Pink Lime Pit Vertical Training

Saturday, February 4th 2006 - Robert Cranney

Location: Allen's Ranch Trip Leader: Robert Cranney On Trip: Robert Cranney, Duane McCully, Holly McCully, Tami Jensen, Jon Jasper This trip was setup by Duane so Holly could get some vertical practice. Eventually we want to take her to Candlelight and thought this would be a great warm up trip for her. We met at Saratoga Springs around 9:45 in the Am. Jon was still in AF so I told him we would meet him out at the pit. The rest of of headed out. Once we got to the parking lot, Jon pulled up right behind us. Good timing. We gathered our gear, ropes, powdered doughnuts and headed up the mountain. In 3 minutes 12 seconds we were at the pit. It was a tough hike. We rigged 4 ropes with various types of obsticles. With two ropes setup for a basic descents, and 2 setup with an obsticle course we were ready to go. I just got a new frog system and a new BMS micro rack with the dual hyper bar and wanted to do some practice. I did my first descent down the drop not knowing how my BMS rack would react. Once I got over the lip, it was smooth sailing. I tried the rack using the single hyper and dual hyper bar, and tried locking off. I must say I felt more comfortable using this rack than any other rack I've used before. It was easy, I got maximum control, and the rack weighs half of my full rack. And is half the size, a huge plus. Once we were all down the pit, we started the training. Duane worked with Holly on her climbing skills. She was soon on rope and heading back up. She did a good job. She was up the rope in a good time. I think she is ready for candlelight. Jon and I started working on my system. I wanted to practice change overs, knot crossing and re-belays. I worked on these for most of the day. Tamie worked on various ascents as well. We showed her all the things I was working on. She went up and down the pit 3 or 4 times while I was working with Jon. At about 2:00 we decided that we had had a good day of training and were ready for some lunch. We got back out, derigged the drops and were heading down the mountain. The day was great, the training was good, and we all learned allot. Now I am ready to go back and try some new things with my Frog. Thanks Jon for coming out and helping me with my Frog system. I look forward to the next training.