Two followers using two single ropes

cdec wrote:^^^ Is not true.

As far as difficulty climbing the new person cleaning isn't ideal but it is safer to have them clean than to have them sitting at the bottom by themselves and do something stupid like start climbing before they were put on belay etc. I always put a new climber in the middle if we are in a group of 3 so they always have a more experienced person with them.

ViperScale wrote:Unless you are belaying both the seconds up at the same time just let the second hall the rope up and if there is directionals needed to protect a swing have the second leave that piece and gear and clip the 2nd rope to it.

Did not read the OP or didn't understand it.

The OP did say: "two followers and want to belay both of them at the same time."

You said, "Unless you are belaying both the seconds up at the same time, blah, blah blah.....

Nick Goldsmith wrote:Most fool proof way for party of 3 on multi pitch with pitches longer than 30m is to put the least experienced climber in the middle and have them tag up the 2nd rope clipping directionals as needed. You then take the tag from them and belay the 2nd more experienced follower. If you are certain that the pitches are comfortably under 30m you may tie a fig 8 on a bight in the middle of a single rope. clip the first 2nd in to this with 2 lockers. the 2nd followers then ties into the end of the rope.

Much slower. Defeats the benefit of the auto block that can belay two at the same time.

What the OP is doing is fine and perhaps the most fool proof.

Clipping both ropes eliminates clipping the wrong one by mistake, which is easy to do if the ropes have similar color.

Clipping both ropes eliminates thinking about whether directionals are needed or not for either follower.

Being belayed on only one rope prevents the potentially higher load by falling on two ropes not rated as twins. It would only be about 1.2 times though, so not the end of the world in most cases.

Clipping both ropes may cause some extra drag, though and requires more effort for the leader.

Alternately, if your first follower is competent, you can have him/her clip the second follower's rope to gear when necessary as directionals. This saves the leader some energy. And now, both followers can do some of the cleaning.

I frequently climb in this configuration - with myself leading everything and two followers climbing simultaneously.

I tie into both ropes, with one follower tied into each of the other two ropes. By some luck, I always seem to end up with two ropes of different colors, so telling them apart has yet to be a problem.

I am almost always on belay from follower #2 (more experienced) on one single rope. After some experimentation, I've settled on mostly the same configuration that others in this thread are suggesting - clip my lead rope to every piece, and only clip follower #1's rope to pieces that protect them on traversing sections. After building an anchor, I'll bring both followers up at the same time, with the least experienced follower #1 going first.

By far the key to having a good time is not to get the ropes twisted, either at the belay or between placements. Twisted ropes mean awful rope drag and frustrated partners - if the pitch is hard it may be very difficult for the first follower to remove the twist, especially if follower #2 has to hang because of the delay...

When I have to clip both ropes to a piece to protect a traverse, I'll use one short sling and one longer sling (or draw). If I only have two short draws, I'll clip one to the piece and one to the webbing of the first draw to at least give them a few inches of separation.

When clipping both ropes to the same placement, I'll be consistent about which rope I clip to the longer draw. I've found that it works best to clip follower #1's rope (that I'm only tagging, not on belay with) to the longer of the slings/draws. This way their rope will always be on the "outside", and they will be able to easily pass over follower #2's rope. Also this conveniently means a slightly shorter potential fall.

I've found that by expending a little energy thinking about rope routing I can almost entirely avoid twists and maintain reasonable speed with two followers.