Rappelling on 6mm cord

I recently purchased 60m of Petzl RAD line for alpine skiing/climbing rappels and attempting to determine best practices. I’ve glanced through Petzl’s recommendations, however, I wanted to get the MP community perspective. Questions below:

- Do you generally utilize a munter or go with a micro belay device (i.e. BD ATC Alpine)? What’s your favorite “flavor” of the munter for this purspose?

- Can you utilize a regular ATC and add additional friction? What methods do you use to add friction?

- How do you keep your skinny ropes from tangling? Rope bag? Daisy chain?

The best device I've used with 6 mm ropes is Grivel Scream  (5-8 mm)

Haigh Angell wrote:

I recently purchased 60m of Petzl RAD line for alpine skiing/climbing rappels and attempting to determine best practices. I’ve glanced through Petzl’s recommendations, however, I wanted to get the MP community perspective. Questions below:

- Do you generally utilize a munter or go with a micro belay device (i.e. BD ATC Alpine)? What’s your favorite “flavor” of the munter for this purspose?

- Can you utilize a regular ATC and add additional friction? What methods do you use to add friction?

- How do you keep your skinny ropes from tangling? Rope bag? Daisy chain?

See multipitchclimbing.com

I got the ATC alpine and it works quite well. It really grips well on the 6 mm. With a autoblock backup It feels fine on a double rope rap. 

Sometimes I do a single line rap from the beal escaper and then I will add friction by using 2 carabiners. There is also a lot more friction with a 'biner that is not round stock. 

My ice climbing to ropes are 7.7 mm -and I really like the ATC alpine for belaying and rapping those. Although it's tight, you almost have to feed the ropes through. My friend's older 8.2 ropes are too thick for it. So although the device is supposedly made for 8mm ropes, I think it performs better on thinner ropes. 

I’ve rapped a handful of times on two-stranded 6mm cord. I’m around 200’lbs and several of those times were with a 45 lb pack while off-trail backpacking a couple years ago.

I used a large locker and a super munter with pack hung from belay loop.

The longest rappels were around 50 feet. I recall having to deal with tangles once or twice.

Practice in backyard before the possibility of doing it live. Wear a helmet, especially on scrappy terrain. Doesn’t take a big rock to cut open your scalp.

You can use a normal ATC type device extended and then use a biner break on your belay loop.  It is essentially two rappel devices in series.  And if you don't have a belay device you can also use a biner break that is twice as long so it adds more friction.  I'm having a hard time coming up with how to explain that so I'll try and take a pic and post it later.

@David Coley - it appears your website's Certificate isn't valid.   Website won't load on any browser.

Mikey Schaefer wrote:

You can use a normal ATC type device extended and then use a biner break on your belay loop.  It is essentially two rappel devices in series.  And if you don't have a belay device you can also use a biner break that is twice as long so it adds more friction.  I'm having a hard time coming up with how to explain that so I'll try and take a pic and post it later.

@David Coley - it appears your website's Certificate isn't valid.   Website won't load on any browser.

Thanks Mikey

Please try this link, it works for me

http://multipitchclimbing.com/

I do it like this with my RAD line. Friction is better than with my other dedicated small rope devices.

It's a kind of Super-Munter that Bill mentioned before, without going through the locker again at the end. The advantage is that you can gradually adjust the friction you want.

• Less friction: keep it a little more open
• More friction: add and an extra twist around the rope

Get a Grivel Scream. Learn the Monster Munter for emergencies, but use the Scream. A Monster will destroy your rope, even if slightly slower than the standard munter. 

Z rappel technique.  I’ve used it with no probs while ice climbing.  

Don't buy the Scream for rappelling with the Rad Line!

After the recommendations of other users, I was curious and ordered it. It creates only little friction with the Rad Line (even in optimized mode for most friction). It does not get better when using two carabiners at the same time. This tool is definitely useless for rappelling on Rad Line. As written above -> HMS (edit: munter hitch ). Or use Mammut's Nano Eight that creates less friction than the HMS but way better than the scream.

Oof be careful with that stuff. It got a bad reputation in my circles after someone had a very close call with the 6mm cord was almost abraded through in multiple places.

Fwiw, I would get a rope bag for it, they work great for thin lines. Any stuff sack would probably do or for something nice look at throw bags for canyoneering or whitewater rescue.

Putting a bight through a slot and clipping on to the carabiner, and adding one more bight produced enough friction to easily hold onto the PUR cord.  Another bight could also be added.

Brocky wrote:

Putting a bight through a slot and clipping on to the carabiner, and adding one more bight produced enough friction to easily hold onto the PUR cord.  Another bight could also be added.

For me it looks like a plate/Scream that tries to get involved in a munter hitch setup somehow. Plus losing the possibility to rappel on both strands. What is the advantage? 

Will work with two lines.

A friction hitch for back up can be tied to the upper hole.

Verti Cally wrote:

Don't buy the Scream for rappelling with the Rad Line!

After the recommendations of other users, I was curious and ordered it. It creates only little friction with the Rad Line (even in optimized mode for most friction). It does not get better when using two carabiners at the same time. This tool is definitely useless for rappelling on Rad Line. As written above -> HMS (edit: munter hitch ). Or use Mammut's Nano Eight that creates less friction than the HMS but way better than the scream.

how did you load it

Thank you Brocky! 

I have tried it like you suggested (single and double) and yes, it is okay. But I will stay with the munter hitch (+ variant) and/or Nano Eight because I don't see the advantage for the Scream here. But that's the beauty of mountaineering, to have the choice.

Finn, I don't know exactly what you mean or what you are referring to. Scream, Nano, munter? By "load" do you mean what exactly?
Sorry, I'm (obviously;-) not a native speaker.

As MS suggested, a biner brake can be employed below the extended ATC, will provide plenty of friction on two stranded rap on 6mm. 

I use the gigajul, but a Pivot or atc guide is fine, honestly they all seem to work fine on double stranded ATC, in my experience (prob only 30 or so raps on two-strand 6mm semi-static line). I've only done one looooong (180ft) rap on single strand 7.3mm dynamic and I would have loved to have the biner brake, I used a stand alone atc, no backup, didn't enjoy it and don't recommend, kinda rough to keep that much force on the brake strand. 

Apologies for the shite camera angle but you can easily google how to set up a biner brake. Play with it on the ground before you find yourself needing it, though they are super simple to learn.

I went soloing some ice this week so didn’t bring any dynamic ropes (just Petzl pur and edelrid rlp) and had more than enough friction this way even on overhang 

I’ve used the Grivel Scream with a Pur Line and I was not too impressed. I definitely feel like you get more friction with an ATC Alpine Guide. Plus the scream requires an extra locking carabiner which negates any weight savings over the ATC alpine guide. 

Christian Hesch wrote:

As MS suggested, a biner brake can be employed below the extended ATC, will provide plenty of friction on two stranded rap on 6mm. 

I use the gigajul, but a Pivot or atc guide is fine, honestly they all seem to work fine on double stranded ATC, in my experience (prob only 30 or so raps on two-strand 6mm semi-static line). I've only done one looooong (180ft) rap on single strand 7.3mm dynamic and I would have loved to have the biner brake, I used a stand alone atc, no backup, didn't enjoy it and don't recommend, kinda rough to keep that much force on the brake strand. 

Apologies for the shite camera angle but you can easily google how to set up a biner brake. Play with it on the ground before you find yourself needing it, though they are super simple to learn.

That specific picture looks pretty sketch to me.