"single Hitch Belay Escape"

Hopefully, not getting off topic.

Most of the information on self-rescue out there has as its focus the training of aspirant guides etc. This means the assumption is often that it is the second that will need rescuing - as the guide will be the leader. For most of us this means it might be incorrectly focused, as, unless you knock some rocks on the second, it is much more likely that it is the leader who will be in trouble after taking a lead fall.

The assumption also seems to be that the second is only hurt whilst seconding the pitch and hence the rescuer is at the belay. This is possible, but as seconding normally takes less time, it is more likely they will be hit whilst the leader is on lead. (Often it is the leader who pulled the rocks/ice off anyhow.)

Hence the two key scenarios worth thinking about seem to me to be:

1. Rescuing the leader - this will mean the belay is being pulled upwards, not downwards, and the weight of the belayer is part of reason the wires don't pull from the wall. Hence, you might have to partly rebuild the belay, or keep your weight on the rope at all times via a prusik after you have escaped the system whilst you sort something out. This is one reason trad belays are often best if they are built to take an upwards force.

2. The leader being on lead and needing to rescue the second – who probably can’t use the belay device, or prusik.

This stuff seems to be less well covered than things like abseiling down a pair of joined ropes.

unless you can lower the leader back down or to a convenient ledge ... theres a very good chance youre screwed IMO unless you can get other climbing parties to help you

- if its a rope stretcher pitch and youre on a single rope ... youll need to ascend the rope as safely as possible

- if the climber falls past the belay after the first one/two pieces you may not have enough rope to reach the anchors of the last pitches on a counterbalance ...pray there are anchors or you can build them below

- if they get hurt on an overhang or traverse and cant be lowered back down to the anchors, youre screwed unless you can haul em back in or they can prussik up

of course having the leader trail a second rope or tag line simplifies all the above ... but realistically most parties wont bring a second rope unless its needed on rap

im definitely no expert, nor would i call myself even "proficient' under conditions ... but i practice this stuff more than any climber i climb with

and im not certain i could pull it off if it happens for real

the leader is often the most experienced climber of most of the parties i see ... while the second may have some knowledge and skills, often times people who second most of the pitches (not swapping leads) are doing to because they have less technical experience

realistically the best thing a second could do is learn some basic skills such as tying off, trying to lower the climber to a ledge or some other secure place ... and taking out the cell phone and calling 911 ... if the leader is truly incapacitated

if the leader still has use of some limbs and is of a sound mind, then you can still get down, but you dont want to make an injury worse because of "self sufficient" pride ...

the average climber wont be able to do very much else IMO ... nor do they in most accident reports we see

squamish might be the trad multipitch newbie area of north america ... youll see stacked belays all the time in summer on the popular routes ...

and most of those climbers ive talked to cant tie a munter or use a biner brake

So keeping with my original comments..........spray......

The first comments talk about the author of the article.....

I never spoke about the person whom found himself in a difficult situation......

No wonder so many people just do not respond to the stuff on this place......

If, well, just not worth it...

Given the placement of your post, no one could have figured out who you were referring to.

And my reply, which is entirely independent of what expert we were speaking about, stands.

I think that everything that needed to be said about the climbing.com technique has been said so I’d rather keep looking at the Jack Roberts accident. Like rgold, I feel that there are potential lessons to be gleaned from this tragedy. I can’t imagine that I would have done half as well as Jon in the same circumstances but hopefully, thinking it through with the benefit of hindsight and from the comfort of a chair will end up leaving a useful tool more readily accessible in the self-rescue toolbox.

Jon, I would normally be very reluctant to discuss something like this directly with the principal rescuer but you have shown an admirable willingness to help out other climbers by providing the original report and analysis and by replying to rgold’s post and I’m hoping that you will bear with further discussion with the same stoicism.

From what I pieced together of your texts, am I correct in assuming that the situation you were in could be schematically summarized as shown in the first diagram below? If that is correct, I can see that anchoring and rappelling on a single rope would have left the other one available to be retrieved, which would have provided enough rope to reach the ground. However, I’m thinking that if a similar situation occurred much higher up on a multipitch, it would be critical to retreive both ropes for further rappelling.

The option I’m thinking of would be to tie the two ropes together just above the main anchor, pass a single one of them through the anchor’s central point/quicklink, and knot the free ends for safety, exactly as one would for a rappel, as shown on the second diagram. Once the rescuer reached the victim, he could beef up the secondary anchor for the next rappel and (after comforting and assessing the victim) undo his knots and recover both ropes by pulling on the correct rope.

jktinst wrote: However, I’m thinking that if a similar situation occurred much higher up on a multipitch, it would be critical to retreive both ropes for further rappelling. The option I’m thinking of would be to tie the two ropes together just above the main anchor, pass a single one of them through the anchor’s central point/quicklink, and knot the free ends for safety, exactly as one would for a rappel, as shown on the second diagram. Once the rescuer reached the victim, he could beef up the secondary anchor for the next rappel and (after comforting and assessing the victim) undo his knots and recover both ropes by pulling on the correct rope.

Your first diagram is essentially correct. As for your second diagram and explanation, it took me a little bit to figure out what you where going for, but it would have worked. I would have needed to do a series of knot ties and unties to keep him anchored by me and not just his dubious anchor during the transitions, but it would have done job. You are the first person I have spoken to who has worked through it.

This would have worked in my scenario. The same could be done in other leader fall situation past the anchor with double ropes. This of course assumes that the free, or belayer, end reaches the fallen leader. Bloody brilliant. I wish I had thought of that at the time. Certainly something I am going to practice and have in my quiver in the future.

Jack's accident was the kind that we have always dreaded, but fortunately has proven to be very rare. It has left me shattered on a few levels, to this day. I feel it is important that I use it to learn from, and help others learn as well. It is good to be able to work through the situation with people, both online and in person. Especially when I learn something new.

The only downside is I'm not sure how well I'm going to sleep tonight. Not fair to me, but the mind works in annoying ways.

In all seriousness, thanks for working this solution out.

jon

the problem with the solution presented is that on rock you may well not have anchors near your fallen partner ... he might be on a blank face, especially if theres bit of a traversing start

rapping on both strands at the same time, you are limited to finding some sort of anchor right where your partner ends up, or before your knot hits the top piece should you have to counterbalance when you reach your partner ... if you dont youre stuck and youll need to prussik backup

this is not a criticism of the proposed solution ... but rather a warning that something that might work for ice or continuous crack trad where you can get in anchors fairly easily, may not be suitable for blanker slab or face climbs, or traversing ones where you may have no easy anchors within reach ...

Absolutely true.

I can’t remember ever before coming across the option of tying the two ropes together somewhere in their middle to do a rappel on their loose half while their remaining lengths remain threaded through the belay chain and attached to the injured leader. That’s why, when I thought about it, I thought "this is probably one for the self-rescue toolbox"; but yes, this will work only in certain circumstances. As rgold pointed out, pretty much every self-rescue scenario is a special circumstance. Some techniques can be applied in a variety of situations but assembling different techniques into an overall strategy is going to be done on case-by-case.

Regarding the sequence of weight transfers to keep the victim secured throughout, the rescuer already has to do some of those just to escape the belay. It should be possible for him to rig the belay-escape PMMO so as to be able to undo it once his own weight is on the rappel, which would keep the victim secure at all times and the weight transfer manœuvres to a minimum.

Since both counterbalanced rappelling and lowering have now been mentioned in this thread, I'd like to insert a note of caution. These references in the context of the Jack Roberts fall could be interpreted as suggesting doing those things right off of the single screw that stopped the fall and with no other intermediate pro between it and the 2-screw belay anchor, which is most likely not what the authors meant and which would not be advisable for obvious reasons. In the Loomis & Tyson, the CB rappel is discussed mainly in the context of an injured second, which means that the leader starts rappelling from a solid anchor. I think that the technique has its place in other circumstances but only if taking adequate precautions.

To take BB’s scenario to an extreme, in a situation where the leader is hanging incapacitated, off to the side and below the belayer, unseen, unreachable by lassoing the rope, on the 4th (or more) pitch up, etc. and, to top it all off, the belayer has serious doubts about being able to build a secondary anchor within close proximity of the victim, I would definitely not try the "knot and rappel" thing. I would go for the following counterbalanced rappelling option despite the jostling it may cause the victim.

First beef up the belay anchor, then climb and prusik up to the top pro, adding intermediate pros along the way (as additional lines of defence between myself and the main belay anchor, should the top pro pop). Up there, add 1 or 2 more pros to convert the top one to a solid rappel anchor. Then prusik back down to the belay anchor, recovering the intermediate pros along the way if it can be done quickly, set up the CB rappel just below the anchor, loosen the PMMO and recover the belay anchor pros as much as possible before heading down to rejoin the victim. This counterbalanced rappel procedure also has the advantage that it would work for a single rope.

As usual, when looking at a worst-case scenario, you end up with a more cumbersome procedure, which is why it's good to have shortcuts at your fingertips in the toolbox for the less extreme ones. Having said that, in this situation, the top fall-catching pro should really not be too far up the pitch and the return trip up to it and back to the belay should be fairly quick.

well as a "thought exercise" lets go through the needed judgement and skills required if your climber takes a high factor fall and end up below you

- can you communicate with the climber? ... is he coherent, how injured is he, do you trust his judgement (remember that people with head injuries may swear they are fine), etc ...

- if you can, are there any anchors there? .. is the climber mobile enough to help?, can they build anchor? can they see an anchor below?

- are you climbing on singles with a tag? or doubles? or are they twinned ... if they are twins you may have trouble separating the strands under load ... with a double where one strand hasnt been clipped in yet, you can use it to pull yourself to the climber on rap if they are off to the side ... if the tag line is clipped to a non structural part of the harness, you may have issues using it to pull yourself to your partner if theres a swing as that part could break

- how far down are they? are they directly below you? ... if so this simplifies things alot if you can reach the climber side strand as you can just transfer the load to the anchor and setup for a counterbalance off the anchor, do you know how to do this ... and are you practiced

- how strong are the top piece(s), do you trust them to a counterbalance? ... this all depends on how critical it is to get them down right away, if its serious you may just risk the counterbalance for speeds sake ... is your partner aware that hanging in the harness if incapacitated can result in death, are you?

- do you have the skills, materials and time to go up and beef up the top piece(s) ... youll need to escape the belay and prussik up and back down

- if yr using half or twin thin ropes, or a 7mm tag line ... do you know what friction knots will hold on sub -7-8mm ropes on a single strand? ... have you actually practiced these knots under load?

- since youre doing a belay escape do you know all the steps, do you practice them, if you miss a step in sequence you can screw yourself over ...

- you might well have minimal gear, plenty of folks only bring up slings and not prussiks ... do you know the mariners for slings ... how about using the sidetail if your sling/prussik is not long enough? ... theres a good chance in free climbing you wont have a big loop of cord and multiple prussiks that people always seem to have when practicing self rescue

- now lets assume you rap down on the one rope, get to your partner, set up a counterbalance, pull the other rope, go as far as you can and still havent reached good anchors ... youll need to join the ropes and do a counterbalance knot pass to use the second rope ... are you skilled on doing a knot pass, can you do it on a single 8mm strand with both climbers at stake under conditions

- lets say you manage to reach the next anchors and can setup raps normally ...but your partner is incapacitated so they cant unclip themselves and unweight their safety at each rap station ... have you set up a releasable rescue spider before hand so that you can just clip in when you get to the anchors ... and so you dont have to do some fancy lifting to unweight them ... do you know how?

- in a high factor fall theres a decent chance one rope strand was damaged .... if so youll need to isolate the damage and pass the knot with the weight of two climbers on rap ... or set up a single strand retrievable rap ... are you skilled and practiced at such?

theres tons of other stuff like first aid, proper gear (an incapacitated person can go hypothermic even in milder conditions), communications with rescuers, etc ...

and youll have to think and execute all of this under conditions with a hurt partner possibly when youre cold, tired, hungry, in the dark with the wind blowing

the skills alone may require

- tieing off a device
- releasable hitches
- belay escape
- counterbalance rap
- friction knots on possibly thin ropes
- passing a knot on a single strand rap
- adding friction on a single strand rap (ATC on a single 8mm aint the best)
- tandem rap with an incapacitated partner (rescue spider) with a releasable safety
- first aid

and thats if nothing goes wrong ...and im sure i missed some

and then theres the ability to make judgements about the speed vs. safety, which requires some medical judgement

you can see why i personally think that alot of people who practice self rescue once or twice a year wont have the ability to do very much

like anything else in climbing, you need to practice it over and over again in order to use it when it counts

Hi intrepid travelers,

Now what? is always an important question in rescue and not something that can be addressed in a two paragraph tech-tip. Spend one or two days with an expert learning and more importantly practicing these key self-rescue(and risk mitigation) techniques in an outdoor environment.

I'm offering a rescue clinic, one or two days in Boulder Canyon this upcoming weekend July 12 & 13 with room for a couple more climbers looking to hone their hazard analysis, risk management, and self-rescue skills. This course culminates in practice of a lead-climber rescue by the belayer, all realized in a trad cliff setting.

Detailed information on this self-rescue clinic on our website here .

And videos of self-rescue and other climbing systems are available on our other website climbinglife.com here .

Learn all of the rescue techniques taught on AMGA rock courses but tailored to the recreational audience on this two-day intensive course. The final rescue course dates for 2014 are August 9-10 also in Boulder Canyon.

Cheers and best wishes for a safe and super fun rock season this year!
Eli

bearbreeder wrote:Youd be surprised at the number of climbers who cant munter mule ... Or use a mariners Unless you practice it, theres a good chance youll forget how when the chips are down Hell ive had partners forget how to tie off a device in a releasable manner Most climbers dont have PRACTISED technical skills ... However many will think they know how after trying it once or twice ... Or watching it on youtube Who knows ;)

I was thinking about this recently. I used to be competent at escaping the belay, and the necessary knots, but it's been years since I've dedicated a full day to just working on that stuff. It's amazing how the knowledge disappears. And most of us don't regularly tie off belays enough to be competent at even that aspect.

Definitely worth dedicating a day or two a year to practising this stuff, plus some additional practice here and there.

Every time a leader or someone I'm top-roping takes a hang, I tie them off. As a result I can do it in a flash and literally blindfolded. (However, even though I'm technically "hands-free" I always keep my brake hand on the brake strand.)

Of course that doesn't address the huge additional number of self-rescue skills...

i also tie em off but i use the biner spine block method ...

the munter mule overhand is something separate that needs to be practiced over and over again so that folks get proficient and can do it quickly under pressure ... just like any other skill

IME it is one of the "harder" knots for climbers to remember as its rarely used in regular climbing and is fairly complex

its not one of those knots that you can show someone a few times and theyll remember next year without practice

i would also posit a totally uneducated but "accurate" guess that at least half the folks out there, even on multi, cant tie off an ATC in a releasable manner while under load

I use the biner spine method (British method) as well. Which means, as a small detail, that you want to have the spine on your brake-hand side---it is more awkward the other way. Since I practice tie-offs continually as mentioned, properly orienting the carabiner when setting up the belay plate has become second nature...

I confess to not practicing other self-rescue procedures more than once a year or so, although I can tie a Munter mule in my sleep. The fact that climbers might not know how to tie a simple load-releasing hitch is what lead to the promulgation of the inferior procedure that is the subject of this thread---now followed by the offer of a seminar to help the poor climber who has loaded up a clove hitch with an injured or unconscious climber's weight figure out what to do next with mess they've created. A 3:1 haul to unweight the clove hitch? Ha! There's another thread discussing how that might go.

I know I'm sounding grouchy about this, but I feel that it isn't a service to anyone to show them ways to accommodate their ignorance when what they should be doing is to eliminate that ignorance. Jeez, a Munter mule isn't quantum mechanics. You can learn it in a few minutes and practice it periodically almost anywhere. And its not as if climbers have to know some huge number of knots.

Not that this is any kind of news, but self-rescue starts after the fallen climber has been properly tied-off and the belayer is free of the belay. We are speaking here of only the most basic preparatory steps. Learn to at least get them right, because the real problems are only just beginning.

i practice it with partners every 2 months or so ... usually when it starts raining

i can set up a belay escape and counterbalance to a partner in less than 10 min in the rain with just 2 lockers and my pas, and i consider myself barely competent for basic self rescue

from the week prior when it started raining .... belay escapes

theres 3 main issues i see with self rescue practice

- they dont practice enough or at all

- they dont practice it with a minimal amount of equipment, theres a very good chance youll have very little at the belay

- they dont practice it under realistic conditions ... namely under full body tension on the rope ... theres a world of difference in doing it with a full 200 lbs on the line vs someone just tensioning it lightly at the park or basement

Hey guys sorry to get off topic but I see two good climbers here I can ask a question to. I never get a straight answer to this either. Ok, I practice self rescue regularly with my wife. We go over belay escapes. We go over lowering to a ledge or not. I just tie an overhand knot while she ties a munter mule. We get out completely using a sling a prussik and locker. We practice jugging up to the injured climber, we practice building an anchor and rescue rapping to the ground.

The thing is in these mock situations the injured climber is hanging from a redundant anchor. What the hell happens when I go get someone hanging from a single piece? How do I know that will hold me and my partner? What can I do to make things safer?

Bill Kirby wrote: What the hell happens when I go get someone hanging from a single piece? How do I know that will hold me and my partner? What can I do to make things safer?

Bill, have you read the rescuing the leader section in "Climbing Self Rescue"? This discusses the options at some length. Get the 2nd edition, even if you have the first already.

bearbreeder wrote:theres 3 main issues i see with self rescue practice - they dont practice enough or at all - they dont practice it with a minimal amount of equipment, theres a very good chance youll have very little at the belay - they dont practice it under realistic conditions ... namely under full body tension on the rope ... theres a world of difference in doing it with a full 200 lbs on the line vs someone just tensioning it lightly at the park or basement ;)

I'd add that in the USA I get the impression that most people might practice this stuff from bolted anchors. That makes it all a lot easier. After having done the bolted thing a couple of times, I'd suggest 1. trad with very low anchors out of reach, 2. trad hanging.

There also seems to be an emphasis on rescuing the second. Unless you are a guide this isn't the issue. It is all about rescuing the leader.

The other mistake I think in most material is the impression that the key thing is to escape the belay such that you end up with a belay plate. You don't need a belay plate most of the time, use a Munter. You only need the belay plate if you are rapping many pitches to the ground; you will have the plate after the first rap even if you start with a Munter.

(I'm tempted to mention hauling, but we did that on another thread!)

David Coley wrote: Bill, have you read the rescuing the leader section in "Climbing Self Rescue"? This discusses the options at some length. Get the 2nd edition, even if you have the first already.

Thank you. I reread the section you advised me to and looks like every method has some risk to it. I guess the best plan is to not get yourself into a situation. I usually never go over a hundred feet unless I'm super confident. Any other advice?