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oldsalt
Apr 6, 2004, 12:39 AM
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Registered: Jan 19, 2004
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The good news is that a "Lessons Learned" story means you survived your errors... I setup two climbs at Allenbrook in Roswell, GA on TR this weekend. I have been preparing to do it on self-belay, because I can't count on having a partner often enough - and for the challenge. I built an anchor on the top level using both available trees with size; a 24" sling that just fit one tree with enough room to clip a locker and a webbing loop around a second tree of about 12" diameter, also with a locker. A pair of ovals with opposed gates provided the linkage. I put a figure-of-eight on a bight near the middle of the rope and placed this through the biners, tied a series of overhands on bights on one half and dropped it to the middle level, protecting the rope with a piece of carpet. I rapped down on the other half using my ATC on a quickdraw, backed up by a cordelette/Prussick knot below the ATC. The first rap was stressful because I was the only one on the crag and it was my first anchor and rap setup without another pair of eyes, and my first rap on a single rope. I lowered and leaned back over the edge and easily walked down the 12 feet or so to the middle ledge. What a rush! I passed both ends of the rope over carpet at the top of Beginners 5.6 and rapped down the larger distance. Again, I thought about it before making another successful rappel. On the ground, I changed to climbing shoes and rigged my Tiblock on the rap side of the divided rope. I noticed that I had placed the backup loops too far apart on the second half, so I added a gap filler during the climb. The Tiblock slipped effortlessly up with me, having anchored the rope with the coiled excess swinging below me. This was my 3rd ascent of Beginner, so I was confident that I would not need the protection. The idea was to climb with it and practice hooking into the loops. A fun climb. At the top, I mantled onto the middle ledge and moved the ropes over to The Groove 5.8 next to Beginners. I rapped back down and noted that the ropes were bent slightly at an outcropping near the ground. Once down I slipped my folded tarp between rock and rope, just above head height. Now I was at my limit and I knew that a) the Tiblock had no release once locked, short of unweighting it, and b) it needed to be fully released or fully loaded to avoid cutting the mantle with the spikes. My planning included discussions (usual climbing discussions - meaning lengthy) with more experienced climbers including two guides. Opinions were divided between the Gri-Gri and the Tiblock. I went with the Tiblock because I'm using a 9.5mm rope and the Gri-Gri is for 10mm+, possibly 9.8mm. I have spent hours doing self-rescues in the gym, and I can set a Prussick knot with either hand. I first concentrated on the climb. The Groove starts with an overhang having good holds, but spaced wrong for a 5.6/5.7 climber. After a good long struggle, I pitched and the Tiblock caught me perfectly. I quickly rigged a cord and Prussick and discovered the first difference between gym and honest to goodness rock: I was hanging just below the overhead and swinging with my feet going from 1 foot to 5 feet above the angled deck. I re-set the cord about 3 times trying to get a good foot loop at a height that I could lift up well from. Error #1: I set the Prussick below the locked Tiblock. All of the stepping up in the world won't take the strain off a device mounted above the Prussick. Error #2: I totally forgot that I had a second rope hanging beside me, with some loops already tied and waiting. I struggled on, not figuring out the above vs below the block thing until the next day. After about 30 minutes of swinging gently in the breeze while I tied, stepped, and breathed hard, I finally managed to release the Tiblock. Remember Error #1? The block slid quickly down to and became intimately involved with the Prussick knot on the cord. Result, a rapid, if short, ride to the deck - but not at the acceleration of gravity. The half opened Tiblock left a six foot strip of mangled mantle. Just then, other climbers arrived and I headed up via the path to clear my stuff and go. Next time, I will have a Microcender or Soloist so I can release and lower in a controlled fashion without the gymnastics. The bottom line: The practice was extremely helpful, otherwise I would have been swinging gently when the next group arrived and would still be embarrassed at having to be rescued a only a couple feet from the deck. I had a great time and learned at the same time. I would welcome suggestions about the best device to use.
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timstich
Apr 6, 2004, 3:05 AM
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Registered: Feb 3, 2003
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Greetings oldsalt! Now I take it a tibloc is not the only ascender you own, is it? If it is, plop down $43 and either get a Petzl basic ascender or pay a little more ($54) and get a Microscender. That tibloc is not approved for toprope soloing. I own two and would be very wary of using them to toprope. You'll enjoy climbing more with the other ascenders and will feel a lot safer. The Microscender is ideal, as it won't ever cut your rope if it is shock loaded severly. It is designed to slip. The basic would cut your rope if your took a static fall on it that was hard enough. The tiblocs can and will damage your rope under lesser forces, especially if they don't cam on the biner correctly and slip down first. Hell, mine messed up my rope a little just climbing with the silly things.
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oldsalt
Apr 6, 2004, 11:43 AM
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I'm going to go with the Microcender. I had face to face advice on the Tiblock from someone I respected, and I showed him the rope and told him the story yesterday afternoon. Two believers out of one incident.
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timstich
Apr 6, 2004, 12:52 PM
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In reply to: I'm going to go with the Microcender. I had face to face advice on the Tiblock from someone I respected, and I showed him the rope and told him the story yesterday afternoon. Two believers out of one incident. Good deal. I just looked at the Soloist at a shop yesterday and it looks like it would work even better for toprope soloing since it's cam is not spring loaded. Of course you can lead solo with it, but I would ease into that arena very conservatively. If you have trouble with your rope feeding through the Microscender as you climb, try adding a small weight to the bottom of the rope to keep it taught.
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nafod
Apr 6, 2004, 1:08 PM
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In reply to: I pitched and the Tiblock caught me perfectly. I quickly rigged a cord and Prussick and discovered the first difference between gym and honest to goodness rock: I was hanging just below the overhead and swinging with my feet going from 1 foot to 5 feet above the angled deck. What were your intentions? To ascend aided up the rope to the top? Or descend to the ground? If descending, were you going to use a belay device in there? Just trying to get the mental picture of what was going on. I used to solo top rope lots.
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urbansherpa
Apr 6, 2004, 1:09 PM
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Registered: Mar 3, 2003
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PETZL SHUNT I recently bought a shunt (after much research on solo TR) and it works great. It has NO teeth on it to strip the rope, and moves freely enough during ascent. Designed to slip at (not sure the kN, don't have intructions in front of me) a reasonable shockload. And Yes, it is designed for TR solo. *According to my instruction booklet 2004, as well as the current Petzl PDF. The TR solo method that you use is almost the exact way that I do it. Karl
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nafod
Apr 6, 2004, 7:11 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: What were your intentions? To ascend aided up the rope to the top? Or descend to the ground? If descending, were you going to use a belay device in there? At the point of recovering from the fall I was going to unweight the Tiblock and hang on the cord while rigging a Munter Hitch on a sling and biner. I haven't used a tibloc for such stuff. I used a Petzl Basic Ascender. I found if I wanted to come down, that putting a belay device just below the ascender (with backup friction on free end from leg loop of harness) then stepping up on rope with it coiled around the foot would free up the ascender, and down I could come. Does the tibloc not release when the rope is under tension? The closest I ever came to morting was while solo toproping. I rigged the anchor in such a way that the only thing that kept me from cratering was a knot was too bulky to fit through a hole (don't ask). I still grimace when remembering getting to the top of 70+ foot climb, seeing the anchor, and thinking, "Oh my god..." Be careful.
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d.ben
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Apr 6, 2004, 7:18 PM
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I TR solo witha Petzl Basic about once a week.(I work weird hours) I like it, but I'm not a fan of the teeth. I'm thinking about buying a new self belay device. The straight edge of the cam can sever the sheath of the rope too. I just tie back up knots below me every so often at a good rest spot for back up. I always climb a grade below my level and treat it like I'm free soloing. Don't fall. I like to keep it a simple as possible so I can concentrate on climbing. There is a good article outlining most self belay devices and their pros/cons. I don't remember the exact site, but just google search self belay guide and it pops up in the first page somewhere. It's pretty informative.
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climber49er
Apr 6, 2004, 7:37 PM
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In reply to: The closest I ever came to morting was while solo toproping. I rigged the anchor in such a way that the only thing that kept me from cratering was a knot was too bulky to fit through a hole (don't ask). I still grimace when remembering getting to the top of 70+ foot climb, seeing the anchor, and thinking, "Oh my god..." You said, "Don't ask", but I have to... Alright, fess up, what the heck kind of anchor did you have going?
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nafod
Apr 6, 2004, 8:34 PM
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Registered: Jun 5, 2003
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In reply to: In reply to: The closest I ever came to morting was while solo toproping. I rigged the anchor in such a way that the only thing that kept me from cratering was a knot was too bulky to fit through a hole (don't ask). I still grimace when remembering getting to the top of 70+ foot climb, seeing the anchor, and thinking, "Oh my god..." You said, "Don't ask", but I have to... Alright, fess up, what the heck kind of anchor did you have going? It's been a bunch of years...see if I can recollect...I was using webbing from a couple of different trees, and brought them all down together and tied them into a single large knot with a loop in it. It was easiest to equalize them that way. When I went to clip the biners, opposite and opposed, somehow (I stil scratch my head on this) I clipped the webbing above the knot, rather than the loop. I clipped all 4 lines coming down, which is to say, I clipped nothing. The biners slid down and caught on the knot, for some reason my careful eyeballing and jerk test missed my mistake, and that was my belay. Amazing.
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drunkencabanaboy
Apr 6, 2004, 9:02 PM
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In reply to: The biners slid down and caught on the knot, for some reason my careful eyeballing and jerk test missed my mistake, and that was my belay. Amazing. d@mn.
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oldsalt
Apr 7, 2004, 1:50 AM
Post #14 of 18
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Registered: Jan 19, 2004
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Johnny, I've tied many a Munter one-handed while hanging on the gym wall. Still, I feel stupid at the oversight. May all of your mental uh-ohs turn out as well as this one.
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rockitjeff
Apr 7, 2004, 2:13 AM
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Hi Steve- I’ve posted a few times here on rc.com on TR soloing. I work weird hours, have no free time so those rare moments at the crags, I don’t want to belay anybody else; I just wanna climb. Plus I’m antisocial to boot. So, most my climbing is TR’ing w/ a soloist. Go buy one. It’s safe, works pretty well… . one other thing I like. Not sure if it’s because mine is worn in, but to rap, all you have to do is lean back the right way. Kind of convenient to tag the summit anchors and wizzz back down without re-rigging (or- at any point in your climb you can lower). Well documented that the soloist does not catch upside-down falls. Overhand backup knots every so often required. But- unless you are throwing head over heel hooks, upside down TR falls pretty rare.
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moeman
Apr 9, 2004, 1:53 AM
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I use a good old Gri-Gri. I just use it becuase I rarely self belay and I don't want to plunk down the money for an ascender. It works very well; the only drawback is you have to yard slack through manually (i.e. it doesn't self feed). This sucks becuase you have to stop every 5 feet or so to yard in the slack. But this only takes one hand, and I haven't self belayed on anything harder than 5.9, so this hasn't been a problem. the biggest advantage of it is that you don't have to switch devices to rappel, just pull back on the lever.
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styndall
Apr 9, 2004, 2:44 AM
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Registered: May 29, 2002
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In reply to: PETZL SHUNT I recently bought a shunt (after much research on solo TR) and it works great. It has NO teeth on it to strip the rope, and moves freely enough during ascent. Designed to slip at (not sure the kN, don't have intructions in front of me) a reasonable shockload. And Yes, it is designed for TR solo. *According to my instruction booklet 2004, as well as the current Petzl PDF. The TR solo method that you use is almost the exact way that I do it. Karl It was probably operator error that caused the accident, but I helped carry a guy out of Rocktown after he decked soloing with a shunt and popped his ankle. Everyone was too pumped for a fireman's carry, so we piggy-backed and made human crutches. Whatever you use, be wary.
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urbansherpa
Apr 11, 2004, 7:52 PM
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Styndall, I would agree to be careful with any method. I have read a couple of stories about excessive Shunt slippage. That is why I also use a second line (the other half really) with fig8 loops. I clip into these loops with a seperate,redundant runner&carabiner as I progress. I suppose that this second line is really the safest, and the Shunt line is a convenience. I know that if I fall on the Shunt line there is very little relative shockloading as the fall is only about 10-12". (Shunt to Maillon Rapide to belay loop), and no real drama. The Shunt works well for me, on my gear. I think a Shunt could F-up due to excess shockload, or a rope diameter that is less than the man'f recommendations. As with any method always have a 'Plan B' Karl
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