Welcome to our second installment of “Learn How to Rappel.” This week we’ll be walking through the setup and attachment of the rappel.
Rappelling is arguably one of the most dangerous procedures in climbing, so pay attention to your setup because an improper setup can get you killed.
The reason it’s one of the most dangerous procedures is the fact that rappelling forces you to rely on your equipment and anchors 100%.
Let’s recap, rappelling FORCES YOU TO RELY ON YOUR EQUIPMENT AND ANCHORS 100%!
This is why learning knots and getting proper training is so important, because it could cost you your life.
OK, now that we have the warnings out of the way, let’s learn how to set up a rappel!
Fixed Rappel
Something to take into consideration about the way we’re describing our setup is that this is for a FIXED rappel, which means that the setup is used multiple times. With rappelling in lead climbing, the objective is to descend from your route and then pull your rope down.
With a fixed rappel, there’s usually a back way up the rock to facilitate multiple rappels. This is good when first learning how to rappel, and to brush up on rappelling techniques.
Anchor Location
The first step to setting up a rappel is locating anchor points. We’re lucky enough to have a local climbing park that cares enough about climbers to install bolts into the rock. You may not always find this, so you have to be prepared to attach to a tree or boulder if necessary.
In our last post we showed a single piece of webbing, but it’s a good idea to have a few different pieces of webbing that are different lengths and colors (to help identify lengths) so that you can propperly anchor your rappel.
The premise behind anchors is to have multiple anchor points, so that in the unlikely event of one of those anchors failing you have a backup or safety pro in place that will continue to support the load. There should at the very least be two solid anchors.
Anchors are a very broad subject and warrant their own topic which we plan on doing in the near future. For now, we’ll just describe how our setup works.
Inspection
Once your anchor points are located it’s very important to inspect them for any damage or weakness. There’s that little thing called your life depending on it… Don’t skip this part or trust anchors 100%!
Take this opportunity to also inspect everything that will be used in the rappel for fraying, wear, damage and anything else that might prevent its correct working operation.
Anchor Setup
Using the fixed anchors we have available, our first step is to attach a locking carabiner to each… remembering to “screw down so you don’t screw up.”
Screwing down in this situation is to orient the carabiner so that gravity will carry the manual gate in the direction the load will be coming from.
Make sure the gates of the carabiners are facing outboard, so that the rope won’t rub on the gates if it happens to move within the carabiners (refer to the attached video for a visual).
A side note here is that we feel strongly about using manually locking carabiners in all anchor setups. Yes, we have automatic locking carabiners and use them, but not for anchors.
Rope Attachment
Once the carabiners are in place, it’s time to start placing the rope. The rope will be threaded through the carabiners using a Threaded Figure-Eight. Start by measuring out the required distance needed to come all the way through the carabiners, make the threaded portion of the figure-eight and have enough left to back it up.
Run the rope through the carabiners (remember…carabiner gates outboard!), tie the Threaded Figure-Eight and back it up with an overhand knot.
Anchor Notes
At this point of our anchor system we have two anchor attachment points, so that if one of the bolts gives way we’ll still have the rope through one carabiner.
It can be argued at this point that we’ve created the dreaded “American Triangle” but our argument in defense of this is that if the rope were to break at any point of any anchor system it wouldn’t matter how many anchor points you had or in what configuration they were in, you’re screwed (and thats neither up nor down in this situation).
Since our triangle is created with the actual rope it’s not quite the same as if we’d built the anchor system with webbing and then attached the rope to that.
Yes, a triangle pattern puts more force on each bolt and that’s something we’re OK with here, due to the fact that in Rappelling you’re not shock loading your anchor points and only supporting body weight.
During a rappel your descent should be smooth and controlled keeping a static load on the anchors.
Webbing Redundant-Backup
With our next step, attaching a backup with Tubular Webbing, we’re creating a redundant backup in case something were to happen to our two main anchor points. This will also help to distribute the load through another point, effectively creating a diamond pattern distribution.
Our attachment here with our backup, is to a tree heavily rooted in the rock.
First we measure out a few feet in the tubular webbing and tie a Tape Knot. Next, we wrap the webbing around the tree which becomes our working end. This end gets threaded back through the Tape Knot, and once secure the bitter ends get backed up with overhand knots.
When beginning the threading stage of the knot, the slack can be removed from the webbing backup before completing the Tape Knot trace (refer to the attached video for a visual).
Ensure that the Tape Knot in the tubular webbing is not directly coming into contact with the rope (or even has the chance to).
We now have our rope attached to our two anchors using a Threaded Figure-Eight and backed up with Tubular Webbing tied with a Tape Knot.
The next step is kicking off our rope bag and getting clipped into our rappel. Stay tuned as we continue with part 3 of “Learn how to Rappel.”
Update! One of our YouTube viewers pointed out an error in our 2nd Carabiner during the setup. As the rope gets threaded though and the line gets loaded, that carabiner is not lying on it’s back, which could present a problem.
The friction of the screw gate rubbing the rock surface could potentially cause the screw gate to loosen whether it’s screwed down or up. Always check to ensure your carabiners are lying on their backs, and important detail we left out!
This error wouldn’t cause the rig to fail since there are still two anchor points should something happen to the carabiner, but this should be corrected.
We invite any further discussion in the comments on other secure ways of setting up a fixed rappel and your preferred methods.
This information is provided solely as reference to supplement proper rappelling training from an experienced guide, not replace it. Rappelling is one of the most dangerous things you can do in climbing because you have to rely on your equipment and anchors 100%.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe you’ll address this in the next post, but the way you have it rigged in this post means that the rope will be running directly over the cliff edge, so it would be wise to secure some sort of padding at the edge to keep any sharp rocks from sawing into your line. You could have used some of that handy webbing to extend multiple runners from your anchors over the edge to mitigate this.
In the first part of the Rappelling series, a modified rope protector was addressed, and will be shown and talked about in the next article.
The reason webbing was used to extend the rappel over the edge was that this series is made to be a an introduction to rappelling, and when someone is just getting a feel for rappelling, we feel it’s better to have the pull (tension) from the rope come before they walk over the side of the rock face. Setting the rappelling rig up like this will slowly acclimate a person to how it feels when you have to totally trust your rope and anchors. When the webbing extends the rappel over the cliff you’re pretty much hanging over it before you get any tension in the line.
In top roping, that’s the only way to go (extending the anchors with webbing). You definitely don’t want your rope coming into contact with the rock in that situation.
Thanks for the comment!
One more thing:
“Yes, a triangle pattern puts more force on each bolt and that’s something we’re OK with here, due to the fact that in Rappelling you’re not shock loading your anchor points and only supporting body weight.”
Maybe its okay because you’re using nice solid bolts, but if you were placing your own protection (cams, nuts, etc) this is a really really bad idea.
We’re definitely not advocating rappelling off cams, nuts, hexes or any kind of protection in an introduction to rappelling article, so that really shouldn’t even be an issue. The underlying point of this article is to show a method of FIXED rappelling that will allow someone the means to gain comfort and trust their rappel. Thanks for the comment!
I really think its not the best way of building a safe anchor. It forces too munch the bolts and in a wrong direction. I really think it is not a good idea.
The best and safest way I found to build a rappel anchor is in link copied below. It is a copy from an Spanish Magazine called Desnivel.
http://www.abrigopantano.com/publico/rapelemchapeleta.pdf
Alex,
Thank you for the link and information. We’re aware of the american triangle, and have spoke about it in this article. We’re looking to do an update of these rappelling articles to offer other ways of setting up a rappel.
Hey im not an expert at rappelling or climbing for that matter but i do it for fun once or twice a week. i have a question about the redundant diamond back up system that you built with the nylon webbing. when you tied the two ends to create the closed loop what kind of know did you use? and i was thinking could you maybe use 66mm rope like one that you buy by the foot or something and use a square knot with an overhand safety on both sides to finish off the redundant safety anchor? Thanks!!1
Diego,
On the webbing portion that backs up the system, a tape knot was used http://www.itstactical.com/2009/05/11/knot-of-the-week-tape-knot/ and it does have overhand safeties on both sides.
Thanks for the comment!
oh right on thats a new knot i had never used. could you use rope instead of nylon webbing to make the back up?
When I was in search and rescue and we’d train on bolts at a local cliff, we’d use a double loop or “bunny ear” figure eight with a couple of carabiners to even out the pressure on the bolts.
I think that would simplify this rig pretty well. What do you think?