Edelrid Tillit ropebag

Looks pretty nice for the mp-climbing.

The ideea is pretty old :) 

I’ve seen people diy this sort of thing, but for 40$ it’s about the price of materials for an at-home maker. Worth it if you’re looking for something like this. 

Fish Products; they've big wall rope bags for at least the past 20 years. 

Ha! I'm one of those people who DIYed something like this. I also went "one step further" and, having completely missed existing options in my searches, I thought I was onto something new!    This was over 3 years ago, so well before the Tillit came out. I really wish that any of the various companies I tried discussing this with had at least replied with a simple "been done before, check out sites X & Y".

Based on the fairly extensive testing I carried out on different design options, there are a couple of things that I would find frustrating with the Tillit (not to mention that, since this is a multipitch product, Edelrid might have taken the trouble to make a video on a real climb). The main one is the floppy opening that requires you to fiddle with both hands to properly feed the rope into the bag. When developing my design, I really wanted something that would work with the main advantage of guide-type belay devices, which is the option to take in the rope one-handed. This requires a bag that stays wide open on its own just below the device, allowing the belayer to just drop the rope in it with the brake hand and without fiddling.

Fishproduct rope bags seem to have very wide openings but I did not find models that wrap around the rope and can be easily and securely closed up and flipped over. A wraparound bag with a wider top opening and two separate top attachment points can also work. Having been unable to find out any more about the "flipper rope bag" referenced by verticon (more info or active link, please!), I'm not sure if that is the solution they went for. However, in this case, the need to configure belay anchors with spread-out attachment points could be tricky or simply not work in a good number of anchor situations. The solution I came up with is that of a hoop made of 4 flexible plastic pieces that, when assembled, keep the bag wide open at all times. Three sections are loosely articulated with one another by the simple expedient of being encased in a fabric sleeve and separated from each other by two vertical seams. The middle one of these 3 sections makes the back of the hoop that will stay flat against the rock. The fourth section closes the wrap around the rope and inserts itself into the front ends of the two side sections, completing the hoop and making a rounded front. The hoop is attached by its two sides to the same anchor point as the belay device.

For double ropes, the advantage of the no-fuss hoops approach is that you can hang two bags side-by-side and dump each rope into its own bag, even as they come together out of the belay device. This further reduces the risk of tangles and allows you to easily split the two ropes if needed for a rescue, an emergency double-length rappel, etc. or just to carry them back out separately.

Also, if the bag is not much bigger than just enough to hold the rope, as the Tillit is shown to be, the fuller it gets, the trickier it becomes to have the rope(s) correctly flake itself/themselves without having to forcibly stuff it/them on top of the existing pile of rope(s). I've found that to avoid this problem, the bag needs to be at least about a foot taller that the height strictly required for the rope. This allows it to make a kind of "chute" for the rope to drop in straight down before the bottom surface will force it to start coiling. Even with this, you still need to shake the bag every now and then to ensure that the flaked rope stays piled at the bottom and to avoid coils remaining upright against the sides of the bag, which risks making knots that will defeat its entire purpose. But at least, this occasional shaking can also be done one-handed and is a lot less fiddly than the continuous two-handed stuffing demonstrated in the video.

When climbing with a single rope and intending to rappel with it, the use of this type of bag can get quite a bit more complicated, which may be a good incentive to bring a pull cord or Beal Escaper and do full-length rappels instead. If you will leave behind a biner or quicklink, or if the rappel route is equipped with mussy hooks or other such system, it's not so bad, but for closed rappel rings, you'll need pretty extensive mods made to the bag. I won't go into these here to keep things simple but would be happy to discuss them over pms if needed.

Finally, unlike shown in the video, it is better to keep the full bag clipped in at all times while flipping it, or at least, have the second assist in holding it securely. With the full weight of the rope in it, if you were to drop it, it may fall down the wall for pretty near the full half-length of the rope(s), letting it/them pull easily out of both sides (as it's designed to do), as the bag hurtles down.

Of course, this concept comes out of the frustration with existing methods of managing the rope(s) in multipitch climbs, which either never fully prevent knots or are a lot more cumbersome or fiddly than the flippable wraparound bag option. I've been quite happy with my lightweight bags and love the fact that the ropes stay flaked inside them while at home, inside the backpack or hanging from my shoulder on the approach and walk-outs, and remain ready to pay out knot-free for climbing at all times without any reflaking, and for rappelling without wind, crack or tree tangles (and without dropping bunches of ropes onto other parties below, which I've been at the receiving end of on multiple occasions). Obviously, the trade-off of saving the lead belayer from having to deal with knots is that it falls to the leader to install the bag and flake the rope(s) in it when belaying the second. That's why I feel pretty strongly that the whole process must be made as straightforward as possible for the leader.

I know that experienced multipitch lead belayers can shake out, untangle or otherwise manage upcoming knots while keeping a close eye on the leader. I've done it myself for decades. But, even then, clusters can happen. Where the advantages of the bags are most clear is when the lead belayer is not (yet) very experienced. In exchange for a little work on his part setting up the bag(s), the leader gets the peace of mind that, on the next pitch, the belayer will be able to concentrate on belaying without the distraction of dealing with knots, and that the pitch will unfold without the risk of getting short-roped and/or having to clip into pros while the belayer untangles one cluster after the other.

Seems like it has some limited use cases: a new second who has trouble managing the rope, avoiding clusters on big walls, rope soloing. I can't see a huge advantage for a typical MP scenario with experienced climbers - lap coils are dead simple and flaking the rope into a bag like this seems like a PITA.

Big Red wrote:

Seems like it has some limited use cases: a new second who has trouble managing the rope, avoiding clusters on big walls, rope soloing. I can't see a huge advantage for a typical MP scenario with experienced climbers - lap coils are dead simple and flaking the rope into a bag like this seems like a PITA.

It's understandable that you'd be reluctant to change a system that has worked well enough for you over the years, but, if you think about it, lap coiling the rope is really not all that fantastic. It keeps both hands busy throughout the second's pitch and keeps you somewhat pinned and definitely weighed down. If you're always swapping leads, it stops there, but if you have to pancake-flip the coils over to the second's tether to do the next lead, no matter how attentive you were with the size of the coils and how carefully you do the flip, even with two pairs of hands working together, some of the loops are going to end up caught inside one another, creating the potential for knots. Of course, as discussed, an experienced second will, most of the time, be able to deal with them (often very easily, other times not so easily) without losing track of your progress, short-roping you or, heaven forbid, fumbling a fall arrest, but that's not necessarily always going to be the case.

It's also a bit ironic that you should consider new seconds a limited use case. By definition, that's what every single one of us started out as. So, between this and the "sticking to what you know" approach, it might not be too long before rope management bags are part of the standard kit for multipitch climbers.   

As I mentioned, it does seem to me that a non-hooped, flippable, wraparound rope bag, like the Tillit, is a bit of a PITA so the trade-off is not as convincing. With my hooped system, it takes only about 30 seconds longer than what's shown on the video to complete the bag set-up, but after that, it's just a matter of letting the rope drop into the bag, just like dropping it in a pile under the belay device as if you were on a wide ledge (as you loosen your shoes, have a drink and eat an energy bar with your free hand; shift position, scope the next pitch, take some photos, etc. while not being weighed down by the rope and risking your neat lap coils getting messed-up), with the big difference that the pile is neatly contained inside the bag, ready to belay the next pitch, to rappel, carry out, go on to climb the next route, store at home... and start it all over again next time while not ever having had to coil it.

I would make the assertion that where beginner multipitch climbers go is on routes with wide ledges on which to stack the rope on the ground. That leaves lap coils only necessary on routes without these ledges which are often harder routes where a multipitch climber may have acquired more skill before attempting.  

I would also say that an extra 30 seconds to set every belay is a massive waste of time.

Furthermore, wouldn’t a party actually need TWO of these rope bags in order to have one for every belay? That’s a bunch of extra weight to bring along.

The only case I see as truly useful for these would be on a big wall climb where they would serve to keep the anchor tidy but are ultimately still unnecessary with good technique.

I would assert that every party I have seen that had giant rope buckets for their big wall attempt ended up bailing because they were soooooo slowwwwwwwww regardless of their neatly stacked ropes.

We don’t need extra equipment. We need to practice with what we have.

I say this as person that climbs very frequently with two or even three very inexperienced followers on a multipitch. My recommendation instead of pancake flipping is to simply restack the rope if you are unsure if the belayer can handle potential snags. Make the follower lap coil in perfect order before accepting a belay to lead on. 

jktinst wrote:

 So, between this and the "sticking to what you know" approach, it might not be too long before rope management bags are part of the standard kit for multipitch climbers.   

Yea fair enough - personally I haven't had enough problems with rope snags to warrant carrying purpose-built equipment for it but if that's an issue for folks then this would be useful.

I think I'm also a luddite that wants to resist the proliferation of specialized equipment geared for beginner multipitch climbers. Pretty soon every party is going to be bogged down with rope bags, radios, belay seats, belay gloves, quads, etc etc.

I didn't provide details on this earlier but in my system, the same cords that do the top hoop-to-anchor attachments also hold the bag lower down by simple "pivot points" on either side, so flipping it involves only taking apart the hoop, closing the top of the bag (about than 10 sec.), and flipping over the still suspended bag. There's no need to detach and reattach it while it is full, as for the Tillit. When climbing, my bags are only attached and detached from the belay when they are empty. They are carried full only when rappelling and walking in/out.