ad·ven·ture

/ədˈven(t)SHər/engage in hazardous and exciting activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory

From the Bear Witness series: “Take me for insurance”

Other than the dictionary definition, I think that at the core of the notion of ‘adventure’ is the fact that you are not sure of the -outcome- of the endeavor. In canyoneering, we check the Beta, the Weather, and people like to go with someone who already knows the approach, canyon and exit, so in reality we are minimizing the chances for an unexpected outcome.

But to explore undocumented territory, a canyoneer needs to make (hopefully) an informed guess on the gear required to avoid getting marooned in a canyon. During our latest exploration, looking at the map topo lines, I best guessed that all the drops did not exceed 100 feet, so a 200 feet long rope will suffice. The night before, a 200 feet pull cord was staring at me next to the backpack, as if saying: “Take me for insurance...so you can use the full 200 feet length of rope.”

But my confidence on the topo reading prevailed. But what about anchor opportunities far back from the edge? I thought, that eats up rope length. For that...I took a TRR kit (Transient Releasable Rigging). Everything went as expected, until we encountered a drop that was kind of long, and anchor opportunities near the edge were scant, and a very dirty rope pull.

With no pull cord on hand, the TRR/ghosting options were all mid-rope solutions. This was a sour reminder on my TRR presentation: Mid rope solutions have a rope-stuck risk built in.

And that is what happened. From that point on, we got into an unexpected outcome. We ended up solving it, but for sure, the adventure we were looking for, found us.

Adventures seem to start days before the actual canyons day. Those 'wrong headed' decisions. The wrong gear, the wrong canyon for skill level, the wrong team for your current rescue and leading skills.

Aftermath

Recently I came across a good line regarding errors:

“What matter is not that you never make an error, but what you do about it afterwards. What is your correction mechanism?”

In canyoneering, errors matter. They can result in a fatality. Prevention is paramount, -if- you know what to look for. Through my years in this sport, it has been hard not to notice that individuals and communities are pretty resistant to ‘correction mechanisms’. Sometimes adventure finds you and after overcoming it, you feel proud of your "problem solving skills", or you simply ask teammates to "keep it quiet", or the victim was “super experienced, accidents happen”. All leading to an avoidance of correction and not learning anything, regardless of accident reports.

In our case a reminder that a pull cord (or extra rope) is not only a matter of rappel length, but also anchoring opportunities and the type of ghosting solution available to you. Correct overconfidence and ‘bring ‘insurance’.