What to do when your hair gets stuck while rapelling..

Things get stuck in rappel devices, but cutting them free ought to be a last resort!  Had a friend get a coat tail pulled in whilst rapping off a route in Boulder Canyon years ago and managed to cut his rope - fell, long hospital stay, and a lifetime of walking with a cane.

Another friend sported a fantastic, wide mustache - which got pulled into the bars of his rappel rack.  As he jostled around trying to free it, his lip was getting pulled closer and closer to the rack... envisioning the worst, he finally hoisted himself up a little and dropped, ripping out half of his mustache - but maybe saving his lip.  

And then there is this from the 1990 issue of American Caving Accidents:

SW Marlatt wrote:

Things get stuck in rappel devices, but cutting them free ought to be a last resort!  Had a friend get a coat tail pulled in whilst rapping off a route in Boulder Canyon years ago and managed to cut his rope - fell, long hospital stay, and a lifetime of walking with a cane.

Another friend sported a fantastic, wide mustache - which got pulled into the bars of his rappel rack.  As he jostled around trying to free it, his lip was getting pulled closer and closer to the rack... envisioning the worst, he finally hoisted himself up a little and dropped, ripping out half of his mustache - but maybe saving his lip.  

And then there is this from the 1990 issue of American Caving Accidents:

… gaaaaahhhh

Usually, I say something like OW MOTHER F#%K, then try to unweight the rope and untangle, sometimes though, you have to either cut or rip, depending on knife availability.
Painful yes, but the good news is you live. Tie your hair back, keep your face away from your devices or learn the hard way.

Kevinmurray wrote:

I have caught my beard in a rappel set up, it only take once.

It's taken about a dozen times and counting for me. Only once was it bad enough that I needed to blindly wrap some slings to unweight it. Extending the rappel makes it a non-issue, but I'm unfortunately quite lazy about that.

This is why mullets are best, short in the front 

slo ta wrote:

It's taken about a dozen times and counting for me.

Perhaps work on your situational awareness?

Get a haircut ya damn hippie.  Probably spends his time smokin dope an bad mouthin his country

Ally L wrote:

Would putting a prussik on the line above the grigri, attaching a sling to it then stepping on it to unweight the belay device not work??? Are we all just going straight to chopping our hair off?

Lol. Take your time if you can handle the pain, I suppose. I used to have dreadlocks past my waist and lost one when it was caught in the Gri, and it hurt so bad that we had no time to think. Luckily, the heroes at the crag saved my life that day and I'm forever grateful. There was blood. 

Kevin Mokracek wrote:

Get a haircut ya damn hippie.  Probably spends his time smokin dope an bad mouthin his country

This made me contemplate the OGs in Camp 4 and whether or not this scenario played out with them, and did they bad mouth their country while eating expired cans of cat food, or in the Awhanee while stealing food off the tourists leftover brunch tables? #intriguing

Marc801 C wrote:

Perhaps work on your situational awareness?

Nah, my wife appreciates the semi-annual beard trim.

Jonathan Hogue wrote:

Lol. Take your time if you can handle the pain, I suppose. I used to have dreadlocks past my waist and lost one when it was caught in the Gri, and it hurt so bad that we had no time to think. Luckily, the heroes at the crag saved my life that day and I'm forever grateful. There was blood. 

I’ll fight thru it. Call me shallow, but no pain is worse than the pain of having the Asian bowl cut I had to grow up with:

I still can’t believe he was cutting BLINDLY  with a knife at his doo ,  SO NEAR the rope! Omg! 

DOH! And  OOf…

I was waiting for the CURTAIN CALL on that video… yeah a FOR REAL horror show to watch because of his slashes..  But I guess he survived to post it!! HAHA!  or YGD! ? 

I caught a coat tail and a pinch of hair(when I kept it long) ( once each) , but managed to wrangle free without too much trouble. This was LONG before instagram so no video, sorry!