2005 Ropes course
Intermediate ropes course
3-4 Sept 2005
Over the weekend of the 3rd and 4th we attended the intermediate ropes course in Waitomo, this was a follow on to the intro ropes course we did some time ago with Grant Pratley and Kip Mandeno. There were about 16 participants from HTG, WCG, MSG, BWR and a couple of other random people. The into course gave us basic ideas/theory on pulley systems and knot craft. And the intermediate course was an extension to this, we looked at things like
- Knots
- Load sharing on anchors
- Rated strength of components of a rescue system
- Minimizing failure points
- Analysis of rescue systems
After spending most of Saturday morning in the education room at the museum it was time to get out and try some of these things, so we packed up and headed out to the practice pitch behind the HTG hut, we set up a small lower and raise system using out newly learnt skills, we were able to incorporate innovative ideas such as AZTEK ™ Edge kits, these AZTEK ™ Edge kits were a very useful addition for things like backing up anchors and bolt on pulley systems, The AZTEK ™ Edge kits were handy for a multitude of uses, in fact the AZTEK ™ Edge kits were so useful we gave them an X rating for usefulness.
Frog was our patient and was lowered down the pitch, on the haul back up frog thought he would play a little trick on the haul team, he grabbed hold of an outcrop of rock, making the haul very hard, on the surface the haul team started complaining that the haul had become hard all of a sudden, Kip decided that this was due to the angle of a redirect in a tree, so he instructed to us that it should be lowered to reduce the angle, this would make the haul easy, this was done and the haul team started hauling again, frog let go of the rock down the pitch and the haul became easy again, during the debrief kip made a big point of how the angle of the redirect could make such a big difference to the haul, about this time frog let the group in on his little prank, much to the haul teams amusement.
We got a nice dinner put on by and most of us had an early night after Friday nights efforts.
The next morning saw us down at the museum in the morning for some more theory and a TEST! Once that was complete we headed out to the sweatshop entrance of Fred and set about doing a stretcher scoop of an injured person part way down a pitch, This involved tons of rope, tons of gear and a shiny rescue tripod!! I worked on the main haul system, it comprised of a 3:1 with a compounded 3:1 system with a couple of COD’s giving us 9:1 mechanical advantage, our main rigging point was of a tastefully rigged rigging plate, (its amazing what you can do with a few AZTEK ™ Edge kits).
Others set up belays and edge stations, and another team set up a system on the other side of the pitch to control the “paradoxical movement” of the system. The exercise went on till about 5:00 pm at which time we had a debrief and packed out gear up for the trip back home, A good course in all – all that’s left now is 120 hours of reflective practice, shouldn’t take too long!!!!!!
Lou the team leader, and Frog on belay station.
Kip, Lou, Frog, Grant, and Kurt.
Who knows what Kip is doing?
Mmmmm...the Tripod..