How do you Gear Solo?

Post by **ewaaser** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:55 pm

Get someone to show you in person before you actually do it. In the meantime, go to rockclimbing.com and do a search....you'll get a lot of "discussion" on the topic.

Post by **ReachHigh** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:58 pm

overhung wrote:It's a hassle. Not worth it.

Climbing with a partner means being somewhat social, poilte, and is really a hassle. Not to be anti social or anything.

Post by **ewaaser** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:58 pm

Here's another source of info.

http://www.tradgirl.com/climbing_faq/ad ... m#leadsolo

Post by **Gobstopper** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:34 pm

Yeah, splurge a little bit and spend the $225 for the silent partner. You can learn to toprope yourself with it in a few minutes of reading the instruction manual. After a day of practicing leading you should have that down too. Leading can be a hassle and I do find leading with it is much scarier for sure, so I usually climb a couple of grades lower.
On the plus side you never absolutely have to have a partner to climb and other climbers usually take pity on you and offer to belay as they see you fumble around with the system.

good luck

Post by **Ascentionist** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:22 pm

Gentry,
I rope solo quite a bit with a modified Gri-gri. I had someone explain how to do the modification and then did it myself. It works failry well and does not compromise the Gri-gri. Petzl may disagree. I'm looking into getting a Silent partner. The cost is holding me back.

It is a lot of work and its not best to figure it out on your own, but I can't argue against it. Worked for me.

PM me if you're interested in getting together. I have a really good system worked out and am sure I could help you out.

Chris

Post by **powen01** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:39 pm

http://www.chongonation.com/

Have fun with this site... It's Chongo's site. You can find all his books on here... Supposedly...

Post by **batguano** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:54 pm

I would strongly advise against modifying your grigri. I modified mine and regretted it soon afterwards. If you cut the "ear" off the hinged side-plate, near the clip in hole and put a cable through the main body of the gri to attach it to your chest harness, it will feed like a dream. However, you open up the possibility (slight as it may be) for full scale catastrophic meltdown. The "ear" is on the side plate to keep your rope from getting loaded under the handle (near the gold dot). With the "ear" removed you could chop your lead line in front of your back up knots, giving you the deed to the proverbial farm. Not good.
Soloing on a stock grigri is probably OK, so long as you don't cross load the gri on the spine of the locking biner (this has happened). In the event of cross loading, your back up knots should come through for you, as long as you don't deck first.
Bottom line is this, if you want a piece of equipment made for rope soloing, shell out the money and buy something that is designed and tested for that purpose. Soloing is tricky business, proceed with caution.

Post by **john e aragon** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:10 pm

the silent partner is the only marginally safe way to rope solo. that said unless you have a mastery of rope work, anchors, rigging, protection and directional loading. then rope soloing is a fools game. i did not know alot when i started doing it and got myself into some bad spots. but it was rewarding to learn and get good at it. jind of like the reason i started climbing in the first place. GOOD LUCK. THINK IT THROUGH AND YOU SHOULD BE FINE!

Post by **Ascentionist** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:30 pm

batguano wrote:With the "ear" removed you could chop your lead line in front of your back up knots, giving you the deed to the proverbial farm.

I agree, very tricky. My motivation for doing so at the time was lack of money for a Soloist, which seems to me to be a Gri-gri in diguise anyway. I also agree that a Silent Partner is the way to go. My reason for not practicing what i preach is the same as for not having a Soloist. Hopefully that will be remedied eventually.

Post by **rockstar** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 1:43 pm

get a steel biner for the gri gri. some dude on eagles way took a major whip when his biner got crossloaded then failed. soloing is the only way to go.