Hanging Out On The New River Bridge

Hanging Out On The New River Bridge

by Ken Bailey

Publication Date: January 2001

I just kept thinking that a thousand feet is a long way down and I should be much more afraid. I wish I could explain why I felt so fearless, but there are no words for my feelings. I was hanging on a piece of string compared to the size of everything around me. I had my life in my hands. All I had to do was let the rope slip through my rack and I would be on the ground. It was just me hanging out in the air. There was nothing to grab on to, just open space. I could see the fall colors covering the New River Valley from where I hung in my harness. All of my senses were operating at their peak - the fall colors were more vivid, the smell of the valley was stronger, and I had enough strength to tackle any task. I was finally rappelling off the New River Bridge.

The New River Bridge is the site of Bridge Day, which is held annually on the third Saturday in October. It is a day when anybody with a little planning, experience and luck can rappel off the New River Bridge outside of Beckley, West Virginia. The planning requires organizing a team of ten to fourteen people over eighteen years of age with rappelling equipment and a willingness to hang 850 feet in the air on a half inch rope. The experience requirements are for every member of the team to have accomplished several 250 foot rappels. The luck is needed for the lottery used for picking the twenty teams that are allowed on the bridge each year. Our team, The Derby City Descenders, consisting of thirteen brave women and men from Louisville, finally got lucky for Bridge Day 2000.

It was a cool morning under the bridge where it meets the valley wall. I had eighty pounds of rope strapped on my back that felt like a kid's book-bag with all the adrenaline in my body. The safety official received the call on the radio that it was our turn and I danced through the mud to the light-weight aluminum extension ladder that ascended to the catwalk of the bridge. I started up hoping the guys behind would catch me if I fell, but I reached the top in spite of the memory of a past fall that flew through my head. I was on the bridge and walking, only looking forward, as each time I looked down, it threw me off balance. I just kept looking forward.

Our team drew the fourteenth anchor station, which meant that five of the twenty teams went before us. Our three-man rigging team arrived at the spot on the catwalk marked fourteen and set down our gear. The catwalk out was the wake-up call of the experience - it screams to you that there is nothing out there. We clipped ourselves to the handrail before we went to work, which turned out to be a mistake. There were too many people coming and going on the narrow walkway to stretch extra equipment across it. Every time a person came on the bridge, they had to pass all the teams on the way to their anchor station. This meant you either squeezed against the rail, or climbed around them, with rappelling gear catching on everything. The extra dangling gear could knock you off the catwalk.

We unclipped and started to lower the thousand feet of rappel rope. This made another mistake apparent - without weight on the end of the rope, the wind took it where it wanted. We took the extra rappel gear, cameras, clothes, anything that we could live without, and used it for an anchor. This last minute improvisation worked and we got the rope on the ground. Unfortunately, with all the ropes coming down, the ground crew couldn't find ours. With about a thousand dollars worth of equipment on the line and spectators coming up checking out the stuff, it was a stressful moment. However, it ended with everything intact.

With the ground belay crew in radio communication, we were ready to rappel and I was the first to go. The mistakes seemed to just keep coming. Our biggest of the day was when the wind picked up and our rope was being blown into the steel bridge girders. The girders were very rusty and abrasive, like coarse sandpaper. The rust can cut through anything, gloves, equipment and rope. Bob, our safety guy, told us to move the rope to the other side of the catwalk. The thought of pulling all that rope up was pretty unappealing. However, we devised a way to tie off the nine hundred feet of hanging rope and work the extra one hundred feet of rope to the other side and tied new anchors. When we released the makeshift anchor and let the rope rest on the new anchors, everything laid in place perfectly.

I stepped off the catwalk and onto a rusty metal beam. This was the moment I had refused to think about - the first person on an untested rope with no back-up, and 875 feet from the ground. I lifted about 70 pounds of rope, threaded my rack, double checked my carabineer, and prepared to put my weight on the system. It was easier than I thought as I settled into my harness. There was a long moment before the gear settled in and I was unsure if everything was going to hold. All the gear held, and I was suddenly aware of all the activity by the other crews, people were waving and taking pictures. I dropped down 20 feet on the rope and looked up. My teammates were waving and smiling. I was grinning like an idiot and glad to be alive.

I watched the rope slide through my rappelling rack. There was really nothing else that mattered. After a quick eternity, I looked around and videoed the valley and the rappel. I snapped a couple of quick pictures with my throwaway camera and let more rope slide through my rack. I was just gliding down the rope. I had dropped further on the rope than I had ever been before, and the distance to go was twice what I had already done. I looked down to find my friends at the bottom were just dots. It was going to be a while before I got to the bottom. I looked up to see that my friends on the bridge were just dots also. I knew I should have been more afraid. I was hanging on a half-inch piece of rope (my thumb is thicker than that) but I was fearless.

Suddenly, I heard the ground crews yelling to their teammates on the ropes. I was 30 feet from the ground and there was activity everywhere.

All that was running through my mind was that my first the team's firstrappel was over, and the trees and shrubs sure had a lot of thorns. I tore through the branches of a Locust tree and landed on a muddy slope. Josh, our one-man ground crew, was helping me stand. It had been a while since I used my legs. They were heavy and almost asleep, and I was awkward on my feet. Finally, I stood on solid ground talking to Josh about the drop, and radioing the bridge crew to let them know I was off rope. I wanted to saver the moment...to have been first on the rope...to have two years of work come to fruition, but there were teammates that needed their chance to experience what I just did. I was being pulled out of my personal celebration and into the crowd. Karen was at the top of the hill calling me to come drive the shuttle van so she could get on the bridge. It was 9:30 AM. I had been moving since 5:30 AM and was going to keep moving.

I worked very hard for two years to get a chance on the bridge over the New River, and I worked even harder on Bridge Day. I was there for the set up and tear down. I was never alone on any of it - the team that I was on made it all possible. We all brought decades of experience and an unselfish willingness to share and teach. For me, being part of the team that got me off the bridge was the most enjoyable part of the process. We met after work to practice, we camped together at the Red River Gorge to rappel and climb, and shared pizzas late into the night after hiking an hour in the dark only to get up early and climb again. The friendships that were made over the years, forged by the common goal of making the highest legal rappel, had the most value for me.