Don't get complacent.

jason.cre wrote:

Unless the anchor fails or a rock knocks out the belayer, two things that are more likely to happen lowering vs. rapping.

Rapping is safer regarding anchor failing, but it's more dangerous regarding loss of consciousness (from rockfall, or any other reason--sometimes people just pass out for any number of reasons).  If you're being lowered and your belayer loses consciousness, you'll just be hanging there for a bit, until either your belayer regains consciousness, someone else takes over the belay or, worst case, you can just fix the ropes and single rope rap to the ground.  (It goes without saying that you're being lowered on a GriGri or by some other method so that if your belayer loses consciousness, you'll auto-stop--would be very dangerous to be lowered otherwise.)

If you're rapping and you lose consciousness, it could be very dangerous.  Obviously, you won't fall to the ground as you're rapping with a friction knot backup or the like, but it isn't trivial for your belayer to rescue you, and hanging in a harness while unconscious can quickly lead to serious problems or death  Sure, you'll be rapping with a chest harness to put you in as good of a position as possible if you're hanging unconscious, and your belayer should have equipment and skills to quickly ascend the rope and get you to the ground when necessary.

But it's still somewhat more likely that loss of consciousness will cause problems rapping compared to lowering, so you need to balance the likelihood of anchor failure with problems from loss of consciousness.   One solution is to bring an extra rope and rap and be lowered simultaneously (with the lowering rope being slightly slack so as not to weight the anchor, unless the rap fails).  When doing that, remember not to rappel with a backup, because you want your belayer to be able to lower you if you pass out.

The optimal rap v. lower decision requires a careful balancing of the likelihood of anchor failure, you and your partner's medical histories, likelihood of rockfall, etc.

I like the fear I get when I weight the rope to be lowered and hope that my partner isn't a closet psychopath who is trying to kill me because that is also a possibility. Rapping doesn't have anything like that, except at those crags where tourists mill about the tops, where someone might see a rope stuck in some chain and assume it needs to be cut out. 

Mark E Dixon wrote:

@ reboot- I focus on single pitch sport for two reasons-

I have some recent experience and 

the vast majority of sport climbs are set up to allow lowering. Single pitch trad is much more varied as far as anchors and I don't know that a unified approach is viable.

@Em Cos- 

Not really sure what to say here. 

My expectation is that my belayer will keep me on belay from the time I leave the ground until I return to the ground after clipping the anchor. 

This is my belayer's expectation because I "always lower."

I don't need to communicate anything to make this work. 

I think sport climbing would be safer if the default for all sport climbing was "always lower."

It would be safer yet if anchors didn't require untying. 

It will never be totally safe, but that's life.

In the rare case that I must rappel, I can manage, with slightly more difficulty, to pull up enough rope despite still being on belay, even if the belayer has no idea what is going on.

On the other hand, if you sometimes rap and sometimes lower, the belayer will only know for sure what is planned when communication is successful.  

You may be able to successfully communicate 100% of the time, but most people cannot, so inevitably there will be misunderstandings and someone will get dropped.

Since there is rarely a valid reason to rap rather than lower, why introduce the additional risk?

Well, your premise that "there is rarely a valid reason to rap rather than lower" is not my experience of climbing, so I can assume there is some non-zero number of climbers out there who can say the same. 

You may choose to focus on single-pitch sport for whatever reasons, but I hope you can at least recognize that there is more to the world of climbing than this. If you want to advocate "If you and your partner exclusively climb single-pitch sport climbs equipped for lowering directly off the anchors, then you should always lower" then I'm on board with that.

It seems we're in agreement that belayers should always assume lowering, and should always default to keeping their climber on belay. 

I guess where we disagree is that in recognition that not all climbing is the same, I don't believe a simple, dogmatic "always lower" approach is right for every climber in every situation. Where I am still baffled that we don't agree, is that if you are  at a set of anchors with (for whatever reason) no idea what your partner is doing, that it is absolutely safer to rap than to lower in that moment. 

No, I am not immune to communication failures. In the absence of communication, in the absence of certainty that my partner is conscious, present, and providing an effective belay, I will proceed as though I have no belayer and rappel. And I cannot conceive of the situation where that choice would cost me my life, though the alternative certainly could. 

Ken Noyce wrote:

On the routes where lowering isn't an option, you are still safe rapping even if your belayer defaults to lowering.

YES!! PRECISELY!!!!

King Tut wrote:

The context was that a pre-determined plan that could lead to negligence or bad assumptions. Just keep him on belay until you are **directed** otherwise. 

I hope you don't figure this out the hard way.

FWIW I didn't say don't communicate after you leave the ground. Just make a plan and if you have to change it you better be able to communicate. Problems arise when you don't make a plan and assume, don't do that.

pfwein wrote:

Rapping is safer regarding anchor failing, but it's more dangerous regarding loss of consciousness (from rockfall, or any other reason--sometimes people just pass out for any number of reasons).  If you're being lowered and your belayer loses consciousness, you'll just be hanging there for a bit, until either your belayer regains consciousness, someone else takes over the belay or, worst case, you can just fix the ropes and single rope rap to the ground.  (It goes without saying that you're being lowered on a GriGri or by some other method so that if your belayer loses consciousness, you'll auto-stop--would be very dangerous to be lowered otherwise.)

If you're rapping and you lose consciousness, it could be very dangerous.  Obviously, you won't fall to the ground as you're rapping with a friction knot backup or the like, but it isn't trivial for your belayer to rescue you, and hanging in a harness while unconscious can quickly lead to serious problems or death  Sure, you'll be rapping with a chest harness to put you in as good of a position as possible if you're hanging unconscious, and your belayer should have equipment and skills to quickly ascend the rope and get you to the ground when necessary.

But it's still somewhat more likely that loss of consciousness will cause problems rapping compared to lowering, so you need to balance the likelihood of anchor failure with problems from loss of consciousness.   One solution is to bring an extra rope and rap and be lowered simultaneously (with the lowering rope being slightly slack so as not to weight the anchor, unless the rap fails).  When doing that, remember not to rappel with a backup, because you want your belayer to be able to lower you if you pass out.

The optimal rap v. lower decision requires a careful balancing of the likelihood of anchor failure, you and your partner's medical histories, likelihood of rockfall, etc.

You're joking, right?

How about we assess the situation and decide then what the best course of action is, rather than blindly following whatever flavor of "always do this" situation.

Regardless of what the belayer assumes the climber is going to do, they should be staying on belay until the climbers tells them "off belay". As a climber, if you yell "off belay" when you want to lower then you are just doing the gene pool a favor. Social darwinism.

Also, lets not make assumptions that every single belayer is using a grigri on single pitch sport routes, and not make ridiculous claims that using an ATC for sport climbing is unsafe.

This thread should have been over on page 2 or 3 when somebody pointed out that there is no single solution that always be used regardless of the context, so such assumptions are invariably less than preferable in some situations. Remember what your parents told you about making assumptions when you were a kid?

Em Cos wrote:

Well, your premise that "there is rarely a valid reason to rap rather than lower" is not my experience of climbing, so I can assume there is some non-zero number of climbers out there who can say the same. 

You may choose to focus on single-pitch sport for whatever reasons, but I hope you can at least recognize that there is more to the world of climbing than this. If you want to advocate "If you and your partner exclusively climb single-pitch sport climbs equipped for lowering directly off the anchors, then you should always lower" then I'm on board with that.

It seems we're in agreement that belayers should always assume lowering, and should always default to keeping their climber on belay. 

I guess where we disagree is that in recognition that not all climbing is the same, I don't believe a simple, dogmatic "always lower" approach is right for every climber in every situation. Where I am still baffled that we don't agree, is that if you are  at a set of anchors with (for whatever reason) no idea what your partner is doing, that it is absolutely safer to rap than to lower in that moment. 

No, I am not immune to communication failures. In the absence of communication, in the absence of certainty that my partner is conscious, present, and providing an effective belay, I will proceed as though I have no belayer and rappel. And I cannot conceive of the situation where that choice would cost me my life, though the alternative certainly could. 

I focus on single pitch sport because that's what I really enjoy climbing these days. 

Every once in a while I'll mix it up, but I kind of like doing what I like doing.

I believe I've confined my 'always lower' advocacy to single pitch sport, even back in the First Rap vs Lower wars with Greg D.

AFAIK, lowering isn't often useful in multi pitch trad.

Single pitch trad seems so heterogeneous wrt anchors, that a simple 'always' strikes me as risky. 

If anything, an 'always rap' in single pitch trad might be safer.

Actually I think lowering is seriously underrated in a multipitch context. Lowering the first one down is quite useful for situations where the next rap station requires some traversing to get to, as the first  one down can use their hands and then pull the second over to the station. It's also useful in any situation where one might be more likely to miss the next station, such as in the dark. If you miss it, you can have all 4 limbs to climb back up. 

Finally, lowering is useful if you are unsure whether your type is long enough to reach the next station. If it doesn't, the second one down can tap a single stand and then add any cordage or slings to make the other strand long enough to reach to pull. 

Granted, these are all less than ideal situation, but it's still a worthy tool to have when you need it

Nice conglomerate. 

When I rappel, I always check everything by weighting the rappel before unclipping the tether from the anchor---I think this is pretty standard practice now.  If I'm getting lowered off a climb, I stay tethered into the anchor until the belayer is obviously holding my weight, i.e. I back up a lower the same way I back up a rappel.  This doesn't prevent being dropped because the rope is too short and no knot was tied in the end, but it does prevent the kinds of off-belay accidents that are the result of miscommunication and/or faulty assumptions.

I'm kind of amazed at how few people do that actually, given the number of accidents that, as you said, could have been prevented by it.

Ted Pinson wrote:

I'm kind of amazed at how few people do that actually, given the number of accidents that, as you said, could have been prevented by it.

A side comment:  And avoid uncritical satisfaction with the "bump test".  I know of one rap fatality where the most likely explanation was a lack of 100% visual inspection while the "bump test" passed.

Bill Lawry wrote:

A side comment:  And avoid uncritical satisfaction with the "bump test".  I know of one rap fatality where the most likely explanation was a lack of 100% visual inspection while the "bump test" passed.

I'd be interested in more details about that.  The main point of the "bump test" is to make sure that the rap device has been properly threaded, meaning that the ropes have not only been inserted in the device, but also have been clipped through the attaching carabiner. 

Of course, visual inspection of the system is also required---"uncritical satisfaction" is a recipe for disaster in all kinds of climbing situations.

It was the case of an insufficiently constructed anchor: strong enough to hold a bump test but not to hold body weight.

Shelly Windsor.   Climbing near Flagstaff AZ. Rapping in after moving a pair of slings from one tree to another.

What I refer to is a best guess explanation but also very plausible. Long thread about it on the old RC.com site years ago.  Here is a separate thread with accident analysis:   Accident analysis - Shelley Windsor

Edited to update name and provide link to accident analysis.

Some climbers bounce (not bump) test their anchors before they use them.  Of course, this requires a totally separate anchor as a backup and so isn't all that practical for a single rappel.  But if you are doing multiple rappels, then the first person down can bounce test the anchor they've arrived at with backup from the rappel ropes.