Another question about rope soloing (lead)

First off, this is not a "how should I do it?" question.

Yesterday I was out climbing with a friend and a guy started setting up close to us. He explains that he is meeting two others there, but they haven't showed up yet (he was alone) and he didn't want to wait. I wasn't real sure what he meant and then my friend was climbing so I was belaying and not paying attention to the other guy. Once my friend went off belay I looked over and noticed the guy was at the first bolt and still by himself, so I went over and offered to belay him. He happily accepted the belay and undid what ever he had started to setup to self belay, but I couldn't see what he had done. Then I noticed that the end of the rope was tied to his harness and the rest was simply coiled on the ground.

How was he going to belay himself? Would he essentially just have a loop that was fixed to him and went through the last bolt? He had an ATC hanging from his belay loop, so use a prussic as a third hand and then he would have to undo the setup and reset it after clipping each bolt?

(The guy also back clipped the second bolt and when I pointed it out he changed how the draw was clipped to the bolt then also changed how the rope was clipped into the draw and thus was still back clipped, he also was almost constantly back stepping. When he got to the anchors he clipped the rope through both mussey hooks then made two quickdraw chains to go direct into each bolt and called off belay, then rappelled to clean the route, later it looked like he was going to top-rope through the anchors [last I heard illegal in Jeffco, CO where we were].)

1) You anchor the rope to the starting point.

2) You hook yourself up on the line coming off the starting point with some kinda auto lock device. (gri-gri, soloist, silent parnter, etc) Make sure you orient the device in the direction of a fall so it will lock.

(3a optional) You can pre-tie backup knots so if you auto lock device doesn't catch the knots will. As climbing untie them when you get to them.

(3b optional) Some people like to put the rope in a backpack to reduce drag and make it easier to move the device up as you are climbing. If you let the extra line just hang it can sometimes create rope drag that locks the device as you climb up.

4) You than climb and while climbing pull the device up the line and do all your normal stuff like climbing bolts or placing gear to protect.

5) Single rope rappel down to the starting point on the loose line

6) If multipitch take down the starting point anchor and top rope solo to the next anchor and repeat, if single you can clean on the rappel down and pull the rope.

I know how most people do it, but that is not how it appeared this guy was doing it. So I was curious how this guy was setting it up.
So you didn't seem to read my post.

Viper's explanation of how one might do it makes sense to me.

It is too bad you did not see his complete set up / process. But I know you were initially busy with your own belay.

Maybe someone else will recognize the picture you gave - albeit incomplete. I do not.

Brady3 wrote:I know how most people do it, but that is not how it appeared this guy was doing it. So I was curious how this guy was setting it up. So you didn't seem to read my post.

People do sometimes just use the first bolt as their starting anchor so maybe he was planing on doing this. All you need is some kinda system setup to auto lock encase of a fall. There are alot of ways to do this so I am sure he was likely using something like that.

Basically the way climbing works is you need something that will not let the rope go up to the climber, and you need the lead rope going through something that will keep the rope up high enough that the slack going through it will not allow you to ground, and you need something that will keep you from sliding down the lead end of the room so after you fall you won't slide down it to hit the ground.

There are a ton of methods to do this. I am sure you could make up your own with tying a knot to a biner or using a prusiks or any of the other auto locking devices / assenders out there. It is hard to say exactly what method he was using with the information you have provided. If he really had that much of a problem back clipping maybe the method he was using wasn't going to do anything and he was basically just free soloing?

I guess maybe he was going to untie from his harness and clip that to the draw on the first bolt? He already had a draw on the bolt, ATC on his belay loop (just hanging there when I was belaying him), and the rope tied to his harness. But I do wonder if he really knew what he was doing with his other strange ways of doing things (the problem with back clipping, and rappelling even though he left it to top rope).

Brady3 wrote:I know how most people do it, but that is not how it appeared this guy was doing it. So I was curious how this guy was setting it up. So you didn't seem to read my post.

It's obvious from your responses and the info you gave about the guys process that you don't care for any response but that he didn't know what he was doing. So here it is. Sounds like he didn't know what he was doing. Or. From your information you have no idea what he was doing and thus can't give relevant info to help us figure it out. But you don't care about the second answer. Sounds like he's gunna die and you're the better climber. Good job.

kevin deweese wrote: It's obvious from your responses and the info you gave about the guys process that you don't care for any response but that he didn't know what he was doing. Sounds like he's gunna die and you're the better climber. Good job.

Ha case closed.