Testing The Myth: Does Extending Your Rappel Device Make Your Pack Feel Lighter?

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Curiosity is a super power. I did a short video on that topic, actually. So, when a viewer challenged one of my videos in which I briefly mention that I thought an extended rappel helped ease the burden of sitting upright with a heavy pack while on a rappel, it made me want to dig in more. I had some personal experience that didn’t jive with his position, but that in itself isn’t what really got me curious. My curiosity was sparked by the simplicity of his mental model.

That’s not to say simplicity is a bad thing, especially in a mental model, the sole purpose of which is to take complexity and distill it down to something that characterizes a situation or system, rather than attempting to be a complete explanation.

I work with models, professionally - mathematical ones, but models nonetheless. I try to explain how a signal or intervention, say a text message sent out to diabetics to remind them to get a neuropathy check , does or does not influence them to actually get an appointment with their doctor and then follow through be attending. We make fairly complex mathematical models to help predict how many and what subsets of the population will likely be influenced to do this while others will not. In the end, through, we will never be able to explain and predict with anything close to perfection who will react to this text prompt down at the individual level. There is simply too much missing from the model. We don’t know what is going on with any individual in any of the spheres of their life that are outside of our data set. If they are caring for someone at home, or lack transportation, or lack funds, or or or… none of that is in our data and so can only be assumed (rather than calculated) in our model.

In here’s my point: the model effective for thinking about the problem in aggregate, but it’s too simple to deal with any one person and that person’s particulars.

So, what made me curious about this person’s argument was his argument implied about his model. His argument is that if we clip the carabiner at our belay loop or clip/tether a rappel extension at our belay loop, the pivot point of the system is the same: a connection at our belay loop. But the more I thought about how we actually rappel, the more I realized the mental model was missing an important component (just like my model of behavior of diabetics was missing data about their social situation): we have a second connection point when on rappel, our hand.

All of this got me questioning my own position. If I believed I was right, I needed a better set of data to support that position.

So, does that second connection point matter? Is our hand far enough away from the device to materially influence the physics of the system? Well, take a look at the video to find out.

… and when curiosity, no matter it’s origin, gets us to think more deeply and with skepticism about our own positions/opinions, that’s probably a good thing.