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brogers
Aug 20, 2002, 2:07 AM
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Hi!
I met a guy on the weekend at our local crag who mentioned he climbed solo by tying knots (alpine butterflies or similar I guess) in a rope along it's length, and clipping into these knots as he climbed. I'm not too sure of how he actually clipped in, or if the rope was dynamic or static.
At the time, I thought it sounded fun and safe. Now that I think about it, if he is clipping into the knots with a small length of rope and a krab, I guess everytime he falls he is generating close to a factor 2 fall. Am I right here, or am I getting mixed up? Is this a safe way to climb?
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philbox
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Aug 20, 2002, 2:33 AM
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Yeah mate, I`ve heard of this type of climbing. You set up a bomber bottom anchor for an upward pull ensuring that you also place a piece immediately above the anchor for opposition so that piece keeps the anchor in tension so that it isn`t flopping all around the place and possibly dislodging a piece out of your anchor.
Once you have your anchor sorted and the rope clipped to the anchor as per the usual you then start to tie a bunch of alpine butterfly knots or clove hitches to biners. These biners can then be arranged on your harness in this way. The knot and biner that will be used closest to the ground goes through your waist and leg loops much the same as your belay loop. The second knot and biner does much the same. Of course there will be a loop of slack between. The third knot and biner goes on your belay loop, the fourth and subsequent knots goes on your gear loops.
As you start to climb you drop a knot off your belay biners and then bring another knot around from your gear loops and attach that to the biner that is now vacant. I think this system is quite cumbersome, safe enough as you are always clipped in with at least two knots.
Another way of climbing solo with knots is to set up a top rope and in that top rope have a whole bunch of alpine butterfly knots and simply clip each knot as you move up taking care to drop a knot after two knots have been clipped and taking even more care to not drop the wrong knot thus creating the conditions for an even bigger fall.
A better way of roped soloing is to simply have two biners clipped into your harness and shuffle clove hitches between them i/e each biner has a clove hitch and there is a loop of slack between. As you come up tight on the rope feed some slack through the primary biner and clove hitch and proceed up until you come up tight on the rope again, repeat until you have exhausted your slack between the two clove hitches and biners. throw some more slack between the two biners and continue until reaching the top of cliff or pitch. Rap and clean anchor, jug back up and continue pitch.
That should be enough for you now. Feel free to make any comments on the above.
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farmerc
Aug 20, 2002, 2:39 AM
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you are just a little bit confused there. actually, every time he falls it would be an extremely low fall factor (around .1 ish)
because he has a fixed line set up which should be a dynamic rope. and if he has jsut knotted the rope and clipped to it, climbs a 5 feet and then falls, the fall is five feet and the lenght of the rope absorbing the fall is from him to the top of the cliff, say 30 feet.
heres the math:
distance fallen/ length of rope absorbing fall = 5/30
thus a fall factor of 1/6.
edited about the clove-hitch soloing:
the best way to do this is to put a clove-hitch on a munter biner, and move it up the rope as you climb, and then tie a butterfly and clip it to another locker as backup. when you have climbed far enough past your last backup butterfly, tie another, and clip it to a third locker, and remove the buttterfly from the second.
[ This Message was edited by: farmerc on 2002-08-19 19:46 ]
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fitz
Aug 20, 2002, 2:48 AM
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I suspect, from the description, that the climber was using a method that is popular at a couple of high/bad landing, boulder spots here in CA.
As the prior post describes, it is a top rope with knots spaced out. As you climb, clip one, then drop one (keeping the last two clipped, as described above, is safer).
Fall factor is not really an issue until you approach the top anchor. Basically, the reverse of a normal lead. Think about it, if you are 50' from the top, and fall 6', you're factor is 6/50. By the time you are 10' from the top, the same fall is 6/10. But, since you can't fall past the 'belay' (anchor), your max fall factor is 1.
But, as with any biner tie in, think about the biner's cross loading and open gate ratings when evaluating safety. Biners aren't smart enough to orient themselves on their strongest axis when you fall.
This is also true of the clove-hitch self belay method (which I prefer).
Good Luck, and be safe!
-jjf
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brogers
Aug 20, 2002, 3:36 AM
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Thanks for the information! I'm pretty sure the guy was talking about the top rope system. But yeah, I forgot to include the anchor rope in the fall factor stuff. I guess this would still be a problem if the anchor rope was static, though, right?
Regardless, I don't think I'll be giving it a go yet. I've only been climbing for about a year now, and probably only once a fortnight on average, so I still consider myself a bit of a bumbly.
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beyond_gravity
Aug 20, 2002, 3:54 AM
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I say if your going to solo on a Top rope, get a gri gri. Climb up, pull in the slack. Every 10 feet or so tie an overhand knot as backup incase the gri-gri fails to lock.
Much safer then screwing around with a bunch of knots.
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