A Semi Useless (but cool) Big Wall Tip

Max Jones and I recently climbed the Atlantic Ocean Wall on El Capitan. It’s a great route that, since the bottom five pitches have fallen off a few times, now starts on a ledge at the end of the El Cap Tree route. The first pitch climbs straight up to the Iron Hawk Roof where Iron Hawk exits the roof to the right, The AO, to the left.
The pitch up to the roof is only 110 feet long and the next one traverses left for 45 feet, climbs almost horizontally out the roof for 25 feet and diagonally up to the anchor for about 25 feet, all in all not gaining too much height.
The straight-line distance from the ledge near the El Cap Tree to the top of the pitch above the roof is only 140 or 150 feet. Never wanting to haul more times than we have to, Max and I hung the haul bags on the anchor via a Petzl Fifi Hook (never use any other fifi hook for this purpose, they are simply not designed to do it safely) and planned to haul the bags off the anchor from above the roof. That plan worked perfectly but when Max left the lower anchor he had brought up a bunch of stuff, a rope bag, a water bottle, a warm belay jacket, that I didn’t want to carry while cleaning the awkward roof pitch. I had control of the haul line while he was leading the roof pitch and was trying to figure out a way that I could attach the junk to it. Our 2:1 hauling system makes it easy to pass a knot but I wanted to figure out a way to avoid even tying a knot.
Most climbers are aware of a Prussic knot or it’s one way version, the Klemheist but I’m sure most don’t realize that those knots can be tied effectively and safely using the new, modern thin webbing slings that most climbers carry. My solution was to tie a Klemheist knot onto the haul line, clip the gear I didn’t want to carry onto it and simply let it go when Max pulled the haul line tight. The knot would ride up the rope till it got to Max and his hauling rig, where he would simply untie it, clip the junk to the anchor and keep hauling.
Like I previously mentioned, with our 2:1 system, passing and therefore untying a knot would have been easy but had we been hauling 1:1 passing a knot would have been considerably more problematic.

This tip is fairly useless but I can imagine a few circumstances where it would come in handy.
Imagine if the leader were most of the way to the anchor and desperately needed water or a rain coat or food or some extra piece of gear to make the anchor completely safe and there was not enough rope available to tag it up. The second could attach the items to the haul line with a sling Prussic or Klemheist and the leader would eventually get the items. The items might not arrive too much ahead of the haul bags, but at times on a wall, every little bit helps.

Good tip, thanks! And Happy belated birthday.

Thanks Mark

Thanks, Mark!

As with many things in climbing, this is one of those scenarios that is straightforward and "obvious," but only after someone brings it to my attention.

Cool stuff, as usual.

Ryan Nevius wrote:As with many things in climbing, this is one of those scenarios that is straightforward and "obvious," but only after someone brings it to my attention.

Mark,

Cool thought, that is a great friction knot with a ton of uses.

Do you climb EC routes with only 2 ropes?

Man, I always bring at least 3, 4 or 5 if it is gonna be an adventure. You can tag for hundreds of feet :)

Back in the day we used to take three. Now though, only two.

The weight of gear these days, the length of the pitches on most routes, and the length of the ropes we climb with these days, doesn't justify the weight, bulk and hassle of another rope simply to tag with.

3, 4, or 5 ropes? Have you been climbing with PTPP? 2 seems to be standard these days.

Yer gonna die!

Ryan-

I tend to climb routes that are not well traveled.

Having had rockfall almost chop lead lines, haul lines get core shots and a multitude of other weird stuff happen, I have taken to a 12lb backup to ease my mind.

What are all of you guys going to do when your lead line gets the whack and you only have a static haul line left? Lead 100ft blocks?

12 lbs is a small price to pay for security.

Added weight of a tag line or better yet another lead line whilst aid climbing over 7 days should be a non issue.

On one route we lost 2 lead lines to coreshots, sure am glad we were rocking 5 that trip.

Cheers

I would figure it was more that you climb much less traveled routes than the rest of us, Mucci. I'd carry at least one extra rope. Hell, if a route was so loose that I needed five, I think I'd just stay away, I'm not that brave or adventurous.

Yeah, I guess I just get nervous with only 400 feet of rope. 200' of which is static.

Done a bunch of walls that way, but they were casual.