I and my partner toproped a 3 pitch trad route once. After topping out leading the route we decided to have some fun. One would rappel down. The other stayed behind and secured the climber from the top. The rope was just long enough to reach bottom and the climber could sprint 3 pitches. It was an easy route and climbing 60m in less than 3 minutes is great fun

If the route was that easy, why didn't you trad it in the first place? Of course, you won't be running up the route, but hell, climbing is not about running... At least, that's my point of view!

FIND A PARTNER TO LEAD UP AND SECOND HIM/HER!!!

I remeber when I first started coming to this site. There was a lot of constructive dialogue and a lot of flaming, but few trolls. At least even the flaming was interesting because you got to see interesting points of view. Currently, with this new troll craze, this web site is quickly deteriorating to pathetic. They were funny in the beginning, but now it seems that a huge percentage of the posts on the front page are trolls. They are getting old. It's sad that stuff like trip reports get buried and crap like this gets all the attention.

Aren't you forgetting to account for the phase of the moon? :D



I think you're missing a signifcant digit. :P

ronamick

Adrenaline Junkie


Joined: 27 Nov 2002
Posts: 340


Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:41 pm Post subject: Re: Top roping a trad climb?
According to my calculations, if gimpy here sets up a 160'TR with two brand new 10.mm dynamic ropes (min. 13% low load stretch factor) anchored by 4 plies of 1" tubular webbing (double runners), clipped with doubled full-gate, full strength locking carabiners at each end, and if the anchor slings are less than 10' in total length and both the slings and rope are dry, AND... weather conditions are moderate, RH 35-80%, ambient temp no more than 95 degrees, chlorofluorocarbon levels and atmospheric ozone content normal, and assuming sunspot activity is minimal, and magnetic flux at the Earth's core reasonably stable, AND...
gimpy weighs no more than 215 lbs and has no known alergies, the following conditions are true.

1) Rope drag would be in the neighborhood of thirteen trillion kilonewtons, meaning a force comparable to the gravitational field of the planet Uranus would be required to take in slack at the start of the climb.

2) The belayer would expend somewhere on the order of 14,000 calories of energy for every 10 feet of rope he pulls.

3) A time lag of 1,600 - 1,900 seconds would be experienced between the time the belayer pulls the rope, and the time the climber actually sees the rope move upward.

4) A fall anywhere on the initial 80 - 100' of the route would result in the climber engaging the ground at terminal velocity, due to rope stretch.

5) A fall from any height above groundfall potential will generate enough reciprocal inertia in the rope to launch a 215 lb. man more than 6,000 yards, at near-light speed. This slingshot effect would cause a 350% vertical elongation of the rope before arresting the climber's upward travel at a point in the sky some 500' above the anchors, from whence he would reverse direction of travel and proceed in an Earthbound direction at 75% of skyward velocity. I calcululate that the rope would stretch to a diameter of 1.117mm at the upward terminus, which represents a substantial transferrence of physical stress forces onto the belayer as well. There are several schools of thought as to the dissipation of residual kinetic forces in this scenario, but most agree that a minimum of 4 oscillations of rope travel from nadir to apogee can be expected. The possibility of a climber surviving such an event are 0.0000000000000000230000000000004500000000%.

6) The knot will not pass through the anchor crabs, meaning the climber would have to exit the climb by pulling himself up hand over hand, jumping off, or untying and completing the climb free solo. A most unsatisfactory proposition.