Abseiling essay

Although we call it abseiling in the UK, it’s often known as rappelling in Europe and the US, from the French word rappeler. It’s a really useful technique to learn, whether you’re going to use it as part of rock climbing, mountaineering – or just to be able to walk down a really big cliff face one day.

In these cases abseiling is just one skill in your armoury that you’ll use when it’s needed. But, abseiling is also a sport in its own right. People lower themselves down 40ft cliffs for fun… yes, for fun.

Abseiling is basically the opposite of climbing. If rock climbing is going up a near-vertical face using a rope, then abseiling is going down a near-vertical face using a rope. Although we call it abseiling in the UK, it’s often known as rappelling in Europe and the US, from the French word rappeler.

In abseiling, you are attached to the rope somehow and the rope is attached to the top of the cliff/crag/drop. You have some way of increasing or decreasing the friction between you and the rope. Lots of friction means slow or no movement downwards. No friction means gravity will do its thing as if the rope wasn’t there.