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j-tree
Big Wall climber
bay area, ca
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"Matt why the hostility lol ?"
Didn't you start out by referring to his injuries as a reason to disregard his comment? Following something like that with "haha" doesn't negate the fact of the attack.
I don't have a horse in this race but it seemed odd to call out a person for being hostile when it was in response to something said by you that could have easily been interpreted as passive aggressive.
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bringmedeath
climber
la la land
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F*#k it all, as long as the beer and bong are safe you are set!
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Johnny K.
climber
Southern,California
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hahaa
Jtree take a bong rip with bringmedeath,relax.:)
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John Mac
Trad climber
Littleton, CO
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I incorporate a screamer into every belay when soloing. It's part of my standard setup.
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Johnny K.
climber
Southern,California
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Matt no worries man.No harm done,all in good communication.We can agree to disagree and have our own opinions.(It would be a boring place if everyone thought and did everything the same way).As long as the rigging is safe and you enjoy(or sometimes dont enjoy) the climb,thats all that matters.
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JimT
climber
Munich
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Like a lot of guys I´m rope soloing without a haulbag because I´m just bolting routes from below. I just arrange the belay set-up so that the rope runs through a Munter on the first bolt with a couple of metres slack and then the rucksack with all the spare sh#t, about 10gs is the weight to aim for.
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xtrmecat
Big Wall climber
Kalispell, Montanagonia
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I rarely use a screamer at the anchor. It really depends on the start and gear at the start of the next pitch, if it looks like it can rip easily, then out comes a screamer.
Burly Bob
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Knuckles
Trad climber
Everett, Wa
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I would think the Screamer blowing would also reduce the load on whatever gear you were falling onto. It's not just about whether or not your anchor is good or making the impact on you more gentle, it's also about avoiding the "second" fall of gear that could/should hold a fall blowing. A screamer on the original anchor ought to help with that.
One actualy might argue that there's no better place for a screamer if you only had one.
Like some others had mentioned, I also incorporate a screamer into my soloing anchor. You're soloing afterall and there's no one to call in the rescue for you. Best to avoid it altogether. I've got too many people that I'm accountable to.
Clearly the answer is to not ride a bike in Yosemite and buy 20 screamers.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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I took a 25 footer factor two onto two (or maybe three?) bolts on Leaning Tower. Had a screamer in the sytem (no belayer and no haul bag) and it blew all but the last two tacs. I for one was glad it was there - though the bolts surely would have held anyway. ha
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Using the haulbag as a damper is good, but ultimately it is all about anchor strength. Interesting idea. Not clear to me how to best rig it. You probably want to have a backup anchor on the bag.
(originally I thought this was a troll. Silly me)
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Knuckles
Trad climber
Everett, Wa
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You build your anchor as normal, throw an alpine butterfly on the rope a couple feet up from the anchor, clip that to your pig, with or without a screamer. Here's a thread that might seem familiar debating the merits of doing just that:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1431135
Make sure your pig is weighting the lead line and that the pig tether is long enough to allow for the pig to be pulled up. Something like that anyways. Probably half a dozen ways to rig it.
Oh and you're gunnna die.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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I don't aid solo much, but I do free rope-solo quite a bit and if I have any questions at all about an anchor I throw an old Air Voyager in the mix similarly clipping it to one side of the anchor and to an alpine butterfly about three feet up the rope. Other times I don't bother; all case-by-case from my perspective.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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There are any number of ways to do this safely and correctly. If you're about to get into Factor 2 situation, think about hanging your pig a fair ways below the anchors, possibly from a separate spare hunk of climbing rope. Or incorporate your lead rope into the system. You can't use too many Screamers, especially down low in the system.
"I took a 25 footer factor two onto two (or maybe three?) bolts on Leaning Tower. Had a screamer in the sytem (no belayer and no haul bag) and it blew all but the last two tacs. I for one was glad it was there - though the bolts surely would have held anyway. ha"
Hmmm - this doesn't add up arithmetically. Even a ten-foot fall will usually fully deploy a Screamer. Such a long high-factor wall would certainly generate huge forces sufficient to fully deploy any fall arrester [although I prefer John Yates' Screamers above all else].
Leaning Tower, eh? I'm guessing this would have been the bottom of the 6th pitch? I don't like that bit. How did it feel when you hit the end of the rope? The bolts are going to hold, I'm just wondering how your body held up?
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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ha, yea, bottom of 6th. 5.7 free climbing. My silent partner jammed up on me, and while I was dicking with it I unexpectedly popped off. Hit the end of the rope before I even knew what happened. No sudden shock that I noticed so I think the (yates) screamer did pretty well. As to all the stiches ripping, I wouldn't know about that. Isn't it 600 lbs for each bar tac? that's a lot of absorbtion in one screamer.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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5.7 my middle-aged retired-from-free-climbing lard-ass!
Didja finish the route? How long did it take ya? Gonna be around this spring? What about you and Jason getting on something?
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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"Did I finish the route?", I never back off (unless I'm with Jason - lol). Yea, we'll probably be up there some time in May or June. An injury shut us down on half dome last year, so we got to make amends on that one.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Mike, I'll be down May 7th and on. Stop into Upper pines and say hi. Bunch of Oregon guys, you might even know Andrew from PSU.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Melissa, the pig is softer. It will act more like the weight of a normal belayer.
Using the pig also means you don't have to worry about keeping your anchor rig tensioned upsidown for upward pull. If your anchor chord is long enough and the pig is near your bodyweight then it probly won't even pull the anchor all the way up.
You can also virtually eliminate the chance of a factor 2 fall to the anchor by lowering the pig down enough and using the anchor bolt as your effective first piece in the pitch. This could be a huge benefit on harder climbs with runout hooking or freeclimbing, or thin nuts or heads...whatever right off the belay.
I've taken several solo falls onto my pig, it's as soft a catch as any belayer. (I fell on the last roof pitch or Wet Denim and the bag did pull all the way up to the bolts but the shock load on the anchor was pretty minimal. ...that was a spooky fall over a lot of air!) I have also taken a few falls onto screamers from a ways up the pitch and the screamer didn't even deploy. If you have enough rope out the screamer is basically irrelevant. Really the screamer is for when you are still close to the belay.
If I have the pig rigged well and there isn't really hard off the belay I'd probly save that extra screamer for farther up the pitch. But I use the Screamer if you are short fixing or don't have a pig, imho. Oh, and don't fall on the anchor like Arron did... ;) Thats the thing about short fixing, most of the time you are out of the gear you need to rig super perfect anchors, sometimes you are lucky to have two biners and one extra locker and rig the rabbit ears 8 for your anchor and go...
Dumbest thing I ever did soloing was clove the bolt that is right at the Nipple, then fell about 10 feet above it. Luckily it wasn't a factor 2 since the piece I fell onto held, but it still knocked the wind out of me, and I nearly had to cut the rope in half to get the clove out. So yeah, don't clove your lead rope to pieces in the pitch!!!
When tying off the lead line to the Screamer I like to use that fancy 8 where the tails come out opposite ends, rather then the clove. I'm forgetting what it's called. Werner said cloves can break if slammed hard enough on the rock, and since Werner has pretty much seen everything, I'll take his good word for it....and re-quote him every time it comes up again.
Last thing I'll say is there is a ton of info on this forum on soloing. Look for the posters who've logged the miles. Mike., Pete, Mark H, Aaron, Nico, Bobo ,Ammon, Alex...pretty much any of the stone monkeys. And they all may have differing, but equally sound opinions on every single detail of soloing based on hundreds of different experiences. And, there's also bunch of wanna-be wallers in these forums who think they know it all...buyer beware.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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here's one of my old shots from my Zod trip in August. sorry the pic is over exposed.
I was rapping the hauline after leading the pitch above Zorro. My lead line is green. You can see it stacking on the ledge. This was before I used methods for keeping the rope from going slack down at the belay.
I'm not sold on this method but it worked on that wall even through a couple falls. You can see I have a long blue sling connecting the power point to the pig docked below on the last lead bolt of the previous pitch. One thing I'd do differently here is use a separate biner for the haulbag connection to the powerpoint so the powerpoint biners can't get crossloaded.
Most of the time I wouldn't leave my ledge out like that at the belay either. It's risky that the wind will pick up and whip it around in your ropes and anchor. But in this case it was a wicked heat wave in August in the most stagnant dead air. A slight breeze didn't even pick up until like 3pm. I cooked some brain cells on that wall...lol
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Texplorer
Trad climber
Sacramento
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The leader must not fall. Seriously, if your asking this kind of question you probably shouldn't be on routes where there aren't beefy bolt anchors which won't require a counter-weighted pig or screamer if equalized. Even one piece off the anchor will drastically reduce forces upon it in a fall.
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