When Might a Rappel Be a BAD Idea?
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In the video, I give five scenarios that I’ve faced (plus the added scenarios of an overly nervous or injured climber) in which I’ve decided to send at least one climber down a multi-pitch route on a lower rather than a rappel. For each scenario, there have been times when the team deemed the risks of a lower being less than that of a rappel:
We have a climber who is missing a belay/rappel device - we avoid the rope twists of a Münter and any potential knowledge gaps around carabiner-chain rappel solutions;
We have an anchor that may be prone to failure with an outward, rather than a downward, pull- we can more easily avoid those outward pulls if the terrain isn’t vertical when doing a lower;
We have loose terrain - we have our hands available and can more carefully navigate around loose stones and blocks;
We have climbers below - we don’t need to toss ropes onto those climbers (although there are other solutions for this);
We are unsure of the next anchor location - we stay on belay, which allows us to move up (climbing) and down (lowering) to find a good anchor position.
The full video goes into more details and nuances.
Now, to be sure, having only one climber go down on lower still means that you need the second climber (if it’s a two person team) go down on rappel. So, aren’t we still having to deal with what we perceive to be the added risk of rappelling, anyway? Yes, but now only once instead of twice.
And any video can only start the conversation about these complex risk assessments, not end them. Decisions will always be contextual. Let’s take the example of loose terrain. We decide that throwing the ropes is likely to knock loose blocks down, or we decide that we want to have hands free for the delicate descent over that terrain, and so being on lower allows us to use our hands to reduce the likelihood of kicking down debris.
Well, if we lower one climber down, they are less likely to kick debris down. That can matter a lot if there are climbers below. But now the second climber has to come down on rappel. What have we gained? Isn’t the first climber down still at risk?
Well, we have one rope end already down, so that’s one rope toss we don’t have to do that can’t loosen any rock. Maybe the second climber down coils the rope in a “saddle bag” with them on decent, letting out rope as they move. So, no ropes are tossed.
But the second climber down could still kick off debris onto the second climber. If the first climber down can safely get out of the fall line, then this strategy will work. If that first climber will be in the fall line, once down, then maybe we want an entirely different strategy, like a tandem rappel when both climbers go down on at the same time on the same device. Yes, a counterbalanced rappel would be an option, too, but you better know how to mitigate the risks of that maneuver, which we did a video about. Basically, we figure out how to descend at the same time so that nobody is below to get hit.
In essence, the lowering of a climber will work in some, maybe even many, circumstances, but we can’t just shut off our brain into a rule-based decision structure: if loose, then lower; if missing a device, then lower. It’s a tool in the toolbox, not a fail-safe.