Looking for a good area to practice simul climbing in the L.A. area.

Looking for a good area to practice simul climbing in the L.A. area.  An area with little to no approach. Class 3 scrambling for 300 ft or more would be great. Even a large park with trees that could be slung would be fine too. Thanks 

D Bwrote:

Looking for a good area to practice simul climbing in the L.A. area.  An area with little to no approach. Class 3 scrambling for 300 ft or more would be great. Even a large park with trees that could be slung would be fine too. Thanks

There’s that low 5th route on bee rock in Griffith park

Russell Houghtenwrote:

There’s that low 5th route on bee rock in Griffith park

This looks like the perfect route to practice it it looks like it’s closed from Feb-June for raptor nesting. 

rock climbing wrote:

Do people practice simul climbing?

Sure

rock climbing wrote:

Do people practice simul climbing?

Dentists practice dentistry, lawyers practice law, simul-climbers practice simul-climbing - every time they do it. Practice, that is.

bite the bullet on gas, drive up to the Valley, hit swan slab gully (where i learned, funny enough), then the Grack, and you should be ready to go after that. 

Forgive the "captain obvious" statement but would suggest only simuling 2-3 number grades under your max, and only on full stretch (rope completely out, not bandolier'd around your chest and grigri'd up).... full rope length = more pieces of gear. more pieces of gear between you and follower = safer (usually). Have fun, it really opens up a whole new world.

I get the idea here - you want to get a taste of what simul climbing is like but on 3rd class and not 5th class terrain. But don't lose sight of the fact that practicing simul-climbing is more or less the same as "practicing" free soloing. I would never, ever be the lead climber with a follower who felt they were still in "practice" mode simul climbing below me on the rope. A mutual friend on solar slab once yelled up at the leader while they were simul climbing, "Hey Dave, watch me here, you got me?" Dave was on a slab about 50 feet above his piece and was like "no dude, I don't have you." Those are about the worst words you'd ever want to hear in that situation! (Aside from "falling!")  Simul climbing has its time and place and is a lot of fun, but don't ever forget it's basically soloing with the increased risk of your partner's failures affecting you.

I would suggest Texas Canyon near Santa Clarita. There are a few multi-pitch routes there you could practice on.

Another suggestion is the Black Wall at Sespe gorge. Multi-pitch cracks you could easily practice on. 

bryanswrote:

I get the idea here - you want to get a taste of what simul climbing is like but on 3rd class and not 5th class terrain. But don't lose sight of the fact that practicing simul-climbing is more or less the same as "practicing" free soloing. I would never, ever be the lead climber with a follower who felt they were still in "practice" mode simul climbing below me on the rope. A mutual friend on solar slab once yelled up at the leader while they were simul climbing, "Hey Dave, watch me here, you got me?" Dave was on a slab about 50 feet above his piece and was like "no dude, I don't have you." Those are about the worst words you'd ever want to hear in that situation! (Aside from "falling!")  Simul climbing has its time and place and is a lot of fun, but don't ever forget it's basically soloing with the increased risk of your partner's failures affecting you.

I agree with this. I’m not sure really what one would practice other than pacing and communication.  I’ve simuled lots of things but only on things way below my lead level and only with people whose skill set I trust and climbing at a similar level below his or her lead limit.  It can open up a lot of things, but I think the best practice for it is just to lead harder and more efficiently.  

There's lots of steep dirt hills out there.

+1 for choosing your leader/follower. Practicing simul isn't like practicing lead climbing. BOTH must be aware of that. Best approached like something you'd solo, but want to rope up just in case.

FWIW- I have done a fair bit of simu-climbing and it can be made much safer for the leader if you use a Petzel Tibloc or a Wild Country Rope-man or other similar device that allows the rope to feed out to the leader but will catch a fall from the follower. I typically use this when passing a belay or other bomber piece that I place the device onto a runner or quickdraw attached to the bomber piece. That way if your follower slips or falls, the leader does not get pulled off. I had a partner fall on a 5.10c route at Tahquitz behind me and I felt nothing from his fall.  

One could potentially use a Petzel Micro-Traction in this circumstance but it is not as strong as the devices I mentioned above. The Rope-man does not allow the rope to feed as nicely as the Tibloc or the Micro-Traction but it is very strong. I've heard people say that the Tibloc has teeth that can cause rope damage in the event of a fall. I counter that if your partner fell while simu-climbing, I'd rather suffer a bit of sheath damage than the alternative. The bottom line here is that you should only be simu-climbing on routes well within your and your partner's ability level.

Something obvious, but I’ll state it anyways. While simul-climbing, if the leader falls, it is fairly similar to a leader fall in a non simul-climbing situation. The leader is effectively on a great belay as long as the follower does not allow too much slack to develop in front of them. The big danger in simul-climbing is if or when the follower slips and falls. If this occurs, it can place both the follower and the leader at great risk. The level of risk depends on many variables which include how far the leader is above his/her last piece of protection, how much slack there is between the two, and if ledges exist that either or both may hit. Many of these dangers can be mitigated to some degree with smart rigging techniques similar to the one Levy mentioned above. Regardless, if simul-climbing, I personally follow the rule that the stronger climber always follows and the weaker climber always takes the lead.

Thanks for all the input. We’re planning on simuling all or most of Solar Slab Gully before swapping leads on Solar Slab.

I was considering using a progress capture device such as the Roll N Lock but not positive on using one yet. Plan to bandolier around half the rope and make our way up, staying in good communication because of proximity (~30m) and walkies clipped on the shoulder straps of our packs for easy access. Setting up belays and paying out slack off the coil for any questionable sections or the leader building an anchor and belaying. I’m fairly conservative when it comes to safety and have no problem just going to a traditional set up. I’m am by no means a hard climber (5.8ish on gear, Tahquitz, JTree) and my friend climbs 5.7 but from what I can tell the gully goes pretty easy. Like I said, I’m fairly conservative and if one of us doesn’t feel comfortable we won’t simul.

Tony, good point about the stronger climber following. Thanks. Good seeing you the other day at TC. Look forward to TR’ing or aiding your route.   

I highly recommend skipping the gully and climbing johnny Vegas to solar slab, which is only 5.7, unless of course you really want to simul but you could also do that on the upper pitches of solar slab

D Bwrote:

Thanks for all the input. We’re planning on simuling all or most of Solar Slab Gully before swapping leads on Solar Slab.

Not the question you were asking but if you are thinking of that wall for April, it could be really horribly hot. Something like Lady Luck might be a comparable alternative difficulty wise, and you might get some shade at some point after noon.  It’s not as long as SS at 1000 feet but if you take a 70 meter you can walk around the wall when you get down from the gulley raps, towards Romper Room and Lotta Balls and get more routes in if you really have the energy. 

You’re gonna be climbing SS in 85 degree, sunny weather this time of year. The season for that wall is finished. It’s time to chase after shade 

Mike Climbersonwrote:

You’re gonna be climbing SS in 85 degree, sunny weather this time of year. The season for that wall is finished. It’s time to chase after shade 

So many people messaged me saying something to this effect. I’ve climbed in temps like this many times and it doesn’t bother me. We climbed it a couple of days ago on Saturday. Mid 80’s? Felt fairly cool. Nobody on the route the entire day. 

Just a quick follow up of our SS Gully > SS day. We simuled pitches 1 and 2. I was following and told my friend I just wanted to pitch out the rest because I was tired of managing everything like the slack and cleaning.