UKC

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3860785.ece

In reply to dale1968: we're not all subscribed the times on line, any chance of a quick copy and paste

In reply to climb the peak: Ditto

In reply to climb the peak:

This is what you can copy and paste:

"A team of climbers has completed one of the world’s longest abseils.
The feat saw the team abseil down a drop nearly three times as high as the Shard in London, on the El Capitan granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, California.
Experienced climber Amy Hinkle and her team made the descent using a specialist rope attached to the top of the 3,000ft rock."

So "one of the world's longest abseils" not "the longest". It's nowhere near the longest which I believe is still that from the summit of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island at around 5000ft.

ALC

In reply to dale1968:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2403825/Into-void-Daredevils-comple...

In reply to abseil:

"a challenge they compare to tackling Mount Everest"

Yeah right. Its an abseil FFS. The hard part is getting hold of a 1000m rope and carrying it up there.

In reply to a lakeland climber:


I think the point (such as it is) is that it's a single pitch abseil.

In reply to GrahamD:

...and forcing the rope through the abseil device with such a weight on it. What a drag!

In reply to GrahamD: now a 1000m rope would be an achievement! I hate long abseils. The longest I've done was only a couple hundred, and that was bad enough.

In reply to Mark Collins:

They used rappel rack frames like this:

http://www.bluewaterropes.com/home/Uploaded/Products/10132011103639.jpg

In reply to dale1968:

"The team said they went through an 'incredible' amount of training to develop the skills and gain the experience to tackle this descent
"

Say what?!

In reply to JoshOvki:

Kegel exercise training to control the sphincter I would guess.

In reply to tlm:

The cheating b*stards, that's not proper abseiling!

In reply to dale1968:

What's the point of this abseil? It's just a stunt. When I was learning climbing there was no such thing as abseil hardware. You wrapped the rope around your body and used friction and balance and a little strength to get down. I remember abbing off a route in the dolomites because of a terrible electric storm. It took us a long time, much more than this 20 minute one 3000 foot given free rope. We only had the much shorter normal length ropes of the day. No-one offered us 3000 foot ropes, we obviously couldn't have carried it anyway. So they climbed up firstly, well they weren't carrying 3000 feet of rope were they? We carried ours up and it took so many abs to get down because of the short ropes.

In reply to a lakeland climber:
<It's nowhere near the longest which I believe is still that from the summit of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island at around 5000ft.>

Is that correct? More likely Mt Thor, I would have thought. I think that Asgard's highest elevation is the eastern one, at somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 ft; but it's relatively low-angled, and would be a real pain to abseil. The much steeper west/northwest side is, I think, a bit shorter. And there's no easy way to the top of Asgard, which would either mean a substantial operation to get the kit up there, or use of a helicopter - which I think is outwith Park regulations. Obviously one might descend a route on the west side after a successful ascent, but that wouldn't be a single, continuous abseil - which I think is what this thread is talking about.

In reply to mockerkin:

It's their hobby. They are the V-bats, a collection of friends who enjoy sharing long drop SRT together. It started from a caving background...

https://sites.google.com/site/vbatsrappellteam/home

In reply to Ian Parsons:

Yes, looks like Mt Thor -http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/mount-thor-greatest-vertical-drop-on.h...

Looking at Summitpost, it seems like the steep side of Mt Asgard is around 1000 metres in height.

ALC

In reply to a lakeland climber:

What about Trango Towers? They're pretty high?

In reply to dale1968: Would be a bastard if it got caught up half way down though.