How to follow a roof

I'm curious how to follow a roof that's gone aid, what that looks like, etc. 

Oh boy... if you cant free a roof, you aid it as the leader. Same as the follower, re aid the roof. If you have ladders and other gear great. Other wise clim into the placement with a draw and step in a sling. Repeat as needed. 

Assuming there is gear to clean (if not, you can skip it and just lower out) re-aid and push your jumars and/or gri gri along as your personal "belay". Of course, you wanna be tied directly into the rope as well, back-up knots, yada yada yada... but that's the gist of it. I also find a fi-fi hook to be extremely helpful on roofs.

Horizontal crap and roofs are often best re-aided, aka clip cleaning.  Learn and practice to swap between jugging, 2:1 jug+grigri, and clip cleaning.  Many pitches include quite a variety of terrain that may be best dispatched with a mix of cleaning styles.

I've watched these more than a few times.

YouTube is a better place to ask that question.  Type that in to  the search bar.  You wont get brutalized for ask what essentially is a dunce query, like you will on chatboards.
https://youtu.be/qBEVTveNuR0

I did that exactly once when I was learning. It was horrendously difficult to clean all of the pieces. Definitely get some practice in if you plan on doing a route with a horizontal roof.

So I followed the Quartz Crack roof in smugglers notch VT as my first real aid follow. I just kinda figured it out as I went. Anything other than successfully following it would have been a huge PITA for my partner and I.

The most important thing to remember when leading a roof or traverse - don't backclean any gear!  Leave every piece in place so your second can follow you.  

If you are belaying, watch your leader, and make sure he doesn't backclean anything!!

Peter Zabrok wrote:

The most important thing to remember when leading a roof or traverse - don't backclean any gear!  Leave every piece in place so your second can follow you.  

If you are belaying, watch your leader, and make sure he doesn't backclean anything!!

What do you think about backcleaning the entire roof/traverse except for the fixed gear with lower-out slings? I'm newer (five walls in Yos), but it seems like doing big lower-outs is faster for the follower than re-aiding or cleaning lots of gear on while traversing.

Adam Fleming wrote:

What do you think about backcleaning the entire roof/traverse except for the fixed gear with lower-out slings? I'm newer (five walls in Yos), but it seems like doing big lower-outs is faster for the follower than re-aiding or cleaning lots of gear on while traversing.

If it's right off the belay (like pitch 2 of zodiac) or there is a fixed piece to lower out from (or even a solid hook/cam hook to lower out off of) then this is an acceptable technique providing that the leader is comfortable and competent enough to risk the dangerous fall that will come if they blow it. 

What inevitably happens in real life is that the leader sets off with the intent to back clean everything between fixed gear but then freaks out and puts a piece in and then needs to leave all the gear they place from that point until they reach the next fixed gear. (protip, every single time your leader yells back at you that you should be able to clean a piece easily and that they're going to start backcleaning again, tell them that they're more than welcome to rap back to the belay and clean the pitch themselves while you haul because 9 times out of 8 you're not going to be able to clean that piece easily and your leader obviously hates you.)

As long as you're not nailing, re-aiding is actually going to be faster than doing a big lower-out for a lot of seconds. It should take a competent second about as long to re-aid a clean roof/traverse as it takes a competent leader to lead through a bolt ladder. 

Adam Fleming wrote:

What do you think about backcleaning the entire roof/traverse except for the fixed gear with lower-out slings? I'm newer (five walls in Yos), but it seems like doing big lower-outs is faster for the follower than re-aiding or cleaning lots of gear on while traversing.

Think about the fall you would take if you peel from the lip.

SMACK!

I haven't climbed a route with fixed lower-off slings for a while, and I never really liked that technique. It seems faster and easier to me for the second to re-aid the pitch on his aiders.  Which means, don't let your leader backclean anything! 

Ron O wrote:

Think about the fall you would take if you peel from the lip.

SMACK!

Shouldn't be an issue if you consistently wait to backclean until you've clipped the next piece

Christian Hesch wrote:

Shouldn't be an issue if you consistently wait to backclean until you've clipped the next piece

That thinking will get you hurt 

why is that?

I would think it depends on whether we're talking bolts or gear...or chossfest. Obviously it's a risk, nobody is debating that - but that's up to the individual climber to make the right decision for their skill level, the type of gear the route accepts, severity of fall, and perhaps whether they can get two good pieces clipped in front of them before cleaning the piece behind/below.

Everyone's risk tolerance will vary. On one stretch of a particularly long pitch yesterday, I used the "safety" of my evolv adjust to camhand my way 80-90 ft between pieces - arguably unsafe, right? I had a clean fall line and felt comfortable always being tethered into one piece. Obviously this tolerance would change on a traverse, especially if it was a traverse that had an ugly corner system for me to fall into, should all pieces fail. Each climber can and should learn how to make this decision based on the above factors (imo)

Christian Hesch wrote:

Obviously it's a risk, nobody is debating that 

Christian Hesch wrote:

Shouldn't be an issue if you consistently wait to backclean until you've clipped the next piece

As I've said, re-aiding is as fast as lowering out for a competent second (and re-aiding is def faster for an incompetent second) so there's no real benefit to lowering out over a long traverse or roof. 

When one is leading a roof/traverse, simply clipping to your new piece before back cleaning the previous piece effectively places you on one piece. Everyone who aids long enough will have perfect placements blow on them eventually. It's just the nature of the sport and there's little way to predict when it will happen: seemingly perfect rock shatters, temps and weather make cam lobes slip, nuts shift as you move around on them, the list goes on and on. 

Accepting risk is not the same as mitigating risk. It shouldn't be difficult to understand why accepting an unnecessary risk can result in getting hurt no matter how accepting of that risk you are. When one is mitigating risk on a long back cleaned traverse/roof, they're always clipped to multiple pieces with daisies on their ladders so if a single piece pops they're at least backed up on that second piece.

Christian Hesch wrote:

why is that?

...and perhaps whether they can get two good pieces clipped in front of them before cleaning the piece behind/below.

you can always selectively quote but it doesn't change the fact that this sentence is right above the selective quoting...

Also, I only follow in the petzl adjustable stirrups, so re-aiding is a complete PITA in those...

Christian Hesch wrote:

you can always selectively quote but it doesn't change the fact that this sentence is right above the selective quoting...

Also, I only follow in the petzl adjustable stirrups, so re-aiding is a complete PITA in those...

It wouldn't matter what you did or posted. Kev would tell you he knows a better way.

A. B. wrote:

It wouldn't matter what you did or posted. Kev would tell you he knows a better way.

That's usually because I do.