Astroman: forgot the knot when pulling the ropes
Great low down, loose up top — and a rappelling mistake you only make once.
Machine-translated from the German original. The German version is the one I actually wrote.
Low down the route is genuinely good. Higher up the rock gets loose, and that takes a lot away from it.
The actual point of the day was the descent, though: we forgot to tie a knot in the end of the rope before rappelling.
That’s the classic among avoidable mistakes. A knot in the end costs five seconds and prevents exactly one thing — and that one thing is the one you don’t walk away from twice.
It was fine. I’ve tied them ever since, even when I can see the rope reaching the ground.