Rockin' It
We're expected at work to maintain a pretty broad set of rescue skills, and it can be difficult in Alaska to find the right combination of weather and environment to train well to all of them. As a result, we sometimes end up going to places like Moab, Utah and Escalante Canyon, Colorado, to do things like rock rescue training. Bummer.
I'd never been to Moab before, and only been to Utah once. Needless to say, it was awesome being back in the Southwest.
We were there to practice rescue in vertical environments. The toughest part of that type of rescue is generally the edge transition between vertical and horizontal, or vice versa. It takes a lot of people to get it right. In this case, sun-deprived Alaskans.
When hanging by a rope at the top of a 600-foot cliff strapped in to a litter waiting for your teammates to change their ropes system from a lower to a raise, you've got some time to think about consequences.
It doesn't make you, or the litter attendant, nervous at all...
We went from Moab to Escalante Canyon. Equally beautiful, though far less traveled.
Escalante Canyon has got some sweet crack climbing. Here's one of my teammates working his way up
Me cracking up. I'd never done any crack climbing...definitely a different technique and a cool new challenge.
Another teammate after the crack.
Our final scenario was on the cliffs in the background of the photo. We lowered a litter with an attendant to the ledge about 2/3 of the way down the cliff, loaded up the litter, then lowered it the rest of the way down the cliff.
It's a little faint in this photo, but we used a guiding line to move the litter over the 35 degree slope at the bottom of the cliff. With all the large rocks on the slope, the guiding line was able to keep the litter about a foot off the ground without anyone having to carry it. Pretty cool technique. Overall, the training was great and we had nothing but bluebird days and nights spent sleeping under the stars. Pretty awesome.
I'd never been to Moab before, and only been to Utah once. Needless to say, it was awesome being back in the Southwest.
We were there to practice rescue in vertical environments. The toughest part of that type of rescue is generally the edge transition between vertical and horizontal, or vice versa. It takes a lot of people to get it right. In this case, sun-deprived Alaskans.
When hanging by a rope at the top of a 600-foot cliff strapped in to a litter waiting for your teammates to change their ropes system from a lower to a raise, you've got some time to think about consequences.
It doesn't make you, or the litter attendant, nervous at all...
We went from Moab to Escalante Canyon. Equally beautiful, though far less traveled.
Escalante Canyon has got some sweet crack climbing. Here's one of my teammates working his way up
Me cracking up. I'd never done any crack climbing...definitely a different technique and a cool new challenge.
Another teammate after the crack.
Our final scenario was on the cliffs in the background of the photo. We lowered a litter with an attendant to the ledge about 2/3 of the way down the cliff, loaded up the litter, then lowered it the rest of the way down the cliff.
It's a little faint in this photo, but we used a guiding line to move the litter over the 35 degree slope at the bottom of the cliff. With all the large rocks on the slope, the guiding line was able to keep the litter about a foot off the ground without anyone having to carry it. Pretty cool technique. Overall, the training was great and we had nothing but bluebird days and nights spent sleeping under the stars. Pretty awesome.
posted by Slim at
12:57 AM
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