[pct-l] Ropes over streams

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good afternoon,

In addition to the items Doug mentioned there are some pesky technical
problems with a (semi) permanent cable at a ford:

To be of any real use a cable would have to be stretched rather tightly or
else it would assume such a deep arc that its ends would be too high to
reach.

A tight stretch means the anchor points will have to be much stronger than
you may imagine, and they would have to be set in concrete or competent
native rock.

When stretched, the cable would best be about 4-5 feet above the ground in
the center, which is about 2-3 feet above the “normal” water level –
whatever that is.  At that height a cable can quickly begin to snare trees
and limbs carried in flood current.  The more that’s collected, the more
even smaller stuff will be caught.  The more that’s caught, the greater the
force on the cable.

With sufficient debris entrapment, the function of the cable will be
lessened or obviated because we then won’t be able to reach it on the
downstream side due to the trash; fording above such a debris obstacle is
very dangerous; and it probably won’t grow  large enough to make a
reasonably safe bridge.

Steel-Eye

-Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye

http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/