Rigging for Rescue Recap

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What Happened?
Last week, Adventureworks! hosted the Rigging for Rescue Seminar, a 7-day intensive technical rope rescue workshop. We were fortunate to be joined by folks from a variety of places - Challenge Course company owners from Vermont and California, Outdoor Adventure instructors from Laurentian University, and some talented rope, river and mountain people from Ontario. Together, we may have been the highest concentration of rope nerds in the country.

What were the take-aways?
  • The bomber bowline. This thing favours your best anchor, gives you a focussed rigging point and leaves cord for a pre-tension front-tie. Pure Magic.
  • LEADSTER as an acronym for building anchors. Limit Extension, Angle, Direction, Solid, Timely, Equalized, Redundant.
  • Purcell prusiks, the rigger's multi-tool. An adjustable prusik hitch with load-release capabilities.
  • Natural progression for pulley systems. How to easily and quickly gain mechanical advantage by adding a prusik, or a pulley and carabiner. Simple 3:1, simple 5:1, complex 7:1, compound 9:1, complex 11:1, etc.
  • Slot-devices in series as a descent control device for a 2kN load. Brilliant.
  • Keep the hot dog in the bun.

Why is the Seminar so darn good?
Speaking with Brandon (the instructor) one day, he said "a lot of people find they're ready to take the Rigging for Rescue Seminar once they've finished the Rigging for Rescue Seminar". I agree.

The Rigging for Rescue Seminar didn't push me to learn a whole slew of new skills, and it likely won't change my current practices. Instead, I found the seminar to be foundational. It equipped me to think and analyze - to ask the right questions and to solve problems. I feel more comfortable looking at an unfamiliar system and understanding what forces are being applied, absorbed and even multiplied.

I also have a much better understanding of just how much I don't know. There is so much more research to be done.

So what now? Well, now I'm ready to take the Rigging for Rescue Seminar again. Like anything truly educational, it left me with lots of answers - and even more questions.