Rope Soloing Ice

keohan68 wrote:I just got a Soloist, and will begin TR soloing ...

Rope doesn't feed through the Soloist when you use it for TR solo. You have to pull it through. So there WILL BE SLACK. So DO NOT use a static rope.

keohan68 wrote:I just got a Soloist, and will begin TR soloing as soon as my climbing partner (who has been using the Soloists for years) comes up to educate me. I'm going to back up with a shunt or Mini Traxion. My intent is to keep from abusing my rope with the teeth. So my questions are 1. any rope damage from grigri or traxion? 2. Does anyone use static rope? As I can get Edelweiss Canyon Static 9.6mm Rope cheap.I will be doing laps at a close by area to train.

The teeth on the microtraxions are not as severe as the teeth on Tibloc's or most ascenders that I am familiar with. That said, they will wear your rope more than a non-toothed device.

You can use a static rope depending on the device. A static rope will wear better and can be a little easier to use (especially if there is a lot or rope out). Regardless of the kind of rope you are using, if there is slack in the system, I would really avoid taking any kind of fall onto a toothed device as you could easily shred the rope up that way (stretched rope + sharp edges = yikes!). If you are using a microtraxion on appropriate terrain, there should not be any slack in the system and fall is pretty comfortable (and more like weighting the rope). I have never used a microtraxion for solo ice-climbing, but I think I would like the presence of teeth in case the rope iced up.

If you use a knotted back up obviously that should be dynamic rope.

You might find this helpful: supertopo.com/a/How-to-Set-…

Jim

I use a Yates rocker. By far the best single TR solo device out there. Cams very efficiently, even on frozen ropes, uncams with a simple unloading of the unit, slips up the rope with absolutely no fuss. Clip it on and forget it. I take a no-fall policy ANYTIME I climb ice. It's not worth the risk, too many things to go wrong on ice in a fall...

To re-iterate what was already said but was proposed in the first post, do NOT use the Silent Partner in the wintertime as the manual itself states that the camming device can freeze and cause the system to fail. Otherwise it is a great device for both leading and top-rope soloing rock in more moderate temps. I've used it a lot for sport-climbing as well as took the thing up Cannon for the exposed "crux" of the Whitney Gilman in NH and felt pretty comfortable with it. There is a small learning curve to get used to the backup loops and all the extra "work" involved with self-belay on lead.

Otherwise, for winter ice climbing, have top-rope soled many times by fixing a line at the top and using a gri-gri. Every 5 feet or so I just manually pull the slack through the device with my free hand. This can be a bit laborious at times, but I have fallen on the system a few times without problems.

I've also led with the system on easier grades (3+) by fixing the line at the bottom and manually feeding myself slack through the gri-gri as I go up. I found this to take more effort than it was worth, so now I prefer soloing instead at this grade.

I've heard that using two mini-traxions on a line fixed to both the top and bottom is a very efficient auto feeding system, but have not tested it myself.

I hope this is helpful.

I know this post has been up for a bit but...Recently I was looking for a good TR device. My buddy used the ushba and that worked well. Too bad they stopped making them. I went on the forum and someone turned me onto the uascend. grandwallequipment.ca/produ…
It is almost identical to the ushba and not that pricey $60. It works great, no teeth on it to damage your rope. To back it up all you need to do is tie a knot below you, just in case it doesn't catch, but I have not had it fail yet.:-) It won't work for lead solo though.

There is tons of information here:

petzl.com/us/outdoor/produc…

Use the Petzl ascender and the Min-Traxion and you won't have to dick around tying safety knots every 10 ft like I use to do using the GriGri - and - best of all - the method above leaves BOTH hands FREE to climb with - making it possible to climb harder grades than when your dicking around having to stop and tie knots every few feet.

Having to tie back up knots every few feeseriouslyly disrupts your rhythm and flow - IMHO.

But hey - that's just IMO. The method I mentioned just works so well I don't even mess around with knots any longer!