Whilst I am willing to concede that the ethical argument for retreating off a cliff by abseilling has many pro’s and con’s. The fact is that climbers often do avoid that walk round and down the cliff, by abseiling in order to either retreat due to rain, over ambition or ease. The debate as to whether we should and where we should is best left to BMC area committees to pontificate over. There are however many long established abseil station scattered around the mountains of the UK and beyond.
Often these stations are rigged off natural gear/features like spikes, pegs, trees or threads. Whatever the station many of them are rigged with both a rope or even a chain, and a mallion. If it is a rope then it is essential that you thread the mallion to prevent damaging the rope, and although abseiling on a system of rope against rope is OK, if you are lowering off rope on rope then it is a big no, no. The image above shows what happens, it was retrieved from the top of Tremadog, it doesn’t bear thinking about the possible consequences if it had burnt through and snapped!
Another top tip on staying safe is available at my coaching climbing blog.
Is your life really worth less than the cost of a single carabiner or mallion, which would have prevented this extreme wear. Rope on rope retreats are generally a bad thing, ropes much prefer to run over metal.
