your top rope solo device

OAW wrote:Fair enough, but at what force does your micro ascender start to damage the rope? At 5kn a Gibbs type ascender can outright break the rope at 5kn.

It may, but if you are generating 5kn of force on a TR Solo set up you are doing something profoundly wrong because that's more than a FF1 fall. If you are trailing a microscender on a typical locker off your belay loop, you are looking at a 6-12" fall (carabiner flipping, going from bottom to top of belay loop) if your top trax locks open. As long as there is a foot of rope in the system, you aren't generating 5kn of force.

I normally have about a 15" between my upright trax and trailing microscender, so even if I park my trax against the knot to the anchor and it somehow fails, the microscender still won't sever my rope.

I'll probably get some dissent on this, but I developed a fairly simple variant to the carabiner helical knot that I've used extensively for TR solo. Gary Storrick published it and named it for me...

storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDe…

Here is the picture from Gary's website - obviously, I'd want to use a big beefy locker (something that could take some crossloading) - but it gets the idea across. Anchor the rope at the top of the climb, rap down, wrap the pre-tied knot around your rope, clip into your harness (not through the belay loop), and climb away.

If tied well, it will slide nicely while climbing, locks securely if you fall, and avoids the concern about rope damage from mechanical ascenders. You will probably want to weight the bottom of the rope, since especially near the start of the climb friction in the knot will tend to lift the rope. (Running a loose figure-8 or clove up second rope is always a good idea, but I have to confess to only doing that rarely.)

I actually developed this after using the 'Barnett System' for lead soloing. That system uses a pulley on a chest harness to compress the coils of what amounts to a helical knot on your harness (or swami, as the case may be). I am certainly not going to recommend the Barnett, although it worked great on the only time I took a lead fall on it.

Be safe,
swm

SW Marlatt wrote:Gary Storrick published it and named it for me... http://storrick.cnc.net/VerticalDevicesPage/Ascender/CarabinerKnot/Marlatt.html

Your link doesn't work; for some reason the link appends "&lt/a>%20target=" to the URL. Interesting knot, though!

Todd Anderson wrote: Your link doesn't work; for some reason the link appends "%20target=" to the URL. Interesting knot, though!

Hmmm - something off w/ the add-link feature. I've fixed the link now, I think.

3nl wrote: It may, but if you are generating 5kn of force on a TR Solo set up you are doing something profoundly wrong because that's more than a FF1 fall. If you are trailing a microscender on a typical locker off your belay loop, you are looking at a 6-12" fall (carabiner flipping, going from bottom to top of belay loop) if your top trax locks open. As long as there is a foot of rope in the system, you aren't generating 5kn of force. I normally have about a 15" between my upright trax and trailing microscender, so even if I park my trax against the knot to the anchor and it somehow fails, the microscender still won't sever my rope.

Its not impossible and quite easy if you're well in the 200+lb range or have a bow of slack in your rope when you fall and depending on how much rope is between you and the knot in your fixed rope. I weigh 155lb so Im not concerned at all. Also if you ar concerned with cross loading your carabiner you can use this multi directional-loading locking carabiner. petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Carab…

For anyone who has read those scary stories of micro-traxions locking with the cam open while climbing when a climber weighted the rope, I've experimented with clipping a prusik hitch to my harness that is on the rope above the traxion device and minds the prusik.

In this case the prusik ends up being the primary form of protection with the traxion device being IT'S backup instead, but it is a redundant system as long as you're cool with using a single rope but way cheaper than buying a second traxion device.

I use an Ushba Basic Ascender with a BD Gridlock and a sling chest harness to help keep the ascender in a good position. On the backup strand, I used to use a sling along with backup knots (see pic), but have since switched to using either another ascending device or a klemheist.

Oh man that is an over kill and three way cross loading your binder is way more unsafe than using the microtraxion alone clipped to your belay loop, which isn't unsafe at all.

OAW wrote:Oh man that is an over kill and three way cross loading your binder is way more unsafe than using the microtraxion alone clipped to your belay loop, which isn't unsafe at all.

I can see why you'd see it that way, and it indeed looks like it, but the green sling you're seeing is just the chest harness that is non-weight bearing. It is there just to keep the ascender upright and as soon as I weight the rope, the weight is on the ascender only. My shoulders would break before the gridlock becomes loaded enough to be an issue.

On a separate note, I am a big fan of a device without teeth, so I love using the Ushba for that reason especially.

Okay how much force would you put on the green sling and the biner itself if you fell a meter or 2? Also if you understood the physics behind the microtraxion and a dynamic rope you would understand its a safe device to use by itself. Not trying to talk down on you by any means.

Another option to the chest harness which is, imo, more comfortable is to girth hitch a loop of bungee cord to the clip in point of the ushba and then loop it around your head.

OAW wrote:Okay how much force would you put on the green sling and the biner itself if you fell a meter or 2? Also if you understood the physics behind the microtraxion and a dynamic rope you would understand its a safe device to use by itself. Not trying to talk down on you by any means.

If you knew what you were talking about, you would understand that his set-up is completely safe. And because the Ushba is a toothless ascender, it's arguably more safe than using a micro-trax.

OAW wrote:Okay how much force would you put on the green sling and the biner itself if you fell a meter or 2? Also if you understood the physics behind the microtraxion and a dynamic rope you would understand its a safe device to use by itself. Not trying to talk down on you by any means.

No, I didn't take it that way, and I appreciate your question. To be honest, I don't know much about the physics of the microtraxion and would be interested in that. I had ruled out anything with teeth, but would like to see what the difference is for the sake of knowledge.

Any fall that I take with my set up does not involve any weighting of the green sling since my belay loop ends up rising up along with the tightening up of the harness, etc. In general though, I use this setup in this way (keeping the ascender upright and with negligible amounts of slack) because I actively try to avoid any dynamic falls. In order to fall even 1 meter, I'd need to grab the rope above the ascender which would prevent it from engaging.

I tried out the Kong Back-Up and wrote a post about it. Check it out here!