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Near Miss - Abseiling on knot-tail of ropes. 31-Jan-2016 At 10:56:34 PM jakob

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So I had a close call the other day. I was abseiling off of Mammoth Ledges in Yosemite after a failed solo attempt on triple direct. I'd been on the wall a couple days so was pretty tired, the abseiling was traversing, it was hot and I had a haul bag underslung. I knew i was in the danger zone for fatigue, so was double checking everything, but came pretty close to abseiling off my rope.

I had two lines joined with an overhand knot (euro death knot). I use this knot all the time, and especially prefer it if i'm pulling lines on a multipitch, not good if your lines get stuck solo 10 pitches up. I was using an extended atc and a prussik on the brake. I had a drama however when on one of the abseils, the ropes didn't make it all the way down to the next belay on a sloping ledge. I was about 5 metres short. So after some consideration, I docked my haulbag on a nut, then jumared up the double ropes back to a 1/4 inch bolt I had seen a bit further up. I backed up the bolt with a bomber nut. It was here that I staged a belay, pulled the ropes and then set up to keep on abseiling, with a plan to pick up my haulbag on the way back down. I would obviously leave the nut and binas at this belay.

It was at this point I did something a bit different. Because I was now abseiling without my bag, and because there was a visible ledge 10m underneath me (albeit still 100m up from the ground), I decided to abseil without the prussik. I quite often abseil without a prussik, but my rule is that I use a prussik when cleaning trad, or whenever something is a bit complicated. This next abseil seemed straightforward and short, and to be honest I was pretty keen to get off the nut/ 1/4 inch bolt and get back to the 3/8 inchers! All the previous ones however I used a prussik.

I started rigging for abseil, but when I configured my ATC, the tails were so long that I mistakenly put one of the tails through the ATC. The second line I got correct. At this point I took up my weight on the ATC to functionally test the system as I always do, which worked successfully. I then took off my safety. Before starting my abseil I went through and did a visual check of everything and luckily caught that I had about 6 inches of line underneath my brake hand which ended!!! I realised instantly what I had done wrong, pooed myself a little, then threw that safety back on and tried again.

LESSONS LEARNED

The first lesson I have learned is that when tying two ropes together, you must not have the tails any longer than 1 foot. The tails must not be long enough to put through an ATC. Tests various show that even the worst knot will only have about 1inch of tail slip through into the knot. To me, 12 inches is a good tail length.

The second lesson I have learned is that prussiks are a pretty damn good defence against abseiling off the rope. If I had a prussik and my brake hand felt the rope slip through, I possibly would have caught it with my prussik hand, letting the prussik do its job. Without a prussik there's less opportunity to catch it. * I did have knots in the end of the main lines, though in this situation it wouldn't have helped me.

The third lesson I already knew, and that is that being tired can really cause lapses. You need a routine to catch yourself when this happens. The final visual check really saved me here.

This was a near miss I'd rather not repeat. Be safe out there!