skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 1, 2015 - 10:09am PT
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PSP also PP has asked the question I had in my head. And I have found what I think is a great response buried in ST from rgoldhttp://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1886521/Ropes-stuck-on-Rappel-Envisioning-Worst-Case-Scenario, someone I have never met, but over the months hanging here I have come to respect his opinion on things climbing related (including the Totem Totems). I hope you take no offense on me ignoring your other opinions; basically I rarely take to memory anything from this other than climbing content. So on with it.
If you can't get the rope unstuck and the two ends of the rope are reachable (and attached to the anchor), you just prussic up both rope ends. Relatively simple. If, however you only have one rope end accessable, this is a real problem. If after careful examination of the situation you need ascend the rope, my first thought was to attach 2 prussics and work up the rope placing protection along the way by pulling up the rope a bit and clipping the gear into a figure 8 on a bight ect. This would be after first building a solid anchor that could withstand an upward pull. But, when I ran into rgold's solution I tossed mine out the window.
rgold's solution
If you decide, after very careful consideration, that ascending the rope is necessary, and if there is any chance to place protection during the ascent, then I'd suggest the Inchworm ® Technique. Actually, if the rap lines are hanging down ground that is very protectable, then the availability of the inchworm technique might change the party's evaluation about whether or not to try retrieving the rope rather than chopping it, since the retrieval process in that situation would not be so dangerous.
So, here we go:
1. The belayer ties into the end of the rope that is down and anchors.
2. The leader ties into the rope so that the portion from the leader up to the sticking point is taut. This leaves a bunch of slack between the leader and belayer. The belayer reels in this slack and puts the leader on belay.
3. The leader prusiks, hand-over-hands, climbs, aids, whatever, and not only advances a prusik up the stuck rope but also tries to place protection on the way, clipping the rope the belayer is paying out.
4. As the leader ascends, slack builds up in the rope ahead between the advancing prusik and the leader's harness, while the slack available to the belayer decreases. At a some point, depending on how much rope was originally pulled down, the leader runs out of slack from the belayer, but now has a loop hanging between prusik and harness. At this point the leader either hangs on pro, or on the prussik if no pro can be placed, and redoes the tie-in so that the rope from leader to sticking point is again taut and the belayer gets all the slack back. The leader is now back in the situation described in Step 2 and can continue ascending and protecting.
Assuming some protection has been placed during the inchworming, the leader will be exposed to "ordinary" leader falls rather than the huge factor-2 nightmare that would otherwise occur if the stuck rope releases while being ascended.
Obviously, if the rope has hung before the trailing end dropped free of the anchor and if, during the ascent, the leader reaches the trailing end, then prusiks should immediately be installed around both ropes, at which point the ascent will be "safe" since it will be loading the anchor.
I like this. It's not too complicated, and you can lead or aid or some combo of the two to get up to the other strand or the hangup.
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