How do safely free rope that get stuck in a crack while leading a pitch?

Before COVID19 closures, I was leading pitch 4 of a climb in Red Rocks, and my rope got hopelessly stuck in a crack. Rope drag was pretty bad, but didn't seem like a major issue at first. About 10 feet away from the belay, my rope got stuck in a crack close to the bottom of the pitch. It was so bad that I physically was unable to move and further. I was only 10 feet away from the end of the pitch. My belayer wasn't able to free the rope either. I decided to down climbing the entire pitch, which was extremely dangerous, as my belayer was unable to pull in any slack. After I freed the ropes, I tried leading the pitch again, but my rope got stuck in the same crack. When I noticed this, I ended up setting up a belay to avoid the same problem. Better rope management is the obvious solution, but what are some safer ways to handle stuck ropes this? Neither me or my partner had ever seen anything like this, and it turned out to be a bit of an epic.

Depends on what you have available to you and other circumstances, but as the leader I probably would have gone in direct to a bolt while staying tied in, then allowed my belayer to tie off the belay and ascend and fix the rope.

Downclimbing was probably not a good choice from the way you described it, if it was a more high risk situation you'd be better off descending then reascending the rope yourself.

This situation occurs more often than you might think for those who do not extend their draws.

One time I ended up having to fix a line and rappel back down to pull the piece causing the problem,  then jug back up. It was a hassle for sure

Down climbing was definitely a dangerous gamble, but at the time it was the only solution we both came up with. Perhaps a better move would have been to set up a gear anchor somewhere (there were no bolts anywhere on the route), then rappel down on a single strand of rope. Not sure how that could have worked out though, because I would have had to untie. The issue was that my belayer wasn't able to feed out anymore rope, so I'm not sure how I could have descended the rope without having to untie from my end. We were only climbing with 1 rope, so I wasn't able to set up a fixed line.

You pulled your gear out as you went down? 

S2k 4life wrote:

Forgive me if I'm not understanding something but Wait if your rope was stuck and was taught and wouldn't move ....how did u dwnclimb? Did u untie? 

My rope got stuck in a crack about 15 feet into the pitch. At first it only caused rope drag, but when I was about 10 feet away from the belay, the rope got stuck and I wasn't able to move. I didn't untie to down climb, I just down climbed and unclipped from each piece of pro that I placed (which wasn't much, because the pitch was run out).

Dam u quoted me quickly. Yea I got u... Didn't at first. Glad your aite man

I guess you coulda used like your cordalette to keep you anchored into one piece 5 feet above you,, put in another piece as low as you can , clip and repeat

Few things:

• If you can’t free the rope and don’t want to down climb, you can build an anchor, fix the rope and make your second ascend the rope. It’s not ideal but this happened to me recently on an overhanging pitch (as the second); it sucked but I got through it.
• You said that you down climbed and freed the rope. What you should have done at that point was place a piece (ideally adjacent to the problem crack) that would keep the rope out of the problem crack.
• It’s not a terribly common occurrence. It’s sounds like you dealt with it as best you could. Good on you. An important skill in multi-pitch trad climbing is solving problems as they arise.

All of these are good ideas, but the main issue was that my last piece of pro was quite far down, and there wasn't an adequate place to setup an anchor. By the time I got stuck, I was standing on top of a ledge (luckily I didn't get stuck at a crux), and there was absolutely nowhere to put in gear, which would have let my belayer ascend the rope. I guess it's hard to visualize without seeing a picture of the pitch, which unfortunately I don't have. The pitch started off with a traverse that went around a corner, and there was a flaring crack at the top of it. As I went higher up the pitch, the rope got pulled deeper into the crack. I suppose the main takeaway here is to be more aware of places where ropes might get stuck.

Edit: placing a piece of pro adjacent to the crack likely would have prevented the problem altogether. Will keep that in in mind for the future. 

I have had to place a cam or nut to stop the rope from entering the crack at a roof, a nut is much better than a cam as the cam can walk deeper into a crack and get stuck (it happens a lot on the last pitch of the rostrum). If you have to use a cam to stop the rope, try to put the stem completely down so the rope pushes on the side of a cam.  You could have used a Knots on a bight or grigri backwards to effectively shorten the rope as you down climb... then when there is good enough pro, make an anchor and tie the rope to it.  Then descendants deal with it yourself or have the follower come up on self belay and you should have the second on belay so that once the rope is free, you take all the rope up.... what route was this on anyway?

Probably this climb?

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105732494/olive-oil

https://www.mountainproject.com/photo/112839327

dindolino32 wrote: I have had to place a cam or nut to stop the rope from entering the crack at a roof, a nut is much better than a cam as the cam can walk deeper into a crack and get stuck (it happens a lot on the last pitch of the rostrum). If you have to use a cam to stop the rope, try to put the stem completely down so the rope pushes on the side of a cam.  You could have used a Knots on a bight or grigri backwards to effectively shorten the rope as you down climb... then when there is good enough pro, make an anchor and tie the rope to it.  Then descendants deal with it yourself or have the follower come up on self belay and you should have the second on belay so that once the rope is free, you take all the rope up.... what route was this on anyway?

Great idea, not sure why I didn’t think of that at the time. 

The climb was Olive Oil, starr of p4). My belayer set up his anchor about 10 feet left of where it’s shown in the picture (2nd link Mat posted above).

Down climb to your last piece. Back it up. Anchor into it. Rap or down climb while self belaying. Free the rope. Ascend the rope or top rope solo back to your makeshift anchor. Retie and finish the climb. Yes the last piece may be far down and the anchor maybe less then ideal but that's the best option. This makes me think of when a rope gets stuck on a rap and the end is already beyond reach, the truth is that there isn't always a "safe" option. You have to assess and choose the less dangerous option. Or you can always tell HELP really loud. As goofy as that might sound there are other climbers at most crags these days and it is sort of our responsibility to help each other out. 

Dylan B. wrote: I would think a rope stuck in a crack would have a very substantial risk of being shredded in a fall. In my view that situation calls for the leader to do whatever she can to get to an anchor safely, and fix the rope. The belayer is already safely anchored, and should avoid weighting the rope from below. Once the rope is fixed above, the leader can safely descend to free it.

Hadn’t thought of that, excellent point. 

As someone else said above, the downclimb could be made somewhat safer by taking in the slack as you go, maybe a clove on a locker at your belay loop? I recognize your concern about untying, but the better option probably would have been building an anchor and rappelling/descending your rope to unstick it. Of course at that point you’re stuck with either ascending your rope and retying to finish the pitch, or pulling the rope and re-leading. 
Maybe you could have chosen a somewhat better solution, but it sounds like you guys were thoughtful about your actions and you got through it. 

Great thread. Thanks for starting it and the thoughtful responses.

I concur with much of the above. Since you couldn't build an anchor where you got stuck you probably had to downclimb. And clip in short with a locker when you got the chance with a knot on a bight. Build an anchor at the first opportunity and rappel or self belay from that to get to the stuck rope.

Climb steeper cracks?

i had this happen on a series of roof cracks that were near the bottom of a pitch once.  big flake type feature, long pitch.  i made an anchor and  my wife used the grigri to essentially top-rope solo the pitch. worked pretty well.

Three comments:  
Next time don’t ignore rope drag “early on”. It only gets worse. When I’m belaying someone, I’m always watching how the rope is running and I call to the leader to fix rope issue before they develop. As a leader, you can often place a piece in an adjacent pocket or crack that’s not meant for a lead fall but who’s purpose is to direct the rope. If you placed something to protect a move and now it’s causing rope drag, place another piece above and downclimb and remove the piece. Lot’s if ways to deal with this. 

You said it was extremely dangerous to down climb because your belayer could not take the rope in. Take it in at your end and clip it off. It’s the same process as securing the rope when you’re ascending a fixed line. Yes downclimbing is harder than upclimbing and it’s convenient if your belayer can take the rope in but it’s not mandatory.

You said you might have “set up an anchor” and rapped a fixed line but you couldn’t do that because you would have had to untie the rope. If it’s a good enough anchor to rap from, it’s good enough to clip into and untie. Once you fix the line and start to rap, even if the anchor fails, you are fixed into the rope at the point you’ve rapped to.

It’s a great route, sorry you had some problems on it. 

slim wrote:i made an anchor and  my wife used the grigri to essentially top-rope solo the pitch. worked pretty well.

This is how my partner and I handled it recently.