Multi Pitch Techniques | Rope Management

[@themountainknights]

Hi am a mountaineering instructor in India and i watch your videos often to get better insight of the techniques. I love your videos as they are easy to understand and cover wide range of scenarios. Thanks to put them on KZbin and looking forward to learn more personally from you. Have a good day.

[@summitseekersexperience]

Awesome, thank you!

[@jeffreyschmidt3997]

Another great video Jason! Thanks for your fantastic contributions. You mention shouting commands succinctly, but I'd like to see how you like to go about communicating nonverbally when the leader and second climber must communicate nonverbally (e.g. too far away, too windy, radio off or battery dead). So important to have this figured out in advance to avoid accidents. Thanks!

[@summitseekersexperience]

For sure, I can definitely do a "when things go wrong" type video for MP and highlight communication.

[@novadea1643]

Thanks for another informative video. One thing worth pointing out, at @10:20 you've accidentally switched the ropes (brown on the right) so worth double checking that both have them on the same sides.

[@summitseekersexperience]

Yeah, definitely want to try and keep the ropes lined up. Good point.

[@logiconabstractions6596]

I generally prefer to start rigging the guide mode stuff on the anchor before I start to pull on the rope. Generally, after "off belay", there's a bit of time before the rope is free anyways. Besides, it means that as soon as I hear "that"s me", I can put my climber on belay. Also, on occasions where communications is hard, it minimizes chances of anything happening, since there's little time between the rope getting taunt at the other end, and the climber being effectively on belay. Interesting tip with the pancake flip - it makes a lot of sense to flip according to how the strand going up pulls. I just had never thought of that. For the tether coil, I think it's nice to experiment with lengths for different setup. For me, the longer the better, as long as there's not risk of stuff snagging. If the belay is truly hanging/above some overhang, I will go for very long coils, so that I only need to switch sides a few times and it doesn't make as long of a series of coils extending away from me. Overall, I tend to find that fewer coils but longer are somewhat easier to transfer to my partner (if I'm leading the next pitch). The downside being that if too greedy and a coil snags on a bush/rock below, then life sucks.

[@summitseekersexperience]

Yeah, I try to set up the guide mode stuff as well as I weight for the partner to take the gri gri off. I hate when I forget and then I have a heavy rope I'm holding and trying to rig the gri gri or whatever device at the same time.

[@AnonymousOtters]

"Hey, I'm a single pitch instructor... let me tell you about how to do multi pitch". You got me in stitches. I'm sure you've got plenty of experience to teach this, but that's an ironic way you introduced yourself

[@summitseekersexperience]

Ha... I know... the good news is I take my RGC next week so then I'm certified to guide Multi Pitch in grade 2 anyways. The resume to get into the RGC is super heavy in multipitch.

[@FlemingAdam206]

Great idea to clip the extended masterpoint to your tether to keep it within reach while you pull up rope! Be careful about the accidental LSD lower when cloving in those followers! Especially without a cat knot in the brake strands.

[@summitseekersexperience]

Yeah, good point, given the ledge, no issue, but if we had been in steeper terrain and I was literally having to do everything for the follower, would have definitely tied a backup knot before going hands free.

[@yetanotherPC]

accidental LSD lower?

[@summitseekersexperience]

@@yetanotherPC I assume you are asking what LSD lower is and it's when the autoblocking function is disabled by other carabiners at the masterpoint (can be intentional or unintentional). Adam is alluding to the case when you are cloving in your follower that there are possibilities if they were to fall that the carabiner you are cloving on (assuming clove not complete) can press up against the assisted breaking device and disable autoblocking function. Similar thing can happen with a grigri in disabling the cam. I may do a KZbin short explaining this more closely. Tying the clove with mickey mouse ears helps mitigate this (vs handshake). Additionally, as Adam pointed out, having a back up knot on the break fully mitigates. In this case, we were on a huge ledge, so the concern was nil, but on a hanging belay, may be more important. Hope that helps.

[@anersholst]

Awesome video, Jason, thank you very much! However, there is one specific scenario of rope management which I’ve yet to see covered on youtube (believe me, I’ve looked): Say you are belaying from above on a *hanging* belay, but your partner wants to second the pitch you just climbed and lead the next pitch seamlessly, with no transition or break at your belay station. In this situation I would belay from the belay loop of my harness, (with the rope preclipped into the next bolt above my belay station) and flake my rope on top of my harness (as in the second scenario demonstrated here), but rope management is ALWAYS difficult for me in this situation as opposed to belaying with the grigri in the anchor. This is especially stressful if my grigri ends up on the wrong side of the stack of rope relative to the preclipped bolt above the anchor. Any tips for this? There are plenty of tutorials on swinging leads, but to my knowledge none of them cover the case of going straight from a seconding a pitch into leading the next without that stop-over at the belay station. Again, many thanks from a happy subscriber, much appreciated Jason,

[@summitseekersexperience]

I'll have to check, I always belay off the master point because if I have to haul or rescue, I'm out of the system already. I take my AMGA rock guide course in October and will discuss with them seamless transitions on hanging belays and see what they say.

[@arnoldkotlyarevsky383]

Really well explained video! I have a request if you are taken them. I recently was doing a multi stage rappel that was kind of miserable since I kept running into problems managing the rope on the way down. Without boring you with the details, I found that the only way for me to reliably set up the rope for rappel was basically to reflake the rope twice....which is clearly wasteful and stupid. The first time was once my partner made it down to me after we both rappelled the pitch. The second time was to ensure the rope was centered on the anchor (my middle mark is barely visible). Can you please help me avoid the shame and embarrassment of these kinds of faffing about? Thank you in advance!

[@summitseekersexperience]

For sure, I did make a decent video on multipitch rappelling you can view via link below. I will likely make a more detailed video that highlights how to avoid problems like stuck ropes, tangles, missing middle marks, forgetting which end to pull... etc. FYI, I'm always taking requests from the audience. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXm4g3aKr6iAd5I

[@arnoldkotlyarevsky383]

@@summitseekersexperience thank you for replying! Sorry, I should have checked your backlog. I watched that video, and others, and I found it helpful! Thanks again!

[@PhilippeVaucher]

About shouting, I recommand shouting way less than that. You only need "off belay" and the rest can be logically deduced by following a protocol of watching the rope: 1) You arrive at anchor, anchor yourself, shout "off belay", partner knows you are safe and takes you off belay device. 2) You setup belay device ready to be plugged with rope. 3) You pull rope and once you got it all you directly plug it into belay device and start belaying. The goal is almost no delay between rope pulling and belaying. 4) Your partner sees the rope go up, when there's no slack he waits 10 seconds then starts climbing. If he's not sure he can go a bit up and confirm slack is taken properly. This has many advantages: - Works even when communication is impossible due to wind/distance, for example if partner didn't understand you are safe at step 3 you can quickly pull the rope 3 times to notify him you are safe. - Much less noise. You have no idea how insane it can be climbing with others parties where everyone is shouting left and right and you are the one almost never shouting at all.

[@logiconabstractions6596]

With half ropes, I generally just close a single strand. Since a single strand is good enough to lead on (and fall), it is necessarily good enough as a tether on it's on. I find that the clove is easier to adjust if I need to, and just generally easier to handle.

[@summitseekersexperience]

Yeah, these were half ropes... which are probably good enough to sit on a clove (heck I've done a double rope rap with them)... but they are 8 mm so I'm always like... maybe I'll clove both. But yeah, for sure on single rated ropes I do exactly what you say.

[@GuyBalaam]

9:48 DO NOT DO THIS You tie a 1 handed clove hitch on the climbers LIVE rope. Until 9:58 if your climber fell - they would fall a long way. You have let go of the break rope and redirected the live rope to where the guide mode will not break assist. ALWAYS clove from the break side of the rope before you remove the ATC

[@GuyBalaam]

A very clear demonstration here kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWrRoWp4Zr-UpZY

[@paularinaga1576]

Yikes! I feel that the climber should preferably clove hitch himself in anyway. Don’t leave your security to someone else unless maybe they’re a guide.

[@ianmcnulty4251]

Even better: Let let the climber air-clove him/herself. Same reason as above - a fall on an unfinished clove (i.e. just a redirect of the live rope) defeats guide mode of the ATC.

[@howtoclimb]

Nice!

[@KubaDawidChrzan-p9g]

just fyi 9:52 - if the second would somehow fall . he would fall the full lenght of the rope. you should tight a knot below your reverso or keep hands on a rope. i know i know... it is huge ledge... and he is not gonna fall anywhere.

[@longb1913]

i thought only belayers say 'off belay', and the climbers say 'safe' to let belayers know they can go off belay...

[@summitseekersexperience]

Whatever communication you want to use is fine... just make sure it's clear and concise and both partners understand.