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healyje
Dec 13, 2006, 8:52 PM
Post #26 of 39
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lambone wrote: what is the rubber stopper and rubber band you guys are talking about? how do you rig it?
The DMM Belay Master has a plastic bar that snaps on to the biner and closes over the gate restricting a belay device to the end of the biner to prevent cross loading the gate. Apparently they make a steel version of this same biner the plastic bar will also fit on.
In reply to: heayje, to each his own. be safe.
I'd like to think my record of decades of roped soloing speaks for itself in this regard. I am safe and not using backup knots in my particular case contributes to that safety. And yes, I take a fair number of falls roped soloing and do understand the possibilities involved with the GriGri not catching; this is specifically why I have switched to the Eddy - to remove even that remote possibility.
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stymingersfink
Dec 14, 2006, 4:18 AM
Post #27 of 39
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healyje wrote: stymingersfink wrote: Except his disclaimer, which was right on. Stym, Which part of that disclaimer did you miss? I did not "endorse" that anyone do anything, I specifically didn't "endorse" anyone not use backup knots. Anyone ' who may or may not be able to make such a judgement call' should not be roped soloing, period. In that regard, roped soloing - like free soloing - is the essence of Darwin at work and I would very much hope it will always remain so.
I am a big fan of Charles' work as well.
In reply to: Again, anyone not capable of sorting through all the options shouldn't be roped soloing, aid or free.
My only issue was with putting forth 30 years of roped-solo free-climbing experience as proof that a b/u is not necessary, when clearly one beginning to engage in such a risky endeavor needs the largest margin of safety they can get.
It's also good to see that done properly, one can safely enjoy a long career of roped soloing
~Sty
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healyje
Dec 14, 2006, 5:00 AM
Post #28 of 39
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stymingersfink wrote: My only issue was with putting forth 30 years of roped-solo free-climbing experience as proof that a b/u is not necessary, when clearly one beginning to engage in such a risky endeavor needs the largest margin of safety they can get.
I was in no way 'putting forth 30 years of roped-solo free-climbing experience as proof that a b/u is not necessary' - I was putting out the facts associated with my own 30 years of experience free roped soloing. Again, anyone not capable of discerning the difference shouldn't be doing it. At no point have I said a backup knot isn't necessary for free roped soloing for you or anyone else. What I have said is that for me - and for me alone - that 95% of the time dicking around with backup knots present far more risks than they prevent in the balance. They in particular really slow down a pitch and are somewhat more compatible with systems that hang the rope versus carry it.
In reply to: It's also good to see that done properly, one can safely enjoy a long career of roped soloing.
It does appeal to a certain type and you have to be prepared to be 'brave' on one hand and consistent on the other. I personally typically find it 'nervous' for a pitch and then 'euphoric' - I have a favorite five pitch, 5.9 route I do in three near-60m pitches all the time and the feeling of freedom, familiarity, and non-stop movement just doesn't get better. Then again, the last time I did it, it was bitterly cold with water running out the holds through the lower crux sequences. I had to downclimb those moves and came within seconds of bailing again and again before spanking myself, sucking it up, and coming up with the goods to climb on through. There's no friendly prattle, no comfort of another soul at the other end of the line - just you alone and that really purifies what you're prepared to put into it which in turn defines what you will get out of it. I wouldn't be half the climber I am with partners without the time I spend on my own. But again, that's just my story and there are lots of them out there - don't take my word for any of it - write your own story.
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jeremy11
Dec 14, 2006, 11:57 PM
Post #29 of 39
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just curious, how soon into climbing seriously did you guys start rope soloing aid or free? I started aid and free roped solo very early into leading on gear, and looking back, am very glad I did not fall. many lessons learned! and yes, like healyje said, "I wouldn't be half the climber I am with partners without the time I spend on my own." it really helps in building confidence with ropework and self-reliance. there's no one to wait for and noone to blame but myself. then when I do get a belayer, it feels so nice and simple to only climb and place gear.
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healyje
Dec 15, 2006, 10:09 PM
Post #30 of 39
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jeremy11 wrote: just curious, how soon into climbing seriously did you guys start rope soloing aid or free?
I started pretty soon as well, I was solo in Boulder back in '75 and called people from the Boulder Mountaineering [paper] bulletin board. They'd say sure and be all enthusiastic and then just before we hung up they'd ask, "where are you from?" I'd say 'Southern Illinois' and they'd suddenly remember they had a dental appointment or jury duty and couldn't go. But I was fairly stoned and didn't feel like going anywhere and so ended up sitting on the floor in the store looking at books. I stumbled across Doug Scott's 'Big Wall' book and got completely enthralled when I came across and, apparently, totally misinterpreted these cool drawings he had in there on solo aid climbing.
But I was psyched to just realize climbing alone with ropes was possible, so headed up to Castle Rock in Boulder Canyon to give it a try. There's a low roof on the rock and being into all things steep I thought would be fun to do and so headed up that with the rig I thought I had seen in the book. Not really having done aid before either, and having no aiders or daisys, I quickly ended up in sort of a spinning, spiderwebbed clusterf#ck in the middle of the roof. This was providing substantial entertainment for the locals on the scene and I finally extricated myself enough to rap down from the roof to rethink the whole proposition. After awhile on the ground staring up I came up with a system I thought would work and headed back up prussicking back into the clutch of rope and slings. I did untangle it all and forged on with the new system which worked fine and so now felt relatively invincible, if tired.
Next day I headed down to Eldo and decided to do the 'Bastille Crack'. It went off without a hitch and I had a really fabulous time. At the top of the climb I sat with my feet over the edge of the NW corner and lit a big one to relax for the descent and just as I did a hand popped over the edge three feet to my left. Turns out it was Braeshears and Wunsch attempting to put up Rain. David took a couple of bloody 60' wingers, which I had never really seen, before coming up and around on the West Buttress. We had a chat and I met some more interesting folks back on the road who commented on the roped solo free climbing which was fairly rare back then. The upshot was I suddenly had folks willing to climb with me and I didn't need to do it again for sometime but the 'Bastille Crack' is still one of my favorite climbs to rope solo to this day.
(This post was edited by healyje on Dec 16, 2006, 2:15 AM)
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jeremy11
Dec 16, 2006, 1:35 AM
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healyje, my first rope solo was very similar. I read about it in Advanced Rockcraft - the system with the autoblock knot that runs thru the chest harness to feed, so I rigged just two prussiks and backup knots (later I moved to the autoblock from Adv Rockcraft, then clove hitch, then grigri) and proceeded to aid up a crack route under a big overhang (the route had shuts before the overhang) on a rainy day, on a set and a half of nuts and a set of hexes. no cams. finally made it up 50 feet to the anchors and got out of there alive. the first roped free lead was Easily Flakely at the New River Gorge with the autoblock system.. in the rain  what was I thinking?? I'm glad not to have fallen back then. as I said, many lessons learned quickly. My advice to any would-be soloists is to wait and lead with a partner and then only use the clove hitch, grigri, or a dedicated soloing device. Much Much caution, start slow and easy.
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stymingersfink
Dec 16, 2006, 9:37 AM
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jeremy11 wrote: just curious, how soon into climbing seriously did you guys start rope soloing aid or free?
I started climbing in summer of 2002, rope-soloing trad and sport to start as I didn't know anyone around to climb with and figured the skill-building would make me a better partner when one came along. (Still do when a partner doesn't drag me off for a day of swapping belays)
That winter I taught myself the rudiments of climbing ice in the same manner, though technique didn't really progress as quickly as when climbing with an experienced partner pushing or dragging me up the ice. Soon after i began soloing WI3, but now I save the 5's or better for days with a rope.
Started aiding in fall '03 with a trip cleaning/hauling up the Captain. It was with a very experieced partner who lead all but one pitch. This quickly lead to solo-aiding on my own time (it really is the best way to aid, even with a partner around, IMHO). Since then I've aided quite a few of the aid lines up LCC and a couple more trips swapping leads up the SE side of El Cap.
I have nowhere near as much experience as many around here, but I am perhaps among the few who have been self-motivated enough to not let a little thing like the lack of a partner deterr them from learning to climb, or climbing for that matter.
__________________________________________
Soloing forces one to be confident in their ability to deal on their own with any circumstance which may occur. Researching, comprehending, understanding and practicing the techniques* of self rescue are the basis of becoming a good soloist (roped or otherwise). Developing good risk identification, assessment and mitigation skills will extend your career as such.
Building these skillsets, I believe, makes one that much more valuable as a climbing partner, which will cut into your time available to solo.
*anchor building, hauling systems, rope theory, first aid, etc. (this_list_is_incomplete_)
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coastal_climber
Dec 19, 2006, 11:44 PM
Post #33 of 39
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How can a Gri Gri fail? If the bolt in the middle fails, a back-up knot isn't going to save you.
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healyje
Dec 20, 2006, 12:10 AM
Post #34 of 39
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coastal_climber wrote: How can a Gri Gri fail? If the bolt in the middle fails, a back-up knot isn't going to save you.
The type of backup knot we're talking about isn't designed to jam in the grigri, it's a seperate knot connecting you to the rope via a locker on your harness.
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far_east_climber
Dec 20, 2006, 4:14 AM
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I might be wrong but I have heard that it is not wise to use a steel biner on your gri gri for solo purposes as gri gri metal is not the same ductility (if that's the correct word) as a steel biner and makes it more likely for the steel biner to break the gri gri casing in a fall.
I'm sure it's already been mentioned, cannot be bothered to scan through the whole post, but the fall mentioned where the BU saved his life was mrhardgrit on New Dawn.
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jeremy11
Dec 20, 2006, 10:24 PM
Post #36 of 39
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that's an interesting idea about not using steel on a grigri. I work with high ropes courses and we never use aluminum biners on cable or pulleys, but do use steel biners on aluminum atcs. kong does make an aluminum locker rated to 40 kn.
http://www.libertymtn.com/catalog.php?type=product&id=18670
and its only 85 grams - way lighter than a steel biner.
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frodolf
Dec 21, 2006, 12:06 AM
Post #37 of 39
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jeremy11 wrote: just curious, how soon into climbing seriously did you guys start rope soloing aid or free? I started aid and free roped solo very early into leading on gear, and looking back, am very glad I did not fall. many lessons learned! and yes, like healyje said, "I wouldn't be half the climber I am with partners without the time I spend on my own." it really helps in building confidence with ropework and self-reliance. there's no one to wait for and noone to blame but myself. then when I do get a belayer, it feels so nice and simple to only climb and place gear.
I started about five years ago, after I'd been a climber for about six. And I too am glad I didn't fall in the beginning. Had a couple of mini-epics (one were I got stuck out on a roofs edge, hanging from a hook, alone, in winter, in the dark without a lamp of any kind, in cold weather, for three hours, without the possibility to continue or reverse. After those three hours I managed to force myself to fall into my one-piece anchor to get down.) The old saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is REALLY accurate when it comes to soloing.
This summer a did a handful of easy multi pitch routes free. I think I never have had so much fun! Being on a eight pitch 5.7 in sunshine with nothing and no one but yourself and the rock, is absolutely amazing! The essence of climbing - totally!
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stymingersfink
Dec 23, 2006, 3:09 AM
Post #38 of 39
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healyje wrote: coastal_climber wrote: How can a Gri Gri fail? If the bolt in the middle fails, a back-up knot isn't going to save you. The type of backup knot we're talking about isn't designed to jam in the grigri, it's a seperate knot connecting you to the rope via a locker on your harness.
The 'new dawn' reference (I though it was WFLT, but could be wrong) was an instance of a b/u knot saving someone's life.
The way I heard it is this {check ANAM (2003?) for details, i think I read it in there}: climber was self-belaying through a grigri while tied into the end of the rope.
Climber was on lead when the piece he was on failed (was it steve?) and was shocked to fall in the neighborhood of 70'. When he looked up at his line, he was suprised to see hig grigri on the rope (like) 40' above him. Somewhere in the fall the grigri had bound up on the spine of his belay biner (crossload configuration), and when it was loaded it snapped the biner like a twig. Being tied into the end of the rope was the only thing between a good story and a blood spot on the rocks.
To avoid situations like this occuring, one has two (3) options:
1: ensure the biner is never in a cross-load configuration (nigh on impossible really)
2: use a backup-knot which will keep one from striking any feature on the route or the ground below in the even of belay-device failure. (I recommend ALWAYS replacing the b/u with the new clove/butterfly/fig. 8 before removing the original. I prefer a clove, which may be adjusted without removing, though sometimes I use a butterfly instead.)
(3) Don't solo
For instance when solo-aid climbing (the belaying of which has been described as watching turtles engaged in sex acts), one might pull up 20' of rope on the non-anchor side of their belay device of choice and clove/butterfly/fig.8 it to a seperate locking biner attached to their belay loop. If a ledge threatens below, one may opt for a shorter loop, though this will require more frequent adjustment. Doing so will offer a redundant connection to the rope in the event of belay-device failure.
When roped-solo free-climbing, I will usually try to stick to routes which offers stances of some sort at reasonable intervals, which provides the opportunity to pull up enough slack to reach the next stance and re-tie my b/u. If one wished to climb more difficult free-climbs, perphaps a good compromise might be to hang on the occasional piece in order to keep safety in order.
The b/u is hard to manage one-handed, though with some forethought it is do-able, but I would probably be the wrong one to ask about such things. 
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justsendingits
Feb 4, 2007, 5:48 AM
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here is the thread on my friend Tom, who I climbed Zodiac with. SAR was thinking about charging him with reckless endangerment for using a gri gri.http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=168185;search_string=British%20soloist;#168185
I mostly use a clove hitch on a steel biner, but I broke my own rule and took a 70 ft fall on Zenith, trashing my gri gri. It held the fall, but I could not get it to close, had to jug back up, clip in and take my hammer to the gri gri to get it to open, I threw it away when I got down.
For free climbing I used to use the SP, but it got stolen, so now I use the clove, makes it kinda hard to free climb at first but you get used to it.
(This post was edited by justsendingits on Feb 4, 2007, 6:05 PM)
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