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Restructed all the rigging content into smaller pages as a rigging guide

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<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>CUCC Expedition Rigging Handbook: A New Pitch</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
</head>
<body>
<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expo Rigging Handbook</h2>
<h1>Your first pitch</h1>
<h3>A New Pitch !</h3>
<p>So your cave goes, and you have reached a large black space. Whether your
reaction is joy or terror, there are a few things to consider before
leaping, lemming-like, into the void on a handy piece of string, or running
back to top camp to announce that the cave is "bottomless".</p>
<p>How deep is the pitch ? Where would be the ideal line of descent, avoiding
rub points, loose rock, mud and/or water ? Is there an obvious traverse
level across the top of the pitch, or a short way down ? Can you actually
<b><i>see</i></b> any of this without starting to rig ? Look across the
pitch as well as down it - there may be accessible passage still to
explore and always a chance that the pitch can be climbed or bypassed
entirely. Look up too: if there is an aven it may give a clue as to where
flood inlets might appear, or there may be loose rock or ice formations
up there to be considered.</p>
<p>The traditional method of judging the depth of a pitch is to lob a rock
down. <span lang="fr">Casteret</span> always used to wrap his rock in a copy
of "<i lang="fr">Le Monde</i>" and set it alight before casting it into the
void. Before chucking <b>anything</b> down a pitch, consider whether there
could be another party down there, perhaps having come by an entirely
different route. In <span lang="de">Kaninchenh&ouml;hle</span> in
particular, this is a very real possibility.</p>
<p>A traverse/security line is often useful to approach the edge of a new
pitch. This may or may not become a permanent part of the rigging, but
until the safety of the pitch head has been assessed, it is better to be
safe than sorry. Such a rope will often enable you to reach a better
viewpoint (or rock-chucking point :-) to assess the pitch, and certainly
confers a greater degree of confidence when scrambling about looking for
potential rig points.</p>
<p>When throwing your rock, only the time to the first bounce is really
relevant, unless it continues to rattle on for <b>very much</b> longer. If
you can drop it in a "free hang" then this will give you a good idea of the
minimum length of rope needed before a rebelay is required.</p>
<h3>Rigging it</h3>
<div class="onleft">
<a href="../l/rbelay.html">
<img alt="Rebelay photo - 32k" src="../t/rbelay.jpg" width="150" /></a></br><span
class="caption">Rope to tight</br>(click to enlarge)</span>
</div>
<p>There are two two obvious tactical errors you can make when rigging a new
pitch. On the one hand, you can spend ages bolting a perfect hang, only
for the first person to find the pitch ends blind. On the other hand, you
can bodge up a rig to check that it goes, then fail to rig properly before
it takes a lot of traffic. The first error is frustrating and limits your
finding of new stuff. The second error can be terminal at worst and at best
can waste a lot more time than would have been needed to rig properly.</p>
<p>If a pitch is roomy, draughts strongly or is in an immensely promising
location, it is probably worth taking the time to rig it properly from the
start. If the pitch is small, has no draught or is likely to drop back into a
known part of the cave, it is probably better to send someone down before
investing too much effort. You can make it safe pretty quickly with rope
protectors and perhaps deviations off naturals, without taking the time to
place bolts which you will need for a more permanent rig.</p>
<p>Experience in the UK should have given you a good feel for when a pitch
is well-rigged. It won't take too long in Austria to get a feel for how
it can go wrong. If you find a pitch badly rigged by someone else, don't
assume it must be OK because they survived. If you can improve the rig,
do so; if not, consider carefully whether you should go down at all.</p>
<p>A well-rigged pitch should not be overly gymnastic, nor, ideally, should
it have either very long or very short sections, which result in a lot of
waiting around for the other person(s) in a group. Loops at rebelays should
not disappear when the rope is unloaded, and should be long enough to allow
the removal of any type of descender. They do not need to be long enough to
stand in - especially if the pitch above is short. Overmuch slack at a
rebelay will result in a high fall-factor if the belay fails.</p>
<hr />
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<ul id="links">
<li><a href="../index.htm">Expedition Handbook</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="rigit.html">Rigging guide</a></li>
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<li><a href="../look4.htm">Prospecting guide</a></li>
<li><a href="../rescue.htm">Rescue guide</a></li>
<li><a href="../photo.htm">Photography guide</a></li>
</ul></li>
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