Rappel rope caught at top. Strategies?

Ok so here's the story: I set up a toprope for everyone to climb this route. At the end I let my friend clean the route since he'd never done it before. He cleaned it and rappelled down, but when we went to pull the rope, it was stuck. I figured it was kinked or somehow caught on something. Even with both of us hanging on the rope it wouldn't pull through. We tried flicking it like crazy from the bottom which didn't help. He hiked up and took this picture:

flickr.com/photos/wiezzy/20…

Has anyone ever seen this happen? It looks like the short end got pinned between the rock and the end we were pulling, so the harder we pulled, the more it got pinned. Even flicking the rope didn't free it (I'm guessing because of the ledge on the top of the pic). Are there any known methods for a) keeping this from happening in the first place, and/or b) getting the rope down without hiking up?

Thanks!

I am sure others will say the same thing.

Those hangers are not even suitable to rap from, let alone try and grate your rope through.

There is a lot of friction going on here. The rope moving through the bolt hangers and then pinned under itself would make for a tough recovery of the rope.

No, I have never seen this because it is not usually done.

It appears that the anchor was easy to access from the top - was there a reason for the rappel? The reason I ask is because you could avoid damaging your new rope by not trying to pull through the hangers, and also avoid the extra risk of rappelling.

In this situation, if you have to rappel, rappel and pull off your own gear instead of sharpe edged hangers - much less friction. Best solution would be to clean from the top and walk off.

Yer friend is an idiot. And you let him be one. One does not rap directly from hangers unless it is a critical situation. You should check your rope for damage from grating it against the hangers.

Yer friend should have cleaned the gear tossed the rope down and hiked his butt down. If you do not want it to happen again leave some biners the rope will run freer. And the next person who comes along will have some noob booty.

Not rap anchors.......

If you wanted to rap.... you need to add a throwaway runner.

but what do i know? maybe this will grow legs and we can all run with it.

Rope manufacturers rejoice, apparently the mentorship system in climbing is dead and buried..

You answered your own question. If you hiked up to retrieve the rope...it's a walk-off.

Also as everyone else mentioned...don't thread a rope directly through hangers. That picture is the visual equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.

Allen Sanderson wrote:Yer friend is an idiot. And you let him be one. One does not rap directly from hangers unless it is a critical situation. You should check your rope for damage from grating it against the hangers. Yer friend should have cleaned the gear tossed the rope down and hiked his butt down. If you do not want it to happen again leave some biners the rope will run freer. And the next person who comes along will have some noob booty.

Kinda harsh but he's right, those bolts aren't setup to rappel from, they either need some quick links or biners attached to it to safely rap from. Quick links and a small bit of chain is pretty cheap from your local hardware store.

Never feed the rope directly through the hangars. They will wreck your rope. Too much friction, sharp edges, etc etc.

I literally facepalmed when I saw your picture. If there are no rap rings, find another place to rap or like others said - just walk off.

Seems like it'd have been better to walk off. But I'm betting the OP wanted to give his friend a chance to learn to clean an anchor and rappel. And that, I can understand.

The only helpful advice I can think of that hasn't been mentioned (like walking off when possible, and not rapping directly from the hangers) is to keep an eye on the rope so the strands don't cross.

Jesus Christ.

Brian, before you teach your friend anything about climbing, you should get mentored yourself. Find someone experienced to climb with for while.

Guys fixin for a Darwin award.

How was Amsterdam? Looked like fun!

YER GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FrankPS wrote:Brian, before you teach your friend anything about climbing, you should get mentored yourself. Find someone experienced to climb with for while.

^^^
NEVER EVER put your rope through bolt hangars. Please take an anchoring class before you get someone killed.

Jake Jones wrote:There are thick hangers ok to rap from- I think Metolius makes them, but these aren't it. If you're in an area where this is common, and by "this" I mean thin hangers as anchors at the top of a route or pitch- then do yourself (and your climbing community) a favor and buy a shitload of stainless steel quick links and get to work. Two links per hanger to keep your rope from twisting (or what Bob said and incorporate a short length of chain). It's just a bad orientation of anchors and your rope crossed itself. The bigger issue of rapping off these hangers has been addressed. Just count yourself lucky that you didn't lower off them. Best case scenario is that your rope gets FUBARed.

The hangers in the photo are not Metolius rap hangers.

To answer your question, Brian, the situation you described is not uncommon. You can prevent the ropes pinching by making sure the strands of the rope run separately and remembering which side to pull in which direction. Like others said though, if you could walk up to set the top rope, you can walk back up to clean it - no need to introduce an unnecessary risk of rappelling.

One worrying thing is why was he allowed to rappel with this set up in the first place? The leader should have recognized that there are no rappel rings and this is not a rappel set up. The leader was either 1) unsure of the style of anchor or 2) unaware of the anchor set up. Given the risks of cleaning/rappelling, the student should have never been put up there in that set-up - especially unsupervised and alone.

There's a responsibility a mentor has when teaching - that the mentor is confident enough in their own knowledge to take responsibility for someone else's life. Following that principle, this should have never happened.

Brian,

I know Prescott is a small place, but there ARE individuals that can properly teach you how to climb. PLEASE take the time to learn from the local guides around Prescott if you wan to continue taking your friends out. There have been too many accidents already from local College students/Alumni falling and injuring themselves or death. Please don't contribute to the stereotype or the statistic around here.

Cheers,
Mac

Brian Wiesner wrote: b) getting the rope down without hiking up? Thanks!

You can re-lead the route on the other end of the rope. I recently had to do this when I forgot to take out the knot at the end of my rope when pulling it after rappelling off. This works if the pitch is less than half a ropelength.

Don't be too sensitive, people can be pretty harsh on here. A lot of good advice upthread: although anchor building is not rocket surgery, I'd recommend finding someone with lots of experience to take you out, or a guide, or read read read some anchor building books at least.

I did the same thing when I was a n00b, cleaning a route on the smoke bluffs in squamish, rope didn't get stuck but I rapped off the hangers. It was explained to me by another climber what I had done wrong, as it is now being explained to you (though I only feel partly responsible since the more experienced climber whose rope I was on had sent me up there to clean).

Eric Chabot wrote: You can re-lead the route on the other end of the rope. I recently had to do this when I forgot to take out the knot at the end of my rope when pulling it after rappelling off. This works if the pitch is less than half a ropelength.

If you are rappelling a pitch that's more than half the length of the rope, you may have more serious issues than getting an end stuck.