Bridge Day Rappel Team Equipment

              This information may be helpful to first time Bridge Day Rappellers.  This is not intended to tell anyone how to do their thing.  It is simply some suggestions as to what seems to work for my team The Born Rescue Riggers.

Helmet with Light
Each rappeller and belayer should have a good helmet for vertical rope work equipped with a light.  The morning of Bridge Day you will be moving around in the dark.  If your helmet light is removable have a place to carry it after sunrise where you won’t drop it or loose it.

Good helmets for rope work should meet UIAA standards.  This means no industrial bump caps or hard hats.  These will not take the kinds of impacts that a good vertical helmet will handle.  Helmets that have a wide front brim are not suited for rope work.  You cannot look up without exposing your entire face.  Maxillary area of the human skull is the easiest area to fracture and part of the helmets job is to provide limited protection to the head, face included.

Harness
Pick a harness that’s comfortable and does what it’s supposed to do.  The first consideration should be how well does your harness support your body.  If I totally relax while hanging, will my head be above the level of my knees or will I hang upside down?  Can I hang in it long without having legs or feet going to sleep?  Is it easy to put on or take off?  Is it comfortable to walk in or work in all day long?  I use the Born Body Harness, which allows the wearer to adjust the center of gravity to achieve the most comfortable heads-up hang for a reasonable cost.

Brake Bar Rack
The Brake Bar Racks my team members like to use will vary as to personal preference as far as frame length, whether they are doing tandem rappels or just like a longer frame.

They all use “J” frame racks with stainless steel bars.  They last longer and help keep the rope clean

Gloves
Gloves are a good idea.  They help keep your hands clean, warm and give you protection.  Many people think they must wear gloves to keep from burning their hands on the rope.  If you use the bar spacing to control your speed your bottom two bars don’t get that warm.

Other Gear
Each team member has a QAS (Quick Attachment Safety) or a Cows Tail on their harness with a Handled Ascender.  They also have one or two 7mm personal Prusiks if needed for self rescue.  If they are going to ascend then they will have their ascending system with them.  Either wearing on their person or carried in a small pack or bag with a double tether.

We connect our racks to our harness with a screw link to avoid possible gate loading of a carabiner and most of us leave it connected at all times.   NO LOOSE GEAR!!!  Tether everything so at least two separate things have to fail before anything falls.

1 Oval screw link to connect rack to harness.
1 Non-locking carabiner to clip rack to side when not in use or a handy rack strap.
2 Locking carabiners.
Hiking or caving boots.  You will be traveling on uneven, muddy surfaces and slippery wet grass hills. 

Wear what clothes you think you will need to stay warm.  In the pre-dawn there may be frost on everything and waiting around at the parking area on Route 19 or at staging under the North end of the bridge you can get chilled.

Only the group leader or rappel master should be on the cat-walk for any length of time, each rappeller should only be on the cat-walk long enough to walk out to your rappel site, rig on and rappel down, so most of the time you are moving.

Have your belay crew take a large backpack or two and something to drink down to the bottom.  As the day warms up your team members have a place to shed extra clothes.   You don’t need this clutter on the catwalk.  The last several rappellers and the belay crew can carry it out at the end of the day.  We also take a Prusik Minding Pulley, Prusik, and webbing to anchor if wind is strong enough to chafe rope on the bridge arch.

The rigging team should have at least 900’ of rope we usually pack ours in two bags to make it easier to carry.  Two anchor straps to provide safeties for rappellers climbing over the hand rail on to the “W” plate.  We use double thickness heavy duty industrial anchor straps which are strong enough to choker around the vertical handrail support without padding.  We use an oval screw link to connect an auto-locking capture eye carabiner so there is no danger of dropping a carabiner when connecting or disconnecting safeties.  We take a thick edge pad for the side of the “W” plate with a 20’ 3/8” Kernmantle rope tied on to the pad.

I wear a radio all day to listen and make sure things are going smooth and mount a second radio to the out side of the hand rail for the rappel master standing on the “W” plate, this way people walking by with large packs don’t wipe the radio off the rail. Our rappel master stays off the cat walk with two rappellers on the “W” plate, one rappeller rigs onto the rope while the second rappeller helps by pulling rope and is an extra set of eyes to safety check along with the rappel master.  Before unhooking each rappeller loads the system. Then we call for a belay and as soon as our bottom belayer acknowledges, each rappeller goes through a series of safety checks by the rappel master, the next rappeller, themselves and one of Bruce’s safety team members, then the rappeller disconnects from the safety.  This may sound like overkill and not the macho thing to do but eyeballs from all directions looking for things like any improper rigged rack, gate loading, harness straps not fastened, helmet strap not secured, things sticking out of pockets, any items not tethered like water bottle, pack, camera or anything that if dropped could kill anyone below.  We use a 100% Tethered Policy, if it has a belt clip it still needs a redundant tether cord.  Make everything secure so that at least two things have to fail to drop anything.

The rigging team also takes out a medium size back pack to carry out the edge pads and a spare cord to tie pads, anchor straps, spare radio, a tethered water bottle for the rappel master and one or two gallon Igloo water jug to use as a plum bob to keep the end of the rope from blowing over the bridge beams while lowering.  This cooler is loaded with ice water for team members when they get to the ground.   The screw on lid is secured with duct tape to keep it from unscrewing while carrying on the cat walk and lowering on the end of the rope.  It also adds weight to the end of the rope to help display the pre-rigged flags American, Ohio and if we have any foreign guests on our team their countries flag as well.  We also take a Mini Prusik Minding Pulley, Locking D Aluminum Carabiner and a short 6 or 7mm Prusik to connect to one of the anchor straps to use as a ratchet when we are ready to pull the rope up at the end of the day.

It helps if each team member has a radio.  This way if some of your team members are stuck in a traffic jam on the cat walk coming in from the north end and you have some team members standing at the south end you can have them hustle from the south end and time is not wasted watching an empty rope hang.  If you have the two members arrive from the north end and the two arrive from the south end that’s ok because two of them are going to connect to safeties and climb over to the “W” plate and you still only have two team members standing on the catwalk without back packs and not in anybody’s way.

I hope I have been able to offer some helpful ideas.  Have fun, and be safe.

On Belay,

Russ Born

Born Rescue Riggers