Looking for feedback on self rescue 'how-to' videos

I'm creating a number of how-to videos for my students that take advanced mountaineering courses with my school. The vids are designed so students can brush up on certain skills before coming to the course. Hopefully the general public will be able to bolster their risk management with these important tools as well....

Any feedback from folks that already know these skills well will be appreciated!

Thanks,
Josh

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChadVGrq5B1DvOnvN4sb4QA/videos

P.S. Please hold back on comments regarding 50 different ways to achieve the same thing :-)

They strike me as high-quality teaching tools.

Tying a Munter Mule Overhand (MMO): The mid-video reading seemed an informative twist. At the same time, I was a little distracted to find terminology that had no meaning to me - the words 'bridge' and 'baseline'. Maybe there is a more commonly understood example of when one doesn't want the slack?

Releasing a Weighted Petzl Reverso: Here, the munter was also tied without it later needing to flip. Very smooth to use. Perhaps this is the opportunity to show it tied so it has to flip in a disconcerting way?

Just some thoughts. Overall - nice and I like the repetition.

Maybe I'm slow, but it took me a bit to understand that the grigri/carabiners were simply there to represent a weighted strand. I'd suggest using something that isn't a belay device, just for simplicity.

Other than that, seemed clear to me.

You could improve on the grammar of the addendum in the MMO video. The addendum contains a huge run on sentence, which is a bit hard to read. In addition, I read the addendum three times but I still do not understand why the Munter should not flip. When a climber is belaying with a Munter, it will always flip as the climber feeds slack in and back out. I have had the Munter flip on me many times and I have not encountered any issues with it doing so, aside from the obvious annoyances. Can you clarify?

Also, if you are trying to demonstrate how to mule off a loaded Munter, you should use a real load. It is easy to mule off a Munter when there is not a real load on it, but when a person is hanging on it the mule process is much harder.

I have two issues. the first was stated by 20Kn in regards to the Munter not being able to flip. That is something that naturally happens with that hitch when using it as a belay and should be known and understood by the person using it.
My second issue is how set it up. I use this set up on a wall to tie off my haul bags and it works perfect to tie them off as well as having them set up for and easy lower out. the problem is those loads are heavy and im not going to use the weighted side to tie my Munter. I use the slack end and allow it to lower itself, flipping the hitch and then finish with the Mule Overhand.
This is a great video but your instructions are implying, in my opinion, that setting it up of the slack end is wrong and it will fail. perhaps show that it works either way.

To load or not to load ...

Every time I've tied a munter, including when somehow dealing with a real load, that part of the rope is not weighted ... just as in the video about releasing a weighted Petzl Reverso. So it seems for me that one should always be able to tie it in the manner prescribed in the video. That said, I can see Ian's point about tying off a haul bag. But in that case, it doesn't matter if slack is introduced by the munter flipping. The video is focusing on cases when introducing slack is undesirable.

Tying a mule while the munter is loaded assumes the munter was already being used to hold a load. This does happen frequently in self-rescue actions and warrants more discussion than in these videos. At the same time, doing so without the munter being loaded is a good starting point for a beginner. So the vid could mention that tying the mule with the munter actually loaded requires additional care which should be practiced before betting a life on it.

Are you assuming that most of the rescue situations would be in glaciated low to moderate snow/ice environments? Then the methods in the video #2 may work. Otherwise, anyone who ever had to lower off a plaquette device knows that it's not that easy. Just because the manufacturer says you can use a biner to flip the device, it doesn't make it that simple in practice. To flip a loaded device sometimes you'd need to use a sling and you MUST redirect the braking strand. There was an accident in the Gunks couple years ago when someone was accidentally dropped while lowering off a plaquette device. I think it was written up in the Rock & Ice.

I'm a strong believer that you should always have a third hand autoblock back up when lowering your second. This would be more feasible if you re-directed the brake strand through the shelf instead of a munter hitch off your harness.

Thanks for all the useful food for thought on this, it's been great to hear everyone's comments!

Maybe it should be more clear in the actual video, but the description on YouTube (under the video) clearly states that the MMO is intended for self rescue applications (not for mooring pigs, belaying, etc):

"Marisol demonstrates how to tie a MMO that is ready (oriented/flipped towards the load) to be used as a component in many self rescue applications. To see the application of the MMO in rescue scenarios, check out the other videos on the SIET channel."

It also states that the SIET channel has (and will have more!) videos on how to apply this style of tying an MMO in rescue scenarios.

@ 20 KN: You're correct...when using the Munter to belay it's natural for it to flip back and forrth. But when setting it up to transfer a load onto the MMO, it ideally should not flip as it takes the load. Does the above clear up your questions about the flipping being an issue? And the grammar...old habits die hard, thanks for noting it :-)

@ Ian C: Did Bill's comment answer your question? In every rescue system that I use, the rope that you're tying the Munter with is not loaded until the Munter is tied.

@ doligo and Daniel E: Yes, lowering with a 'biner in the eye whole doesn't always work. And yes, redirecting the break strand is a great way to give more control to your released Reverso. And a third-hand would be an important part of the system if you did it that way. However, if you try doing it the way we demonstrated in the video, you'll find there is sooo much friction still in the Reverso that you can easily lower in a controlled manner. Plus, you can lock the system up again by standing up/ leaning forward. There is enough redundancy in the system (and friction!) that it makes it akin to lowering someone in a TR scenario, and we don't use third hands for that.

Regarding the Releasing a Petzl Reverso video, I've been teaching this system for many years with live loads and have had great success. I'd encourage y'all to give it a whirl in a low consequence scenario (ie, the follower less than a meter of the deck).

Everyone that noted using a real load to demo- great point! I'll try to do so for future vids. No doubt that it's harder to do any of these self rescue tricks in the vertical with a heavy load.

Anything else regarding these techniques in rescue scenarios?

Thanks again!

Josh Beckner wrote:However, if you try doing it the way we demonstrated in the video, you'll find there is sooo much friction still in the Reverso that you can easily lower in a controlled manner. Plus, you can lock the system up again by standing up/ leaning forward. There is enough redundancy in the system (and friction!) that it makes it akin to lowering someone in a TR scenario, and we don't use third hands for that.

Agreed. And thanks for summing things up!

it doesnt really matter with which strand you tie the munter IMO ... as you can easily give it a tug on the load strand to "flip" it before tying the mule

its interesting that you long release the autoblock by clipping through the biner and not with a sling through the eye, as shown by BD ... not that it matters with a munter in the system

as to practicing under load ... i agree with the others .. all these scenarios are best practiced with at minimum someone leaning into the rope ... keeping control of the rope in the transitions is absolutely important safety wise, and you need to be able to tie and release the mule and various other things with weight in the system ... it makes a big difference and makes people more conscious of doing it "right" ... just use a backup rope to protect the "victim"

practicing it on rainy days doesnt hurt either as you might be cold, wet, tired and hungry when you need this stuff ... and it presents a "worse" case scenario



;)

But when setting it up to transfer a load onto the MMO, it ideally should not flip as it takes the load. Does the above clear up your questions about the flipping being an issue?

Unfortunately not because you have not clearly explained why it is an issue. You tried to explain it in the video, but I did not find the wording to be clear enough to understand your point of view. Maybe try to say it simply: "The climber should not allow the MMO to flip because the extra slack introduced in the system will result in _____."

While I dont find it to be a big deal for a bodyweight-only application, I felt that you left out a somewhat important part. The climber should orientate the load strand of the MMO along the spine of the carabiner. If the MMO is orientated otherwise, the load strand will load the carabiner closer to the gate which will cause the biner's strength to dip well below its rating.

I teach this stuff regularly, and I think it's awkward to teach a student to tie a munter on the load line. If it is loaded it almost impossible to do it that way. I believe the best way to tie a munter hitch put the load line thru the carabiner, then pull it taught to the applied load, then add the half hitch and twist. The mule 'bridge' needs to capture the load and brake strands. That said there are many ways to tie a munter mule overhand hitch and achieve the desired effect.

As far as the reverso video goes, I'm always weary of teaching a skill that is not recommended by the equipment manufacturer. I would put the sling in the release hole and not on the carabiner. More leverage might make it easier to release.

20kn: as far as the load on the spine side of the carabiner, with 'sport loads' and skinny ropes it's not a big deal and the gear is plenty strong. With full on resuce loads (think NFPA/ fire service) it is more important. The load is generally going to creep to the spine side anyway.

The videos are a neat idea, and I think it is implied that certain context is required for comprehension. Keep up the good work.

20 kN wrote:The climber should not allow the MMO to flip because the extra slack introduced in the system will result in _____.

I suspect that is already in the text-shot in the video. But I can't translate as I didn't understand the meaning of some of the words.

In many circumstances where you have a choice, it's at least an attention-to-detail thing that can help things go more smoothly.

I recall once sitting on a flat cliff top getting ready for rappel where this would have been much preferred. I rigged an MMO on my belay loop, climbed over the edge until everything became nicely loaded. The release of the mule triggered a significant jolt to the system as the munter flipped over.

Below is another case where the slack is undesirable. Imagine that you are passing a knot while lowering someone on two joined ropes. Reason for two joined ropes could be they are injured and need to be lowered directly to the ground rather than at an intermediate rap anchor (none?).

a) stop lowering when knot gets 'close' to belay device;
b) with a loop of cord, attach a prusik to the load line (later on, it will temporarily take the load);
c) attach the other end of the loop of cord to an anchor higher up with a load-releasable knot/hitch;
c) lower a bit more until the prusik is loaded (with care, the knot hasn't loaded tight against the belay device);
d) tie an MMO in the brake strand on the side of the knot away from the belay device, attaching it to an anchor point above (it will be used to complete the remaining lower);
e) remove the initial belay device;
f) at the anchor, slowly release the prusik cord until the MMO is loaded.

(For clarity, I've left out tying a backup knot after 'b'.)

At the start of 'f', some slack is already there between the MMO and the prusik from removing the belay device. More is there because the MMO likely wasn't attached to the anchor in a way that caused that section to be taught (can't remove the initial belay device if the system is taught). If the munter then flips as it is loaded, the introduced slack (8 inches?) can insure it is impossible to simply reach down and remove the prusik cord from the load strand.

Edit to add: I suspect the munter often won't fully flip because the mule is present. And so maybe not so much slack will be introduced as it tightents down. I think the important general principal to avoid difficulty is to minimize any slack that might be introduced. There are probably more cases where inches matter.

Thanks again, everyone, for the feedback. It's been made abundantly clear that there is confusion regarding the importance I place on not letting the munter flip when tying the MMO. That's great to know! I will indeed make videos in the near future that demonstrate why this is important, that should add more context.

But for now, I'll just say that letting the munter flip and introducing slack in the system when transferring loads can have negative results. See more below if you are interested in some examples....

Bill Lawry posted a perfect example of why the munter flipping would introduce undesirable slack (the knot pass scenario, Nov 4). In the knot pass scenario, it is difficult to keep your bridge (see video example below) from getting away from your reach. There are many things that can give you this undesirable result and the munter flipping can be part of it. Thanks for taking the time to describe this, Bill.

As I said, these skills are mostly for my students that take my advanced mountaineering courses in Peru. In the rescue scenarios that I teach down there, we are aiming for professional level self rescue skills- as clean as possible. And the way I teach it, loosing slack from munters flipping can make a big difference.

Here's an example of a 'bridge.' Do folks know any other term for this? It seems that the term has also added confusion to this thread....

youtube.com/watch?v=5JASB_U…

This 'bridge' is what Bill is describing in step C in the knot pass scenario.

And....

@ bearbreeder: Yes, it doesn't always matter which way you tie the munter when making an MMO. You can flip it before tying the mule, but you might have to suck up the slack into the munter before tying the mule so you don't lose 'ground' when you go to load it. Also, regarding the Reverso, I've had better luck releasing with the blocker biner instead of the eye hole because the eyehole will sometimes twist the Reverso at a funny angle, especially if you're going to lower for tens of meters. Different strokes for different folks....

@20kN Did Bill answer your question this time? That is, the prusik in the bridge may get away from you and/or your load may be lowered a few extra inches as the munter flips. If you're rescuing someone that has their knee stuck in an OW, every inch counts as you make your load transfers. Maybe future vids will demonstrate this better. Also, it's not longer an issue in self rescue scenarios to load the biner on the gate side. It's more important that the break strand doesn't brush past the gate and unlock it. Check out this recent thread (Nov 3) mountainproject.com/v/tech-…

@Matt S: I like that style of teaching the MMO as well. And thanks for the note about the MMO not having enough context- it's coming, I swear!

One last note: I've seen people tie the munter so it has to flip when weighted and it ends up flipping sort of up the spine of the biner, sort of into a twist on the spine, and then the mule locks it up there...hard to explain in words. It's a real pain in the ass to sort out and in practice, some folks haven't been able to release the twisted up MMO. I think I've only seen it on modified Ds, not pear shaped biners. And I think I've only seen it twice in the past 15 years. Has anyone else seen this? It's another reason I like to have the munter flipped before loading it.

Thanks again for all the feedback- it's great to have this community resource so accessible!

I'll agree that in a bodyweight only scenario, the munter orientation doesn't matter. But once you get into scenarios in which the biner may need to hold a fall, I would take the time to make sure the load is aligned with the spine. Consider the following photos of steel carabiners mostly. All carabiners failed in the closed gate position, they all failed at 25% of their advertised rating or less and they all experienced the load orientated close to the gate.

The third photo with the purple round sling is a textbook example of traxial loading. ;)

Thanks for all the effort to air this out, Josh and everyone.

"Bridge" seems like a fine name. I have not heard it used in the self-rescue book I have. At the same time, a general name could be helpful and "bridge" seems appropriate to me.

I've seen many struggle with cleanly passing a knot while lowering, myself included. The one I've seen do best lived on a sailboat many years of his life and so already had deep experience in the area of knots and hitches. Also, the small subtleties of self-rescue in general take experience to learn. Indeed, sometimes it is not obvious when to use one technique over another. So I agree with many that annual practice is a good idea - maybe not covering every technique each year but perhaps focus on one technique that needs it.

Another technique I don't feel competent about is raising my partner with a mechanical advantage ... which would be needed if, say, I inadvertently loaded the knot against the belay device in 'c' - my second 'c' (blush). Perhaps we'll practice that some more this winter.

P.S. 20kN, those are some sobering pictures. And, you probably know, what you are emphasizing also applies to the clove hitch.

Bill Lawry wrote:...Another technique I don't feel competent about is raising my partner with a mechanical advantage ...

Bill - I recently rendered this cheat sheet for teaching different hauling setups. It helps some people to see them all laid out in the same format. Practice:

Thank you for posting that, Gregger. It will be useful.

folks ... lets start from the top ...

1. a locked carabiner will NOT break in normal climbing usage with a munter hitch no matter which way its tied ...

remember that a munter slips

as you can see below even with 400N of hand force the munter slips at less than 3 kn ... you will NOT get forces that exceed the biner breaking strength in a real world belay scenario, even with an xloaded biner ... remember there have been NO documented cases of a cross loaded biner being broken that we know off in a REAL recreational climbing BELAY situation, we went through all this in the "gridlock" discussion a while back ... you will get burned hands on a munter before it breaks the biner ...

2. it doesnt matter which way you tie the clove hich ... it will NOT break the carabiner in a real world climbing scenario ... PCGI tested this at the Yates facilities awhile back ...

as we all know, a munter is basically half a clove hitch (which is the german name "Halbmastwurfsicherung"), with alot more slip ... you simply wont break a biner with it in a real world climbing scenario ...

climbingguidesinstitute.org…



3. the DAV and bergundsteigen (journal of mountain risk management) does not recommend belaying with the biner where the gate faces the brake hand ... which in this case means that they recommend the load strand NOT be along the spine





4. if you want to convert to a monster munter, youll need to have the load NOT on the spine ... unless you use a Zuper Munter ...



in short ... tie the munter with the load facing the carabiner gate ... its the way those crazy germans do it anyways ... and theyve probably done more testing than anyone else ... otherwise theyd be scrapping off the meat off the floor of those DAV gyms to make climber sausage

;)

Gregger Man wrote: Bill - I recently rendered this cheat sheet for teaching different hauling setups. It helps some people to see them all laid out in the same format. Practice:

My experience trying out different hauling systems is that the complex systems that require adding a length of cord or webbing to achieve the mechanical advantage (6:1; 5:1; etc.) are best avoided in situations of vertical rescue of one climber by another and that one is best to stick with simple systems that use only the rope in addition to the pulleys and rope-grabbing systems.

I came up with the term Effective pulling distance because I never saw another term used for this. If there is one, I’d love to hear it. Essentially, it means how long you can pull/haul on your system before you reach its end, at which point you must let the load settle onto the locking mechanism in order to re-extend the system by repositioning the primary haul prusik further down the loaded rope. I feel that effective pulling distance is a critical aspect of hauling systems and yet, it does not seem to ever be mentioned in instructional material on different hauling systems.

To have an efficient hauling system, you must have the best possible ratio of height gained with each pulling sequence to height lost each time you let the load settle. Of course you can improve the ratio by using mechanical rope-grabbing systems that minimize height lost to settling (e.g. using tiblocs & microtraxion instead of stretchy prusiks), but your best bet to improve efficiency is to make sure each pulling sequence gains a lot of height. One way to do that is to set the primary haul prusik far from the main anchor and top locking mechanism but in a vertical self-rescue situation, that may not be doable (at least, not without a fair bit of difficulty). The other way is by using a hauling system that lets you pull a long way before having to reset.

The Z 3:1 lets you pull until your primary haul prusik is all the way up to your main anchor, giving you the longest effective pulling distance. The extra cords introduced in complex systems drastically cut back on your effective pulling distance. On top of that, their higher mechanical advantage mean that your pulling translates as shorter heights raised. These two effects combine to greatly reduce your raising-to-settling ratio, making these systems very inefficient at best and completely ineffectual at worst.

I expect that these complex systems work OK for large organized rescues or horizontal (crevasse-type) rescue scenarios, which, I guess, is why they find their way into all the books. In those scenarios, you can often reset your primary haul prusik on the loaded rope quite far from the main anchor. I can imagine as well that, if you have high-efficiency rescue pulleys in your system and two or more people pulling, you’ll want to be quite wary of how much force you’re going to apply to the loaded rope and might, therefore, prefer a 5:1 or 6:1 to the "Z pulling on a Z" for a 9:1 advantage.

In vertical self-rescue scenarios, in addition to likely being limited in how far down the loaded rope you can reasonably set your primary haul prusik, you’re very unlikely to have high-efficiency pulleys so your real mechanical advantage isn’t going to be anywhere near the theoretical one; and if you're on your own to operate the system, you will be quite unable to achieve particularly high forces. Therefore there should be no issue with using a 9:1 and that system has an effective pulling distance that is far better than the complex systems and only slightly poorer than the Z 3:1.

In short, I feel that in vertical self-rescue situations, a Z 3:1 will generally be the best option and that, if a higher mechanical advantage is absolutely needed, rather than risk wasting time building an ineffective 5 or 6:1, it’s best to go straight for the 9:1.