equipped in a manner 做什么成分?

equipped in a manner 做什么成分?
新概念四第三课有一句话：It is true that during their explorations they faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner which would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement.
这个equipped in a manner 是做伴随状语,还是做they的第二个谓语,请解释一下为什么?
一楼能给个具体解释吗？
我查了很多字典，可equip是及物动词，后边是需要接宾语的，可in a manner在后面作状语成分。但有的参考书说equiped和faced是they的并列谓语。有一些迷茫了。能给个令人信服的详细解析吗？谢谢了！