This will be my second to last blog post and I am happy to say that I have completed my goal on this project. I may not be a complete expert at rope climbing but all of that will come with some practice. Since it is not my last week yet I decided to go to the fire department to work on everything I've learned through this entire project, from tying my anchor to rappelling. I have decided that for this blog I will go over the steps with you one last time.
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This will be my final blog post for this project and I'm proud to say that I have reached my goal. My goal for this project was to learn a new skill that was fun and interesting. I mean how many teenagers could say that they learned how to ascend a rope for a school project? This project has also forced me to do something I would've never done before.
When I was faced with having to figure out something I could do for this project I had no idea what I could do. At dinner one night I brought it up and my dad said something about me learning how to climb a rope I was immediately interested. Once he got it in my mind then I couldn't get it out. I'll admit that this skill won't help anyone and it won't really help me either but it's a cool skill and I really do enjoy it. During this project I have faced the challenge of the fear of heights. It wasn't too big of a problem. When I get scared I try not to show it because my family will roast me if I do. I only had my dad help me one time when I was rappelling because it was my first time. When you rappel you have to use your own arm strength to brake and it can get a little scary. Overall I loved that this project helped me get motivated to learn a new skill. I didn't just want to learn a skill that everyone else would do. This week I will be continuing to work with rappelling. Last week when I started it I only did it for a short period of time so we thought it would be best to revisit it in order to make sure I have it down. Instead of just rappelling down the rope like last week, I will climb up the rope first. This week I will be learning how to rappel in order to get down the rope faster. Rescue workers have to use this technique in order to be quick. When they are rescuing someone they usually don't have enough time to do everything you have to do in order to get down, and From what I have done getting down is definitely slower than climbing up. I learned how to rappel using a rescue figure eight. In order to use this device I had to attach it to the rope. I attached it to the rope by holding the rope together and putting it through the biggest hole in it. After you pull the rope through that hole you wrap it around the figure eight. Whether your left handed or right handed is what decides what side you want to rope to go down. If your right handed like me you want the rope to go down the right side. Never let your rope cross because that adds friction and can cause wear and tear on your equipment. If you allow your rope to cross it could cause safety issues with the rope. After you have put the rope in the figure eight you then attach it to the harness with a carabineer. When you have it attached and start your rappel you want to make sure to hold the rope right. If you are right handed like I am then you hold the right rope behind you in your right hand and you hold the left part of the rope in your left hand n front of you. When you are gripping the left part of your rope you want to make sure to hold it above the figure eight. If you hold it wrong you could end up being the one that needs to be rescued. When you've done all of these steps you are ready to rappel. This week will be sort of like an off week from climbing. I am going to the beach on Thursday for a softball tournament and will not have time to go climb. I did not have time to climb during the week, because I have a very busy schedule. Instead of going and learning a new skill to help me climb this week I will push that back and practice my other skills. I will use the rope I have to practice my knots that I have learned. I will do this when I have free time on the ride to the beach or in between games. I need to make sure I have all of my knots fresh in my mind for what I will learn next week. Next week I will learn about repelling. Repelling is a faster way to get down form the rope. The way I climbed down last time takes up a lot of time and effort but when you repel you just slide down the rope. Learning this skill will help me get super close to completing my goal of learning how to ascend and descend a rope. This week I will be informing you on how to climb up the rope. I realized I didn't really tell you how to climb I just told you how to get set up to climb. If you want to see how to get it all set up you can go look at some of my earlier blog posts.
This week I climbed the rope. It is not as scary as I thought it would be but I do not have that big of a fear of heights and I did not got too high. The scariest part is coming down once you get up because you have to move your prusik cords down the rope and then you just fall down until the rope catches you and then you keep doing that until you make it to the bottom.
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AuthorI'm working on obtaining a new fun and interesting skill. Archives
November 2017
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