Rigging for gym route setting

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to help out the local college where I live by doing some setting for them on the small university wall.  Personally, I've climbed outside leading sport and trad, but have never done anything on a fixed line.  So I was wondering if any setters out there could share how they set themselves up on the wall.  I'm assuming it's a grigri with some kind of backup?  Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,

Matt

One gym here has a bosun chair rig for the setter, and a haul system on pulleys and separate rope for the holds. That's paid setters (I assume) in a commercial gym.

Our rigging at the University gym, volunteers mostly, is pretty simple:

1. swap out a setting rope for a climbing rope

2. tie in with a retraced figure 8, on the climbers end, as usual

3. Attach an ascender (with foot strap) to the belayer side

4. Attach a grigri under the ascender. Attach to your harness with a locker. I would add, you might find that the grigri enjoys loading precisely on the gate, while you are moving around weighting and unweighting it. Probably not a big deal, but you might want a different biner to keep it where you want it.

You now have a closed haul system.

5. Add all your crap to the harness. Tie a bight on the loose rope, clip the bag of holds on, double check you are ready to go.

6. Pull out the slack and weight the system to check it.

7. Jug up using the ascender and pulling slack through the grigri as you go. Tie back up knots now and then.

To come down, remove the ascender (clip it to you first) and lower yourself with the grigri, untying knots as you go.

I've found it really helpful to have a prussik, some biners, a draw or two, a little extra to anchor to the wall, self rescue (yeah. Oops), stuff like that.

Last, the elephant no one ever mentions. 

If anything at all happens, you are on your own. It is not a system that allows anyone else to get up to you or get you down very fast.

That said, if you feel at all faint, flu, hungover, stay down or come down. If you pass out, and your head goes back, your airway will be blocked and you have maybe fifteen minutes tops of life left.

Hanging in a harness for a really long time is not fun. Make sure it fits really well and cinch the waist up. Too loose, it scrunches up your rib cage, and gets really painful, really fast.

I super enjoy the setting, especially with the emphasis on learning in our University gym. Good on you for taking a shot at it!

Best, Helen

Old lady H wrote:

If anything at all happens, you are on your own. It is not a system that allows anyone else to get up to you or get you down very fast.

Not strictly speaking true, but generally true in the setting environment, since very few climbers will know the techniques for ascending a fixed line to reach a casualty, much less have the gear to do it safely and quickly.

Basically, you're looking at SRT pickoffs, typically used in caving.  Might see similar techniques in rope access, but they have 2 ropes to work with, so it's quite a bit easier there.

Jaren Watson wrote:

Perhaps the OP would find a simple "grigri, ascender, and aider" a bit more to the point. Just a guess, but he probably knows how to put on his harness. 

As a side note, some elephants aren't mentioned because they don't actually exist. I've only climbed in the gym for a decade, but I've yet to see a setter dangling unconscious above a crowd of hapless climbers wishing they could rescue the poor soul. But you know, as they say, YMMV. :)

I replied based on what the OP asked for. "Grigri, ascender, and aider"? Not what we use. Oops. As you said, YMMV, as a setter. 

You are correct, the chances are very slim of anything going wrong. However, you can climb ten more years in my gym and you will not see a setter dangling, because you will not see a setter at all. We are there when the climbing wall is closed. Changes things a bit.

I am no expert in anything, plenty have pointed that out. I do have some direct experience to share with the OP, and chose to do so.

I'm sure he'd be happy to have your input as a setter also. I hope more setters will do so.

Best, Helen

Old lady H wrote:

Hanging in a harness for a really long time is not fun. 

Lies. 

The gym I worked at just had really big ladders. Sketchy when you got to the top of the wall but good enough.

In our gym (short walls, only 28 feet, and no lead walls, toprope only) we use just a gri-gri.

We set from a ladder as far as possible, then tie in on toprope, put the gri-gri on the belayer's side of the rope, and clip it to the belay loop. Then climb and pull the rope through a gri-gri, tying backup knots in the rope at intervals. It is a bit of a hassle (for each 2 feet you climb you need to pull 4 feet of rope through), but we usually put the easy route on the wall first, so there are jugs to hang on.

If there is another rope nearby, and I'm setting couple routes at once, or a route with big holds, I hang the setter's bucket with holds, bolts, etc on that line, and bring it up as needed. If I'm setting just one route with small holds, I just clip a small bag with holds and bolts/ screws to my harness.

On overhanging walls we put couple bolt hangers on the wall to clip into and keep us from swinging away from the wall.

It's a pretty minimal setup that would be cumbersome or downright unworkable on taller/more overhanging walls. But you said it's a small gym...

Our team uses a grigri with an ascender/aider. No back up knots because you're attached to the grigri and the ascender, but some setters prefer a Petzl RIG because they have a feature which can lock the device down entirely. The ropes that are already hanging are fixed on the climbers side to a ground anchor. We have bolts that are welded to steel I-beams but you could tie yours down to anything solid on the ground. The setters also have a bag of bolts and holds that they clip to the other line with a grigri so they can bring it up the wall with them, usually a mix of setting top down and bottom up. sometimes the holds ride down with the setters and they only ascend once, sometimes they move up a few feet at a time.

Old lady H wrote:

As you said, YMMV, as a setter. 

...because you will not see a setter at all. We are there when the climbing wall is closed. Changes things a bit.

The setters at our gym work during the less busy gym hours in morning-mid day. Our gym is open 6AM-11PM so the setters have no choice but to work during business hours. A small section of the gym is closed off with orange tape while the setters put up some fresh climbs.

I used to set for a few years. There are two ways that we used to rig top ropes and both ways resulted in the setter self belaying with a grigri:

1. if there are draws fixed on the wall, take the belayers end and tie a figure eight on a bite and clip it to the first draw, then clip into the second draw with a clove hitch. Hook up your grigri on climbers side and climb and pull slack in as you climb. Tie back up knots as you climb as you see fit. 

2. if there are no draws to clip into then tie a figure eight on a bite on belayers side, put climbers side through the loop of the bite and pull it all the way so the rope is girthhitched at the top, you will have a single strand from top to bottom. hook up grigri and climb. To retrieve the rope, by yourself, you will need a sling our some other method of anchoring to the top of the wall and a belay/rappel device that can load two strands of rope. Clip in to top, unhook grigri and pull rope back down. set up on double strand rappel and rap. If you have a partner and a rope nearby you can climb on that and retrieve the girth hitched rope as you are lowered.

We would load a bucket with the selected holds and have it tied to the rope we were climbing on. pull the rope up, hand over hand, and clip it to the wall. bring a hanger with you if there are no fixed draws. obviously you will be going up and down several times but this gives you a chance to forerun you route and make sure it climbs well. When you get more efficient you will reduce your times up and down.

Boy, have I got ideas now! 

We have ropes just for setting, and swap out the climbing ropes. I love the idea of a fixed line, single strand rappel, and a second line with a way to have the holds beside you.

What do you think of the figure eight on a bight, girth hitched as above, but attaching a second rope to the bight on the belay side? That could be a pull rope to undo the setup from the ground, and give you two lines off the anchor, I think????? What am I missing????

Best, Helen

Old lady H wrote:

We have ropes just for setting, and swap out the climbing ropes. 

... why?

G R wrote:

... why?

So the ascenders don't chew on them. They are very diligent about taking care of the ropes the climbers are on, one of the things I really like about this gym.

No, the ascenders (and setters) probably aren't much wear and tear at all, but it only takes a minute to swap, so why not?

OLH

Old lady H wrote:

Boy, have I got ideas now! 

We have ropes just for setting, and swap out the climbing ropes. I love the idea of a fixed line, single strand rappel, and a second line with a way to have the holds beside you.

What do you think of the figure eight on a bight, girth hitched as above, but attaching a second rope to the bight on the belay side? That could be a pull rope to undo the setup from the ground, and give you two lines off the anchor, I think????? What am I missing????

Best, Helen

If you have ground anchors, one technique I've seen is to tie a rope to the end of the top rope, pull the top rope through until the setting rope is at the anchors, then tie off the top rope to the ground anchor using a MMO.  A little more bouncy, but this sets up a retrievable fixed rope that also enables ground-based rescue.

To fix two ropes (from the same anchor), simply tie two ropes to the end of the top rope.  If your ropes are already long enough for double the wall length, then simply tie two alpine butterflies at the middle of the rope and clip them to the top rope (of course, with two lockers and stuff).

Having a dangling pull rope can be dangerous - if someone does a changeover to the pull rope, they can set themselves up for freefall.  Of course, if your ascending systems don't require changing to a different rope, this is not an issue, however, you should NOT load the pull rope until you need to pull the rope.

Old lady H wrote:

So the ascenders don't chew on them. They are very diligent about taking care of the ropes the climbers are on, one of the things I really like about this gym.

No, the ascenders (and setters) probably aren't much wear and tear at all, but it only takes a minute to swap, so why not?

OLH

I mean... if you enjoy adding work, sure, but ascenders are kinda designed not to harm the ropes. We set on regular top rope lines we've fixed to wall anchors prettttty much every single day (unless we're hanging lines for lead only terrain) It has never once had an impact on the lifespan of the rope. 

G R wrote:

I mean... if you enjoy adding work, sure, but ascenders are kinda designed not to harm the ropes. We set on regular top rope lines we've fixed to wall anchors prettttty much every single day (unless we're hanging lines for lead only terrain) It has never once had an impact on the lifespan of the rope. 

It's easy, as I said. These are their ropes, after all, and I'm quite happy to support fanaticism toward a climbing gym rope.

OLH

We use a combination of similar technique and methods outlined by lena and Firestone.   We also have eye-bolts that can be screwed into unused T-nuts on the wall to have a draw exactly where we want it or need it, even on steep lead walls.  Set top-down, bottom-up, or a combination, making full use of the ground anchors whenever needed . Personally, I like setting bottom up till out of reach of a moderately tall ladder and then top down to complete the route.