Lowering climber

Hello,

Taking my friend with very little gym experience up a 3 pitch 5.4 tommorrow, what would be the best option to lower him? Rappelling could happen with a shunt & fireman belay, but me lowering him down would be ideal. I have tried this in the past, and tend to get sucked towards the anchor and have some twisting going in at belay loop.

Would pre rigging an extended atc rap and giving them a fireman's be applicable for you? That's a somewhat simple solution. Just tell them not to mess with it and you know it's set up properly.

Tandem rap would be another option if you're familiar. (Not simul-rap thats different)

Danny Herrera wrote: Hello,

Taking my friend with very little gym experience up a 3 pitch 5.4 tommorrow, what would be the best option to lower him? Rappelling could happen with a shunt & fireman belay, but me lowering him down would be ideal. I have tried this in the past, and tend to get sucked towards the anchor and have some twisting going in at belay loop.

Best to put him on rappel before you go down so they can't screw up putting it on. Get down to the next anchor and fireman belay them down from there. You are just asking to kill someone if you try lowering them down a multi-pitch rappel when they don't know what they are doing.

 Yea rig them up on rappel, then rappel, yourself, below them. That introduces them into the system and literally keeps them locked in until you can direct focus away from yourself back onto them.

im assuming you mean lowering from the top of the last pitch? in your statement "I have tried this in the past, and tend to get sucked towards the anchor and have some twisting going in at belay loop.", it sounds like you are lowering off your harness with a redirect at the anchor.  Instead, try lowering him directly off the anchor SAFELY (make sure you have a backup somewhere so you don't accidentally drop your climber). the bad and dangerous part about this:  you have no idea what they are going to do when they reach the next anchor station.

setting up their rappel is also not out of the question.  Pre-rig it on the rope above yours and clip them in. fireman's belay from bottom.

I feel like I am missing something here. Is a prussic knot not sufficient?

Additionally, I understand the sentiment of wanting to share a cool part of the sport with a lesser experienced climber, but I also think that there is a certain amount of education necessary before taking them on such excursions. If your partner doesn't even know how to rappel I'm not sure the best time to teach them is at the end of their first multi-pitch when the adrenaline is going nuts.

curt86iroc wrote: im assuming you mean lowering from the top of the last pitch? in your statement "I have tried this in the past, and tend to get sucked towards the anchor and have some twisting going in at belay loop.", it sounds like you are lowering off your harness with a redirect at the anchor.  Instead, try lowering him directly off the anchor SAFELY (make sure you have a backup somewhere so you don't accidentally drop your climber). the bad and dangerous part about this:  you have no idea what they are going to do when they reach the next anchor station.

setting up their rappel is also not out of the question.  Pre-rig it on the rope above yours and clip them in. fireman's belay from bottom.

Yes that' exactly it and it was terrible.

Thank you everyone tho, extending at rap with a atc it is

Jp Arico wrote: I feel like I am missing something here. Is a prussic knot not sufficient?

Additionally, I understand the sentiment of wanting to share a cool part of the sport with a lesser experienced climber, but I also think that there is a certain amount of education necessary before taking them on such excursions. If your partner doesn't even know how to rappel I'm not sure the best time to teach them is at the end of their first multi-pitch when the adrenaline is going nuts.

Yes this is very true! I think I will dedicate an hour or so to rappelling before hand on a smaller crag in the area

I don't like the whole scenario.  Very inexperienced person, apparently with virtually no rope skills, taken up a multipitch climb with a rappel descent.  This reads like the introduction to an AAC accident report.  If you have to do such a climb, it should be in a party of three with a second experienced person.

Ignoring now the host of other problems that could occur, lowering an inexperienced person down a pitch is not a great idea.  They have to make themselves safe when they arrive at the next stance, possibly out of sight from you but even if visible far away.  The guides don't do it, and neither should you.

The "right" way has already been mentioned by VS and PH and is in common use by guides.  The experienced person goes down first, leaving inexperienced person all set up for rappel and ready to go.  A "fireman's belay" is given from below to protect the second.  But this isn't going to be practical if the inexperienced person has no rappelling experience.

(Note on  "fireman's belay." Conventional wisdom is that the belayer simply grasps the rappel strands and pulls on them to stop the rappeller.   There have been reports that it can, in some circumstances, be hard to stop someone  who has picked up speed.  It is better for the first person down to keep their rap device on the rope and use it for the belay.  The belayer can jump up and simultaneously pull in slack and so apply a lot more tension to the rappel lines than they would be able to exert just from hand-pulling.)

Your partner's first time rappeling should be on a single-pitch climb, not a multipitch. I've had a new climber, rappeling for their first time, say that the rope won't "move" through the device. Even though he had just watched me do it, he couldn't get the rope started feeding through (he was pre-rigged). I hiked back up to the top of the crag and showed him again.

Practice rappeling on a single-pitch climb where you can walk back up to the anchor, if need be.

rgold wrote:(Note on  "fireman's belay." Conventional wisdom is that the belayer simply grasps the rappel strands and pulls on them to stop the rappeller.   There have been reports that it can, in some circumstances, be hard to stop someone  who has picked up speed.  It is better for the first person down to keep their rap device on the rope and use it for the belay.  The belayer can jump up and simultaneously pull in slack and so apply a lot more tension to the rappel lines than they would be able to exert just from hand-pulling.)

I’ve never heard of this before, but am intrigued. I’ll have to give it a try...

1. climb the first pitch, or any one pitch route and practice together everything you need to do.
2. climb the route and then descend it together using a Y-hang. This is the method you would use with an injured partner. It means you are together all the time.
3. don't rap down anything that you haven't rapped before and hence know where the chains are.

I assume they can belay?

I think it's a mistake to equate ease of the climb with saftey. Just be because it's a very easy climb doesn't mean it's safe for a beginner who doesn't know basic rope skills. Just a scenario for thought: what happens if you become incapacitated, unconscious, or hurt before you can set up the rappel or teach them? Do they just sit at the top and wait for SAR or someone else to show up? They should at least know how to rapp down to get help and probably how to self rescue before any multipitch.... Not to reiterate what most are saying here, but taking them to a single pitch crag and teaching fundamentals might be a better option. Given a similar situation this winter I took my gumbie to a single pitch crag and we had a fundamentals day, which was great for them!

The "Y-Hang," or tandem rappel (not simul-rappel !!!) is an option---both climbers hang from a single rap device and descend together.  When done with an injured person, the healthy person controls the brake strands, but with two healthy climbers you can have four hands on the brake strands, and this might be a good thing, because you have to control double the usual rappel load with the same friction device.  I'd say that doubling the carabiners on the rap device to increase friction, and making sure to have a properly-installed functional autoblock are both important steps.

To beat a dead horse a bit, you don't do any of this for the first time on a multipitch route, you practice it first in a safe and controlled environment first to make sure you've got everything nailed.

I mean no disrespect to beginners, but the long and sometimes painful experience of the guiding community is that there is no mistake, no matter how illogical to an experienced climber, that a beginner might not make.  The person in charge cannot assume anything---which is one reason why you don't lower a beginner down first---and has to be very clear about any instructions they give.  

By way of illustration, an incident from a long time ago when I was partially financing grad school with guiding.  We were at the top of a multipitch route (walk off),  the rope was tangled, and my client, trying to be helpful, was laboriously untwisting each kink.  I was fussing with gear and said, in an offhand way, "if you throw the rope over the edge, the kinks will all untwist."  Of course, he did exactly as I said---he threw the entire rope over the edge.  I sat there with my mouth open and no words coming out, realizing that, after all, he had done exactly as I instructed. (The rope did not fall all the way to the base of the cliff.  I spent a good part of the rest of the day retrieving it.)

Bad idea.... period.
Go and take the time to teach this person how to do everything they will need to know to climb safely.
Don’t be THAT person who scares the liver out of somebody.... or worse- kill them. 

You can fix your rope in the middle and have him rappel on the single strand, while you belay him with the other end. But like others said, I'd practice this on a single pitch first, where your rappeler ends up on terra firma.

doligo wrote: You can fix your rope in the middle and have him rappel on the single strand, while you belay him with the other end. But like others said, I'd practice this on a single pitch first, where your rappeler ends up on terra firma.

This is ok for a single-pitch rappel, but otherwise you still have a beginner running around a potentially exposed stance without close supervision.  It should be enough to have them equipped with some kind of tether and given the instructions to use it to clip into the anchor at the stance (we are of course assuming there will be such an anchor), but there are still reasons to worry that something dangerous and unanticipated might transpire...

If they are going to rap on a single strand, remember to double up carabiners on the rap device.

One of the nightmare scenarios (and not only for beginners) is getting hair or clothing caught in the rap device.  Not only pain, but also complete inability to move typically ensues, and puts the party's leader in genuine technical self-rescue territory, whether they are above or below the rappeller (below being better, but neither is good).  So an easily-overlooked part of setting up a beginner for a rappel is to make sure all clothing is appropriately tucked in and no hair is in a position to feed into the rap device. Pony tails need to be stuffed up inside helmets or pushed down behind shirt collars.  An extended rap device may be around the rappellers eye-level and will easily grab any loose hair, even if it is pulled back.  (I'm not at all proud to admit that I've had to get my pony tail out of a rap device two or three times.  If it has fed past the very tip, complete unweighting of the rap device is required...)

Teach the rappel on low terrain first so they know what to do in a less stressful situation. For the multi pitch rappel, Extend their rappel and pre-rig it. You rappel first. Do not use a shunt or prussik for them, rather give them a fireman's from below. I the reason being if they get stuck or don't know how to manage the weight of the rope adding friction, they may get stuck. I've had this happen. I'm down at the bottom and the second can't get the rope to feed thru the shunt and belay device, not a fun situation for either of us.

The downside of this approach is they are alone for starting the rappel, probably the scariest and hardest part.

A different tactic would be to have them rappel first, on one strand of a rope fixed in the middle, while you top belay on the other strand from above. I use this tactic in single pitch rappel where the new climber does not need to anchor in at the bottom and where the ropes are clearly not tangled. I would not use this in a multi pitch rappel with a new climber for fear they miss the anchor or do not anchor safely. Method 1, they might get stuck, but you can manage their safety.

I would teach them on something small using the second method, then when they are confident in rappeling, moving up to the multi pitch method.

Larry S wrote: Teach the rappel on low terrain first so they know what to do in a less stressful situation. For the multi pitch rappel, Extend their rappel and pre-rig it. You rappel first. Do not use a shunt or prussik for them, rather give them a fireman's from below. I the reason being if they get stuck or don't know how to manage the weight of the rope adding friction, they may get stuck. I've had this happen. I'm down at the bottom and the second can't get the rope to feed thru the shunt and belay device, not a fun situation for either of us.

The downside of this approach is they are alone for starting the rappel, probably the scariest and hardest part.

If there's a ledge 10 ft or so down the face, stop there and have the newbie come down that far. Then continue as before. We call this "bumping the rappel".

And on the topic of hair/clothing getting caught - tie off the middle of the rope with a releasable knot (munter mule); pop that loose and transfer their weight to the belay line. Granted most non-guide climbers never do this and may not even know how.

Guy Keesee wrote: Bad idea.... period.
Go and take the time to teach this person how to do everything they will need to know to climb safely.
Don’t be THAT person who scares the liver out of somebody.... or worse- kill them. 

I took someone up their first 500ft climb and you know what scared them? The second pitch has a 60ft runout and she said that was the only part of the entire thing that scared her was watching me climb up 60ft of slab with no gear / bolts.

rgold wrote: 

(Note on  "fireman's belay." Conventional wisdom is that the belayer simply grasps the rappel strands and pulls on them to stop the rappeller.   There have been reports that it can, in some circumstances, be hard to stop someone  who has picked up speed.  It is better for the first person down to keep their rap device on the rope and use it for the belay.  The belayer can jump up and simultaneously pull in slack and so apply a lot more tension to the rappel lines than they would be able to exert just from hand-pulling.)

+1 on learning a new tip. I'll remember to try this.