Pulling Up Rope Beta

Anyone have any tips/suggestions/methods they can help me out with on pulling up the extra rope after the end of a pitch? Pulling up the slack before putting my second on belay pitch after pitch after pitch after pitch etc... I just get worked. My shoulder is REALLY sore now. I still feel relatively new to longer climbs and I am not a mutant, so I need to save what little strength I have for the descent and the next day's climb.

How long is your rope? If it's way longer than you need you could go with a shorter one.

Are you pulling the rope up "hand over hand"?

If so, run the rope through a biner at your anchor and pull down on the rope. That will make it much easier on your shoulders.

Do longer pitches, or get a shorter rope. Redirecting so that you can pull down might use different muscles or atleast give you variety so that you're not wearing one set of muscle groups out. Otherwise, I'd think of it as endurance training :)

are you trying to pull it through the belay device?
wait till the rope is tight on your partner, then thread it through your ATC.

Work on minimizing rope drag when placing pro. That will alleviate 99% of the load. If you still find it difficult, work on your shoulder strength because it really shouldn't be that hard without rope drag.

I destroyed my shoulder by playing rugby for years, and it helps me to throw a biner above me and pull down. Sometimes different muscles just mean different pain, so keep your mind open. Good luck.

Work out more. Get stronger.

John Wilder wrote: +1

Yes.

Also, redirecting the rope through the anchor actually doesn't make it easier to pull up rope. It makes it easier to stack it because you can pull it down directly into the pile and also uses different muscles, (as was mentioned) but this comes at the expense of the added friction created by the redirect. (it actually makes it harder to pull up rope) Also, longer pitches won't necessarily make for an easier time pulling up rope. Unless you're on top of your rope drag, (which it sounds like you might not be if your wrecking your shoulder pulling up rope) it's usually harder to pull up rope on a long, wandering pitch than it is on a shorter, 20m pitch. Good luck!

I agree with others who suggest you are doing something wrong in terms of rope drag if you are hurting your shoulder pulling up slack. You shouldn't be hurting and you shouldn't be getting "worked."

It is also possible that your shoulder problems are or were caused by something else and pulling up rope is an activity that now alerts you to the injury.

Although running the rope through an overhead biner might help in terms of changing the pulling biomechanics, it also adds an additional substantial friction point, making the pulling part that much harder.

The simplest way to relieve some of the stress is to pull two hands at a time rather than hand-over-hand.

But I think you should get that shoulder looked at.

another option, if you know you are kind of hosed with rope drag and you are going to have to pull up a 100' of it, have your partner just tie in where they are at (ie in the middle) and trail the remaining half.

Marty C wrote:Are you pulling the rope up "hand over hand"? If so, run the rope through a biner at your anchor and pull down on the rope. That will make it much easier on your shoulders.

This is probably the only direct solution for you. Using a mini-T helps too, but it can also mean more time spent with rigging. One setup I use when climbing with a partner that needs a lot of help is a mini-T for a redirect on the anchor, and a gri-gri on me. This allows me to pop my clove off the anchor and lower down to my partner to help with beta, or even just weight the end of the rope to help through a tough section. They are effectively still on belay with the mini-T, yada yada, i'm sure some people won't agree..

Back to the issue with your shoulders.. After an entire season of pulling the rope down from a biner on the anchor I developed severe tendonitis in my elbows. I had to switch back to hand over hand without the biner for a while because of it. Point is that overuse of any one set of muscles is the problem - have a few techniques and switch between them as appropriate.

With lots of rope drag you can also do it with your legs, overhead biner, put the rope around your hip and sit down, rinse and repeat.

Redirecting will help.Everyone has bigger lats and triceps than rear delts, so it will be easier to pull in rope that way. If you decide to make that part of your routine, a little pulley or a pulley-biner will nearly eliminate the extra friction.

A 10.1 is now considered a burly rope. Try a 9.6.

You should rarely need to pull in 100 feet of slack. If you have that much left, try to combine pitches.

can you set up a 5:1 pulley system?

Maybe a redirect with a DMM Revolver?
dmmclimbing.com/products/re…

disagree heavily with the revolver idea. i'm assuming you mean to redirect and belay the 2nd. if the 2nd comes off at the near the top of the pitch (where there isn't much rope drag), the lack of friction at the revolver is going to make it hard to control the belayer from getting pulled into the redirect.

slim wrote:disagree heavily with the revolver idea. i'm assuming you mean to redirect and belay the 2nd. if the 2nd comes off at the near the top of the pitch (where there isn't much rope drag), the lack of friction at the revolver is going to make it hard to control the belayer from getting pulled into the redirect.

This thread has nothing to do with redirected belays. The topic under discussion is efficiently pulling up the excess rope at the end of a pitch before placing your second on belay. Some folks like to redirect through the anchor to do so, and a Revolver would certainly make that technique more efficient. I wouldn't personally carry one just for this purpose, but hey, YMMV.

As for using a Revolver as the redirect point in a redirected belay, I agree completely: bad idea.

slim wrote:disagree heavily with the revolver idea. i'm assuming you mean to redirect and belay the 2nd.

You're assuming wrong. The revolver is simply addressing the OP's problem of pulling up rope before putting the second on belay and not a function of how to belay the second up.

ok, just wanted to clarify that. from your original post, it didn't really say to use it to pull the rope up, and then remove it. every once in a while a thread will pop up about toprope belaying and someone will recommend using a revolver at the anchor.

I use a small pulley to do exactly what several suggested when I am solo aiding and stacking my rope in a rope bucket. Works like a charm. Sometimes I do the redirect off of my chest harnes. No 5:1 required.