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kimgraves
Aug 8, 2005, 7:46 PM
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Hi Gang,
Last weekend my leader was unable to continue. (See “a” in the picture) We needed to lower him back to the belay at the top of the first pitch and then rap to the ground from there. My leader had placed 6 pieces plus slings, so we wanted to recover as much of the gear as possible.
The standard way (from sport climbing) to follow the rope back is to clip a sling to the rope as a directional so as the leader is lowered they follow the rope across the diagonal (see b) cleaning as they go. The problem with this is that we weren't lowering off of two bolts but one piece of trad pro. If the pro blows the leader goes for a long ride. In our case the leader probably would have decked because the first pitch was only 50' and we probably had more rope out than that on the second pitch.
So the question was, how to minimize the dangers of coming back down the rope. The solution we came up with was to use a GriGri in place of the sling. (c) N.B.: when loading the GriGri the “to the climber” faces back to the belayer. This is the same configuration used when rope soloing using a GriGri as a belay device except that the anchor is not fixed. The advantage of this method is that if the piece pops (d) the leader is limited to a much smaller fall. At the very worst, since the leader stays tied into the end of the rope the fall consequences are no worse than if you hadn't used this method.
One hitch: you'll need to release tension on the rope coming up from the belay in order to load the GriGri. If you can't find a no hands stance you'll need to use a prussik knot (or Shunt, etc.) to hang directly from the top piece so the belayer can give you slack and you can load the GriGri and clip it to your belay loop.
Another use for a GriGri in a trad application!
There is a red alien on Airy Aria awaiting a stronger party than us.
Best, Kim
Edited to add embedded image after system migration.
(This post was edited by kimgraves on Dec 31, 2006, 5:04 PM)
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feanor007
Aug 8, 2005, 7:58 PM
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how did you get the grigri up there?
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rmiller
Aug 8, 2005, 8:06 PM
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How about down climbing or down aiding? Seems like that would be an easier way to me.
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grk10vq
Aug 8, 2005, 8:06 PM
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Screw the Grigri
how'd you get that purple star up there???
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ryanv
Aug 8, 2005, 8:13 PM
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Kim,
Thanks for sharing that. If you didn't have a Gri-Gri with you perhaps you could use a friction knot (autoblock, prussik knot, etc.) attached to a sling on your harness. Probably two seperate friction knots would be better in that case as a fall on them would be dicier that the Gri-Gri option. Nice trick though.
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clayman
Aug 8, 2005, 8:21 PM
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ddd
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aikibujin
Aug 8, 2005, 9:07 PM
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In reply to: The problem with this is that we weren't lowering off of two bolts but one piece of trad pro.
Yes, a problem indeed. Why didn't your leader built a mini-anchor to lower off from, instead of just a red Alien. No other gear placements (then leave the second to the top piece as well), or didn't want to leave more gear?
But in any case, you don't need a Grigri to do what you propose. I can think of a way to rig with an autoblocking belay device (Reverso, B-52) that does the same thing.
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kimgraves
Aug 8, 2005, 9:24 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: The problem with this is that we weren't lowering off of two bolts but one piece of trad pro. Yes, a problem indeed. Why didn't your leader built a mini-anchor to lower off from, instead of just a red Alien. No other gear placements (then leave the second to the top piece as well), or didn't want to leave more gear?
At the point we retreated, building a bigger anchor just wasn't an option. My leader ended up leaving $80ish worth of gear including biners and sling. Leaving more than that was not something he relished AND we had a solution.
In reply to: But in any case, you don't need a Grigri to do what you propose. I can think of a way to rig with an autoblocking belay device (Reverso, B-52) that does the same thing.
I can see how this would work, but I'd have to try it. One of the things you need to be able to do is to feed the rope backward through the clutch as the leader is lowered. I think that might be difficult if the Reverso was in locking mode. But I'd need to try it to see. I have no experience with the B-52.
Best, Kim
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fluxus
Aug 8, 2005, 9:30 PM
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In reply to: The standard way (from sport climbing) to follow the rope back is to clip a sling to the rope as a directional so as the leader is lowered they follow the rope across the diagonal (see b) cleaning as they go.
Not really. In sport climbing, if the goal is to get the draws off of a climb which one can not finish (as in your case) or to clean a climb that is too steep to lower off, of the standard method is to use a combination of down jumping / down climbing and taking at each clip. From your post its not clear to me (maybe I'm just dense) why this tactics would not work in your situation. Using a grigri in the way you describe seems to offer no advantage while adding complexity to the system.
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hazael
Aug 8, 2005, 10:01 PM
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Well the tech looks good, actually in your example you also keep the piece that was in the top. But what happens next?, how do you keep going down? You cannot take off the grigri, or you will take a really nice fall... so, back to the dangerous draw technique ?
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cchildre
Aug 8, 2005, 10:25 PM
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In reply to: Well the tech looks good, actually in your example you also keep the piece that was in the top. But what happens next?, how do you keep going down? You cannot take off the grigri, or you will take a really nice fall... so, back to the dangerous draw technique ? |
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btraxler
Aug 8, 2005, 10:25 PM
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This sounds like an interesting technique. I will have to check it out. It seems like you could also omit the GriGri, clip in with a draw/sling like the more popular way and use a prusik to back yourself up. Being careful to not load the prusik while descending use your free hand to tend it. This will save weight for the lead climber and the headache of unloading the rope to load the GriGri. Maybe another option....
Cheers,
Ben
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maculated
Aug 8, 2005, 11:37 PM
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Kim, could you answer rmiller's question? I'm curious why you weren't willing to downaid or downclimb if that was possible.
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tattooed_climber
Aug 8, 2005, 11:52 PM
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i would have aided the rest of the route...(given the rest isn't slab, hence i don't take hooks with me for trad :roll: )......but this may have not been the cast.....though another good retreat tactic that doesn't require a bail line or second rope
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kimgraves
Aug 9, 2005, 2:30 AM
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Hi Gang,
Your questions:
In reply to: In sport climbing, if the goal is to get the draws off of a climb which one can not finish (as in your case) or to clean a climb that is too steep to lower off, of the standard method is to use a combination of down jumping / down climbing and taking at each clip.
My leader was in no shape to "down jump" 5 leader falls (if I understand what you mean - 6 pieces of pro minus the one right off the belay). And most people, or at least I and the people I climb with, won't take multiple deliberate falls onto trad gear when there is a safe alternative. The down climbing alternative will be answered below.
In reply to: Well the tech looks good, actually in your example you also keep the piece that was in the top. But what happens next?, how do you keep going down? You cannot take off the grigri, or you will take a really nice fall... so, back to the dangerous draw technique ?
You don't keep going down...to the ground. The belayer (me) lowers the leader to the belay anchor where they anchor in. You can then safely take the GriGri off and yard in the slack.
In reply to: Kim, could you answer rmiller's question? I'm curious why you weren't willing to downaid or downclimb if that was possible.
Hi Kristin,
Down aiding assumes that you have the chops to do it and my leader knows nothing of aid. (This may change their mind about not wanting to know anything about it. :wink: ) I might have been able to talk them through it if it had been a safe and controlled environment, but that wasn't the situation.
Down climbing from a precarious position requires that you have the mental and emotional capacity to pull it off. My leader, at that time, didn't have that capacity. This is not to criticize them. We've certainly all been in that position. My job as the second, was not to second guess what my leader was going though. It was to get them back to safety as safely, quickly, and with as little lose of gear as possible (priorities in that order). The solution I came up with is a new take on a tried and true method of roped solo - or at least I had never seen it used in this way.
I've avoided talking about "my leader" because I don't want to confuse the moment with the technical issues. I believe and affirm that "my leader" made the correct decision to bail given the circumstances that only we were privy to. And ultimately that's not really of any interest or useful to anyone but us. My job as second is to support the leader and not second guess them. But I thought our method more widely useful and therefore thought it useful to post the specifics.
Best, Kim
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epoch
Moderator
Aug 9, 2005, 5:39 AM
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Kim,
That was/is a thoughtful solution to a problem. Great effort and work. I dont' really care to take a gri-gri up if I am leading, definately one point for you for your ol`bag of tricks.
:wink: :wink:
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esoteric1
Aug 9, 2005, 6:00 AM
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isnt 2 nuts equalized off cheeper than leaving 1 cam? or...a piece of webbing wrapped around a chalkstone, or a horn.....theres a million alternatives to leaving cams...hey wait....nevermind....
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jsj42
Aug 9, 2005, 6:43 AM
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In reply to: There is [edit: was] a red alien on Airy Aria awaiting a stronger party than us.
Thank you! Out of curiosity, why did your partner leave the shoulder length runner and the two dynotrons on the Alien when a lone biner would have sufficed for lowering off of it?
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drnick
Aug 9, 2005, 1:04 PM
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My only question is whether or not it was exposed as Yosemite up there.....
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nivlac
Aug 9, 2005, 2:27 PM
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Hi Kim,
I enjoyed your example and your explanations. I'll keep them in mind (and the suggested variations) since I could conceivably be in a similar scenario in the future.
Thanks also for the illustration. That helped.
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mingleefu
Aug 9, 2005, 2:47 PM
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In reply to: The only things of real value up there were him and me.
Awe.. that is sooo cute.
For $80 worth of gear I'd cowboy up and downclimb.
I favor using the grigri over taking a fall onto a prussik. There seems to be a general notion (in other threads, search for self belay techinques) that the heat caused by the friction of the prussik sliding while cinching during a fall could damage the rope. Then you aren't just leaving $80 of gear, you're trashing your rope.
I know someone mentioned earlier about other retreat systems needing a spare rope, which may not be available, but Climbing (mag) just had a techtip on this. Here's the image, it is linked to the article.
http://climbing.com/techtips/241(trad).gif
EDIT: alright, I'm not sure why the picture won't show up when I submit it.. it works fine when I preview the post. Anyway, the URL to the techtip is http://climbing.com/techtips/tttrad241-2/
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landgolier
Aug 9, 2005, 3:01 PM
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Come on guys, can we stop bitching about the gear $$ and focus on the technique? I'd do it this way any day if I was too smoked to downclimb and could leave $1 worth of webbing and a crap biner. My concern would be getting the rest of the gear out if the route were overhung, doable in theory but might be a serious PITA. No worse than the climbing magazine zipline method I guess, though. Also, I would have concerns about doing this with an autoblocker, I'd have to play with it but I don't think you could guarantee that it would orient correctly if the top piece blew. Feeding the rope might suck as well.
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