Anyone have problems lowering a second with ATC Guide or Reverso in Guide Mode?

RadDawg wrote: Just stick your nut tool in the small hole on the BD guide and use it as a lever. Keep your other hand on the brake side of the rope.

^ this...

RadDawg wrote:Just stick your nut tool in the small hole on the BD guide and use it as a lever. Keep your other hand on the brake side of the rope.

How about this, plus an autoblock/prussik on the brake side to your belay loop as backup in case the lower gets out of control?

At least. Sticking your nut tool in and levering is precisely how the dropping accidents happen because of the on-off nature of the plate. All of a sudden you're holding the climber's weight with just a carabiner for a pulley.

My guess is that when the "just lever it" method works, it is because of other sources of friction, eg the rope is running through gear, against edges or both. The belayer gets complacent because it has always been easy. Then they try it in a low-friction situation and drop the second. Fortunately, in these low-friction cases, the full weight of the second makes it hard to use the nut-tool lever, and the belayer's bodyweight applied through a sling-pulley arrangement is called for. While mucking about setting that up, the belayer is perhaps more likely to install a prussik safety back-up on the brake strand.

As I said before, all this is a joke. Belaying classically with the device in harness position (this is not belaying off the harness, I explained the difference earlier), you just lower the second.

rgold wrote:As I said before, all this is a joke. Belaying classically with the device in harness position (this is not belaying off the harness, I explained the difference earlier), you just lower the second.

I agree with many of your attitudes and rgold and normally have good respect for your advice.

But i don't see a 1% event that can be safely dealt with being a reason for not using a autoblock belay. I use it for the numerous advantages that it offers. If I plan to lower or the belay isn't suitable I belay in the classic manner with the device on my harness.

Regardless about a battle of opinions. Autoblock devices are being used commonly and that is not going to change. I think we both can agree that people need to understand what they are doing and how to do it safely. And sadly as this thread shows not everybody has good understanding of these things.

Zach Parsons wrote: How about this, plus an autoblock/prussik on the brake side to your belay loop as backup in case the lower gets out of control?

What good is that going to do if you don't have the brake rope in a braked position? The brake position is above your head! Furthermore how do you tend to a prussik and safely lower one handed?

You're right Patto, lowering isn't much of an issue most of the time and I'm mostly just enjoying being crabby about guide plates as a universal solution to belaying the second. I use 'em myself every now and then, but not regularly. Perhaps if I climbed in an area with bolted belay stances at head level, I'd be more of a fan. I still dislike being belayed with them, for reasons I've explained earlier.

That said, you never do know when lowering might be appropriate. A month or two ago on a climb my second needed to hang so he could use both hands to get out a stuck cam. But he was far away and there was some road noise and I couldn't hear him at all, so every time he tried to weight the rope I just gave him slack. So he climbed up, a long way up actually, until we could communicate. At which point I said fine, I'll lower you back down. Can you do that? he asked incredulously, assuming I guess that I'd either drop him or need five minutes to set everything up. I guaranteed him it would be no problem, down he went, extracted the cam, and back up to the belay, all in short order. A triumph for caveman belay technique!

Well it seems I'm on the caveman technique side of things when it comes to not using cordalettes. ;-) Rope anchors are my preference.

While I will keep using my reverso as an autoblock, I think some of the comments in this thread are an indication that there is a lack of understanding on how to manage a lowering appropriately.

There will be future accidents with these devices. Just like there will be gumbies dropping people with GriGris and future abseiling accidents.

patto wrote: I think some of the comments in this thread are an indication that there is a lack of understanding on how to manage a lowering appropriately.

this^^. I honestly can't believe how complicated this is being made out to be. I've lowered folks entire routes and pitches dozens of times with the guide in autoblock using just a biner and a brakehand. its no less safe than lowering someone off anchors from the ground after they just hung draws on a route (safer actually) and it should be only marginally more difficult. granted its a small 'sweet spot' where the friction lets off but it should absolutely shouldn't be this hard. /rant

be safe out there folks

Jack Ubaek wrote: I've lowered folks entire routes and pitches dozens of times with the guide in autoblock using just a biner and a brakehand. its no less safe than lowering someone off anchors from the ground after they just hung draws on a route (safer actually)

Nonesense. How many times do people being lowered from ground after hanging draws get totally dropped because the belayer can't control the device?

Jack Ubaek wrote:...and it should be only marginally more difficult...

The margin may be small, but in this instance seems to be the margin between "no problem lowering" and "call 911."

Jack Ubaek wrote:...granted its a small 'sweet spot' where the friction lets off

Which is the reason for the precautions you're heaping scorn on.

Jack Ubaek wrote:but it should absolutely shouldn't be this hard.

Maybe it shouldn't be, but lowering accidents indicate otherwise.

Jack Ubaek wrote: ...be safe out there folks

Yes, please.

Instructions for some similar devices (Edelrid Mega Jul) instruct users to do this dangerous, non-backed up, lowering technique. The mega jul even had pictures of someone lowering it this way. Very bad!

bearbreeder wrote: youtube.com/watch?v=JoZ-5xr… ;)

I always wanted to know how to do this better.

This video would be great, except the part where he does something "so we don't have to take the weight off the rope", but THEN then asks his loweree to take his weight off so he can remove the autoblock. So the video skipped over the most difficult maneuver in this situation and the only one I wanted to know more about.

It seems to me like I must be missing something about the benefits of "guide mode". I own a Reverso and when I first got it I used "guide mode" just about every time I was belaying the second. Nowadays I probably use it ~10% of the time. IME, the increased safety margin from the autolocking is usually pretty small (I tend to avoid setting up belays in places where I am likely to be incapacitated by random rockfall, but of course shit happens). The biggest "use" I've gotten out of it is just having the ability to set up a more comfortable belay when the anchor just so happens to be configured in a way that it's easier to belay directly off of it rather than with a redirect. These happen pretty infrequently and could probably be solved by just building the anchor differently but it's nice to have the ability I suppose.

On the other hand, I have had to lower a second from "guide mode" twice (not counting the times where you just rachet out a few feet) and both times it sucked. In one particular instance we were bailing off a climb due to incoming weather so the extra few minutes it took probably decreased safety by a small margin and definitely *felt* more unsafe (or perhaps stressful is a better word) due to the additional steps involved. More steps + time pressure = more opportunity for error.

When I weigh that against the added "safety" gained by the auto blocking ability, I end up with a pretty narrow set of circumstances where using guide mode is really beneficial.

Everyone seems so stoked on these devices though so I wonder: am I missing something?

Ryan Watts wrote:It seems to me like I must be missing something about the benefits of "guide mode". I own a Reverso and when I first got it I used "guide mode" just about every time I was belaying the second. Nowadays I probably use it ~10% of the time. IME, the increased safety margin from the autolocking is usually pretty small (I tend to avoid setting up belays in places where I am likely to be incapacitated by random rockfall, but of course shit happens). The biggest "use" I've gotten out of it is just having the ability to set up a more comfortable belay when the anchor just so happens to be configured in a way that it's easier to belay directly off of it rather than with a redirect. These happen pretty infrequently and could probably be solved by just building the anchor differently but it's nice to have the ability I suppose. On the other hand, I have had to lower a second from "guide mode" twice (not counting the times where you just rachet out a few feet) and both times it sucked. In one particular instance we were bailing off a climb due to incoming weather so the extra few minutes it took probably decreased safety by a small margin and definitely *felt* more unsafe (or perhaps stressful is a better word) due to the additional steps involved. More steps + time pressure = more opportunity for error. When I weigh that against the added "safety" gained by the auto blocking ability, I end up with a pretty narrow set of circumstances where using guide mode is really beneficial. Everyone seems so stoked on these devices though so I wonder: am I missing something?

You're not missing anything. Nothing at all.

Belaying in guide mode has it's place. But as you've realised, it's rarely a better option than belaying from your harness. Sometimes it makes it more comfortable, but I find that I can build belays much faster if I can consider my butt to be a bomber part of the anchor.

It's turned into a gimmick to get noobs to spend money on new devices when they already have a perfectly good one. But then I was one of those noobs once and I have a Reverso that I still use.

rgold wrote:
A month or two ago on a climb my second needed to hang so he could use both hands to get out a stuck cam. But he was far away and there was some road noise and I couldn't hear him at all, so every time he tried to weight the rope I just gave him slack. So he climbed up, a long way up actually, until we could communicate. At which point I said fine, I'll lower you back down. Can you do that? he asked incredulously, assuming I guess that I'd either drop him or need five minutes to set everything up. I guaranteed him it would be no problem, down he went, extracted the cam, and back up to the belay, all in short order. A triumph for caveman belay technique!

Seems to me that's a perfect example where guide mode would have been effective.
I almost always use guide mode and yes when needing to lower someone more than a few feet, it a royal PITA. In my experience is extremely rare to lower anyone a great distance.
For lowering short distances I've found the 'wiggle the friction biner' easy and effective. Since I don't have more than one event for lowering long lengths, I can't really speak as to what works best.

Ryan Watts wrote:It seems to me like I must be missing something about the benefits of "guide mode". I own a Reverso and when I first got it I used "guide mode" just about every time I was belaying the second. Nowadays I probably use it ~10% of the time. IME, the increased safety margin from the autolocking is usually pretty small (I tend to avoid setting up belays in places where I am likely to be incapacitated by random rockfall, but of course shit happens). The biggest "use" I've gotten out of it is just having the ability to set up a more comfortable belay when the anchor just so happens to be configured in a way that it's easier to belay directly off of it rather than with a redirect. These happen pretty infrequently and could probably be solved by just building the anchor differently but it's nice to have the ability I suppose. On the other hand, I have had to lower a second from "guide mode" twice (not counting the times where you just rachet out a few feet) and both times it sucked. In one particular instance we were bailing off a climb due to incoming weather so the extra few minutes it took probably decreased safety by a small margin and definitely *felt* more unsafe (or perhaps stressful is a better word) due to the additional steps involved. More steps + time pressure = more opportunity for error. When I weigh that against the added "safety" gained by the auto blocking ability, I end up with a pretty narrow set of circumstances where using guide mode is really beneficial. Everyone seems so stoked on these devices though so I wonder: am I missing something?

- rockfall ... in places like the canadian rockies and their shiet limestone this is a serious concern

- with certain plates its MUCH easier to pull in and manage the rope with a shoulder level autoblock (or munter if you prefer), this is especially true on bolted routes

- "hands free" ... you can deal with other issues while holding the brake lightly, especially if they are hanging, saves you from having to tie off every time they are under tension

- ascender ... the smart alpine and gigi especially make nice smooth emergency ascenders (they pull through much smoother than the guide/reverso) ... ive done it a few times myself where ive had to prussik up because of too hard a move or a missed rap station ... its easier and more secure than using your normal prussik ascending system

-its much easier and secure in belaying 2 seconds with anchors at shoulder height and managing the ropes

the problem is not the devices (GASP)


the problem is that most folks who use em dont understand what to do with em should things go wrong and they dont train constantly basic skills like how to release it safely

hell the MAJORITY of folks i see on moderate multis belaying off their harness cant even tie off their ATC in a releasable manner quickly !!!

just like with grigris ... i FIRMLY believe that someone should be skilled in top belaying directly off the harness, through a redirect and also direct off a munter BEFORE they transition to autoblock

but just like folks who say "grigris are pointless" ... there will always be ones who say "autoblocks are pointless"

theres a reason why guides generally use the autoblock to belay up clients ... it works, its "safe" and its fast

for a good article from those brits (who luv belaying off the harness) on magic plates read this ...

mediafire.com/view/7eh2ixpd…

;)

Ryan Watts wrote: Everyone seems so stoked on these devices though so I wonder: am I missing something?

In my climbing its overwhelming better to use a device in guide mode. If you don't see large advantages in at least some situations, I doubt you have used a guide mode device appropriately. (Although now I usually use a grigri, because the action is smoother and I can lower without any of the problems this entire thread is dedicated to.)

For me it's over overwhelmingly preferable to belay off an anchor. This only works well if it is reasonably far above, so you can pull in slack by pulling your arm up and them down, using biceps and body weight. It's terrible to belay in guide mode if the anchor is low down, such as around your waist, where you are forced to resort to triceps to push the brake strand back down to the climber. Then the action of pulling in slack can be extremely uncomfortable or impossible.

One of the biggest advantages is that when setup properly, the climber strand can be pulled on as well as the normal brake hand action. This makes taking in slack enormously easier. This also allows me to use techniques which allow me to monitor tension in the climber strand which helps me keep a very safe tight belay, or alternatively keep a safe belay while I can do other things (take off shoes, sunglasses, drink water).

One big problem in multipitches/alpine is rope drag. I'm often leading the majority of time. Trying to fight rope drag by pulling on the brake strand is exhausting, especially after climbing, and especially when going for an efficient style, of fast turnaround and many, many pitches in a single day.

All of this above doesn't even take into account it's autolocking, which is a huge advantage, and also the fact that you have already "escaped" the belay.

rocknice2 wrote: rgold wrote: A month or two ago on a climb my second needed to hang so he could use both hands to get out a stuck cam. But he was far away and there was some road noise and I couldn't hear him at all, so every time he tried to weight the rope I just gave him slack. So he climbed up, a long way up actually, until we could communicate. At which point I said fine, I'll lower you back down. Can you do that? he asked incredulously, assuming I guess that I'd either drop him or need five minutes to set everything up. I guaranteed him it would be no problem, down he went, extracted the cam, and back up to the belay, all in short order. A triumph for caveman belay technique! rocknice wrote: Seems to me that's a perfect example where guide mode would have been effective. I almost always use guide mode and yes when needing to lower someone more than a few feet, it a royal PITA. In my experience is extremely rare to lower anyone a great distance. For lowering short distances I've found the 'wiggle the friction biner' easy and effective. Since I don't have more than one event for lowering long lengths, I can't really speak as to what works best.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I had to lower him about forty feet.

By the way, the belay was in any case very poorly adapted to belaying off the anchor, because the anchor was a long way back from the edge and was low to boot.