SAFE ABSEILING

Pre-Abseiling Safety Precautions

The following suggestions are intended to prevent abseiling accidents.

A. Before starting to abseil, always make checks below, as appropriate:

• Check the descender karabiner is screwed closed. If the gate is pointing downwards, gravity will tend to close rather than open it.
• Check the spring catch on the moving side plate is fully closed (e.g. on some older model Petzl descenders this may occasionally be trapped in the open position).
• Use a cowstail and/or ascender as a backup while checking the above, and rope threading. If anything goes wrong you are still OK.
  

B. At a Pitch Head:

• If the descender is placed on the rope as high as possible, a short mini-abseil (a few cms.) is possible to check threading while a long cowstail is still attached to the anchor or traverse rope for safety.

C. At an intermediate anchor (re-belay):

• The normal procedure involves hanging on a short cowstail. Additionally attach a long cowstail to the slack loop in the upper rope which allows sufficient slack for checks as above to be carried out safely. The long cowstail is the last thing to remove before setting off.
  

D. At a knot to join ropes in mid-pitch:

• The normal procedure is to tie a loop knot in the end of the upper rope below the knot used to join the ropes. A cowstail attached to this loop allows abseil checks 1-3 to be carried out with more slack than just using an ascender above the knot.
  

E. Changing from ascent to descent mode in mid-pitch:

• Once the descender has been threaded, it should be locked before removing ascenders. If at all uncertain, the top ascender should be left on the rope, but lowered to just above the descender before the descender is unlocked. This gives a safety backup with sufficient slack for checks 1-3 to be carried out.
  

General Safety Points While Abseiling

• While hanging on a descender, ensure that the descender karabiner is loaded end to end as intended, rather than across the gate. Care should be taken to lower your weight onto the descender rather than flopping down onto it and possibly badly loading it. A typical breaking load for a karabiner long axis is 22 KN but only 6 KN across the gate, which could be exceeded in a shock loading situation.
  
• Always hold the slack rope beneath the descender firmly, unless otherwise safely attached by a cowstail, locked descender or at a knot. This precaution is recommended even with autolock descenders. A number of accidents have happened to experienced people who have ignored this.
  
• Keep checking the karabiner gate to ensure that it is not accidentally opened by the rope when locking the descender or by other means.
  
• Ensure long hair, chinstrap, clothing or gloves do not get caught in the descender.
  
• Use of a friction karabiner beneath the descender gives extra control.

Prepared by Paul Ramsden, C.I.C., NCA Training Committee

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