–rakkity<\/p>\n
It was a beautiful Spring day in Boulder, and Maggie and I were in high spirits as we headed up the Bluebell trail toward the Third Flatiron. Maggie Herz was a grad student in the Physics Dept, I was a 2nd-year grad student in the Astrogeophysics Dept, and both of us were hiker\/climbers in the CU hiking club. I had my 50-m rope, and she had hers. We needed two of them because we planned to do the famous 50-m (165-ft) free rappel off the high point of the 3rd Flatiron down into Poison Ivy Gully. Each of us had been up on top there before, but neither of us had rappelled off the 50-m cliff. When I had done the Flatiron climb the year before, it was with one of my teachers, who showed me how to do a body rappel off the back side of the Flatiron, where the drop was only 25 m, so it could be done with a single rope. The body rappel had been invented at least 6 or 7 decades before, and it was still being done even now in the enlightened age of 1967 because braking carabiners hadn’t been invented yet (or at least Yvonne Chouinard’s Ironworks factory wasn’t supplying the stores). But the ever-inventive Rocky Mtn Rescue folks who hung out with the CU Hiking club had invented a system of 3 carabiners that worked fine as a rappel brake–so long as you put them together correctly. continue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" –rakkity It was a beautiful Spring day in Boulder, and Maggie and I were in high spirits as we headed up the Bluebell trail toward the Third Flatiron. Maggie Herz was a grad student in the Physics Dept, I was … Continue reading