Lowering

[rcwild]

How many of you really enjoy being lowered? Surrendering control to your trusted friend? Surrendering control to someone you just met through the internet?

I assume most of you will have the same answer as me. I HATE being lowered. Nevertheless, don't discount lowering as a very valid technique for efficient canyoneering. It is especially useful when throwing the rope down could be problematic.

You throw the rope and it gets tangled. You pull it up, untangle it, and throw it again. Wasted time. Do you know if it reached the bottom? You send the first person down. He discovers the rope wrapped around a rock horn. He attempts to flick it off, but can't, so he pendulums over to unwrap. More wasted time. He gets close to the end of the rope and discovers he's still 20 feet off the ground. Did you rig releasable so you can lower him? Or does he have to ascend back to the top, re-rig the rope and start over? More wasted time.

Tie the end of the rope to the first person and lower him. No tangles. No wraps. He takes the rope directly down the desired rappel path and sets the rope length perfectly. And in the process, you already have one person down. Very efficient.

If lowering into water, tie him in with a releasable hitch. Could be a munter-mule. Could be rigged on his rappel device and locked off. When he gets just above the water, he releases and swims away. Obviously this person should be competent and confident (not prone to panic).

Now you just need to convince your buddy to let you lower him.

[DJ Meding]

I am an advocate for lowering so don't get the wrong idea here. There are a few aspects of lowering that can make it problematic. Too fast, too slow, lack of ability to communicate between lowerer and loweree, lack of proficiency in lowerer and rope twist as it comes out of the bag.
All things that can be overcome if preplanning is addressed early on and not when it becomes a problem.

[rcwild]

Avoiding Rope Twists (http://www.canyoneering.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3883)

[cougarmagic]

I'm completely comfortable with lowering. Someone else. :2thumbs:

I do really hate being lowered. And there's no way I could trust my canyoneers more, so it's not about that. This would probably be a good thing to practice in workshops, not because it's tricky, but to get familiar with how it feels.

I do like the idea, and several times have thought it would be the best technique for the situation.

[paul martzen]

I guess you don't get comfortable with a technique unless you do it pretty often. Yo Yo top roping a climb is very common for rock climbers. Both belayer and climber are at the bottom of a short cliff. The rope runs from the belayer on the ground up to an anchor where it runs through carabiners (like a pulley) then comes back to the ground to the climber. The climber scales from the ground up to the anchors, then weights the rope and is lowered back to the ground. It is such a common practice technique that lowering becomes pretty second nature to most climbers. The keys are smooth feeding of the rope, good posture of the loweree, and good communication between the belayer and loweree.

Where there is a water landing that may be jumpable, I immediately set up a quick anchor, (often a human anchor) and lower one person to check the landing. If the landing is not jumpable, then I look for anchors for the last person.

Where a drop is short and marginally down climbable, I lower one or more people, so they can safely spot the last person who then downclimbs.

[hank_moon]

And there's no way I could trust my canyoneers more, so it's not about that.

Could it be that you are in denial? :)