rappelling - every experienced climber I know hates it...

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Mungeclimber

Trad climber

sorry, just posting out loud.

Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 15, 2011 - 12:21am PT

every experienced climber I know hates it with a passion.

said recently about rapping

I couldn't agree more. Most times not so much, but other times yep, but at least it definitely is not my preferred form of fun. Things like awkward moves getting your rap weighted over a lip. Or grainy rock as you step out onto the rap?

what say you?

what about it skeeves you out? or is it NBD?

is it the fact it isn't your body doing the direct controlling, like you were climbing?

Fritz

Trad climber

Choss Creek, ID

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:32am PT

What's not to hate?

Leading, you have to trust "the gear and pro"

for when-----when, and if: you fall.

Rappelling: You are testing "the gear and pro" every time you rappel.

Moof

Big Wall climber

Orygun

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:33am PT

Closest I've come to becoming a grease spot was rapping. Wish there was a better way off. I especially hate free hanging LONG raps with haul bags. Slowly spinning is space just is not what humans are meant to experience.

Peter Haan

Trad climber

San Francisco, CA

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:37am PT

Yes. Having done so much of it in the last half century, it IS deadly. It is part of that "Easy Ground" thing that happens--where people die when they least expect it. They do the nasty-hard climb and then drop their guard, dying on easy ground-- rappelling, down climbing a couloir, doing some fourth class while too tired to keep the hard-ass shitdetector going.

Back in the day, it was very much a mantra, "hate rappelling". A few times I have actually seen extremely competent climbers set up their rappel such that they would die if it were not for intervention.

WBraun

climber

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:39am PT

every experienced climber I know hates it with a passion.

I love it.

There goes your "EVERY" theory as it flies off into the sunset .......

graniteclimber

Trad climber

The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:47am PT

every experienced climber I know hates it with a passion.

^^^^^

Spoken by someone who doesn't know very many (any?) experienced climbers.

graniteclimber

Trad climber

The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:52am PT

Things like awkward moves getting your rap weighted over a lip. Or grainy rock as you step out onto the rap?

^^^^^

Common complaints of noobs. They should venture of the gym only under the mentorship of an experienced mentor who can coach them through rapping.

Caveman

climber

Cumberland Plateau

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:52am PT

Today, no big deal but what's up with that Dulfersitz?!

Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:55am PT

I don't hate it, or at least not very often. Sometimes I even love it. But that doesn't mean that somewhere in the back of my mind I'm not scared shitless.

Most of us have lost friends in rapelling accidents. Or jugging accidents (jugging is much more hateful/scary). But it can certainly be exhilarating.

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:56am PT

I vividly remember my first rappel, a body rappel at Lighthouse Park, using goldline ropes down a vertical wall. I've mostly been frightened of it ever since. Too much imagination, perhaps. But I was very happy when we figured out the carabiner brake.

This thread could easily segue into "my worst rappel" stories. One of my worst was 14 rappels in the Bugaboos, in wet weather. The one good thing was no rope jams. The bad things were single point anchors that we backed up for the first guy, who was to bounce around a bit, but not for the second. Plus toward the bottom we were running out of stuff, and were doing things like pulling the 5 mm and 6 mm slings out of nuts, then tying two or three together for an anchor.

Who here has done the most consecutive rappels, more or less of standard length, but not including rescues?

gf, please do tell us about your repeat rappel reversal. And JB's nearby incident on Exasperator.

D.Eubanks

climber

Feb 15, 2011 - 12:56am PT

A rap with three ropes tied together suspended in air....is quite the RUSH.

Caveman

climber

Cumberland Plateau

Feb 15, 2011 - 01:03am PT

Never tallied number of individual rappels but there was this one over 3k. We had a mile of rope.

Willoughby

Social climber

Truckee, CA

Feb 15, 2011 - 01:07am PT

I don't hate it, but I did manage to blow up my talus during a rappel. Whoops. Definitely an "experience" I don't care to repeat.

hamie

Social climber

Thekoots

Feb 15, 2011 - 01:50am PT

Rapping is just something which has to be done to get back down. Neither fun nor fear. Sometimes it can be a bit scarey, but it is now a lot safer since someone figured out that we should tie a knot in the ends of the ropes, although sometimes we still don't. Duh on both counts!
Once in a while it can be great fun, like the long free rap out of the mouth on Monkey Face at Smith. But mostly it's not.
H.

em kn0t

Trad climber

isle of wyde

Feb 15, 2011 - 02:02am PT

A rap with three ropes tied together suspended in air....is quite the RUSH.

rapping alone into Lost Arrow notch to meet friends aid-climbing up the outside face, not knowing if they were on schedule (BITD before radios or cell phones)...my most spooky rap

then there was rapping off the Japanese Route on Mt. Alberta after sunset & getting the rope stuck on last pull (shifting shale, unplanned bivy number 95...)

Brutus always said raps were his least favorite part of climbing...FWIW we always backed up our raps (& I still do) with a prussik, for Justin: our friend, Justin Case

mucci

Trad climber

The pitch of Bagalaar above you

Feb 15, 2011 - 02:48am PT

Prussiks, I have a bunch of em. Like an addiction now.

bhilden

Trad climber

Mountain View, CA

Feb 15, 2011 - 03:41am PT

Remember the scene in the excellent Yosemite climbing documentary "Vertical Frontier" where Wayne Merry recounts hiking back to the top of El Capitan with Warren Harding a few months after the first ascent to shoot some photos of the last pitch (Harding drilled the bolt ladder at night on the FA).

As Wayne tells it they threw the ropes over the edge and he started to go down, looked over his shoulder and decided not to do it. Warren then decided to give it a try, looked over the edge and decided not to do it, either!

Bruce

Roxy

Trad climber

CA Central Coast

Feb 15, 2011 - 09:24am PT

bump to hear Weld_it spray about rapping

donini

Trad climber

Ouray, Colorado

Feb 15, 2011 - 09:30am PT

I only rap when I have to, which is often. It's a 0 sum game like soloing, you only get to f*#k up once. It's most demanding when you are retreating from a major alpine peak in a storm, tired and cold, buffeted by the wind and knowing that you need to place single anchors in ice filled cracks- type 2 fun at best.