Solo Multipitch

I'm curious if anyone has come up with a setup to do a solo multi pitch climb, Sport or Trad. I've seen various setups for solo lead climbing but am wondering if anyone has found a way to round up all the gear after the first pitch and continue on.

Rappel and TR solo/jug back up. You'll ascend the route twice and rappel it once by the time you're done. If nothing goes wrong, that is

Solo Lead

Set up new anchor

Anchor rope and rappel

Clean lower anchor

Jug

Might consider adding a touch of hauling to the mix for ease.

Yep that's the deal.
Build ground anchor
Lead
Build top anchor
Rappel( clean lead gear while rappelling if desired)
Clean bottom anchor
Top rope solo back up
Build or adjust anchor for upward pull
Lead next pitch

Rinse and repeat!

Thanks for the reply guys! Very helpful.

When first getting this figured out you'll want to aim for routes that have limited traversing so it's easier to rap/clean.

You can also string pitches together more easily since you don't have to worry about rope drag.

yer... gonna.... die

Of course an alternative to rappelling is Down-climbing the pitch after leading it. If you enjoy down-climbing (I do) and choose rock which is interesting to down-climb (for me a substantial percentage is) ... then you get 33% or 50% more climbing as payback for the time and effort of setting up each pitch.

I think the big risk in multi-pitch soloing is that you just forget something simple and obvious, and you don't have a partner to notice that you forgot. My advice: Keep the mechanics of your self-belay system very simple. Maybe even give up some redundancy for the sake of simplicity.

I think it's easier to handle traversing sections if you use a Silent Partner device.

Ken

Alex Honnold does this a lot...sounds like a pain in the ass. Just bring a partner. :p

On the topic: Alex also mentions daisy chain soloing, clipping a daisy to pro as he solos in case he falls and cleaning each piece as soon as he has a new one. My question is: would this actually save him if he were to fall? Assuming he's climbing above the pro, he would be looking at a FF2 fall on a static tether, which could either A) blow the pro, or even B) rip the daisy.

TBH, my gut says that completely free soloing without the Daisy is actually safer.

I thought Alex said he used a short piece of climbing rope as a tether when he did the daisy solo thing?
Edit: Maybe he's just using it for intermediate rests when he's not at an anchor and doesn't really place as he climbs?

I find it hard to believe it would be worth anything to place a piece of gear and than climb 1 move and take it out. Maybe he places gear climbs past it and unclips leaving the gear in the wall or uses it for a rest.

Think about most crux you have climbed how many of those are short enough that you can place a piece of gear go past the crux and still reach the gear to remove it. I guess maybe you can still be in the middle of the crux and place a gear above it and remove the lower piece and finish the crux but in that case you are making the crux alot harder by having to stay on it longer, but it would make it maybe safer.

You sure you aren't talking about when he is using the daisy to climb through areas using the bolts? I know he has talked about the mental aspect of being safe than unsafe than safe than unsafe before.

Ted Pinson wrote:TBH, my gut says that completely free soloing without the Daisy is actually safer.

No. What you're failing to recognize is that he does this on very hard things that no human has free soloed. And he doesn't place the gear for free pro, he aids on it. The great roof on the nose is a great example.

And people whip on daisies all the time. Hurts like hell. True fall factor 2 is hard to actually create.

He uses it for aid as well, but the safe/not safe thing was from free climbing with a daisy connected to each piece (hence why he is "unsafe" at some parts), and he definitely talks about doing that in Alone on the Wall. A small length of rope would be better, but still not exactly safe (key word: small). I'm sure people have fallen on daisies before (fully above pro?), and that definitely would hurt...but I'm betting that wasn't the ONLY piece or else they would be dead. Even a textbook cam placement could rip out or fail under that load.

Ted Pinson wrote:He uses it for aid as well, but the safe/not safe thing was from free climbing with a daisy connected to each piece (hence why he is "unsafe" at some parts), and he definitely talks about doing that in Alone on the Wall. A small length of rope would be better, but still not exactly safe (key word: small). I'm sure people have fallen on daisies before (fully above pro?), and that definitely would hurt...but I'm betting that wasn't the ONLY piece or else they would be dead. Even a textbook cam placement could rip out or fail under that load.

I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you're confused and trying to generalize what are actually different styles being hybridized. The "safe, not safe" thing is commentary on transitioning back and forth from daisy soloing(aid) to free soloing.

Why would you free climb with daisies clipped to pro? If you think the piece is good enough to catch a daisy whip, you should just aid on it. And if you know you aren't going to fall, just free solo.

Has someone busted a free move with a daisy clipped to a piece? Sure. Is that what it means to daisy solo? No

And yes, people have fallen above pro onto their daisy and not ripped the gear or torn the daisy. Your body is very squishy and not an 80kg metal test mass in a drop tower.

"If you think the piece is good enough to catch a daisy whip, you should just aid on it."

Well, no.... You are interested in climbing the route with no aid. Maybe that's the goal to begin with.

Russ Keane wrote:"If you think the piece is good enough to catch a daisy whip, you should just aid on it." Well, no.... You are interested in climbing the route with no aid. Maybe that's the goal to begin with.

Sorry, but I think you're confused. People (and let's be honest, pretty much no one climbs in this style) who are soloing with daisies don't give a fuck about doing the route without aid. They're trying to get to the top of the route quickly and without dying. Which means aiding through the hard parts and free soloing the rest.

If you are interested in doing a big route solo and without aid, you aren't up there relying on gear and daisies.

Please show me even a small shred of evidence to the contrary.

ukclimbing.com/articles/pag…

The link above regarding Alex's solo triple in Yosemite might help you understand what daisy soloing is about. Great video clip inside. I'll pull out a quote for the lazy.

"Alex: SFW is 19 pitch 12d, though it has hundreds of feet of semi technical scrambling to get to the base [including a mirror polished 5.8 offwidth which is particularly hard in approach shoes]. The Nose is a 31 pitch 14a. The Reg Route is a 23 pitch 12a

Though I did all three of them as 10+ C1, or something like that. Maybe a little soloing up to easy 11, then aid climbing. It's a confusing style."

I think a couple of assumptions are being made in this thread that are incorrect with regard to daisy soloing.

You would never take a full length FF2 fall if you were daisy soloing because you would never climb that far above the piece. That would mean the hardware you are clipped into would be at your feet. It's way too big of a pain to backclean gear when it's that low and you're free climbing.

Also, a daisies catch falls all the time aid climbing. I've been caught by my dyneema daisy onto small nuts where the rope never got loaded. It didn't feel great but I was OK and the daisy chain was fine. Obviously I'm talking about falling onto the full length chain, not the pockets.

Routes with a lot of moderate terrain and a punctuated, bolted crux are also good candidates for daisy soloing where aid is not employed. For instance, at Whiteside Mountain in North Carolina there are several routes that are mostly just 5.7-5.9 with a tightly bolted 5.11 crux section. People have daisy soloed these routes while also free climbing the entire thing. It is an added margin of safety over free soloing 5.11, no question.

sam england wrote:Routes with a lot of moderate terrain and a punctuated, bolted crux are also good candidates for daisy soloing where aid is not employed. For instance, at Whiteside Mountain in North Carolina there are several routes that are mostly just 5.7-5.9 with a tightly bolted 5.11 crux section. People have daisy soloed these routes while also free climbing the entire thing. It is an added margin of safety over free soloing 5.11, no question.

I'll admit I was generalizing daisy soloing in terms of speed solo bigwalls, since we drifted from musings about what Alex may or may not do on the walls. I'm not too surprised to hear that people have free climbed like you state. Personally, I would either free solo or yard on the bolts, but I'm glad people are doing their thing.

BigB wrote:I thought Alex said he used a short piece of climbing rope as a tether when he did the daisy solo thing? Edit: Maybe he's just using it for intermediate rests when he's not at an anchor and doesn't really place as he climbs?

That is how he doing,,,

Daisy soloing is just free soloing while using gear for tough spots or to rest. The rope Honnold brings with him on El Cap is to traverse to a differ point on the face that may not be climbable. That is not at all what I asked about in the original post. Im interested in a really simple setup for solo leading with a rope that will catch me at any point.

To get things a bit back on track, do you think there will ever be a piece of gear that you can clip into a bolt on a sport route then once you've reached the top of the pitch be able to easily pull all the gear up with ropes without having to rap down to get it? Maybe a piece of gear that will catch you if you fall but becomes disengaged once lifted up? Kind of like an ascender on a rope. It cruises one way but locks when pulled down.

I would be interested in hearing any experimental systems people are working on to try and simplify this process.

Sure... maybe you could rope-solo a sport multi-pitch, with a rack of fifi hooks. Use one on every bolt, attach a loose prussik to the top of each one and the climbing rope, then yank it all up when done.

I eagerly await your test results.