RRC Archives

Personally, I enjoy watching people learn to belay - with either a gri-gri or atc. I love to see them feed out tons and tons of rope so the climber can deck or just jsut take the gri-gri off their biner when the climber finishes the climb and asks to be lowered.

Yeah, I love watching people do that to you, too.

marathonmedic wrote:Yeah, I love watching people do that to you, too.

Thanks for the kind sentiments. I was being facetious.

I learned to clean sitting on Cliff Hippie's lap. He just hung around till I got to the top and taught me how to clean. I miss that rascal!

*Also, to preserve the life of the hardware on climbs in the Valley, we would like to ask you to do two things: First, toprope through your draws, rather than use anchor rings. And second, when cleaning, rap off rather than lower through the rings.

When you do rap off, it's a darn good idea to keep the belayer's end of the rope knotted and also tie a knot at the free end of the rope. To be really safe you can also back up your rap with a simple autoblock on a harness leg loop.*

I've always thought it illogical to trade climber safety for hardware preservation, which is what happens when you rap instead of lower off. The key issue is, what happens if the rappeller becomes disabled or otherwise loses control of the rappell. If they're rapping without a backup, they will hit the ground pretty quick, and a knot tied near the end of the rope will not do too much good, due to rope stretch you'll still hit the ground pretty hard, especially since you seem to be advocating single-line rapping. Using a rappell back-up device is hardly better and akin to using a rope to "belay" someone performing a swift-water rescue, because the device which was supposed to save you is now going to prevent you from reaching the ground, or from being easily lowered, if you are unconscious. Whereas a climber being lowered by the belayer who somehow becomes disabled will still get to the ground under control.

Simply put, there is so much more that can go wrong rapping vs. lowering that the increased exposure to risk does not justify the benefit of anchor preservation. Never heard of someone dying from a sport anchor failing, but rappell accidents are commonplace. There is a reason why every sport climbing manual illustrates the proper way to clip in, thread the rope through the fixed gear and lower off instead of rapping - it's safer.

Of course, the belayer lowering the climber could become disabled too, but if the belayer is using a grigri, the device will lock up on it's own, creating a much more manageable situation than a rappell failure.

That's why you backup your rappel with a Prussik or other backup device when you lower. The person rapping is the one that is responsible for their own safety and should take the appropriate safety measures. You could also argue that rapping is safer since the rope isn't sliding over rock where it could get cut.

Don't think you are going to cut the rope that way, although lowering over an adge can wear it out quicker.

bushwhacker, there are as many lowering accidents as rap accidents while cragging, if not more. Many of the rap accidents are from multi pitch / alpine routes where lowering is not an option.

I rap sometimes to save the rope, but lowering off a sport route isn't really all that hard on the anchor gear. And as rhunt said, trying to clean a steep route on rappel can be epic. Repeated top roping through the anchors is the main problem.

Wes

I always remember top roping through draws, it was pretty much taught to me to be the correct method to top rope and going through the anchors was wrong. But I still haven't learned how to repel :/

We can all make this topic a 10 page discussion again, or we can all just use common sense. Think "Muir Valley = Safety First". Actually, safety should be first anywhere you climb.

muirvalley.com wrote:Responsible, experienced climbers may climb any of the established routes but do so at their own risk, which is significant.

...and if you don't like the policies of the land owners, don't climb there. 'Nuff said.

I for one can't stand seeing anchors with 1/4" groves worn into a 3/8" link because of people top roping and lowering off of the anchors.

Wanna lower instead of rapping? Attach your own lockers to the anchor and lower.