ON TECHNIQUES AND SAFETY
© 1997 William
K. Storage
Originally published in the NSS News, July
1993
"His legs were weary, but his mind was at ease, free from the
presentiment of change. The sense of security more frequently springs from
habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a
change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The
lapse of time during which a given event has not happened is, in the logic of
habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even
when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event
imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years
unhurt by an accident, as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though
the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable that the older a man
gets, the more difficult it is to retain a believing conception of his own
death."
-from Silas Marner, by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans Cross), written in 1861
In the last twenty years or so, I have personally known ten cavers who died in
caves because they made mistakes. Three of them, Mitch Gubkin, Reginald White,
and John Gerber, died directly because of poor vertical technique. I say this
not in criticism of their abilities, but from the circumstances of their fatal
accidents, accounts of trip members, and the state of their equipment, after
the fact. I have only known a few hundred cavers, and ten of them died in
caves. These are not good odds. Having known so many victims, in my
comparatively limited caving experience, makes me wonder about our techniques.
I stood outside Canadian Hole in West Virginia one day, kidding John Gerber
about his peculiar vertical rig. Don't be a pompous jerk, I then thought to
myself. Cavers are highly individualistic, and John's rig might be superior to
mine. Later that day he lay dead at the bottom of a 50-foot pit. He had
problems while ascending through a constriction, and was unable to properly
switch to rappel. Maybe his rig was OK; but, clearly, he was not properly
trained in its use. This and similar incidents make me wonder about the general
state of vertical technique, if we can call our
everyone-for-himself-here's-a-thousand-options approach "technique".
It's not just the obviously bad technique, like John was using, that should be
questioned in our type of activity, though. Chris Yeager, who died two years
ago in Cueva Cheve, was using the same technique that the seasoned veterans of
Mexico caving use. As lucky survivors of similar situations will attest, there
are certain elements of that technique that are intolerant of seemingly small
mistakes. I welcome opinions on what can be done about the
rappel-rack-to-harness juncture, particularly in heavy-duffel caving.
It's time to talk about fatalities and technique. Where do we think we're
going. As with diving accidents, discussed briefly below, far too many of us
are calling these deaths "freak accidents" and saying "nothing
could have been done." Even if you accept that cop-out, there is still the
issue of what can be done in the future?
While some of the deaths involved probable equipment failure, none of
them involved inconceivable failures or conditions that had not been previously
documented. All of these deaths were due to human error, and thus could have
been prevented.
All of the places where these deaths occurred (with the possible
exception of Roberta Swicegood, who was diving in virgin territory) had been
visited by a number of cavers and are agreed to be places where the inherent
dangers could be dealt with, using the proper technique. Therefore these deaths
might really all be categorized as procedural errors. Bad technique.
Technique is really what caving safety is all about. And technique is
rooted in knowledge and training. Training is a huge component of caving in
some circles, France and Canada, for instance. A look at England's Descent
magazine reveals half a dozen advertisements of vertical training for hire.
Of course, England has no single national organization, such as the NSS.
Our resources for quality training seem immense. So what are we doing, and
where does the problem lie? Part of the problem must stem from our
individuality, or perhaps it could more accurately termed provincialism.
PROVINCIALISM KILLS
It's good to get out of your own back yard once in a while.
Rock climbers long ago abandoned the self-drive bolts which are the mainstay of
artificial anchors in caves. Climbers seem to have moved to stainless sleeve
and collar style bolts for precisely the same reasons that cavers should make
the change- things like corrosion and reliability. But we have nothing to learn
from glitzy Spandex-clad show-offs; we're cavers. Climbers know nothing of
caves, anyway.
Caves come in a tremendous range of shapes, sizes and temperatures.
Factors such as mud, water, rats, ice, squeezes, pits, dilithium crystals, and
big rocks make them interesting. When I say the word "cave" you have
a tendency to think of those you know personally. A potential problem arises
from the fact that one of you pictures Carlsbad and another is thinking of
Holloch. If you dress for Carlsbad and I took you to Holloch, you'd be cold,
and I'd be negligent. It is similarly negligent to simply state that rebelays
are not needed in Holloch. If you went there, it would all be obvious. Of
course, reading accounts of exploration elsewhere, without taking a superior
position, can be enlightening as well.
In the mid '80s there was quite a bit of discussion about rebelays in US
caving circles. There were even some pronouncements made to the effect that
they shouldn't be used. Many cavers probably were thinking of Schoolhouse and
Hellhole. No rebelays needed there. So I guess they can be categorically
rejected after all. Huh?
REBELAYS: WHO NEEDS THEM
Both Americans and Europeans are guilty of talking about "American"
and "European" rigging. What they usually mean is that Europeans use
rebelays and intermediate anchors a lot. Americans do not. This situation is
due to the fact that rebelays are needed for many European pits, but for very few
in the U.S. So a European would probably rig Hellhole the same way that we do.
Similarly, skilled cavers in the US recognize that in a few places, rebelays
are absolutely essential.
Lechuguilla Cave has an interesting spot, the Aragonitemare, where reluctance
to rebelay nearly led to an occupied rope being severed. The rigging has since
been corrected. Some TAG caves provide a provocative choice as well: use a
rebelay or be beaten by whitewater until you drown.
At one convention I overheard a person of some caving fame telling a large
audience that American rope is so strong that rebelays are never needed. The
image that immediately came to my mind was Jim Smith in Mexico, having
forgotten his knife, cutting 7/16th caving rope with two blows from a Huautla
rock. Maybe Jim should perform this feat at conventions, for those who think
American rope is indestructible.
Of course, since rebelays are uncommon in the U.S., most cavers never
really need to learn this technique, right? Well there are a couple of reasons
to reconsider this attitude. Ropework, if you really think about it, is needed
for only a very small part of vertical caving. Canadian Hole, McFails and Cass
Cave are all primarily horizontal, yet cavers have died doing ropework there.
The inherent dangers of vertical spots are so much greater than those of the
flat parts that the horizontal/vertical passage ratio is totally meaningless.
It's the interesting spots that will get you.
In other words, if you're ever in a spot where rebelay technique is
needed, very little else will do.
Along similar lines, vertical cavers should realize that the skills
necessary for rebelays are identical to those needed for handling problems that
might occur in any vertical cave-- things like getting short-roped, needing to
pass a knot, or aborting an ascent. So take a little of the time normally spent
practicing for the ropewalking speed championship and broaden your skills base.
Your loved ones may be thankful some day.
Note: For a completely different opinion on the above subject, see Steve
Knutson's analysis of the death of Chris Yeager in the most recent American
Caving Accidents. Steve and I disagree rather strongly.
DEAD END HIGHWAY
Hopefully, no one takes the articles in Nylon Highway as advice. At best the
newsletter of the vertical section of the NSS is considered by us readers to be
a forum for considerations on equipment use and to air random thoughts, notions
and wild ideas for peer review., But there are a great number of
"how-to" articles, from which it is obvious that the peer review does
not happen prior to publication.
Weird ideas by themselves can do no harm. Many weird ideas, scorned by the
establishment and the cognoscenti, have turned out to be revolutionary elements
of technology. But weird caving ideas- ideas about procedures and techniques-
presented as fact or instruction could make a real mess. When it comes to
instruction on procedures, great care should be used to provide good advice.
You don't have to look far in the Nylon Highway to find some very bad advice.
For example, a recent issue suggested that stainless rappel racks with coiled
eyes should be welded at the eye to increase strength. These racks can uncoil
under loads as small as 800 pounds. The author showed details of the weld
procedure.
A good engineer might want to debate the likelihood of such welding, if done
under less than ideal circumstances, resulting in an embrittled and
corrosion-prone area about an inch from the weld. Or an engineer might make a
point that while a 150 pound human hanging from a rack might survive a
deceleration of 5.3 g (needed to begin uncoiling the eye) if its duration were
short, it is inconceivable that a human would survive a load high enough to
uncoil the rack for the length of time needed to uncoil the ten inch long
coiled region. A practical caver might note that anyone subject to an 800 pound
load on a rack has both locked off his rack and done some extremely poor
rigging. Yeah sure, the rack article was concerned with rescue situations as
opposed to standard caving; but if I were a victim I'd feel much better if my
rescuers used wimpy racks and good rigging rather than the other way around.
All these intellectual arguments aside, let's say we agree that welded racks
are essential. They cost twenty five dollars. Where on earth could you find a
quality welder, one capable of doing a good job with austenitic stainless, for
$25? Get serious. Revised advice: support your local equipment vendor. Buy a
new rack. Learn proper rigging-for-rescue. Get a life.
In another recent issue of Nylon Highway I read of the highly original
idea of double rope technique. See, that way if you have two ropes and one
breaks, you're still safe. Even if the author has never read Halliday's books,
or heard about the horrors of tangled belay lines, peer review might have
alerted him to the possibility of tangled dual-ropes in a waterfall and
subsequent climber hypothermia. Now who could imagine anything like that.
Don't blame the editor for the quality of the articles. Editing is a tiring and
thankless job. They can only print what they get, and readers demand a copy
every six months. I suspect there is no surplus of volunteers for technical
review. So Nylon Highway needs to reexamine its purpose. Cavers have lost
interest in the real value such a publication could have. Its weary editors
have difficulty getting articles, quality or not, from cavers. The stuff they
do get, like the one showing how to use half a ton of gear to rig equilateral
rope dodecagons between mile-high towers is doing little to advance the state
of the art, or to enhance the safety of vertical caving.
LOYALTY TO PETRIFIED OPINION
As I was writing this article I received news of another death from the
inability to change direction on rope. NSS member Ted Rudolph died because of
complications from a jammed ascender. A jammed ascender is a foreseeable and
common-enough event that dealing with it should be routine to everyone. But
Ted's ascending system was properly constructed, at least in the contemporary
view. When his upper ascender slipped, he ended up in that uncomfortable
position where one knee is being pushed into the chest. After secondary
problems, Ted apparently died of congestive heart-failure. A previously
undiscovered health problem may have existed, but hanging in an unnatural
position for several hours certainly contributed to the problem.
We all have a tendency to read of a situation like the one that killed
Ted in Banshee Hole, and then say, "that could never happen to me because..."
But face it; the ascending system Ted was using was perfectly customary. On
Rope, on page 162, correctly states that with failure of the upper ascender in
a Mitchell system, the chest box merely jams into the lower ascender,
preventing a fall. The drawing shows a climber without a seat harness, just as
Ted was equipped. And, of course, On Rope accurately reflects customary
practices. Lots of people do it. It's a tradition of sorts.
It is intensely aggravating, however, that with the incredible body of
knowledge and experience in the NSS, we cannot affect a change in dangerous
traditions. Collectively, we have plenty of evidence that ascending without a
seat harness is bad news. What if you need to switch to rappel? Is that so
inconceivable?
Mark Twain wrote that loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed
a human soul. We cavers are slaves to our own past. I think we'd be a lot
better off if we thought less about sacred Prusik rituals and rope races and
more about vertical technique that accommodates problems that we know are
inevitable.
The NSS has a wonderfully colorful past. The history of vertical caving
includes Prusik knots, winches, laid rope, whaletails, body rappels and tragic
deaths. Certain techniques were acceptable for Schoolhouse and Hellhole. But we
explore more challenging caves now. Techniques of the forties just aren't right
for Great X, The Cerro Rabon, or even Lechuguilla for that matter. If you head
out of Mexico's Kijahe Xontjoa on Prusik knots, you will certainly starve
before you see the cloudy skies of the Cerro Rabon.
As fate would have it, while writing this, I just received from John
Dill, the Search and Rescue expert at Yosemite, an account of the death of a
caver last year on El Capitan. Doing 3000-foot rappel is serious (many say
atrocious) business that has little to do with caving technique. I'll spare you
the details, but the victim carried no means of ascending, and that may have
been a factor in his death.
AMERICA LOVES COMPETITION
Switzerland's Roman Hapka visited me upon leaving Salem, his first NSS
Convention. He was puzzled at our rope ascending races. His concern was that we
were setting a bad example, or at least that our emphasis was misplaced.
"Why don't you have a race to ascend a rope to get a dummy victim
down?" he asked. "Or a rebelay course, or something to interest
people in some type of vertical skill that they don't already know about?"
Roman had correctly assessed that many vertical cavers do not know much about
self-rescue, or even switching direction on rope.
So how about it sports fans? I suspect that those who run vertical
contests at conventions are trying to give us what we want. Its up to the rest
of us to tell them our desires. Would it really be so bad to have a new event
or two each year? I'm reasonably sure that those who have died on rope, unable
to ascend, would have had a keen interest in a simulated self-rescue contest.
Maybe someday you will too. What better place could there be to establish some
new, good habits?
DOWN TO A SUNLESS BURIAL AT SEA
I am not a diver, so I have no business criticizing the procedures and safety
provisions of cave diving. At least that is what several of us who have
expressed interest in analyzing diving accidents have been told. I am also not
a pilot, but the aerospace industry seems to think its OK for me to have a say
in designing airplane control systems, and procedures for their use.
I'm not the only one to see a parallel between pilots and divers. In a
recent conversation with John Zumrick, he pointed out the "right
stuff" problem in cave diving circles. If the diver doesn't come back
alive, he obviously didn't have the right stuff. This attitude is ignorant and
destructive on at least two counts.
First, we cannot deny that there are inherent risks, both from the use of
complex equipment, and from the environment. As expert diver John Schweyen has
noted on several occasions, the belief that adhering to accepted technique
alone will prevent accidents is tantamount to stating that cave-diving is a
risk-free activity. But acknowledging that such risks exist does not justify
leaving your fate in the hands of the gods of water and darkness. Analysis of
equipment failure modes and compensating provisions is as important to divers as
it is to pilots. And, by the way, failure compensation for airplane pilots is
determined by a large body of pilots and engineers, in a structured and
well-documented manner - one that invites vigorous skepticism by all.
Sometime prior to the advent of cave diving, Publilius noted that "he is
truly wise who benefits from another man's mishap." Divers could start a
worthwhile analysis by collecting accounts of close calls. What hazards have
you narrowly escaped, through skill or luck on a dive, that are reasonably
conceivable to happen to someone else? From this list, should any elements of
training be added or changed? Does the emphasis need re-evaluation?
Second, lets say that some people truly do not have the right stuff to be a
diver. This is clearly a possibility, for physiological or psychological
reasons. The reasonable time to discover this unsuitability is during training
or certification, not during autopsy. If someone doesn't belong in cave diving,
his peers have a responsibility to say so. And his trainers have a
responsibility to make a reasonable effort to discover whether a diver has the
needed stuff, or the ability to acquire it. This topic warrants a lot of study,
but it seems entirely possible that cave diver training just isn't thorough enough.
Take a look at the statistics.
SAFETY SECOND
Many people say safety is first. I once heard, in an old Jimmy Stewart movie,
that safety was second. Truth and beauty come first. I agree, and
think that truth and beauty lie in good techniques.
In the October 1991 Safety & Techniques column I discussed a
point made by human factors experts, that safety consciousness by itself has
very little value. Accident history suggests that mere awareness of dangers
primarily affects the decision to engage a hazardous environment or not. Once
you have made that decision (you are now on rope in the waterfall) awareness of
the danger has little value. (It doesn't tell you how to handle the fact that
you have just rappelled into a knot.)
For those of us who choose to engage potential hazards (you are again on rope),
the real safety lies in technique. You must be able to execute a procedure with
very little thought. (Attach your jammer; stand in the foot loop; and connect
the Croll above your rack.)
Should we, perhaps, change the column name from Safety & Techniques
to Techniques and Safety? Of course not; it’s a tradition.
Do I hear a chain, rattling in the distance?
UNSPEAKABLE THINGS
In the mid 70's, NSS cavers violently debated the merits of caver vertical
certification. Of course I was adamantly opposed to stooping to such depths.
Have you people no dignity? I imagined a bunch of simple-minded pit-boppers
wearing their vertical-cert merit-badges. You may remember the "Vertical
Ten" patch. Unlike divers, whose tanks need charging, vertical cavers need
nothing that can be regulated by an agency. Why would any good caver ever want
to be certified? Besides, we hate bureaucracy. Furthermore, vertical caving is
diverse. We're very individualistic and everyone has a different method.
Of course many of those methods are downright wrong. Like ascending without a
seat harness. There's a lot of evidence that we should sacrifice just a smidgen
of our precious individuality for the sake of standardized vertical technique
to save our precious individualistic lives. Or perhaps there exists an
opportunity to show individuality by dumping petrified opinion and bad habits.
I now think formal, standardized, vertical training is a good idea.
On the issue of why good cavers would want to be certified, I neglected one
minor point in my 1975 arguments: peer pressure. A year later I accepted an
anonymous climbing belay, resulting in a 25-foot fall. Had vertical
certification existed I might have questioned whether my belayer possessed it. Just
say no is reported to be fairly successful in comparison to the mountain
of other anti-drug campaigns. If an uncertified caver wanted to join your trip,
you could just say no.