Roped solo

Regarding number three, here is an interesting bit on Colin Haley's solo antics in Patagonia from his blog; hope you find it useful.
colinhaley.blogspot.com/sea…

Kevin Stricker wrote:Problem with an unmodified grigri is that it works too well, and you have to have equal weight of rope on each side of the device to keep it from locking up. It may not be a problem with a 8.1

I learned the problem with a thin rope is the opposite; it does not lock reliably. The grigri needs to have some resistance on the brake side to engage the cam. This becomes more evident with skinny rope. I tried a 1/2 twist and clipped it into the gri's locker, on the brake side. With the 8.1, on a Gri-2, it seems to work well. It pulls up without a great deal of resistance (off the anchor) and yet, has enough resistance on the brake side to engage with a hard, quick pull on the anchor side.

I hope to test it by falling through some slack while simultaneously being belayed by my partner on TR, as a b/u.

Kevin Stricker wrote: ...but really man you need to do some training and bring a real rope.

Not sure what type of training you're suggesting. For alpine routes with long approaches, weight is paramount, even in summer. For example, we did the Chicago Basin 14ers in under 20 hours from the Purgatory TH last September (42 miles / 12,400 verts RT) - which required going light. I want to go back in and get Sunlight Spire in a day. It's a 14,000 foot peak with a one or two pitch hand crack. I love endurance and distant or obscure areas. My 10.3 workhorse weighs three pounds more than the 8.1. Three pounds is huge doing this kind of stuff.

Chris Plesko wrote: Jim, Just curious, what is your history with soloing anything?

Chris, I did a lot of roped solo stuff in 1998 and 1999 while working a set of projects on a 500 foot granite dome. Haven't solo'd much hard stuff recently, but would like to come up with a reasonable method for alpine fifth class.

Chris Plesko wrote:If you're rope soloed a lot before then forgive me.

No worries, Chris. I appreciate you and Kevin's and Nick's and the other posters' helpful responses.

-Jim

(Edit: Edited on 6-8-11 because it was too long.)

Anyone have experience with the Faders SUM belay device? Supposedly an auto-lock belay device more reliable than the gri, especially for smaller ropes.

fixeclimbing.com/en/index.p…

(Obviously, you know what I'm thinking here... : )