What do you have on your self-rescue carabiner?

Here's a cool trick to ascend the rope without foot loops: the footlock. Not AMGA practice, yer gunna die etc. but if you only have one runner or prussik...

youtube.com/watch?v=l9rjXHA…

The footlock is worthless if there is no rope below your waist to lock your feet on. Anyone standing at the base of a rappel or on a belay ledge is going to have plenty of material for improvising prussiking. Anyone leading who ends up dangling is going to have plenty of material too. The only situation that could be problematic is if the second ends up dangling somewhere and literally has no slings with them.

There is a trick for inverting and then standing up on a loop of rope, but it is athletic and may not be something that one can do if banged up or in bad conditions.

Personally, I do carry two short 6mm cord prussik loops in a zippered pocket in my chalk bag. Not on a bail biner, so my comment about not having a bail biner might be judged to be disingenuous.

Circumstances that would leave me dangling on a climb with no slings seem to me to be extremely rare. For one thing, I almost always clean onto a shoulder runner, not my harness, so I almost always have that. I climb with trad draws, so having cleaned even one would yield a shoulder length sling. Moreover, as a half-rope user, I can always (at least if communication is possible) pull down slack in one strand while hanging on the other and fabricate a foot loop (and friction knot, although I don't need that).

I'm still fine in the exceptionally unlikely case that I'm climbing on a single rope and am hanging in space with no slings other than the little prussiks in my chalk bag. Since I'm an installed tether user, I can always use that clipped to one of the prussiks as a foot loop, so I'm always good to go.

In 57 years of climbing, I've had to ascend a rope twice and prussik down once. The two ascents involved stuck rap lines. The descent involved coming to the aid of an inexperienced partner who had gotten their rap device jammed and were hanging in space unable to move. They had gone first so the rap line was weighted, and the only way I could think to reach them was to prussik down the rope.

In one of the two stuck rap line cases, the situation was little more than an annoyance. In the other case, we were in a very critical position in a very severe storm and not being able to retrieve the ropes could easily have ended in all of us dying. The location was remote and there was no help available.

The case of the jammed rappeller was worrisome, because they were struggling and getting a little panicked and I was concerned that they might do something dangerous.

All three prussiks were done with improvised gear, and I think two out of the three were in critical situations that called for quick and effective action. Not having the skills and minimal gear to do this at all is placing a potentially fatal bet that nothing will ever go wrong.

We'll thanks for the clarifications rgold. Seems that you and bear both keep at least some sort of sling.

I have been in the unfortunate situation of prussiking a rope before. Had I not had them, I and my party would have been in serious trouble. It has caused me to want to be prepared.

The worst scenario that I can imagine is an overhanging fall as a lead or second with an unresponsive belayer.

When people suggest only needing a grigri, not needing slings, etc, it makes me wonder what I'm missing. Anyhow, thanks for the feedback everyone, it has been a worthwhile discussion.

1) Print out of various MP threads about escaping the belay
2) Weed

1) Print out of various MP threads about escaping the belay
2) Weed

Ryan Watts wrote:1) Print out of various MP threads about escaping the belay 2) Weed

i keep a razor blade taped inside my helmet. only other gear i carry is a mini wire gate with my nut tool on it. the spine of the wire gate is wrapped in duct tape in case i need to fix a core shot in the rope of tape a biner shut. the 6mm keeper for the nut tool is also what i use for my prussic. if i need another prussic i use a sewn sling. i carry a 25' cordalette made of 6mm cord that i cut up when i need to sling stuff to bail on. most of the time i just bail directly on the cord and don't use a link, rap ring, or biner unless im rapping off of two different sized ropes that could cut it