I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. As I’ve said before, the opportunity we have at Sierra Rescue to work in Yosemite National Park is amazing, and it is one of my favorite places to teach. This post gives a shout out to our SRT-1 / SRT-A students from this past spring. We set up a big tension diagonal right in front of Bridal Veil Falls. As with most large-scale operations, this exercise required good communication, proper allocation of resources, and it all started with the ability to cross a line. The line-crossing method we chose to use was an early prototype of my experimental design, but it worked on the first shot! Check out the gallery for a frame by frame sequence of the set up. Thanks for the great photos Adam Farmer.
Remember that a tension diagonal has lots of applications. Some include the ability to:
- get rescuers/personnel across a channel without having to swim or navigate obstacles
- transport rescuers with victims across a channel
- transport gear to/from a stranded victim/car/craft
- access a stranded vehicle in swiftwater
- setup downstream containment of an operation
