Am I going to die?

Eliot Augusto wrote:So I thought this up this afternoon, I tried it and I feel like it could work to catch real falls. But, I don't wanna die. So I'd love it if you could point out if there are some massive errors in my thinking. I used way to many knots in this test, but I didn't want to put a big fall on this setup today. Description of Process: One rope. Midway has two alpine butterfly knots, both clipped into a bolted anchor with lockers. Each loop has both biners through it so that the rope stays together. I realize a figure 8 could work, but I wanted extra redundancy for this test. Each knot is an alpine butterfly hitch, which I find easier to unravel if the knot was weighted, AND supposedly the butterfly transfers the load better than an overhand. I used two runners girth hitched to my harness, one for each strand of the rope. Why this over a micro traxion? So that I can practice the hard routes clipping position. And I could clip the butterfly knots to gear or a bolt so I don't pendulum swing low down on a route.

Climing friend,

I try to read your climbing rocks post, but I find it too boring and give up after the first few sentences. I think you will do the dying though, myah?

You would yes go bouldering or find a climbing partner of the climbing rocks myah?

I think so myah?

yah, I write at you a haiku, myah?

climbing with no friends
try set up top rope solo
you may hit the ground

confuse knots most sketch
seek advice on interwebz
receive only trash

you become enrage
try wang-slap through internet
you can't pass its tubes

tubes of internet
oh great tubes of internet
nothing good has come

Aleks Zebastian wrote: Climing friend, I try to read your climbing rocks post, but I find it too boring and give up after the first few sentences. I think you will do the dying though, myah? You would yes go bouldering or find a climbing partner of the climbing rocks myah? I think so myah? yah, I write at you a haiku, myah? climbing with no friends try set up top rope solo you may hit the ground confuse knots most sketch seek advice on interwebz receive only trash you become enrage try wang-slap through internet you can't pass its tubes tubes of internet oh great tubes of internet nothing good has come

That was beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye. I am silently weeping at its profundity.

I know gri gri should not be used but this is what I've come up with. A bit labor intensive but seems to work in the backyard ... Gonna test it in the real world in the next week or two.

Forgot to mention two lockers on belay loop so I am always clipped to a backup knot.

Top rope solo

To make the system truly redundant and have independent lines, tie two bights at the center instead of one. This way you can connect them to two separate masterpoints.

In your picture your single masterpoint, even though you do have multiple carabiners, is the only connection you have for both lines.

What you show will work, but with very little extra time you can make the system more safe. When you cannot see or attend to the anchor and what is clipped to it I prefer to take the extra precaution.

In the below picture there are two separate masterpoints from two separate and independent anchors. I went a bit overkill with two lockers on each, but I believe I was in a "top rope" mindset and just clipped them in here instead of keeping them on me.

Two independent lines

See Petzl's general principles page for a good reference: petzl.com/en/Sport/General-…

Also, be aware of the orientation of your Gri and the lever doesn't become compromised in some way.

When you are close to the rock face or jamming a crack all this stuff in front of you can get in funky positions - stay aware of what is going on!

With the knot system, is it a bad idea to leave the last 20-30 ft unknotted? Also, what do you folks mean by a "hard fall"? I've taken 30ft falls that have been soft as a baby's behind and 10ft falls that have been bone jarring.

If I have 30ft of rope between my clipped knot and the anchor, a 3ft nylon tether attached to me, and I've climbed up so that the knot is 8ft higher than it would be if it was hanging. So the knot would in essence be 5 ft above its hanging point. So if this were a leader fall I would call it a FF of .2, roughly. Math is the same for TR on these dynamic springs that we trust with our lives, right?

I usually fall that distance or more in a lead fall, is that a "hard" fall for a top rope? I'm connected to bolts, not gear, so I have more keelo knewtons to work with.

If you are top rope solo climbing that means you are potentially alone, and pursuing a dangerous activity. Mitigate as much risk as you can.

You should not be building up slack in the system, as much as possible, for this can lead to a bad fall resulting in injury, or cause a possible failure with your gear. Now this depends on how much slack is built up and the features of the climb you are on, along with other variables involved.

The more rope you have between you and your anchor the more stretch you have available to absorb any forces generated - granted you are using a dynamic rope. Be aware of how much you have left to climb on and make a good decision on what risks you are ok with and adjust accordingly.

If you go the knot route, I would advise you to use two tethers and clip them independently as soon as possible. Alternating the clip; clip the next knot reached first, and then unclip the trailing clipped knot.

All of this is a p.i.t.a. and why most people look for a partner, but if you are determined, expect a cluster of some sort at times. The climbing can be slower than you may be use to also.

When I started out, I built my TR anchor out of climbing rope, sent the excess /down as a rappel line to get back down, Used a static 11.1mm rope for the main line and clipped a microtrax to my belay loop and trailed an ascender on a short sling from a different biner on my belay loop as a backup.

Toothed cams on dynamic ropes is fine for hauling, but not for even small top rope falls.

Static line is so insanely strong that I didn't feel the need for rope redundancy. The system was still very bouncy because gear anchor had a good 5m of dynamic rope there. I could've used my rappel line as a back up line, or just not used it at all and rapped the static rope, but I liked the added security/ease of being on rappel with leg wraps so I could take the tension of off my ascender and microtrax.

Feeding is smooth, automatic. No pulling slack through a grigri, no clipping and carrying rope on the way up to get snagged on shit. Decent set-up considering it was all I had at the time. After a few weeks though, I realized that TR solo is really, really boring and a pain in the ass, so I did what you should do. Make friends and climb with them.

If you are just completely destined to be friendless for all time, get a grigri and solo lead easy sport routes.

Yur gonna die, but it'll probably be heart disease or cancer and not whatever it is that you're doing with that rope. If you don't get friends, you may develop depression, which in some cases can lead to suicide. Ask your doctor if Mountain Project's Partner Finder is right for you.

I meet lots of people who want to climb with me. I climb with most of them. But its really hard to convince people to climb from 5-8 every afternoon. So I'm left with open periods of time where I have to do normal people stuff, which is definitely unacceptable. Climb all day, every day!

Aleks Zebastian wrote: climbing with no friends try set up top rope solo you may hit the ground confuse knots most sketch seek advice on interwebz receive only trash you become enrage try wang-slap through internet you can't pass its tubes tubes of internet oh great tubes of internet nothing good has come

best answer so far

I would say there is probably 2 things to make sure while top rope climbing.

1) Make sure your anchor will not fail (guess we should not need to tell you this either)
2) Make sure to tie a knot behind whatever device you have on the side belaying yourself once you get high enough not to deck so even if all else fails (besides whatever you have to catch you completely falling off the rope it will stop you from grounding)
(3) Make sure you are tied in to the other side of the rope but i hope we don't need to tell you that if you are trying to rope solo

If you do all that you will most likely not die, could still die if something freak happens but than you are climbing so you should know that, but could still get hurt from a big fall.

PS: btw you are going to die one day, hate to break that news to you.

I really dont know why folks keep on trying to reinvent the wheel ...

Just use a system similar to petzls instructions

Thats really all there is to it

Oh and a toother ascender is fine on a dynamic rope ... Even though it shreads the sheath at 4 KN you almost never hear of folks destroying ropes that way on TR solo

Its all in the petzl documentation

;)

That's a beautiful piece of rock.