How do you handle a stuck rope on rappel?

can i also add, be cognizant of the potential for falling rock. if you pull the stuck rope, you may dislodge a boulder. position yourself out of harm's way if possible. pull from the side or under a ledge or alcove.

flykatcher wrote:can i also add, be cognizant of the potential for falling rock. if you pull the stuck rope, you may dislodge a boulder. position yourself out of harm's way if possible. pull from the side or under a ledge or alcove.

^^^ This... be very careful if you yard on the fucker. Check the comments for moby grape on cannon

a good tip to not getting a stuck rope in the first place...

1) use a euro death knot

2) when the rope feels like is just about to go and there is no more weight in it, get ready and all at once you can reach super high with one hand and yank down as hard as you can and do the same thing with other hand so you make the rope go so fast through the chains or tree rings or what ever, the rope will jump away from the wall and not get stuck unless you are on something really low angle like cathederal peak or something...

hope that helps?

"I would not trust a prussik to catch a fall at all, they're really not intended for dynamic loading situations like that. Would probably just melt the prussik and/or rope".

What! Do some research into it before saying something that couldnt be more wrong. Rope rescue systems in industry and the mountains rely on Prussiks to catch falls. Not just little falls but two man load falls. Aside from a few mechanical devices, Prussiks are the only thing that can be relied on to catch large load falls. At least you were right about one thing, the prussik will melt sometimes dependind on the forces. The Prussik acts like a clutch, it doesnt have a hard catch. It slips a little which dissipates the forces.and yes in this slipping there is melting.
Look up tandem prussik belay.

Brad - I'd never heard of it, but from what i'm seeing of it, the tandem prussik belay is used as a backup for the main line in a top-down rescue sutuation. It's essentially a top-rope belay.

Larry S wrote:Brad - I'd never heard of it, but from what i'm seeing of it, the tandem prussik belay is used as a backup for the main line in a top-down rescue sutuation. It's essentially a top-rope belay.

Larry you are right but dont make the assumption that it is only limited to top rope belay. It is there as the back up to a main line failure. The reason you are seeing that is because that it is more than often the scenario when it comes to industrial rescue. Another place that it is used is in Highlines (think Tyrolean Traverse). When used for rescue purposes the system is subjected to huge loads. Think about when you are building and anchor, we ideally want the angle between your anchor points to be less than 90 degrees, so that the load going to each anchor does not exceed the actual load. Now picture a highline, theoretically its 180 degress between anchors but realistically its less (to reduce the forces), so imagine the forces going to the anchors at 180 degress. So if the main line was to fail with a two person load and needs to be caught with a back-up system (belay), guess what they use? Tandem Prussik belay!
I can assure you that prussiks are more than up for the task of catching a dynamic fall!

rgold wrote:If there is a possibility of placing protection periodically on a line that ascends to the rappel point, then the "inchworm" technique allows a climber to do this with a belay from below, even though the amount of rope available is limited. The price paid is that the leader in this situation will periodically have to change his or her tie-in point. Here's what you do. 1. Move the belayer as high as possible and pull down all the slack. The leader clips in (two lockers gates reversed) to a figure-eight on bight---the rope from the leader's knot to the stuck point above is nearly taut; the belayer has control of all the available slack. 2. The leader leads and places pro normally. As this happens, the belayer is paying out slack and a loop of slack is also forming in front of the leader. Sometime before all the slack has been used up, the leader stops (possibly hanging from pro), ties a new figure-eight in the rope in front of him or her so that the rope from the knot to the stuck point has no slack in it, clips in to the new figure eight and unclips the old one and unties it, thereby releasing below the slack that had accumulated in the rope above. The belayer hastily reels in the newly created slack and the leader sets off again. 3. Repeat step 2 as many times as necessary. Of course the leader can also be running a prusik on the stuck rope and can be prussiking on the stuck rope for some or all of the time rather than climbing the rock. If four carabiners (preferably lockers) are available for the leader, then the knot transfer can be done without having to remove the old knot from the same biners the new knot has been clipped to. The technique is increasing efficient the more slack is initially available, i.e. the more rope had been pulled down before it got stuck. If the rappel hung with not much rope pulled down, then the leader will have to stop and retie frequently. However, this only has to be done until the other end can be reached; after that the leader can safely prussik on both strands.

I learned something very useful from Rgold here, seems to be a common trend in most of his posts. I've been contemplating what size tag line to buy for next season. I'm looking at either something very small like a 5-6mm static or something just big enough to be rated as a single (7.8-8.2 dynamic). Not to thread jack, but obvious trade off is sticking the lead line and having to do the above shenanigans with with a 6mm static line seems terrible for the weight savings. of having a 7.8 or something line that would be acceptable to lead back up the route.

Thoughts?

what i REALLY want to figure out is if a kleimheist/hedden on a nylon sling can be used to catch a dynamic fall

realistically may of us no longer carry cords, we just use slings if we need self rescue, especially on multipitch sport

now people say that a kleimheist one grips in one direction, but if you pull it the other way its a hedden ... so thats kinda bunk IMO

and the hedden is one of the better gripping knots out there ...

im willing to test it out but since i have no scientific equipment or steel weights/rescue dummies ... itll be me taking the whippers on some sport climb once those areas dries out and all anecdotal

JeffL wrote: I learned something very useful from Rgold here, seems to be a common trend in most of his posts. I've been contemplating what size tag line to buy for next season. I'm looking at either something very small like a 5-6mm static or something just big enough to be rated as a single (7.8-8.2 dynamic). Not to thread jack, but obvious trade off is sticking the lead line and having to do the above shenanigans with with a 6mm static line seems terrible for the weight savings. of having a 7.8 or something line that would be acceptable to lead back up the route. Thoughts?

~8mm half rope

5-6 mm tangles very easily when puling and gets caught more

unless you REALLY need the weight savings a thin half rope as a tag line gives you a margin of safety ... and you can use it as a double with a thin single on those wandering pitches

just remember theres much less friction, so if yr belaying on it alone use two opposed biners at the ATC

;)

;)

I freak the fuck out. I start off by swearing and frantically tugging at the rope in random directions until I feel it get really tight and definately stuck. Then, I berate my partner for being a sport wanker who has no business doing any real climbing anyway. After that I typically start smoking bowls as I continue to swear and pass judgement of how stupid the situation is. Next comes the tears. I will cry for about 3-5 minutes and around this time the sun is starting to set. Lastly, after the smoke clears my mind, I decide that the reason it won't pull is because I never took the rope out of my rappel device.

One thing you can try is to change the angle you are pulling from, by traversing across the ledge. Also, sometimes, especially in high winds the rope will pull through the anchors and get hung up on something as the tail falls. In this case you can relead to somewhere above the spot where the rope is hung up.

Most of the time if the rope get hung up before the other tail pulls through the chains, it did not travel far and you can prussik up both lines.

I climb in the southwest during wind season, so I know about unruly ropes.

As a last resort and I have never done it, but you can always cut the rope if you have to and use what is left to make short rappels. I carry a small razor blade wrapped in electrical tape, inside my chalk bag.

I switched to the hedden from the klemheist in the late 80s after reading in the Ontario Rock Climbing Association manual that it’s just as easy to set up as the klemheist and a lot easier than the prusik, and that it grabs as well as, and is easier to loosen than both (and confirming all that for myself, at least for simple body weight loading). I had forgotten the name (kept calling it the "inverted klemheist") and rediscovered it a couple of years back. Comparatively, it’s also quite recently that I first came across a statement saying that the klemheist is a unidirectional hitch but since then, I have seen that written even in otherwise good manuals and have heard it said on several occasion by very categorical people. I find those statements quite funny.

While I love the hedden for ascending the rope and for rappel back-ups, I have found that it’s not so great in hauling systems. In my experience, the heavier loads generated on the primary hauling hitch make the hedden more likely to cross and bind itself, making it fiddly to loosen and move. I’ve also found that it often does not work very well with prusik-minding pulleys. For the occasional hauling practice, I ditch the hedden for the prusik but in everyday climbing uses, the hedden remains my go-to hitch. However, the binding under high loads would suggest that it's probably not ideal for protecting dynamic falls, if only because it may be quite hard to loosen again.

Wow. Good discussion and shows me what I need to learn. I'm new and haven't had this misfourtane yet.

I found a nice guide to the euro death knot here.

animatedknots.com/flatoverh…

What I'm confused about is the description says the long tails are needed so wouldn't that defeat the whole point of using this to avoid getting snags.

Carl Martin wrote:Wow. Good discussion and shows me what I need to learn. I'm new and haven't had this misfourtane yet. I found a nice guide to the euro death knot here. animatedknots.com/flatoverh… What I'm confused about is the description says the long tails are needed so wouldn't that defeat the whole point of using this to avoid getting snags.

Nope. The knot still lies flat, and has the lowest profile of any safe knot for joining ropes.

Bill M wrote: As a last resort and I have never done it, but you can always cut the rope if you have to and use what is left to make short rappels. I carry a small razor blade wrapped in electrical tape, inside my chalk bag.

It's a shitty situation that causes you to chop the rope. But it's a possibility, and one reason I carry a pocket knife when doing long climbs. Just hope you've got a decent amount down by that point.

bearbreeder wrote: could always use more wraps if youre worried ...

climbing friend,

that is what she would be saying