Speed Big Walling as Four

It seems like an interesting plan that probably works in theory. I'm curious whether that would actually translate into working in practice, though. Good luck, and I'd say go for it as long as you aren't clogging up a trade route. Worse case scenario, it doesn't work and probably get a good story to tell. Best case, you find a new technique that revolutionizes big-walling for ever- probably not, but oh well. Just have fun, stay relatively safe, and be open minded. I expect an interesting trip report, please don't disappoint.

It's "speed" climbing in the sense that the next pitch is led WHILE the previous pitch is cleaned and the bags are hauled, not AFTER. Normal systems require the previous pitch to be cleaned before the next pitch can be led. FISH big wall gear's website uses a similar "speed" system for three, with four ropes, so I'm definitely not the only person who has done such a system.

The basic thought is that the hauling and cleaning will never take longer than the leading, so as long as the next leader can jug and start leading without hassle, the hauler and cleaner can take their time. The rope management issue is real, but with four lines instead of five I can see it working. Coiled zip clipped to anchor point stacked in a sling, coiled haul line clipped to the other anchor point stacked in a sling. The cleaner's lead line hangs from their belay loop, below everyone and out of the way. The other lead line is lap coiled on the belayer. It's a lot, but it still seems possible.

Stephen Felker wrote: aka Suicide Hauling

Well there is a bag at the end, that would stop ya eventually.

This will be a tough go. I don't see how your saving any time at all. You say that someone is always leading. That's just not true. You need to wait for someone to jug a line up to you. Only then can you start to lead again, unless you short rope. Then your not considering the complexity and the clusterfuck at the belay.

Two will be faster because as the leader finishes the pitch they secure a rope for the second, who jugs/cleans and the leader hauls. Rinse and repeat. With a part of 4 this bags will be incredibly heavy. It will take 2 haulers to make even the slightest of progress. Think about how much water and food you'll need for a team of 4 on a big wall. You can't effectively practice this on a smaller wall either unless you bring 5 days worth of food and water for a 4 man team, on a 6 pitch route.

Even if you get the belays to work efficiently, which is highly unlikely. The hauling is going to be a nightmare. When you practice do it with a full big wall load.

There is a reason climbing is done as a team of two. It's the most efficient no matter which way you slice it.

Good luck!

Four is going to be slow and the clusters are going to be huge.

Good Luck, be safe, have fun though. I'll be there in June and can't wait to watch! Seek me out there and I'll try to help you with any questions you have.

Ask the Koreans. They're always in the valley with teams the size of Catholic families. Why do you want to do a team of 4?

Please listen to the NUMEROUS and EXPERIENCED people who have ALL said this is a horrible idea and don't do it. You are a total n00b, why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? Listen to what other people have already suggested and give up on this idea now before you waste anymore time.

Try it, have fun with it, even if you fail. To NOT try at ALL is to fail. Athletes are accomplishing what was absolutely UNTHINKABLE 20-30 years ago! More moving parts means more lee way for accidente!

By all means try, but why try something that everyone agrees is a horrible idea and just going to be a pain in the ass? Come up with a REASONABLE plan and go for that! No sense in handicapping yourself right off the bat.

Not sure if this has been asked yet, but why are you committed to climbing as a team of four? Every time I've seen a team of four, it's a pair leading and cleaning and a pair just jugging. Who just wants to jug El Cap, unless you're Ozzy Ozborne's fat son.

Hi Guys,

Cool thread!

Hey first off I want to say hats off for going for a bigwall speed climb. That is some hard stuff! Seriously you have to be super fit, and dialed as a team, to even hope of pulling off a speed climb.

The responses on this thread, save for a couple, sound fairly uneducated.

Let's back up a bit:

Where did speed climbing in a team of four, on any terrain, come from?

Have folks speed climbed bigwalls in Yosemite in a team of four before? Did anyone talk to them afterward? What tips did they/do they have to share?

As for the team proposing these ascents: do not be dismayed by any criticism here. You got this! For sure you will have to start small, but you've said you are going to do that.

Best part about bigwall speed climbing in a team of four? Everyone walks down with 20 lbs on their back after climbing a 1000 meter wall!

Worst part about speed climbing with a team of four?....let's get some more responses first - there might not be any worst parts ;)

Woot Woot!
Erik
Yosemitebigwall.com

ps. you can see my bigwall bio here(I"ve done a speed climb with 5 people a couple times!):

yosemitebigwall.com/users/e…

Thanks, Erik, for assuming the best in our intentions.

Since many have asked, here's the back story:

1. Myself and my three buddies have been climbing together for a while now.
2. We all want to climb El Cap together after we graduate.
3. Being college students, we don't have enough money to afford two full big wall aid racks.
4. We realized that if our goal was to climb El Cap together, then we should either find a way to climb El Cap together, as four, or bail on the idea entirely.
5. We realized that the FISH Big Wall 3-man "speed system" could plausibly work with four with some minor tweaks. One SMALL advantage of 3 vs. 4 is that the workload splits up well; first you lead, then belay, then clean, then haul, all before you have to lead again. Because the tasks are split up to the maximum, no job is hurried except for the leading (because if anyone is slowing anyone down, it would be the leader).

We are under no delusions that four is practically faster than three or even two, but our experience together has been as a team of four, and we intended to keep it that way.

Isn't that why anyone climbs anything? To reach some goal that can't quite be justified?

Now we very well may fail, but I got into climbing because it was a challenge. Climbing as four is obviously a challenge, but I don't think that I have to JUSTIFY why I find this challenge attractive, as long as we are approaching the obstacles with a realistic attitude towards the difficulties ahead.

We are approaching this with a realistic attitude and a game plan. Aid basics 3x a week for 7 months aiding, jugging and hauling on a tree in the park. Honing trad leading every weekend. Eight aid walls together starting with 4 pitches, then 6, then 8, then 3 routes on WC, then WF-LT, then RNWF-HD, then El Cap.

I don't have an ounce of resentment towards people who look at a plan like that and say "you are probably going to fail." But it is disheartening to see people discouraging even attempting such a thing. The memories that I cherish most in my climbing were those times when I went for something out of my league, barely did it, and got my ass kicked along the way. I have never regretted these decisions, and I doubt I'll regret this one either.

Alex Wyvill wrote: belay, then clean, then haul, all before you have to lead again.

Seems to me you have a problems right there in bold. If you view leading as something you "have" to do, rather than want to do, why are you up there in the first place?

I'd way rather be leading than hauling or drooling on myself at the belay.

People aren't saying not to go after big goals. They are saying, many from direct experience, that a party of four sucks on wall routes. I've done a bunch of walls (not as many as Mike, but more than most), and exactly one of those was in a party of 4. It sucked compared to 2 or 3 (we had a good time, but only because two of them were n00bs that weren't leading, so I got to lead half the pitches as if it were just two of us, without having to haul many pitches), and I'll never do it again.

Add pendulums and cleaning pendulums, and cleaning traverses to your practice routine. That's the kind of stuff that slows people down and can turn dangerous.

Tons of teams climb in big parties. Teams from countries other than USA commonly do this, as they often have less equipment and expertise than their USA counterparts.

In what discipline of climbing is speed-climbing in a team of four commonly used? Alpine climbing.

What can we learn from alpine climbing about approaching a bigwall in a team of four?

What makes an alpine team of four effective? I know we all have a bunch of friends in Patagonia right now. No doubt some of them are climbing in teams of four right now. Maybe we can get stories from the front?

Woot Woot!
Erik
Yosemitebigwall.com

I don't have anything to add about the logistics of doing this. But I will add that I see the appeal. Even if it were less efficient, hanging out on a wall with my three best friends would be a blast. I'd just plan on being slow, take extra Scotch, hopefully something to smoke, and enjoy the ledge time.

Alex,

I hope you crush this. Most importantly, you are stoked. If this is what you want to do, then the naysayers can go fuck themselves.

I do however have some suggestions for you:

1. Someone else mentioned talking to the Koreans. I gotta second this. I once met a group of ten Koreans strung together by 9 ropes in a giant caterpillar formation. When the leader started the 4th or 5th pitch the last guy finally started following.

2. I have found that leading in blocks is the way to go for walls and for alpine routes. Transitions are faster, and you can short fix and keep the leader moving. More importantly your mind stays in lead mentality, and you force yourself to focus and really move. There is no "resting" at belays when it is your block, and you push through the fear. I hope you watch this video: vimeo.com/129573348
Those guys are very fast and experienced. Notice how they each only have one block. You might get anxious before your block, but once you start, you can really move.

3. As other people mentioned, clusterfucks really will be a challenge. Best way to solve this is with experience.

4. What most other commenters didn't mention is what sort of clusterfuck will really screw you over: traverses. Get that shit dialed before you go.

5. Because of your style and inexperience, route choice is going to be very important. I would recommend not doing the Nose or Salathe or Lurking Fear. I would recommend doing T-trip or Zodiac or some harder route on the right side. Nose, Salathe and LF will have lots of parties on them, and if you do end up being slow then I really think that's going to be bad style to clog up one of those high-traffic routes. Also, those routes either have a lot of traversing which will be hell(see #4), or are a pain to get off(lurking fear has 500 feet of "easy" climbing which is awful with haulbags and portaledges and I am so stoked I've only done it in a push).

If you have any questions about this stuff for me specifically, feel fee to send me a private message.

I like doing walls and alpine routes as a team of 3. It can be really fun, and while 4 people will be inefficient, it really can make for a fun and hilarious atmosphere. That's why we do it, right?

Don't fuck up and die, and get out there and crush some bones.

Alex Wyvill wrote:Our goal was a bag under 180-200 lbs, in which all of us should be able to space haul with the belayer hanging as a counterweight. Is that unrealistic, in your experience?

You didn't mention any specific routes, but do you think you can space haul on every pitch on a big wall? Are you aware that the bag will find and often get hung up on every flake and little overhang and chimney it comes near? Do you know why parties avoid hauling on the first 1000' of the Salathe Wall (aka Free Blast)?

Here's a fun experiment for you: load up a haul bag with 150 lbs. Set up a hauling system on your driveway or sidewalk. Attempt to haul it 60 meters.

Yo Gang!

In the spirit of keeping the adventure I will suggest that on the first practice route you guys undertake, you take a lesson from alpine teams climbing in a team of four and try to keep each member as self-contained as possible. Of course whoever is climbing second should carry the leader's essentials, but in general I"ve found it is good to count on getting into any hauled, or shared assets, on a big complicated climb as infrequently as possible.

This means having three of the team members having a lightweight backpack with food, water, headlamp, and maybe a jacket, etc.

This can reduce the cluster significantly, and help you deal with anything that comes up.

My other suggestion is to think of having big leading blocks, shared between the fist and second climber, so you don't have to have all four people at the same place until say the middle of the route, where you do a resupply and change over.

Woot Woot!
E

Great encouragement and specific suggestions from all.

Leading in blocks has been brought up countless times. Realistically, nobody in my team, myself included, is going to feel comfortable with short fixing with rope soloing given our experience level. Is leading in blocks still worth it? I guess I don't understand how a "block lead" system speeds things up or decreases clusters as compared to my proposed "rotating lead" system, unless you short fix and rope solo in some capacity. Is this correct, or am I misunderstanding the mechanics involved?

Alex,

I think you are getting a bit confused by the idea of leading in blocks. Think of it this way: the leader will always have to wait for one second to come up to him to start leading again UNLESS he is shortfixing. So really swapping leads or leading in blocks has nothing to do with shortfixing. Either the second comes up and becomes the leader or he becomes the belayer.

The major advantage of leading in blocks is that the leader gets to take a break at the top and survey his next pitch. He also gets to stay in the lead mindset for a long period of time and keep moving quickly with that same mindset. Switching roles every pitch day after day is not as efficient. Also then you can memorize your block and work with a goal in mind. For example: my goal is to fire from sickle ledge to dolt tower where my partner will take over and lead us to el cap tower. Personally I also find jugging and following something that takes me a bit of time to get into a rhythm. When I can keep that rhythm going for 5 pitches or so I start moving faster.

I HIGHLY recommend leading in blocks for most multipitch situations. As a NC trad climber who has climbed El Capitan, I also HIGHLY recommend working on your ability to spend long days on a multipitch climbing moving efficiently. This is done best by going somewhere out west and doing longer free routes.

In the end there are many ways to approach climbing a big wall. I personally will never climbing anything C2 or easier with more than 2 people. But you will figure out what works for you.

Hope this helps.