Gear Review - Fish Snake Charmer Rope Bag

Fish Snake Charmer Rope Bag

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If you have ever soloed a wall or even a few pitches, there are two things that can happen which tend to cause a lot of stress and frustration: a stuck haul bag or a jammed rope down at the anchor. In both cases it takes a lot of time and effort to sort it out.

A stuck pig a hundred feet below can be prevented in most cases by first, making sure the haul line is clean of any obstacles and if there are any, hauling from the bag rather than the top. If you are soloing, before launching off the ground pre set your haul bag with the Far End hauling system.

Close up of the Far End Haul system with Swivel

Close up of the Far End Haul system without a Swivel

If the far end system is new to you, there has been a ton of stuff written about this on the web and Pass the Piton Pete has it explained in detail over on RC.com.

The second issue, a jammed lead or haul line can be a real pain in the rear end and sometimes you don't have a great place to rap from. Not wanting to experience this again I headed over to the Wall Master's Web Site for everything from A and Z and purchased a Fish Snake Charmer Wall Rope Bag.

I've used all sorts of bags from stuff sacks, home made rope bags, to commercially made ones, but I've never purchased one with two compartments before. So with a little trepidation I ordered my bag based on the following blurb:

SNAKE CHARMER Big Wall Rope Bag fishproducts.com
For when it really counts, and your ropes need to feed properly, this is the ultimate unit. Big Wall soloists will rejoice with the ease of packing the rope and the uniform and tangleless deployment. Anyone stuck in a stiff upward hurricane on El Cap using this piece of equipment will be making sandwiches instead of doing a bad version of the Indian Rope Trick.

Features include two grommets in the bottom to drain away water in storms. The last thing you need is a 96 lbs of water in your rope bag when you rap back into the station. A "Ballast" strap on the bottom that you can clip some weight onto to keep the bag from flapping around in the wind when almost all the rope is deployed. Four internal "Hot Clips", two up high and two down inside on the bottom panel to tie your rope to and keep the ends separate and easy to locate. A stiff 2" webbing reinforced rim that goes all the way around the bag. A super burly divider to keep the ropes separated. A no frills yet fully functioning closure and bomber hauling set up that only needs a single biner to make it all happen. The clip in loops are designed to work with a single clip in point, a wide spread double clip in, or even three clips at the anchor. This bag is designed for "on the wall" use. It is not a casual "carry your rope around bag". It thrives up on a wall, not at the base of the local hummock. There are no shoulder straps, padded gizmos, or fluff apparatus to interfere with its sole function: Big Wall Rope Management. The back panel is made from a burly 600x300 fabric that wraps around the full bottom and rear corners to fight abrasion.

The main bags are made from 420D Pack Cloth which is no slouch by itself. All the loops and add-ons sport numerous bartacks and are bomber to overkill for the application. This is a "no worries" bag. $49.00

The bag arrived about 10 days later, well in time for my trip, but after using it for a few pitches I did something to my shoulder and ended up rappelling off. My shoulder injury put me out of action for about 6 months, (Getting older...) so it wasn't until this summer that all came right and I was able to start using the bag again.

The Snake Charmer isn't your normal rope bag, but a rope bag designed specifically for the soloist in mind. It has two volumous compartments in one large bag for both the lead and the haul line. When soloing I use the continuous rope method. I lead with one line that goes from the anchor up to me, through my Silent Partner and back down to the Snake Charmer, whereas the end of this line is tied to the haul line. The haul line is tied to the Haul Bag, the Haul bag is tied to the docking tether, you get the message. This line ends up being 400 feet long so any kinks in the system is a major deal.

The rope bag is well made and very burly. It is not going to fail or stitching pop on you, but nonetheless I covered all seams with seal-grip first. You might as well protect stuff before it touches the rock first. Starting from the first pitch with the two ropes laid out I would lead the pitch and tie off the lead line. I then use a Metolius rope hook to stack the lead rope first.

Then I would set up my hauling system (Protraxion, Prussik and back up) and rappel down to the previous anchor, clean up the anchor and attach the rope bag to the back of my harness.

Once I got back to the top anchor I would reattach the rope bag to the anchors, via one of its many attachment points and start stacking the ropes. The rope bag easily accommodated my 60m 10.5 and 60m 10.2 ropes. There was ample space for extra cordage.

The bag comes with numerous clip in points you have an almost unlimited number of options to configure the attachment depending on the layout of the anchors and rock. Regardless of how you attached it worked pretty much the same and the rope would feed out very well.

The pictures below shows the snake charmer in use, with the ropes nicely coming up to me... The white object above the bag is my parka. Double click on the images to see them full sized.

I fully recommend this product. Every soloists or big wall party should have one!

Disclaimer: I paid $49.00 for this product.

240 viewers but no comments... :-(

Great review, John.

A couple of quick questions...

What did you use before you had the 'snake charmer' and what are the pros/cons of the snake charmer over that?

Do you see this specialty piece of gear, whose primary market is for soloists?

Great review John, thanks for putting in the effort!

Avery Nelson wrote:Great review, John. A couple of quick questions... What did you use before you had the 'snake charmer' and what are the pros/cons of the snake charmer over that? Do you see this specialty piece of gear, whose primary market is for soloists?

Avery,

I've used home made bags, BD and A5 rope buckets. They all work, but the great thing about the snake charmer is that you can set it with just the center anchor point and stack two ropes. Not everyone climbs in Yosemite where there is 4 perfect bolts at every anchor! It is also larger than most bags, so you can fit longer and fatter ropes. Like a 70m haul line. It's also not a specialist piece for soloing and I could imagine it would work just as well for parties.

Cheers,
John

Hi John, your review was very good, but I'm just a single day multi-pitch with partners climber, not a soloist or big wall climber. The Snake Charmer is a bit overkill for me (yet). Have you used the Metolius rope hook with success for regular multi-pitch climbs? The idea interests me, but I'd be worried about racking the rope hook so it doesn't get caught on stuff.

Mark Cushman wrote:Hi John, your review was very good, but I'm just a single day multi-pitch with partners climber, not a soloist or big wall climber. The Snake Charmer is a bit overkill for me (yet). Have you used the Metolius rope hook with success for regular multi-pitch climbs? The idea interests me, but I'd be worried about racking the rope hook so it doesn't get caught on stuff.

Mark,

The rope hook works well when you just have the tail of the rope to manage, such as when soloing and you have for example 10 meters of rope left. It's simple to use and works well, but when you have more rope, the rope tends to start to pop off the end. As far as racking it is no worse than hooks, in other words it basically catches on everything... the back of the harness seems to be the best place for it.

For multiple pitch climbing I wouldn't bother and just lap coil the rope over a sling, etc.

Hope this helps.

john

I have and use the snakecharmer rope bucket and it's the cat's ass!
for keeping my cords in line there is nothing better and when Im not
wallin this thing makes a great single cord bucket w/ room to spare
for other craig goodies , hell we even use it for the doubles while ice climbing, and I only have one complaint and that's after you have x
amount of rope out the rope starts to self feed but I have solved the problem with a couple of "strap-it" velcro straps that I have the rope run through just tight enough to keep things snug and
bingo in more problems

All n all this bag is a winner in my book!

Looks like a good product. What route is that in the 3rd photo? Prodigal Son? Must be somewhere in Zion??

John,

Great review. Any chance you can rework it a bit with respect to adding some links? For example, you make reference to quit a bit of external information like the Far End Haul system which is explained by Piton Pete on RC.com. Or the Wall Master's Web Site - where is that?

prodigal sun

The photo's are on Prodigal Sun in Zion.

When I have time I'll try to update it.

Thanks for the feedback.