release it too far and lose control. Doing it one-handed means I don’t have any way to reach out and stabilize myself when I start to swing one direction or the other as I move my feet over the awkwardly uneven lip of the shelf.