Ladders

Training continues. Tue was ladder practicals, which I arrived late for, so I missed throwing roof ladders (i.e. putting a short ladder up against a wall, ready to climb), and was late to get in line for the one-man throw of a 28-ft extension ladder. Last night made up for that.

I was among the first to throw the 28-ft, which unfortunately meant that the instructor assisted me more than I would have liked, (rather than just reminding me of things, like he did with later students), but it was fairly easy. Putting a ladder like that up yourself, it's a bit unwieldy, but as long as you know where it's likely to move, pretty easy to control.

Then we did a 4-man raise of a 3-section extension ladder. In our group, I manned the halyard, which meant I pulled the rope to raise the thing, lifting 2/3rds of the weight with the ladder's pulley system. Much heavier than the 28-ft. Initially, we put it up to the 3rd floor level of the training tower, and climbed up empty-handed, then with an axe in hand. Simple enough, although I tended to hug the ladder more than I should have, making it harder than it needed to be. After a couple of tries, I did a much better job of keeping my arms straight and my legs in front of me, and it went much better.

After that, they raised the ladder to the roof of the 3-story tower, and had us each climb up to the top, to be the "victim", while another student was the "rescuer", who climbed up behind the victim and guided him down. I got to be each, once. At one point, as victim, I got a bit worried at the height of it all, but recovered and did fine. I'm pretty sure nobody's going to name me class mountain goat, though. (And for some reason, I'm a bit stiff today...)

We've got next week off from class, coming back for two more weeks, the Thu of the 2nd week being the Exterior test night.