self belay

looking for suggestions on self belaying during sport climbing. I have a GriGri and a Reverso 4. tips on either would be nice. thank you

Are you trying to rope solo while on lead or toprope?

Rope solo on lead

mountainproject.com/v/soloi…

Any reason you do not want to top rope solo?

There are ways to lead solo rockclimbing.com/Articles/T…, but there is more risk potential. Credit to healyje with this article.

I found myself sticking to top rope solo, after working on lead solo as described above. If anything... get a Silent Partner for piece of mind.

Richard O'Neal wrote:Rope solo on lead

There's a method of rigging a gri gri with a chest harness (may require modification of gri gri) that allows it to feed out while you climb and catch if you fall (unless you fall headfirst). Do a search, there are some posts with detailed instructions and pictures of how to set it up.

I guess you could climb with the reverso in autoblock mode, but it would probably be a pain to feed out slack.

Disclaimer: Roped soloing on lead is a lot of work. I'll do it while aid climbing or to solo a big wall (with minimal or easy free climbing), but the idea of doing it while sport climbing doesn't sound fun. Kind of defeats the purpose of sport climbing.

BigFeet wrote:Any reason you do not want to top rope solo? There are ways to lead solo rockclimbing.com/Articles/T…, but there is more risk potential. Credit to healyje with this article. I found myself sticking to top rope solo, after working on lead solo as described above. If anything... get a Silent Partner for piece of mind.

The area i climb is not accessible to set up a top rope before climbing. Must lead climb first. i have a climbing partner, who is not always available as much as i'd like.

if you like going off half cocked; tie a locking biner on to the sharp end, attach grigri to self, clip locking biner to first bolt.

I normally tie the rope to an anchor at the start. I climb with a grigri (it is a pain to feed it through, probably the worst method to do this but I don't do it enough to buy anything else). I normally have background knots tied into my harness so even if the grigri doesn't catch the backup knots will catch and stop the fall. As I climb I untie the knots, this can be hard depending on the route but I normally only do it for stuff maybe 5.6 at the hardest so I normally can find no hand spots to untie the backup knots as I go. You could also go direct into the bolts as you go up and untie the knots from there if there is no stance good enough to untie the backups.

If you plan to do it alot I have heard the silent partner works well it just kinda expensive and I have never wanted to invest in one.

Thank you all for the input and advice. In the days pondering this, I decided to abandon the "reliability" of Google and just try thinking of a way to set up a self belay system that is safe and redundant.

Much like a rappel backed up with a prusik girth hitched to ones harness, why not the same in reverse?

Girth hitch a utility cord to the harness waist, prusik knot to the brake side of the climbing rope, and secure the utility cord with a locker back to the harness waist. Using an ATC belay device, climb to the first anchor and secure the end of the rope with a locker on a figure 8 follow through.

If a fall should occur, the prusik will "grab" the climbing rope, placing it on "brake", loading the ATC device with friction to stop the fall. This should also work on an upside down fall as well.

The down side is of course, the task of feeding more rope to ones self through the prusik and belay device to climb. There is also the thought that the utility cord may fail with the load of a fall, however the ATC should absorb the majority of the fall, one would assume.

Once at the peak of the climb, simply rappel back down, tether in to the fist anchor, remove the locker of the first anchor and lock the end rope into the harness, and reclimb the pitch and clean it out. Rappel back down, finished.

I know solo climbing is extremely dangerous and risky, so I am looking for opinions and input from all of you experts who's experience is far beyond my own, as I DO NOT have a death wish! Just a desire to climb, ALOT!

Do yourself a favor if you really intend on lead rope-soloing. This is a steal BTW::

mountainproject.com/v/rock-…

if your prusik ends up touching anything, including the ATC, it will slip and you will go splat. If you're dead set on lead soloing, get a silent partner. That one for $100 is an amazing deal and will be gone soon.

Sounds a bit crazy, I want do it...