cookieless, no-ads, no threats canyon exploring with
Michele Angileri

Rio Paghetto

Canyon of Rio Paghetto gives canyoneer a variety of shapes, colors and views so wide that seems to go through 4 canyons in one day. It begins as a typical canyon of Sabina, in white limestone. Then it becomes a steep canyon in flint-limestone, with a majestic mediterranean view over rocks and bush. Rock then changes again, and things becomes coloured with pink. Finally variegated flysch and marl paint a landscape of badlands and rocky dunes.

Rappels, pools and downclimbings add more emotions and feelings to a beautiful canyoning day in Rio Paghetto.

I remember ...

In those years I devoted time and attention to the research of lightweight materials, with the explicit goal of reducing the weight of exploration backpacks and the implicit goal of being able to explore alone, or with small teams, while still having complete equipment with me, and thus solving the problem of the chronic lack of partners for this type of activity.

One of the things that weights most in exploration is bolting material and above all the drill, which in order to perforate the rock must be powerful and therefore heavy. And since a hole in the rock requires a lot of energy, the battery that powers it must also have high capacity and therefore it's heavy too ...
That was the situation in the early 2000s, when drills were powered by Ni-Cd batteries, but then came lithium batteries, much lighter and powerful than NiCd. So I modified my hammer drill electric circuit so that I could feed it with an external LiPo battery. This kind of batteries can get on fire in case of an impact, which is not impossible while canyoning, so someone advised me against them, but I used them anyway, taking the necessary precautions, and over the years I never had any problems with LiPos.

Then came the news that you could drill holes for bolts by the Bosch Uneo, a new, battery-powered, particularly small and light hammer drill made for hobbyists (not professional). Uneo applied for the first time to hammer drills a concept that later became universal: to make holes in stone it is not necessary for the bit to strike with great force, because a large number of light blows are better. The key factor is the frequency of the blows, not the energy of the single blow. It was therefore possible to build hammer drills with less powerful, and therefore lighter, motors.
I run to buy a Uneo, which moreover costed much less than an average happer drill ... With the first tests I realized that the Uneo had a weak point in the battery, which provided barely enough current to pierce the stone, and discharged quickly. But I already knew the solution: modify the Uneo and power it with an external LiPo battery!
It was this modified Uneo that accompanied us in the exploration of Rio Paghetto, and it performed very well!

Within a few years, many drill models based on the principle of low-energy, high-frequency blows were introduced onto the market. The Uneo quickly became obsolete and I replaced it with other, more efficient models.

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