Is this safe?
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soooo, I have done this a couple times where I set a single line off a tree at the top of a cliff 8 knot on a bite, several tree wraps and clip back to the main line, rappel into a cliff, put myself on belay with my gri gri and climb, as needed I place clove hitched bieners(similar spacing to gear or bolts) in the rope below me to biener block should the grigri fail. It seems safe to me, safe enough that I do it. Am I missing anything? I know this is technically misuse of the grigri but I am assuming the clove hitched bieners are not going to pass through the grigri or otherwise fail. |
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It works but you could just tie knots in the rope too. Pretty standard practice to back up the grigri. |
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yup basically. |
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Seems fine to me. The only thing I do differently is use a figure-8 follow-through to tie off the tree instead of a locker (put a figure-8 in the rope several feet from the end, wrap the tree one or more times, then follow through the figure 8). |
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When TR soloing, I always rig a backup device in case the first fails (2x minitraxions in my case). In your setup your backup is the gri-gri slamming into a biner clipped to a bolt. Do you trust the grigri to hold that sort of a load? Personally, I wouldn't. |
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I agree with Aaron. It's always good to have a backup to your primary belay device. It could be just clove hitching a biner below your grigri and clipping it to your belay loop, or having a backup belay device. I use a Trango Cinch and a Micro-cender. |
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Thanks for the input fellas, I have some tiblocs at all times in my chalk bag, gonna play with adding one of those to my system next time. |
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I'm just going off your drawing... I would not put myself in the situation illustrated if I can avoid it. |
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Are the bieners not a back up for the grigri's known lever issues and/or a slow weighting? |
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I'd recommend using a microtraxion instead of a grigri with a light weight" coil of rope" connected to the bottom. You'll be able to climb with both hands and it will tend the slack automatically as you climb. Reducing a chance of an actual fall. Also either still place safety knots or use a second means of backup. Prusik or a second pulley would work. |
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McLovin wrote:Thanks for the input fellas, I have some tiblocs at all times in my chalk bag, gonna play with adding one of those to my system next timetibloc is not meant to catch a dynamic event, e.g. a fall. It can easily strip the rope sheath. I believe the manual warns specifically against this. McLovin wrote:Broken locker but no proof? maybe I can put that 65kn steel locker to use next time lolCarabiners can be very weak when loaded wrong, they do break. I just learned recently that a figure 8 can twist itself into a position where it can act as a lever and snap your carabiner in half under bodyweight. McLovin wrote:If I am confident that a grigri will hold me on a leader fall when I have a legit belayer does the rope solo situation really change any forces put on it? why aren't we backing up all leaders with multiple devices?The forces do change. There is more friction in a leader fall, and there is somebody holding onto the rope tail and actively managing the device at all times. But as mentioned earlier, you're all alone when you rope solo. Perhaps more care is warranted simply for that. McLovin wrote:please explain how using the rope to wrap a bomber tree is "cheating safety" I am not seeing that as an issue. In what way is there a possibility of failure?I agree, a fixed line off a tree is pretty darn solid, and though I'm not a rope soloer I'd be inclined to think that setup would be the gold standard of safety. Perhaps there is something I am overlooking BigFeet, does a moving rope actually increase safety for rope soloing? |
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McLovin wrote:Are the bieners not a back up for the grigri's known lever issues and/or a slow weighting?Yes, the carabiners will act as a stop once the GriGri hits it. Still tying knots all the way up the climb though. The point of bringing up the lever issue was to illustrate the device being fumbly, and an unnecessary possible hazard, if compromised, for what you are wanting to do. McLovin wrote: If I am confident that a grigri will hold me on a leader fall when I have a legit belayer does the rope solo situation really change any forces put on it?Yes, the forces always change depending on situations involved. I'm not even commenting on forces though, just possible legitimate concerns on using just a GriGri. Clicky McLovin wrote:why aren't we backing up all leaders with multiple devices?We are talking about solo climbing. You have no help around. You are not minding the anchor which just so happens to be your one and only life-line. It gets cut from rubbing, comes undone, whatever... bye bye, McLovin. McLovin wrote: can you explain your possible cross load issue?While you are climbing all this stuff is clanking and moving around. What happens if the GriGri and carabiner get into a position, that once you fall off the wall, causes the GriGri to be oriented so that the load/force is on the gate... you twist/whatever and pop, there goes the carabiner and you. Probably will not happen, but could, and you are only attached by one thing, again. McLovin wrote: please explain how using the rope to wrap a bomber tree is "cheating safety" I am not seeing that as an issue. In what way is there a possibility of failure?Again, we are talking about solo climbing. You have no help around. You are not minding the anchor which just so happens to be your one and only life-line. It gets cut from rubbing, comes undone, whatever... bye bye, McLovin. McLovin wrote: simplicity is king for me, less things to mess up the better.I get this. You have to call the shots for yourself, and determine what you will risk - been there and done that. |
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The setup you're using is completely safe. Use a black diamond gridlock or something similar to prevent cross loading and you can back yourself up with the clove hitches. If you were really freaked out you could put a smaller carabiner on the rope on above the grigri which was small enough (camp nano or mad rock mini) to catch the clove hitch knots IF the gri gri failed, which it won't. The only thing I would say is to make sure to pad your rope when if going over the edge. Unlike when the rope is moving, the saw action on the lip can take its toll on the sheath. |
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Patrick Shyvers wrote: I agree, a fixed line off a tree is pretty darn solid, and though I'm not a rope soloer I'd be inclined to think that setup would be the gold standard of safety. Perhaps there is something I am overlooking BigFeet, does a moving rope actually increase safety for rope soloing?The point of having two independent lines to climb on is for redundancy. Damn skippy a good solid tree is strong enough for the purpose, but his is only one line over an edge being subjected to constant loading and unloading, moving/rubbing around on whatever. You are not minding/tending to this one line - if something happens to that one line? |
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Is it safe? Yes. As long as the rope doesn't get cut. |
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I use the Cinch and just because Trango didn't design it for that use, it works very very well as long as you use the Gridlock to keep it from cross loading. I've solo toproped weeks of routes up in jTree using this method and I can really see no way it would fail. The Cinch allows it to feed perfectly, it's very responsive to locking up and the handle can't disengage the devise unless a person pulls it well past any position that could get hung up on a rope. Best part over the microtrax is that I can just lower myself up and down when working on a crux section and I never have to switch devices when needing to lower. |
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I have done this and used a little different method for backing it up. Hopefully someone can tell me whether I should've died or not. Instead of leaving the knots with the carabiner dangling below me, I tied a figure-eight on a bight and clipped it into my harness. My thinking being, that if the belay device somehow failed, I would be clipped into the rope below it. Then I would repeat this every so often as I moved up the route. |
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As long as you clipped the knots to full strength gear loops or your belay loop you did fine. |
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Jon Hartmann wrote:As long as you clipped the knots to full strength gear loops or your belay loop you did fine.I guess I could've clarified that, I was clipping into the belay loop. |
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BigFeet wrote: The point of having two independent lines to climb on is for redundancy. Damn skippy a good solid tree is strong enough for the purpose, but it is only one line over an edge being subjected to constant loading and unloading, moving/rubbing around on whatever. You are not minding/tending to this one line - if something happens to that one line?Ok, so you're talking about a two independent line system (as shown, for example, in the linked Petzl document), not a single moving line TR-style. I misunderstood. |
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NorCalNomad wrote:yup basically. Some info for your brain stomach petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Gener…why not use an established, tested procedure? I totally trust the petzl guidelines. |