Multi-Pitch Communication - When you can't quite hear, or see!

Last week a friend of mine came up from Asheville, NC to climb for a week in Colorado. We hit the traditional sport climbing areas of Clear Creek and Shelf Road. Our third day on we decided that a trip to the Front Range would not be complete without hitting up the Bastille Crack in Eldorado Canyon on Monday.

My friend is an experienced Trad climber having done plenty of climbing around Looking Glass, Laurels Knob, Table Rock, and even the mother of all beasts Whitesides among others. Myself not so much. Shameful, but my experience on trad is really just to get my tradsters buddies to belay me on sport, but keeping them interested in climbing with me I will very seldomly go trad climbing with them if they can't get anyone else. Don't get me wrong I do love multi-pitch trad, but it's been very few and far between in my 12 yrs of climbing.

Back on point. We attempted and very much succeeded in doing the Bastille Crack on Monday. We combined the 1st and 2nd pitches into one to conserve time. He placed all gear on lead and I followed every pitch and cleaned the gear.

Problem #1: I couldn't see, or hear him from the road with the river in the background. So I pretty much had to wait 20mins for him to set up an anchor and feel the rope go tight and I eventually started climbing and he was taking in rope.

Problem #2: On getting up pitch 3 he set up an anchor and same thing. I couldn't see him, or hear him and I had a major problem. The sheath of the rope was cut about 3 feet above my knot. Well this time he pulled the rope incredibly tight and I kept yelling to inform him of the predicament and he just kept pulling thinking I was climbing. Well like a DA that I can be sometimes I said well I'm going to be here forever so I started climbing anyways and got to the top of the 3rd pitch and told him of the problem (nearly wanting to vomit since I felt like I just soloed the pitch). We ended up fixing that problem and finished the 4th and 5th pitches. Typically climbing a 5.7 pitch is not a problem (My sport level cap has been 12c for the past two yrs), but I broke my back in Feb of 09 and coupled to that I noticed a cut in the rope the crux of pitch 3 scared the hell out of me and felt much, much harder. Plus it's Eldo!

I'm sure many of you have done the Bastille Crack so I'm hoping to hear someone speak from experience since I feel that route is a good example. So how do you typically communicate with your belayer, or climber when it is impossible to hear, or see one another?

walkie talkies for the win.

Yeah about that. I got some walkie talkies for X-Mas and of course when we got home and told the wife about our day she said, "You should have taken the walkie talkies!" Definitely an option for the future.

1. Discuss a setup and do rope tugs.

2. Only the leader tugs! or you might yank him off and that would be unfortunate that they chose you as a partner.

3. Crazy erratic tugs means the leader needs slack.

3. Leader does 3 long hard tugs.... On.. Be-...lay... when the belay is setup and ready to go.

4. Second starts climbing.

Keep it simple and check your setup before the leader takes off. This is a really common problem that drives me nuts when the leader and belayer are screaming at each other for half an hour on the climb next to me for no good reason. If you're going to yell, only yell commands (i.e. on belay, belay is on, climbing, etc.... Not full sentences asking for 7 more minutes and 13 feet of rope so you can eat your sandwich and update your twitter). I climb with a semi-deaf friend and it's much nicer to do rope tugs.

the batteries are always dead.... always.... It's like murphy's law of walkie talkies. But they can be nice.

when the rope comes tight, start climbing. (ok maybe wait 20 seconds for them to hook up belay device and lock biner).

Do walkie talkies really work well in multi-pitch situations? I always fear the reception would be terrible considering in some routes your leader might quite realistically be behind tons of granite. I would hate buying and carrying them out there only to get really shabby reception.

When communication can be an issue I always make sure that my partner and I are on the same page that when the rope comes tight the second is on belay. This can be a pain for the leader if the pitch is short and they have to take in 100+ ft of slack through the belay device but it's a sure thing that way. Walkie talkies are great but after my tie in loop on one broke and sent it about 300 ft to the deck I gave that one up.

Yeah, but what's the rope signal for "give me some effin slack so I can retie above the torn rope?"

Yeah good luck on that! lol Guess if you noticed it before he pulled up the slack you could have clove hitched a length off to the anchor then retied in past the cut, but if not you're screwed without walkie talkies

Whistles work really great. I have gotten in the habit of taking them on multi-pitch climbs. They aren't bulky, battery dependent, and work really well in wind.

stredna wrote:when the rope comes tight, start climbing. (ok maybe wait 20 seconds for them to hook up belay device and lock biner).

I second the 3 tugs method. Eldo is frequently windy, the creek makes a ton of white noise, and the nature of the tiered rock makes communication extremely difficult. Do not just guess, wait for the leader to give 3 LONG and SPACED tugs so that there is no doubt that you are on belay before you start climbing. I always make sure my second understands this if we haven't roped up before. I also give 2 initial tugs to let them know that it is ok to take me off belay, so they have time to clean the lower anchor.

Walkie Talkies suck. Don't rely on technology to help you out especially when it's not needed.

Come up with a commuication set of signals before your partner leaves the ground then stick with the plan.....

Oh and Whistles will confuse for some one lost and in need of a rescue

+1 for the three tugs method.

I go with the 3 tugs method. Usually works, except this one time, I was trying to figure out the number of tugs to signal "I just kicked open a bee hive. You're f*cked cleaning this route."

(I ended up getting stung twice, partner got 25ish)

Price wrote:I go with the 3 tugs method. Usually works, except this one time, I was trying to figure out the number of tugs to signal "I just kicked open a bee hive. You're f*cked cleaning this route." (I ended up getting stung twice, partner got 25ish)

Ok, what if you just stayed clipped in at the top of pitch two and untied your rope? It would probably freak your buddy out but he would figure it out.

Rope tugs don't work anywhere the rock has friction, aka Red Rock. Have a plan beforehand for communication. Clear, simple communication is paramount for multipitch climbing - much like any relationship. I can't count the amount of couples I've seen trying to have a conversation from 40m away. Doesn't work. If you need to communicate something more than two words, you're on your own. If you persist in trying to talk to a partner who can't hear you, get divorced.(for your own sake, as well as everyone climbing around you...)
If you can't hear your partner say "off belay", keep paying out rope til there isn't any more. Then take them off. If the rope comes tight, start climbing in 30 seconds. If the rope doesn't keep coming tight, wait until it does. Simple. If it take more than 30 seconds to put your second on belay, practice more on single pitch routes with less ambient noise.
If your rope is hit by a falling rock and coreshot, you will have to figure out how to deal, in ways mentioned above. If you haven't been paying attention to the condition of your rope and all of a sudden notice there's a coreshot, take up a different hobby, like knitting. not to put knitting down in any way - it takes more talent than I have...

Leader tugs, 2 off,3 on, and radios. Never had both fail. Plus side you get to listen to the idiots two routes over, argue on channel 2.

jarthur wrote: We combined the 1st and 2nd pitches into one to conserve time.