When beginning an abseil descent the first job is to be sure of your anchor, it is easy to say it will be ok and abseil off some scabby old piece of tat but what price your life. If you are rigging an abseil ask your self would you belay off the anchor if you have any doubt replace the Tat or back up the anchor. You will feel pretty stupid falling to your death over a £6 nut. If you are abseiling on one rope feed an end through the anchor then hold the two ends and run the ropes through your hands until the middle sits on the anchor. If you are using two ropes join them together with an over hand knot with about 20-30cm of tail. An overhand knot is easier to tie and untie it also forms flat when under tension so is less likely to get caught as you pull the rope down unlike a bulky double fisherman’s knot or the reef knot with double fisherman’s back up.

There are two ways of protecting yourself when abseiling, you can tie a knot in the end of the rope and or use a French Prussic. Tying a knot in the end of the rope is a fairly crude but effective method, if you loose control you will slide until you hit the knot, the problem with knots in the end of the rope is that you create a loop that can then catch as you descend. If you tie a knot in each individual rope they are still prone to catching especially if descending in a strong wind.

The traditional way of rigging a prussic was to clip your abseil device into the central loop on your harness then clip the prussic into the leg loop on your harness. The problem with this system is that if you are knocked out your body goes limp your leg comes up and the prussic can be released by the abseil device. A better system is to larks foot an 8ft sling through the leg loops and waist belt on your harness (the same way you would feed the rope through) tie an over hand knot in the sling about 15-20cm away from the harness. Clip your abseil device into the loop you have just created, clip a screw gate crab into the end of the sling, this now gives you a cow’s tail to clip into an anchor.

Clip a crab into the belay loop on the your harness clip a short prussic into the crab (about forearm length) wrap the prussic round the ropes you are going to abseil on then clip the end of the prussic back into the crab. You can then pull up the rope through the prussic to create a loop, the prussic will support the weight of the rope while you thread the rope through your abseil device. Check that your harness is done up correctly all your screw gates are done up, the rope is threaded correctly through your device. Have a final look at the overhand knot joining the two ropes together and the anchor then unclip your cow’s tail from the belay and clip it into the rope that you are going to pull down. This will remind you which rope to pull when you reach the next anchor. As you abseil if you need to stop to un-tangle the rope the prussic will hold you in place.

When you arrive at the next anchor or after you have created an anchor clip into the anchor then detach yourself from the rope while your partner abseils to join you. You can hold the end of the rope to protect their abseil if they don’t want to use a prussic. While your partner is abseiling feed the pull down rope through the anchor and make sure there are no kinks or knots in the rope that is going to have to be pulled through the higher anchor. When your partner arrives and has clipped in while one person pulls down the rope the other threads it through the anchor and feeds it down the crag. Repeat until you reach the ground.

If using skinny ropes make sure you use a belay device that can cope, the Wild Country VC Pro and the Black Diamond ATC guide are both brilliant at this. If any of your abseils are diagonal make sure you abseil vertically then pendulum to where you want to be. If you try and abseil diagonally and your feet slip you will be in for a nasty uncontrolled swing. This happened to a client of a friend of mine who broke his femur at the top of Mount Kenya as a result.