Crossing the Edge

In addition to my day job, I also volunteer on search and rescue.  Generally, that means I don’t sleep during the day or during the night, but chronic insomnia aside, search and rescue can be very demanding (and rewarding) when it comes to skills and those skills must be practiced and refreshed all the time.  This weekend, like most weekends, my team held a training session, this one for vertical skills.

When it comes to vertical rescue, one of the most deceptively challenging and undeniably critical skills is edge transition. It sounds simple enough: getting a rescuer (and eventually a patient) safely over the edge of a cliff, building or ravine. But for those of us who volunteer our time on search and rescue teams, edge transition is less about simplicity and more about precision, control and a healthy respect for gravity.

Edge transition is that crucial moment where rope meets reality and your body shifts from standing on solid ground to hanging on rope, or vice versa. It’s the moment the laws of physics introduce themselves with authority and your gear, your anchor systems and your team better be squared away, because there is zero margin for error.

Volunteer search and rescue teams often face challenging environments and vertical rescues are among the most complex and hazardous operations. Teams may be called out in the middle of the night, in rain or snow, on unfamiliar terrain and with limited personnel.

We don’t get to pick the mission. We train in our free time, we pay for our own gear and we practice as often as life lets us. But when it’s real, it’s real — cold weather, jagged rock, loose gravel, wind howling through your helmet vents type of real.

Why Edge Transitions are so Tricky

Training on the edge.

Edge transition refers to the process of transitioning a patient or team member from a vertical environment, such as a cliff face or a building, to a horizontal environment, such as the top of said cliff face of building. This transition requires careful planning, precise communication and skilled execution to ensure the safety of both the patient and the rescue team.

If you’re wondering exactly where the challenge is, anchor a rope to your sofa and run it across your dining room table, then try to climb up on the table without touching the floor. That candy bowl or flower vase will do absolutely nothing to aid you in getting you from being under the table to being on top of it.  Let’s break it down:

• Abrupt Terrain: The edge is rarely smooth. It’s a jumble of jagged rock, cactus, roots, scree or slippery mud. Sometimes it’s just unconsolidated compressed rock and dirt, making things really dicey.  Stability is laughable.  We get called because the conditions are bad. No one needs to be rescued from a safe environment.
• Limited Visibility: In many cases, the area beyond the edge is obscured by vegetation or darkness, making it difficult to assess the terrain and plan the transition. In fact, most of the time you don’t even know about the vegetation, because it’s obscured by the darkness below, giving you and opportunity to rappel into a massive tree or a thicket you need a chainsaw to get through.
• Rope Angles: You’re lucky to find an anchor for the rope that’s decently placed. That’s not how things go normally. Most of the time your rope ends up being vectored away from where you need to be. And the rope tends to rub right at the edge. Without edge protection (and sometimes even with it), there’s wear and tear and additional risk to manage.
• Communication challenges: Effective communication is crucial during edge transition, but the ambient noise, wind and other environmental factors can make it difficult for team members to communicate clearly. Communications failures are the greatest cause of accidents.
• Patient Factors: Eventually, we’re not just sending down rescuers, we’re bringing up a patient. In a perfect world it’s just one, not a mass casualty incident. The patient might be panicked, injured or unconscious and sometimes they weigh more than any two rescuers on the mission. Edge transition for a litter team is a ballet of brute strength, coordination and forced calm.
• Exposure: Once a rescuer commits to an edge transition, they are exposed to the risk of falling or being pulled off the edge by the weight of the victim. It becomes a game of numbers. How strong is the rope? Can the anchor withstand the forces we put on it? Any angle, redirect and knot add to the complexity, compromising safety.
• Mental Game: Let’s face it, going over the edge is psychological. Even with triple-checked gear and redundant systems, the human brain still shouts, “THIS IS A BAD IDEA!”, especially when you’re fighting the elements thrown at you by nature.  Mother nature is not forgiving and you know that when going over the edge.

Safety Systems and Teamwork

Edge transitions are not solo events. Every rescuer over the edge has a team behind them, managing belays, tending lines, calling commands. High directionals like a TerrAdaptor or a Vortex or even a simple A-frame might be used to angle the rope away from the edge and reduce friction. Edge tenders, the rescuers on rope beneath the edge, keep an eye on the line and the patient’s team, making sure nothing snags or twists. Communication is everything.

Even then, Murphy’s Law loves an edge. A sudden gust of wind, a dislodged rock, a miscommunication, all can turn routine into chaos. That’s why search and rescue teams drill edge transitions over and over. In snow. In heat. In places no sane person would hang from willingly.

Volunteer SAR: Passion, Not Pay

Let’s not forget, we are volunteers. Teachers, plumbers, accountants, IT techs, students, retired military, all united by a desire to help and often willing to dangle from cliffs at 3:00 AM because someone else’s life depends on it.

And when that edge transition goes right, when a rescuer slides down smoothly, when the ropes hum with tension and the team clicks like gears in a watch, it’s poetry. It’s controlled risk, made beautiful through teamwork, skill and courage.

Final Thoughts

Edge transitions are where search and rescue meets science, psychology and sometimes just plain stubbornness. For the teams that do this work, mastering this moment isn’t optional. It’s survival. It’s service. And it’s something we train for not because it’s easy, but because the alternative is unthinkable.

So the next time you see a rescue on the news, remember, somewhere just out of frame, there’s a volunteer hanging off a rope, trusting a team, conquering the edge.  The vast majority of search and rescue in the United States is a vigilant effort by unpaid volunteers.

Are you curious about search and rescue?  Visit the National Association for Search and Rescue and Google for a team in your area.

Conquering the edge.