Cave Team and West Valley SAR Successfuly Complete Reaccreditation

Once a year the teams of the California Region of the Mountain Rescue Association meet to complete a reaccreditaion in one of three disciplines. This year was the technical rock test, and it was held in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine CA. Rain, wind, and a possibility of snow were in the forecast for the weekend, but as the date approached, the weather eased a bit. No rain or snow, but plenty of wind.

Each team must contribute a patient and two evaluators. The evaluators must have more than 5 years of experience, be a recognized leader on the team, and complete an online evaluator certification. Before the general briefing there is a team leader briefing, and a briefing for the patients. After the general briefing, each team is introduced to their evaluators and given a map to their test location.

Each team must quickly reach their subject, assess their condition, and evacuate them to definitive care. Teams are evaluated on a variety of criteria. Some examples are: timeliness, safety, technical proficiency, medical care, and leadership. 

While these evaluations can be a bit nerve wracking, I have come to enjoy them. My team grows and strengthens every time it is tested, and I get to continue relationships with fellow teams from accross the state. 

West Valley SAR and the Cave Rescue Team successfully completed their reaccreditation in technical rope rescue this year. Both of these teams are fully accredited with the MRA. Wrightwood SAR is accredited in search management, and SB Mountain SAR is progressing toward an accreditation with the MRA.

Autoblock Self-Belay

This is a discussion concerning the use of self-belay while on rappel with an autoblock.

It should be noted that all self-belays have some trade off of one sort or another. None are perfect. All must be used with caution. No belay of any sort should be used while rappelling in a significant amount of moving water. In this situation the forces on the body can be huge, resulting in a catastrophe, that is; death. An autoblock self-belay is a particular style of self-belay wherein the belay device is below the rappel device. By having it in this position, it mitigates some of the disadvantages of having the belay device above the rappel device.

The nomenclature for rope grab hitches can be confusing. The word “prusik” can be a verb as well as a noun. Similarly, the term “autoblock” has come to mean a friction hitch tied below the rappel device that can stop the descent. Often it is referred to as a “French Prusik,” which can also be used to describe an entirely different hitch. Or it may be referred to as a “third hand.” For this discussion, the generic meaning for autoblock will be used. There may be a variety of materials and hitches used to create the autoblock. This discussion covers just one of these possibilities.

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Naked Hands

It is easy to become complacent when working around rope. Gloves definitely hamper tying

knots. Good quality gloves that actually fit are expensive and wear out. But they can be critical

in protecting your hands. Here is a related story that happened to me. I hope it helps drive

home the importance of wearing gloves when working around moving rope. I trust you can

learn from my experience. One picture says it all.

Once upon a time I was rock climbing with best friend Pete. We finished a class five climb and

were starting to clean up gear. We were standing about 20 feet from each other. We were

talking while looking at each other. I had disconnected from our 11 mm dynamic rope. It was

laying on the ground. I was slowly coiling it while Pete began to untie from his harness. He

suddenly fell backwards over a rock, tumbling about 6 vertical feet. He quickly picked up a fair

amount of speed. I instinctively grabbed the moving rope. OUCH!!

It took quite a long time for the wounds to heal. I still have deep scar tissue that affects the

fingers. I learned an important lesson that day!

VT Prusik

Many individuals on technical rope teams have been using VT prusiks for personal rope access. I thought a short article on its history might be interesting.

The Valdotain Tresse was developed many years ago in France. It was used as a rescue device in wet canyons or caves. A short section of 11 mm dynamic rope (used for rock climbing) was cut open. A few strands of the core were removed. The ends were sealed. Figure eight on a bit knots were made at both ends, i.e., “end eyes.” Thus, it was very flexible. It could be tied in a certain way around the main rope such that it would grab like a prusik. Or, it could be released while under load. A person could use it as a rappel device. In particular, if a subject was hanging on the rope below, the rescuer could use the Valdotain Tresse to descend the loaded rope and pickoff the subject. There is one huge drawback to this device. It is nylon acting on nylon. If both the Valdotain and the main rope were dry, the Valdotain would quickly melt through in a very short distance. The rescuer would fall to his/her death. Hence it could only be used on ropes that were saturated with water. Rich Carlson, an American rock climbing/canyoneering guide, imported the technology to the USA many years ago. However, at the time, canyoneering involved mostly dry canyons. The Valdotain Tresse as described above was not so useful.

Jump ahead a few years, new aramid materials become popular for cords and ropes. In particular is Technora which has a much higher melting point than nylon. Rich Carlson partnered with BlueWater Ropes to make the VT Prusik. It has kernmantel construction with a Technora sheath over nylon core with sewn eyes. This allowed the device to be used on dry ropes. It has slowly caught on in the USA canyoneering world. It comes in two sizes for different diameter ropes. It has many uses beyond those mentioned above. A creative technical rope user will come up with many applications.

The concept has progressed in the USA canyoneering world. Atwood Gear now makes various sizes of Tech VT with Technora sheath over nylon or polyester core.

Meanwhile arborists around the world have incorporated the Valdotain Tresse in their tree climbing systems. They too have developed specialized double sewn eye hitch cords.

There are two main methods of tying the hitch such that it releases under load. They are depicted in the video linked here:  (http://youtu.be/4HnhhVSevvY). A person must experiment with the two methods in order to determine which is best. Variables include the body weight of the rescuer as well as conditions of the prusik and rope; material the cord and rope are made of, new vs. used, clean vs. dirty, wet vs. dry.

SPOT and InReach Evaluation

The Colorado Center Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting published an evaluation of satellite messaging devices in many of the environments that we encounter. They have even made the geospatial data available. 

Take a look at, http://ow.ly/Wi9O30iako3

BMC Field Session(s) 2018

Those of you wishing to recertify for the Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC) please be aware of the following dates. Note: the course for first-time students is closed. This announcement concerns recertification participants only. The primary date is January 13, 14. If that is canceled, the backup is February 3, 4. If that too is canceled, the last-ditch effort is March 10, 11. The typical recertification participant would only show up on Sunday and be tested. There would be no instruction what-so-ever. However, you are all welcome to attend the entire course. In that case, you could receive instruction on Saturday. Only individuals who have pre-registered with Sonny Lawrence may attend. Please email slawrence AT sbsar DOT org.

Farewell Luca

Luca Chiarabini was a member of the San Bernardino County Sheriff Cave & Technical Rescue Team.  He was 47 years old.  He was born in Italy.  He died on August 3rd, 2017 while trying to cross the Kings River after coming back from a canyoneering trip.  He was a software developer by career, but he will be most remembered for his amazing adventures, international travel, active lifestyle, and larger than life personality.  Luca was a great friend, and he always made any day more interesting. He had an amazing passion for exploration. His mind was a wealth of knowledge for both caves and canyons. He was always willing to help others. He was an active member of local caving grottos, theSierra Club, and Canyoneering Meetup Groups.  He was the largest contributor to http://ropewiki.com.   We will miss him dearly.

July 2017 BSAR Class

Thanks to the folks who teach the Basic Search and Rescue Academy, the citizens of San Bernardino County, and the State of California have a new batch of SAR team members. Congratulations to the new crew members as they complete this first step in their training. 

Search and Rescue and CAC Join Forces to Clean Canyons

Please applaud Bill Loenhorst from the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue Team  and Hydrotek for once again stepping in to help with community cleanup projects. Two years ago, the Coalition of American Canyoneers (CAC) and the Cave and Technical Rescue Team created a plan to remove graffiti from waterfalls. We needed a relatively lightweight pressure washer to blast the graffiti off the rock. Bill, along with Hydrotek, stepped up and helped us build such a device. The CAC raised $1300 to pay for the wholesale cost of the machine.   Here is an article about its maiden voyage. Over the past two years, Bill has periodically thought of various ways to improve on the device. Not only has he spent time on the improvements, he was also able to cover the costs (over $500) through generous donations from various companies. The Coalition of American Canyoneers has now used the pressure washer to remove graffiti in California and Arizona canyons. The next graffiti cleanup is slated for the end of July in Southern California. 

Wireless File Sharing Without Internet Access

TP-Link MR-3040 wireless router. Tootsie Pop for scale.The smartphone continues to play an increasingly important role in search and rescue with all manner of apps available to assist SAR members in the field. More than anything else, I use my phone for land navigation. In fact, unless the weather is really bad, I rarely pull my dedicated GPS out of my bag. With my phone I can easily enter waypoints, scroll around on a map, and even use a decent compass. Earlier, I've mentioned specific apps that are handy, as well as ways to keep your phone powered throughout multiple operational periods, but there still remains the problem of moving data on and off the phone outside of cellular networks, and with minimal client-side requirements. Sure, it is relatively easy to provide FTP access to some command post files, but that would require that end users understand how to FTP and have the proper software loaded. This is not easily accomplished when there is no cell coverage. Enter Piratebox.

Piratebox, and its fork LibraryBox, allow file sharing outside of any internet connection. LibraryBox is a fork of the Piratebox project, and has similar functionality. The differences primarily lie in the ability to upload. Piratebox has a provision for file uploading by others, while LibraryBox is a, primarily, one-way operation; there is no provision for upload. Since it would be nice to be able to easily collect things like GPS tracks from phones, I figured that the ability to upload files would be helpful. 

There are a handful of routers that are known to work with the Piratebox software, and I chose the TP-Link MR3040 because it comes with an integrated battery, and charges via a micro USB cable. To build your Piratebox, you flash the router with new firmware (OpenWRT) that has been modified to work with Piratebox, then install the Piratebox software. I won't replicate the directions here, but I followed them on the Piratebox site, and they worked fine.

I changed my Piratebox SSID to be "SAR-Files SBSAR"When you are finished, you are able to share any files on an attached thumb drive. People access the files by connecting to the wireless router (Connect just like you would any WiFi hotspot. This one won't have internet access, though.). Once they are connected, they will be redirected to a browser window that shows a place to view files, and a box to upload files.

Landing page with customized header image and textThe whole install and configuration took about 30 minutes. I did make a few modifications, however. I modified the landing page text to reflect the use in SAR, and I changed the header image. I used the instructions from this thread to accomplish this. I changed the default SSID to "SAR-Files SBSAR" and configured file uploads to go to a different directory using the instructions on this page. Since I didn't want just anybody accessing the files on the Piratebox, I also put a password on the WiFi access using these instructions.

My goal with this project is to make .GPX/.KML files for all search assignments available for download to searcher's phones. Also to be included are PDF maps and other documentation such as photos, track prints, etc. So, rather than getting an assignment, and spending time entering in waypoints and such, the searcher can quickly download his/her area to include on the mapping program on their phone (Backcountry Navigator, Locus, Gaia, etc). The command post would load up the flash drive with the files, plug it into the Piratebox, and set it on the check-in table for SAR members to access at their leisure. 

When the team returns, and has tracks and/or photos on their phones, they can connect to the Piratebox again, and upload their files. Later, the command post can pull the thumb drive and download all the files uploaded by the teams. Since everything is done with a web browser, no special software needs to be installed on the end-user's phone. This is key. Any solution that is designed to work outside of internet access, can't require a special app download since there will be no way to download the app without prior planning.

I have yet to try my Piratebox on an actual search, but it won't be long before the call arrives, and I will be able to give it a whirl. I will continue to update the links that I have found useful with this project at https://pinboard.in/u:jlehman/t:Piratebox. All of the links mentioned in this article are there. Drop me a line if you have any questions.