Bight of Rope Method to Transition from Climbing to Lowering at a Links or Rappel Rings Anchor
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Redundancy is an subtle concept. It may not seem so, but it is, particularly with climbing because climbing involves a conglomeration of complex systems. Let’s take a common lead belay, as an example. What’s involved in that system? The climber’s harness, the climber’s knot, the rope - itself, the anchor, the belay device, the carabiner connecting the belay device to the belayer’s harness, the belayer’s harness, the belayer’s hand (not to mention the belayer’s attention). And then I can take deconstruct each of those components into even smaller elements, too: the rope is a sheth and a core; the belay device may have multiple parts (like a gri gri or such), the anchor probably (should) have multiple legs that will have carabiners and slings and such.
…and so on and so on.
The point is that it is interesting to me that we spend a lot of time trying to stay clipped in to two systems during a climbing-to-lowering transition - through a runner and staying on belay, and then switch to the actual lowering where we have multiple single points of failure - not the least being the belayer, her- or himself. When we are in the middle of this transition, there is a point where we put slack into the climbing rope; and while it is still there to catch us if we fall, we will fall some distance before we are caught. At that point, the only “no fall” system we have is the lanyard or runner.
I don’t bring this up as pointing out the folly of adding in a second system (a lanyard or the like) or to say that we are somehow failing in our efforts to create safety checks and backups. I bring it up to point out that risk mitigation is complex and requires thought. What is the point of putting the bight of rope through rather than just untying, as an example? Well, we’ll learn about a transition sequence in which the anchor hardware demands that we untie and then retie into the rope next week. But it adds an additional risk. No one is up there to check your knot. So, if we don’t have to rely upon that, all the better.
But aren’t we still confronting that risk when we tie the figure eight on a bight and eventually get lowered down with that taking our weight? Isn’t that the same single point of failure potential with no one there to make sure we tie that knot correctly?
Well, yes. But they also aren’t completely analogous. The eight on a bight knot is easier to tie and also less likely to fail if tied incorrectly (likely becomes an overhand on a bight). In both cases, we add in the step of having the belayer take in the rope so that we check that we are being held by the climbing rope system before we unclip our lanyard and get lowered off.
I’m rambling…
I guess my point is this. Don’t just memorize the steps. Think about the steps. Why are those steps there? What risk is the next action designed to mitigate. And keep in mind that next action could be physical (tying a knot), verbal (communicating a command to the belayer), or mental (double checking a screwgate is locked).
There is a reason all the safety disclaimers say “climbing is an inherently risky activity.” It is. Part of how we mitigate that risk is by understanding the “why’s” behind things. That positions us to be a strength of the overall system - an ability to evaluate what we need to do next - and not a weakness of the overall system when we can only do the next memorized step and are unable to adapt to changing circumstances.