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Sebastiaan
Trad climber
Belgium
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 15, 2017 - 07:38am PT
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Hey
How do you manage the ropes on a big wall? I stack them neatly in a sling when I'm belaying, but what do you do when you leave the belay and start jugging/ cleaning?
I mean, if it's a 90ft pitch and I have a 200ft rope, what do I do with the remaining 110ft? Just let it dangle below me (actually a 55ft loop since I remain tied in to the end) but risk getting it stuck? I've thought about girth hitching the remaining stacked rope and clipping it to my harness, but I think this will create a clutter on my harness and will make jugging less efficient. Will girth hitching prevent the rope sliding out of the sling?
Opinions/thoughts?
Thanks!
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Da-Veed
Big Wall climber
Bigfork
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Aug 15, 2017 - 09:15am PT
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Rope bag, FISH snake charmer works really good for aid and rope management. If you are using light aid and moving fast stack the rope through a step in one of your ladders.
Or you can stack the rope over your knee, then clip a long sling around the rope and hang it off the anchor. I would not let the ends flap around in the breeze, you risk a tangled mess or worse yet, the end end getting stuck somewhere off route.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Aug 16, 2017 - 10:09am PT
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Duh.
Your leader pulls up the extra 110 ft of lead rope and fixes it at that point. And if you are soloing, you are both leader and cleaner. This way you are not dragging the unnecessary weight of an extra hundred ten feet of rope with you as you are jugging and cleaning.
Why on earth would you or anyone start cleaning a pitch with ANY excess lead rope hanging off you?
Answer: only when you need some extra for lowering out to clean a Traverse.
When you clean, you should never have a 55 ft long Loop dangling beneath you. This is an invitation to disaster. What do you do if the wind blows that 55 foot loop horizontally and it hangs up irretrievably on a flake? What are you going to do then?
When everyone cleans a pitch, he should have a dedicated wide Gate Auto Locker dangling from his harness into which he ties simple overhand backup knots every 20 to 30 ft. When you arrive at the top station after cleaning, you can take the backup knots off the auto Locker in order and neatly and easily restack the lead rope into its lead rope bag, which was earlier zipped up to the top anchor along with the anchor kit and Hauling gear. This leaves no long Loops dangling to hang up beneath you.
Sometimes you can clean an aid pitch without tying any backup knots at all, but only under one condition - a pitch that is pretty much dead plumb. The important rule to remember here is that you must always be attached to the Rope by two or more jugs. Cavers do this all the time, and you can do it too. You don't see cavers ascending ropes tying backup knots, do you? Of course not. Why? Because the ropes are rigged dead plumb.
The benefit here is you do not have to carry the weight of any rope tied off to your harness, making the jugging and cleaning that much faster. If for any reason you have to remove an Ascender from the Rope to pass the piece, make bloody sure you tie a backup not or yer gonna die.
You can only clean without trying backup knots when the wind is not blowing crazily, because your rope is dangling beneath you. Make sure you leave no knot in the end of your rope to catch on things when you pull it up, because almost always in this scenario you're trailing lead rope will be lying against the wall.
This is an excellent time to run something like a micro trax or one of those Camp backup thingies under your harness to give you a running back up along the dangling rope. But always be aware of what's happening to that rope beneath you!
Master cylinders in the Rope bag while you're cleaning, eh? Now that is definitely the better way! I never found any use whatsoever for a rope bag while cleaning and have always zipped it to the top belay anchor with the anchor kit.
MY beer stays with me, always accessible in my Right The F*ck Now Bag.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Aug 16, 2017 - 04:49pm PT
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Ropes on big wall ascents have been rendered obsolete.
If you still need 'em, then you need to git gud and be able to leave 'em at home.
Git gud, and then there is no more need for rope management.
(Of course, I don't practice what I preach.)
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Aug 17, 2017 - 08:31am PT
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Clearly I'm not gud enough....
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j-tree
Big Wall climber
Typewriters and Ledges
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Aug 17, 2017 - 01:40pm PT
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What pete said.
Barring that (leader forgets or whatever) you just keep a locking biner on you and tie off loops every 20' or so. If it gets caught on something, it's never more than 10' away, or if you're worried about that, do every 15' whatever.
"but the rope will be so heavy and weigh me down!"
This is bigwall. Deal.
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