In an expression of skepticism about Bear Grylls' caving exploits, Fofo said
"I stopped believing the whole thing one time when he did a rappel, he tied one end of the rope, threw the rest down and descended -- and later, he had the whole rope again with him! Uh, yeah, right..." Actually there is a way to do that. It's not a technique I'd recommend, but from all the comments people have been making about Bear Grylls, I wouldn't put it past him to try it. You simply tie the end of your rope to a weak rigging point that's strong enough to support just slightly more than your body weight. You rappel down almost to the bottom and then bounce a little or otherwise do something to momentarily increase tension on the rope. The rigging point breaks, you take a short fall (hopefully short enough not to cause serious injury), and the rope falls all around you. You get up (if you can), wipe away any excess mud and blood, coil the rope, and proceed on your way through the cave (presumably to a second entrance, since you can't go back the way you came in). I bet I know what you're thinking. You think this scenario is too far fetched to resemble anything that would actually happen to a real caver in a real cave, don't you. Well, I'd be inclined to think that way, too, if I hadn't witnessed a similar incident with a cable ladder back in the mid 1970s, while caving with the Huntsville, Alabama Grotto. I was with a large group of cavers on a Grotto trip through a cave involving mostly easy horizontal passage. There wasn't enough vertical work for people to bother bringing vertical gear for rope work, but there was one short vertical drop which they rigged with a cable ladder. An experienced caver familiar with this cave rigged the ladder to the customary rigging point, which was a natural rock projection protruding near the cave floor a short distance from the top of the drop. No one questioned the rigging point selection, since cavers familiar with the cave knew it was the same rigging point they had used in a number of past trips. Little did they know that what they assumed to be a rock projection attached to a solid rock cave floor was actually just a moderate sized rock partially embedded in dirt. A number of cavers (including me) descended the cable ladder without incident. Some used a top belay, either because they were inexperienced with cable ladder climbing or because (like me) they had heard how cable ladders in seemingly good condition sometimes could break due to hidden corrosion damage. Others felt confident enough to climb with no belay. Then one of the larger cavers in the group began his decent. He was a big strong guy, experienced enough to feel confident about doing this short cable ladder climb with no belay. He was so confident, in fact, that he let his small child ride down on his shoulders. During the climb down, however, the rigging point suddenly gave way, allowing the man, the child, and the ladder to begin falling together. Then something near the top of the ladder became wedged in a rock crack, causing the ladder to stop suddenly and pull loose from the man's grip. His foot, however, became tangled in the ladder, causing him to flip backwards and dangle upside down with his head just slightly above the floor. The child went flying through the air and landed in a soft mud puddle. Neither of them had any significant injuries. Fortunately, there were enough cavers below to untangle the man from the ladder, and there were enough others above to pull the ladder back up and rig it to something more secure. The trip continued, and for the remaining cable ladder climbs, even the most experienced cavers were much more inclined to use a belay. If word of this stunt somehow were to get back to Bear Grylls, do you think he'd try it on TV? Rod -----Original Message----- >From: Fofo <[email protected]> >Sent: Aug 21, 2009 1:23 PM >To: texascavers <[email protected]> >Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Bear Grylls goes caving (with a torch made of a >strip of t-shirt soaked in wild boar fat) > >Sounds like another episode I saw, where he got into a mine with a torch >that he dipped in kerosene. He went deeper, downclimbed a shaft, _then_ >his torch went out (and I thought, "In real life, that would pretty much >be 'game over'") and he said how dangerous the whole thing was and he >kept walking (in total darkness, recorder in IR), following the wall, >until he found the exit. > >I stopped believing the whole thing one time when he did a rappel, he >tied one end of the rope, threw the rest down and descended -- and >later, he had the whole rope again with him! Uh, yeah, right... > > - Fofo > >Don Cooper wrote, on 21/8/09 9:48: >> Nay, but following Occam's Razor - "If it smells of 'B.S.' - it probably >> IS some form of 'S.'... >> -WaV >> >> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 6:39 AM, <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> From TagNet this morning: >> c >> Man vs. Wild >> By: Karl Niles (Bowling Green, Kentucky) >> >> Caught an episode of Man vs. Wild Wednesday night. Bear Grylls (host) >> got dropped off by chopper in a remote area of Alabama. >> >> > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >Visit our website: http://texascavers.com >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
