Free Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself by Zachary Anderegg Page A

actually requires a fair amount of upper body strength. I once ascended a hundred-foot rope wearing a thirty-pound backpack and I was absolutely exhausted by the time I reached the top, mostly due to the extra load on my arms. My climb to rescue the dog would be more than twice as long, with more weight, and I had probably been in better shape then than I was now. That was why I was being as careful as I could, planning what I would take with me. Every ounce was going to count, because when you’re repeating an action three or four hundred times, it can add up. Bringing something I wouldn’t need would be almost as bad as forgetting something essential.
    Last, I examined the dog carrier, though it was small enough that it was probably intended for cats. It was a lightweight plastic shell, held together with a few rivets, with a door at one end, held shut with a plastic handle on the top. That it was lightweight was a plus, but it seemed too fragile for the task. I couldn’t hold the crate in my hand as I climbed, so my plan was to tether it to my harness and let it dangle about three feet below me. It would, I was certain, bounce against the rocks, and possibly (hopefully not) get snagged or caught and require tugging to free it.
    I had the solution in my gear, and pulled out a long strip of climber’s webbing, like seatbelt material, but an inch wide, and softer, with a tensile strength of about four thousand pounds. I basically wrapped the crate the way you would a Christmas package, then secured the vertical bands from slipping around the corners by knotting them with clove hitches to a piece of cord that girded the circumference. I could tie on with a carabiner where the straps intersected at the top of the package, where the bow and ribbons would go. The straps along the sides would prevent the door from accidentally opening, preventing a potentially disastrous moment.
    For a tether, I would use an adjustable daisy chain, a length of webbing with a fixed loop at the end that clipped to my harness and an adjustable slide at the other, preceding a second loop I could use to clip to the crate. By adding or removing slack, I would be able to adjust the distance between myself and the crate, depending on the circumstances I found myself in. To ensure I would have as much freedom of movement as possible, I decided I would clip the tether to my harness at the rear, near the small of my back, leaving my legs free to work the ascenders or push away from the rock in front of me. Then it occurred to me that there was an overhanging ledge about a hundred feet up from the canyon floor. I had enough rope to attach a long tethering line to the crate, climb to the ledge, rest, attach a pulley to my main climbing rope with a Gibbs cam to grab the rope and serve as a dead man’s brake, just in case I were somehow forced to let go, and hoist the crate to the ledge with the pulley. Working with any rope system, and in particular when you’re climbing solo, in addition to double and triple-checking the mechanical elements, you have to take into account the possibility of unexpected human failure, such as a heart attack or a stroke. You have to plan for what you can’t plan for. If I dropped dead, for some reason, the Gibbs cam would save the dog from a fatal plummet.
    I turned off the lights and lay on the bed with my eyes closed, mentally rehearsing what I would do in the morning, visualizing each step in the process to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. It was hard to stop thinking about it. I needed to be rested, but falling asleep was difficult. I wasn’t worried about whether I’d be able to do it, because I wasn’t allowing failure to be an option. I would be exhausted afterward, I thought, maybe more than I’d ever been before, but I would find a way to do it. I would summon the strength from somewhere.
    But there are always surprises. The worst case scenario would be a sudden rainstorm, somewhere up-canyon in the