T & A
climber
lake tahoe
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 23, 2007 - 08:25pm PT
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Does anyone have any knowledge as to how safe it is to jug a haul line while it is under tension from a load? I Was wondering if the combination of tension on the haul line and force applied by ascenders (teeth biting into sheath) to the rope have any adverse effects.
Thanks much
chip
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turd
climber
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Feb 23, 2007 - 08:26pm PT
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What could happen?
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T & A
climber
lake tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2007 - 08:38pm PT
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I ask, because a team of three would rather take two ropes; a lead and haul, but I wasn't sure if having the 3rd guy jugging the haul line while it was loaded with the bags was a no-go. Happy to hear its all good....
thanks
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T & A
climber
lake tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 23, 2007 - 08:47pm PT
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The underlying question is...what is the fastest/best rig for a crew of three; leader short-fixing, and other two cleaning/hauling?
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Euroford
Trad climber
chicago
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Feb 23, 2007 - 10:03pm PT
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while the leader short fixes the hauler can jug the haul line super fast before the cleaner leaves the previous belay.
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Darnell
Big Wall climber
Chicago
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Feb 23, 2007 - 10:22pm PT
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Yeah but the real question is what is the rope attached to? Are you planning on jugging on a wall hauler?
YOUR GONNA DIE!!!!!!
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Feb 23, 2007 - 10:22pm PT
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The problem would come when you are on an overhang or traverse and have to cut loose with the haul bag. Yahooo.
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Darnell
Big Wall climber
Chicago
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Feb 23, 2007 - 10:24pm PT
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lower out
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Feb 23, 2007 - 10:27pm PT
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then you would have 3 ropes. not 2.
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Darnell
Big Wall climber
Chicago
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Feb 23, 2007 - 10:33pm PT
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I use a 50 ft cord dedicated to the pig for lower outs. With 2 ropes you might be able to do it with the slack in the lead rope if the leader does not pull it all up right away, the cleaner could just lower him and the bag out a short way's, maybe.
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xtrmecat
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montanagonia
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Feb 24, 2007 - 05:10am PT
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How is the haul line jugger going to back up? Prussic? Only issue I can see other than a heavily loaded line cuts easier than one loaded lighter.
Bob
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T & A
climber
lake tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2007 - 09:20am PT
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Although I've seen people jugging their haul line, loaded with the pigs, anchored to their wall hauler... it just doesn't seem too safe. Any input?
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theLoop
climber
Northwest Montana
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Feb 24, 2007 - 09:49am PT
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IT works fine. Just back up the wall hauler by tying a hard know just above it and clipping a quick draw or two below it. You really don't need a prussik for a back up b/c you are jugging a straight line, your jugs really have no reason to twist off. I don't care for climbing in a team of three, though.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Feb 24, 2007 - 10:00am PT
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You know what a big problem of internet climbing forums is? You have any number of people purporting to know what the f*ck they are talking about, when in fact they're almost all a bunch of Big Wall Theorists! [Except Darnell, who is an accomplished big wall soloist] And accordingly you answer such drivel like so:
" I ask, because a team of three would rather take two ropes; a lead and haul, but I wasn't sure if having the 3rd guy jugging the haul line while it was loaded with the bags was a no-go. Happy to hear its all good.... "
It's not all good, dude. You may well end up dead.
Have any of the people purporting to offer you their expertise ever jugged a fully loaded haul line? Even our esteemed McTopo leader, who himself will tell you he has never done this because he is always speed climbing and never hauling heavy pigs like me, will tell you upon further reflection his answer is wrong.
If you want to know the answer to any jugging question, ask a caver. Cavers have nothing better to do with their time than analyze the hell out of everything, and perfect their jugging systems. Tandem ascending is a common practice in caving, whereby two guys jug the same rope on long pitches.
My friend Grog and I jugged Fantastic Pit in Ellison's Cave this way. It's a little over 600' of free hanging jug in the dark - a truly awesome place on Pigeon Mountain, Georgia. We took turns - 15 jugs for him, 15 jugs for me. It took us 20 minutes, in case you're wondering. Nothing wrong with this method of ascending a fixed rope, two guys at a time. It's almost like jugging above a pig. [And if you met my caving buddy Grog, who is a big chap, you would see the similarity!]
Why? Because the caving rope is held by a knot and not the toothed cam of a hauling device!
A-ha! I see you are paying attention when you write,
"Although I've seen people jugging their haul line, loaded with the pigs, anchored to their wall hauler... it just doesn't seem too safe. Any input?"
Bingo. It's not safe. For the first point, even the burliest devices like the Kong Block-Rolls and the total-complete-piece-of-junk Petzl Pro-Traxion are only rated for 5 kN of live load, which is a bit over a thousand pounds. You put a bit of bounce into your jug combined with the weight of the pigs, and it wouldn't be hard to start reaching peak loads close to that amount.
Even if you don't reach peak load, do you really want all that weight held by a single toothed cam? Obviously not!
On my first attempt to solo Native Son, I thought it would be clever to set up an Advanced Base Camp at the top of 2. There is a nice sidewalk-sized ledge there where you can repack away from the concerns of the ground. As I was fixing, I did bits of hauling. Eventually I got all my stuff in my pigs, which were tethered on the ledge at the top of 2.
Anyway, after knocking off the Coral Sea and the really long and difficult pitch above it [that one takes every piece on your rack, man, huge long traverse] I was fixed to the top of 5. After returning to the ground for the night, I jugged to my ABC at 2 the next day ready to blast, and then realized my huge dilemma:
I had no way to release the pigs and leave them sit on the ledge not clipped in, because the ledge was not wide enough. They couldn't sit there without unclipped without falling off! I didn't have a fifi with me to rig anything. So I had no choice:
I had to get onto the fixed rope with my jugs, release the pigs with me on top, and then go. It was really really scary! I had to lower myself out and across the rock two pitches up, scared the livin' bejeepers out of me, that. And then jugging on that weighted rope was like jugging on steel rebar!
What made it safe but scary is because I had not pre-rigged the weighted haul line through a hauling device. Instead it was rigged to the Power Point and tied with a knot.
Once I reached the anchor and got off the rope, I rigged my 2:1 Hauling Ratchet [on which I have about a 4m-long zed-cord for just this purpose] onto the weighted "rebar" haul line, dropped the inverted ascender down the 2m, and put both my jugs on the free end of the zed-cord to pull up the haul line and create slack in it, and then put it through the hauling device.
Once done, I attempted to resume 2:1 hauling. Unfortunately I couldn't budge the load because the haul line had gone round a buttress and was touching the rock. It was one of the very very few times I had to rig a 3:1 because a 2:1 was insufficient, and it was only because the rope touched the rock. The 2:1 is also the Better Way to pass the knot that joined the two ropes.
Anyway, that was the spring of 98 and El Nino sent me home with my tail between my legs. When I returned the next year, I didn't do that stupid little trick with the ABC. I rigged a rebelay there, sure, but as I jugged up to 5 the pigs sat on the ground, and the ropes weren't weighted.
So in theory you could safely jug the weighted haul line - sans rub points - if you first rig it with a knot, and then after you jug it, you could lift it into a hauling device.
However, there is still a Better Way. Probably several.
You're in a team of 3. Man #1 gets to the top of the pitch, short fixes and takes off. Man #2 then jugs the unweighted haul line, to get to the top of the pitch. As Man #1 continues to solo lead [everyone is connected by an extra-long zip line so you can get gear up to the leader] Man #3 connects the haul line to the pig, lowers out the pig, then starts cleaning. Man #2 hauls and tries to get the pig up before Man #3 finishes cleaning. If the pig isn't there, Man #3 assists Man #2 in the hauling. At some point, Man #1 is upgraded from solo belay to assisted belay.
Why would you ever need to jug a weighed haul line anyway?
Rich [Darnell] suggests using a dedicated lower-out line. You can do this, but I do it another way. I always use extra long 70m+ haul lines. This is for two reasons - it lets you do a lot of rope tricks [like what I am about to describe] and haul linked pitches easier, and if you get a nick in the end of the haul line, you still have lots left to work with. [Don't cut it - you can still work through the nick thus]
You use the excess haul line as your lower-out line. If the pitch is 50m long, you tie the pig into the haul line at the 50m-point, and you have 20m of excess haul line to use as lower-out line. Use a butterly knot - not only is it hugely easier to untie than an eight-on-a-bight, but it's actually a bit stronger, too.
Also note that in the scenario above, a Man could be replaced by a Wo-man, because there is nothing wrong with a little T & A on the wall.
Cheers,
Dr. Piton
As I was writing this, buddy above suggests the idea of backing up the hauling device with a quickdraw or two [you should always be doing this except for way-light loads!] and a knot. This will work in theory, but you still risk dinging the sheath on your rope with the teeth. And of course if you manage to sever the rope, you might even have the presence of mind in the final seconds before your death to consider what a dumbass idea it was, and why your backup didn't work.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 24, 2007 - 10:42am PT
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Whatever
Dumb! All you have to do is load the haul line below your (whatever haul device you use) with a ascender knot.
It's so simple and there will be no teeth biting into the rope.
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Holdplease2
Big Wall climber
Yosemite area
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Feb 24, 2007 - 11:01am PT
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Your time-related objective is (probably) to get the "Free line jugger" up to the top anchor and on the sharp end or belaying ASAP. Right? In a party of three, hauling is not the rate-limiting factor.
It doesn't take long to jug a free hanging line.
Simply have your free-hanging jugger (read next leader, belayer) jug the haul line *before* it is pulled super-tight and the pigs are lowered out. Then, when he/she arrives at the top station and gets settled belaying or leading, lower out the pigs. You can take your time doing this as you have the whole next lead to get the pigs to the anchor. No rush.
Re: Jugging Weighted Line: I jugged a weighted haul line once and won't be doing it again. You cannot run a backup knot or grigri, though this is NBD to me on a straight-running line. However, if you have to blob over some slab, good luck sliding your ascenders up the rope with a 200 pound pig weighting it. Also, if its a longish section of of slab, you can't "pass" the point of contact. Anyhow, with only one ascender on during the "pass" its creepy. Remember, you don't have a backup unless you're creative and use a prussik
Re: Third Rope: I've done several parties of three and we were always very happy to have three ropes at the end of the day. Whether it was for fixing pitches, problem solving, hauling, replacing a core-shot lead line or whatever. You're already going to be carrying a ton of scheit. Why not have an extra rope? Its the most important problem solving/safety piece of equipment you can carry and it weighs only a bit more than a gallon of water.
-Kate.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Oakville, Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Feb 24, 2007 - 11:08am PT
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Werner, what's an "ascender knot"? Is there some secret knot you can put in the haul line I don't know about that you can untie under load?
Kate, that idea of using a prusik [really klemheist] is not baaaaaaaaaaad. But I would feel a bit sheepish having all that weight held by a 6mm cord. I suppose you could use a thicker cord, with many many wraps on your klemheist. I just don't see any benefits of jugging a weighted haul line. You can solve the problem with team dynamics.
Excellent point about trying to pass over a slab or contact point with all that weight on the rope. It's almost impossible.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 24, 2007 - 11:09am PT
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As Werner just mentioned, the biggest problem here is the rope being chopped by cam pinching under load in the hauling system. By taking the weight of haulbag and ascending climber onto a prussik or other constricting knot (ascender knot), you take the rope cutting potential away from the cam.
IMO, if you're jugging smoothly, and don't have a ridiculously heavy haulbag in tow, unweighting the cam with a backup knot isn't really necessary. I've only found jugging a loaded line to be necessary while soloing. I usually tighten up the haul line to the bag and down jumar. The bag can then be easily lowered since there's little slack in the system and you can proceed to clean the pitch. That's my method and to be clear, I use fat wall ropes, 10.5 or larger. The thinner the cord, the easier it can be damaged or cut by a loaded cam.
As for a party of three with two cords...get real. Unless your route is arrow straight enough to cut the haulbag and third climber loose on every pitch, you're kind of stuck, aren't you? Sending a haulbag and climber falling onto a cam in the hauling system on the other hand, is a very good way to get yourself killed. So, a third rope is more than a luxury for a party of three.
A word of advice, while learning to wall climb, try to imagine all the situations with respect to rope work that you could run into and see if you're adequately equipped. For instance, climber falls and is hanging unconscious in the air just 20 feet short of a belay on a 200-foot pitch. You're the belayer, how are you going to get him down?
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T & A
climber
lake tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 24, 2007 - 11:09am PT
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"Ridin' the pig" is what i've heard it called before. The important point among all of this seems to be... using a hauling device as an anchor for a rope to be jugged is ALWAYS a no-go. While jugging a fully loaded haul line anchored by a knot seems to be ok. A friend of mine suggested the technique where a team of 3: has climber(1) lead and shortfix,(pull up slack in lead and haul line, fix both and keep going) then climber(2) can lower out climber(3) with the bags and start to clean as climber(3) ascends the loaded haul line. The advantage being, climber(2) doesn't have to wait for climber(3) to reach the anchor, prepare the haul system, and ready himself for the bag to be lowered out by climber(2) before he(2) can start cleaning the pitch. A short thin lowerout line would also be used to lower (3) and the bag.
As with anything, it seems like taking one person's advice/opinion on any subject as concrete fact wouldn't ever be the right thing to do. This forum is nice because of how many people can chime in on the discussion. We must be very selective as to what/whos advice to implement, but the "market place of ideas" certainly has it's benefits.
thanks for the input,
chip
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