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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Feb 17, 2017 - 07:34pm PT
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“I prefer to rack on a gear sling. It just makes it easy to swap leads with your partner.”
The first thing that pops in my mind is all the party's gear being dropped from handing it back and forth like that.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Feb 17, 2017 - 07:56pm PT
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Possible, I guess, but I've never had it happen in 60 years of climbing and neither know nor have heard of it happening to anyone else. Take it off and hand it over with two hands; receive it with two hands, everything will be fine. In case of concern, it is easy enough to clip a quick draw or other sling across or to an anchor strand before handing the sling over.
Ok, I do have to confess to dropping such a racking sling while climbing, however. The problem was that I had my rack on several slings, not one. And I was leading one of the 5.9 chimneys on the West Face of Sentinel and had a bunch of bongs racked on a separate sling from the rest of the gear. I turned around a few times in the chimney, and each time I did I switched all the slings around so the gear hung on the outside. Somehow during that process, I managed to completely remove the sling with the bongs, which however stayed in place because it was pinched by the other slings...until it wasn't. Every piton we had wider than 1.25" was on that sling.
The sling went down about 300 feet and hung up on a twig not much bigger than a person's thumb. We were able to tie our two ropes together and rappel down to retrieve it.
As for self-rescue, I too have learned it and never had to use it. It is certainly a good idea to have the knowledge, but some of the techniques, especially the hauling schemes on rock, are simply not going to work much of the time in real situations, so there is perhaps a danger of thinking one will be able to do far more than is actually possible, and possibly trying with bad results.
I think everyone should know the Munter Mule and its uses so that they don't end up with a loaded rope clipped to an anchor and not able to be released. They should know how to set up and carry out a tandem rappel (the type where both partners rappel using one device, controlled by the uninjured partner). They should never let their self-rescue "knowledge" stop them for calling for or asking for help when it is readily available, and should realize that in situations where the tandem rappel isn't going to get the party down, the best hope is usually going to be for the healthy person to solo up or down for help. You can haul a lightly injured partner up a few feet, but that's about it for upward rescue.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Feb 18, 2017 - 05:30am PT
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the only time i have ever actually had to escape the belay it was to switch a struggeling partner from guide mode to munter for a long lower. good practice but certainly not an emergency.
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