Up at The Bank

The last two years our Technical Rope Team has gone up to The Bank climbing and campground for a weekend of training, usually starting on Friday night.

The weather cooperated after receiving a little over two inches of rain at our place this week, and Marlys and I got there early Friday afternoon to grab some camp sites. The selection was based on where we were going to train over the next couple of days as the backside of the sites to the north border on the climbing area called The Darkside (in shadow). So beware if you go wandering at night because literally 50' behind some of the sites is a vertical drop off.

We grilled once folks showed up and headed out to the cliffs about 7pm. We planned on setting up a lowering system and then a pig-rig raising system and figured to be done around 9pm.

So why in the dark? Because many times by the time a search and rescue team is called out it is late in the day or evening and the work we do ends up being done in the dark. We try to practice in the dark to get everyone use to it.

There were a number of new folks with us and after running through the setup and tear-down a few times it was 11pm before getting back to camp. Late but not too late for a beer and a smores.

We waited until 9am before gearing up and hitting the trail on Saturday morning. The training was a scenario where we have a disabled climber on a cliff face and we would lower a rescue climber, do a pick-off then raise the rescuer/climber combination back to the top. Because of the need for a victim and a rescuer we had two lower systems set ups, safety lines and a raising system. A lot of work, but everyone did a great job. Again we got a few runs in, we broke everything down and debriefed about 3pm.

All in all a great weekend, now I need to put the exhaust system back on the Jeep after it very inopportunely fell off crossing a arroyo during last weeks rains.

Part of this repair included cleaning out the interior. I transferred a lot of mud after laying in it to wire up WITH A COAT HANGER the exhaust system for the long slow 35 mile drive home.