interesting way to attach bags to haul rope from Andy K's book

In Andy Kirkpatrick's excellent book "Higher Education" he talks about what he calls the “parallel multi suspension point”

" . . . Long length of 7 mm cord, tied on the ground. The primary cord can be tied directly through a swivel. Tie a triple figure 8 knot giving you three loops and leaving two long tails, then rethread both tails through the figure 8 to create a double looped bight at the top. This is where you clip your haul line, or thread the swivel. Try to make the bag loops about 30 cm long so the bags hang together well.”

I have not tried this. It seems like it would work great. Has anyone done this?  This seems like it would allow the bags to twist and move and have a few degrees of freedom.

Thoughts?

I do something similar..
It’s basically a double figure 8..

Hmmm... very interesting!

Let me think about that....

Mark Hudon wrote: Hmmm... very interesting!

Let me think about that....

Mark, i was especially thinking of you when in posted this. I've seen your system of an "extra" locker between each bag and the biner below the swivel. I like the the concept, but was not too thrilled about the chain of biners. This seems an enhancement, no?   

yes....very interesting!

John Godino wrote:

Mark, i was especially thinking of you when in posted this. I've seen your system of an "extra" locker between each bag and the biner below the swivel. I like the the concept, but was not too thrilled about the chain of biners. This seems an enhancement, no?   

Yes. The two biners work well but sometimes they do get twisted up oddly. Skot and I were thinking of trying to use a rigging plate there although I still see drawbacks. 

In the old days we’d take about 6-8’ of rope, and tie a Figure-8 on a bite near one end. That clipped to the swivel. then on the 2 tails hanging down, each got an Eight on a bite, one right below the main knot, the other about 4’ Away.. clip a bag in each and they’d hang one above the other..

Since we didn’t have a micro-Traxion on the swivel we always had 40’ of ratty rope for lower-outs..
we would dock the Bags via the Swivel and a Daisy.
the guy with the top bag would set his ledge up right next to where they were docked..
The guy with the low bag could rig a quick mini haul with the lower out line and a GriGri, as much as 4’ away from the docking point.. and just pull his bag up next to his ledge..

Quinn, That sounds like a good system. Might be especially good on lower angle/slab, when the bags in a "train" may haul better than side by side. And I like the option for the second to lift the bag off to one side while keeping it attached to the other. Thanks for the post! 

Well, I’m not sold. It’s a cool system but it offers no more advantages than my system. 

If the bags are going to roll separately, they are going to roll with my two biner connection or with this cord connection. Unrolling the bags is the same with either system. Weight savings are not worth mentioning.

My two biner system allows you to completely separate the bags if needed. Maybe a giant cluster needs to be dealt with or separating the bags at a bivy is advantageous for some reason. With the cord system, if the the haul bag biner were upside down, with the weight of the bags and tether cords on it, it would be near impossible to flip and detach it from the cord. In my two biner system, when the bags are docked, the upper biner could easily be rotated and disconnected from the haul bag biner.

Mark,

Fair enough.

In an oddball case like you describe, I can see that separating the bags might be easier with a biner chain like you use.

I think you use the Yates Gecko biners at this point, right? Those puppies are about $30 each, so the cord system saves some coin. That might be the main plus.
Anyway, thanks for chiming in.

Anybody else have thought on this?

  

Ha! So, John, one of these days when you’re up there fucking with that problem, I’ll bet you will be willing to pay $50 for those biners right then!

But yes, it is actually one of those oddball “if this happens, then that could/might happen” situations. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember then last time I needed to separate the bags.

Mark, one more Q for you.
What is it about the Gecko biners you like for this application?
And if you do use the carabiner chain, should the biners be twist lock / triple action?

When I started my recent wall career someone gave me a haul bag with a bunch of stuff in it. Those biners were included. I like them simply because they are huge and can hold the haul bag straps and my tether cords.

I hate triple action biners, double is good enough. 

I’m still waiting for someone to send me a haul bag full of gear..

I’m still trying to get back my old gear!! 

I say that Double Action lockers are good enough but on Reticent, Max watched one roll, twist and open up when grinding over an edge.

YMMV

Mark,
That's another reason why the rope/heavy cord connection point seems smart. One less connection point in a biner chain that could get open in some weird way grinding over a rock.
If you do use biners here, methinks the BD Magnetron might be a good choice.
A related question - when hauling with 2 bags side by side, do you clip both bags together at a point other than the swivel biner, to have some redundancy and avoid a single point of potential failure?   

Yes, eliminating one biner does eliminate one link in the chain. I’m not going to worry about a one in a million chance though. Max’s biner did open but once it had cleared the edge it snapped shut and locked. A pretty rare thing happened. Another pretty rare thing will have to happen for the biner to fail.

I hate the Magnetrons! In an anchor situation, with the biner forced tight against the wall by whatever is hanging from it, how are you going to grab the gate so you can pinch it and open the biner?

No, each haul bag is clipped to the swivel independently. I have never heard of that part of the swivel failing (I have never heard of any part of a swivel failing for that matter).

Right now I am sitting on a beach in Baja. Earlier, I was out kiting for an hour and a half. There are other people out kiting that I didn’t run into and didn’t run into me. There are sharks in the ocean. No one got eaten by a shark today. I took a walk to go buy a six pack of beer. Cars were wizzing by me at certain points. I didn’t get hit. So far, the beer doesn’t seem to have any poison in it. Hopefully, my shot of tequila later today won’t either. I sleep outside on a cot every night, the stars are beautiful as is the sunrise, I haven’t been murdered yet.

Life is unfair and there are simply things you cannot control. You can’t safeguard against every freak accident, against the one in a million odds. Don’t freakin’ worry about it. Do your best and forget the rest.

i used ak's system on the nose in may and biner connections on my last two previous walls.

i like the ak system because the bags can rotate around a bit more (you can kind of see that the connection is a bit twisted). it does lower the bags a bit more than just having two biners going into the swivel. we tried to get that knot super tight, it stretched to what you see below but it's not a big deal.

we attached it gate side with the docking cord on the spine side, if you need to remove and adjust like mark says it's pretty easy to just unclip and adjust then clip back in. if the gates get pinched against the rock it's somewhat annoying to declutter the anchor.

i think i like the ak system better so i don't have to worry about the biners getting loaded in weird ways.

all that being said i think either way works just fine

Although I can see it might be nice to be able to separate the bags quickly, this seems rare. Once per climb? For example shuffling sideways. So I just put one D-shaped mallion through one strap on each bag, then girth hitch the docking cord to this and the tag lines. And tie the haul line to it too. I.e. no carabiners at all (except the ones on the other strap on the bags, which are also clipped to the mallion.

Yes, this does make it harder to separate (I clip in the other strap to the anchor, then undo the mallion. I seem to be able to unweight an anchor with one bag on and keep a 60cm sling as a back up on the arm that had the mallion on it when undoing the mallion). But being there are no important carabiners, it makes it safe against me undoing something I didn't mean to and is super simple and light. Because the closing carabiners clip to the mallion, these arms are automatically longer, making bag opening easier. 

DL, that does look nice and clean. 

I used a similar system to Kirkpatrick’s on a two week winter climb of tribal rite, with a bunch of haul bags it was easy to position and access bags. I’ve used marks technique in shorter duration walls and is more applicable for two bag situations.