Leader traverses off the belay 250' up. They fall trying to negotiate an overhanging arete. They are unable to help themselves (for whatever reason) and are hanging on the rope 8' below the last piece. They are 10' above and 40' to the right of your position. Your rope is 50m long. What do you do?

Leader traverses off the belay 250' up. They fall trying to negotiate an overhanging arete. They are unable to help themselves (for whatever reason) and are hanging on the rope 8' below the last piece. They are 10' above and 40' to the right of your position. Your rope is 50m long. What do you do?

Add details as you need: belay directly on anchor with Grigri, or Munter Hitch. Belayed off waist with various devices, etc.

Are they conscious? Are they able to move, just not re-ascend the rope?

T

Leader traverses off the belay 250' up. They fall trying to negotiate an overhanging arete. They are unable to help themselves (for whatever reason) and are hanging on the rope 8' below the last piece. They are 10' above and 40' to the right of your position. Your rope is 50m long. What do you do?

Add details as you need: belay directly on anchor with Grigri, or Munter Hitch. Belayed off waist with various devices, etc.

Even the classic escape-the-belay drill is often inappropriate in many cases. When time counts and you need to get to the injured leader FAST, stay on the line and counterweight ascend to them (this is REAL easy if you're on a Grigri).

Why not try both scenarios - they are conscious, then they are unconscious. In the first case maybe you just need to be able to get a rope or prusik gear to them. In the latter, some hauling is going to be required. But hauling them up to the last piece is no good if there's 40' of sparsely geared thin traverse between there and the belay. So what to do, what to do??

It's integrated scenarios like this that are the limitation of the Self Rescue book IMO. The skills presented are fine, but might leave the self-learner with a false sense that they know what to do when things go south. Even the classic escape-the-belay drill is often inappropriate in many cases. When time counts and you need to get to the injured leader FAST, stay on the line and counterweight ascend to them (this is REAL easy if you're on a Grigri).

A second edition ("Advanced Self Rescue") is sorely needed. IMO.

I don't see why you want to haul this guy up anything. If he is really injured, better to lead over to his last piece, check it, make an anchor there, and get ready for a tandem rappel. I think you left enough rope in the system to just pull the two of you back to your original belay and get down from there.

dirtineye, those were my thoughts too when I first thought about what I would do in this scenario. I`ve since been pondering the mechanics of achieving what you described and come to the conclusion that it would be an immense pain to get back to the original anchor.

Let`s explore your scenario solution.

I assume that you get yourself to the leader. Your anchor is now 10 feet below you but is 40 feet away. Thus you have more traverse than abseil. Let us also assume that there are say 5 pieces of gear counting the piece you are hanging on. Thus you have around about 4 equal gaps of ten feet each roughly.

You start to rap and traverse clipped into the original leaders line, before you get to the first piece you hit on the way down there will be so much weight on the line that you will now be well underneath the piece and you will in fact have to jug back up to the piece. You can`t unclip from the line otherwise you will pendulum back under the top piece. Try swinging a dead weight of asay 80 kgs around and you`ll understand that what you suggest is not that easy to accomplish. Better to work with gravity than agin it wouldn`t you say.

I`m thinking better to simply set up an anchor and pull the rope and tandem rap to the ground.

For this scenario, you'll eventually need the entire length of rope to lower your partner, so do NOT anchor your end of the rope at your belay stance. What you're going to do instead is ascend the rope (unanchored) using your partner as a counterbalance*. Sounds scary, but what else are you going to do?

I am sorry, I amost but not completely get it.


basis 1: The leader is incapacited, you have to anchor the rope to your inital belay. then escape the belay. You have around 90feet of rope to play with (??)

question 1: How do you suggest to lead over to the leader ? prusiking on the taut rope while trailing the extra rope, self belay on the remaining rope?, both ?

basis 2: you are at the last protection point, you set a second anchor here.
because of rope dimension you are able to attach the rope you brought up there (rope at this time go from leader to second anchor to below anchor back to second anchor and some free bit)

if you are lucky with rope length, the goingup segment and the free bit will enable you to rappel to first anchor: you rappel to the leader , secure him, detach the rope from him. How do pass the intermediate protection points you have clipped the going up strand while climbing self belayed from below .

If the remaining rope length is not enough, I would seriously consider

a/
haul the leader 10 feet to the second anchor and set up a sort of tyrolean traverse with biners and prusik knots on the taut rope running between the 2 anchors. Once both arrived at original belay station, you would have to detach the rope going up attach the end of the rope to this anchor, climb up once more to your second anchor self belayed form below, with
an extra self belay form above, set up a proper rappel for yourself.

or /b
climb up to the last pro, transform it into anchor, attach the rope to the leader there (escaping the first anchor point), going back to the below anchor, detaching the leader rope there, going back up removing the intermediate pro, setting up the rappel.
if was intent on reaching the first belay again, I would before going for the second time attach the end of the rope at this belay, and rappel using a biner on the line coming up (cable-car system ???).

Although setting up the full exercise seems difficult , I am tempted to test in a gym to rappel on rope when one strand is attached way to the side at the bottom. I am tempted to think that there is an angle where it is best to have zero friction on the strand attached at the bottom and double the friction on the other side

yesterday, we just did an exercise with ropes in the gym (aka a via ferrata), you would have been surprised how tough it was to haul oneself across rope bridges made with dynamic ropes.

I would not look forward to have to rappel in diagonal with double weight

- rope is stuck, how do you belay the lucky climber who gets to climb twice ?

I don't like choice a/. I'm not too sure I understand your choice b/. What's going to happen to your victim when you, "detach the leader rope there", at the original belay?