No.33 SRT Techniques from around the world (1)
In 2018 The Wooden Hand produced a hand drawn booklet about SRT techniques which features climbers from Japan, Germany, New Zealand, UK and America. Each month this year I will introduce a technique at ODSK.
‘Cake and Eat It’ by Ben Rose (UK)
Ben say’s
“I do a fair bit of retrieving a short knot blocked line with the back side of a base tied access
line. I often tie the ends of the access line together before retrieving the knot block. That
way if the cambium saver gets stuck I can access my access line loop at any point and still
go back up to get the stuck cambium saver”.
“If I’m doing it midline on a longer rope I just pop a bight of rope through and tie a figure of
nine”.
One safety aspect that started to disappear after SRT work climbing (not access) became popular
was the access line. This was because the access line became the work line (and vice versa).
The simplicity of SRT kinda leads towards short cuts so I was happy to see Ben talking about using
an access line when he works. The access line can function in a number of ways and to work it
into the retrieval rigging for a knot blocked ring and ring is stylish and easy. Ring and rings
(cambium savers) are powerful tools and you can see that a short rope or folded-in-two long rope
both rig easily into a great and safe system.
Cake and Eat It is a word spin on an old English proverb ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it’,
which means that you can’t have more than you deserve, though with Ben’s technique you can!
