VR Practice In Empress Canyon

I had not been through Empress Canyon in a while so I Jumped at the occasion for a brief practice with the lightweight gear. The canyon is surprisingly short but quite pretty. The water levels were low. We were soon at the abseil and set up the ropes: that took a while because the two ropes had threaded themselves into a mess…
I was the first one down. On two ropes, the start was not smooth but eventually things improved… About 10 m above the pool, I noticed that the ropes had knotted themselves again in the water… I was grateful for the shunt (but only that once) which allowed me to stop and untangle the ropes.

The lightweight gear is still on trial after several years… Allegedly there is a move to go from 8 mm to 9.5 mm ropes which might lead to the use of another descender… Time will tell!