STURDY: Stephan Moser, a member of the team who installed safety devices on India Venster last week, demonstrates the machine used to test how strong they are.
But novices urged to avoid India Venster rout
UNLESS you’re a very, very heavy person, you can feel quite at ease using the new safety features that have been installed on the challenging India Venster hiking route. Ten stainless steel staples for hand and footholds, as well as two short sections of chain, were installed on the potentially dangerous section near the top of this historic and popular route up the mountain on Wednesday last week. At the weekend, the mountain rescue team that had placed these features did tests to ensure they had been properly secured and they all passed with flying colours.
The 20mm diameter staples, made from grade 316 stainless steel, were embedded into the rock to a minimum depth of 135mm, and secured with a specialised injection mortar They were then tested with a machine that twice applied a tensile, or “pull-out”, force of six kilonewtons (kN) for a minimum period of 15 seconds to each staple. Kilonewtons are often used for stating safety working loads for tension and shear measurements for fasteners, anchors and similar features in the building industry and for rock-climbing equipment, according to online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
One kN equals 101.97162kg of load. In a report to Table Mountain National Park area manager Paddy Gordon, Dion Tromp of the installation team reported that no movement or slippage of any staple had been detected during the test. A similar tensile force was applied for a minimum period of 15 seconds to each anchor bolt securing the sections of chain, and here, too, no movement or slippage of the anchors wasdetected, Tromp added.
The 8mm diameter chain used on India Venster Is also grade 316 stainless steel with a breaking strength of 3.36 tons. “It’s recommended that the entire safety system staples, anchor bolts and nuts, shackles and chains be inspected visually every six months, and all the staples and anchor bolts be subjected to similar tensile testing by a competent person every 12 months," Tromp said in his report. Gordon said he was “very satisfied” with the quality of the work, and with the teamwork that had included support by the Red Cross Air Mercy Service which had airlifted equipment and the Installation team to the site. “And I’m very happy that the people involved in the decision-making here know the mountain very well and have been involved in rescues and recoveries and know what had gone wrong. I accept that some people will be unhappy (about the placement of the safety features), but we could no longer Ignore the fact that people were getting injured and killed at that point.” Gordon said the rest of the work to make the route safer -the installation of new signage and a slight re-routing of the hiking path leading up from the lower cableway station to, keep uninformed hikers away 1 from India Venster was under way and should be completed in the next few weeks.
He emphasised that India Venster should not be regarded as completely safe. Publicity around the installation of the safety features had unfortunately also drawn some unwanted attention to this route, he said.
“We recommend that people unfamiliar with the mountain use Platteklip Gorge to get to the summit,” he said.
Article: Cape Argus
Date: 26 May 2009
Journalist: John Held
