Rapping with haul bags

You’re rapping with the haul bags, wether bailing or you’re rapping the East Ledges ropes or the descent from the Leaning Tower. Inevitably in your big wall career you are going to do a lot of raps with the pigs.

There are certainly arguments for lowering the pigs down to the next anchor but that requires techniques and tricks that I won’t be covering here. Having either technique figured out will serve you well.

You can really hose yourself when rapping with pigs if you don’t figure out the exact sequence things need to be done in. It can be fast and easy or it can be a nightmare. On a retreat early in my current big wall career the only way I could figure to release the bags from the anchor was to simply cut the docking sling. Lacking a knife I would have had to hammer the thing to death. I now know a few techniques that would have gotten me out of that pickle but it mattered little then.

Back in the day, the technique was to attach the bags to the same biners as your biner brake system so that the bags were dangling between your legs. The problem here was that if the bags rolled left, then you sure as hell were heading left with them, same for right. Eventually it was figured out to extend the rappel device from your harness and hang the bags from a sling equally as long, thereby giving the climber a little independence from the bags.
Given that when you are rapping with pigs you are not 100% in control of what might happen, I like to use a system that will brake if I loose control and also release easily. For me that device is a Grigri. I won’t get into a discussion of what other device might be better but I have faith in a Grigri and that device is my choice. 
You might be rapping a diagonal pitch and the person on the lower anchor may have to pull you over and in this case a Grigri will stay locked. An ATC and a autoblock would work in that situation but it just seems a little bit too clustery to me. I don’t have a lot of experience rapping with that set up, you may have more confidence in it. 

My set up is two shoulder length slings, doubled or tripled depending on your comfort, from a locking biner at the Grigri, one to a locker at your harness and the other to a locker on the bags. This allows you to be fairly independent of the bags.

I’ll tell you right now that I HATE triple locking biners but this is one situation were I’d be okay with them. (I’m not going to go out and buy any though, just saying.) The bags are going to be twisting and rolling and falling onto their tether slings ALOT! It has happened that they’ve detached themselves and fallen to the ground and injured someone. 

On the bags, clipped through all the same stuff as the locker to the Grigri is another locker with a dedicated docking cord. Use whatever docking technique you like as long as it is RELEASABLE UNDER A LOAD. A single 10’ cord and the ability to tie a Munter and secure it with a Mule is just fine. My docking technique of two cords, the Munter and then barber poling the cords back down to the bags and finishing of with a square knot is also fine. 

Let’s start from the top. 
You have only two ropes, the lead line and the haul line. You are both rapping with Grigris. One person is “leading” the rappels, going first, swinging around, placing directionals if needed. This person can be rapping with some gear but obviously not most of it. You’ve set up your ropes with a biner block at the anchor.
Obviously both climbers will rap on the “blocked” rope side (there is an advanced way to do this but it’s not for popular consumption). When the second is ready to rap, their Grigri is on the rope and they are unclipped from the anchor before they release the haul bags onto the Grigri. They can then clean their anchor set up and start rapping.

The sequence of approaching an anchor is the most important.

The leader should have a spot ready to receive the haul bag’s docking cord, usually a large biner in a convenient place.
The second’s waist and the top of the haul bag slings are usually at the same level. As the climber‘s waist comes even with the anchor they should dock the bag before docking themselves, that way, when they dock themselves, there is no weight on the rope from the bags.
Pull your ropes, reset your biner block and repeat. 

Be safe.

I've gone back and forth between using the gri-gri or an ATC with prusik.  The pros of the grigri is that it is simple to setup, self locking and is often all I carry with me these days.  Down side I see of it though is it takes two hands to operate safely especially when it is under heavy loads on a skinnier rope.  Having to use two hands to operate it can be challenging on diagonal rappels where one hand is needed to pull yourself over.  The ATC/prusik setup arguably takes longer to setup, is more parts, and requires carrying an ATC but if your prusik or autoblock setup is dialed you can rappel smoothly with just one hand and the other is free to grab holds or maneuver the bags.  If the bags are super heavy (100+ lbs) this is definitely my go to system.  If the bags are light say while coming down the east ledges I just use the gri-gri setup.

I'd be curious to see what system you use for docking the bags in this situation.  I occasionally find the standard munter mule on a docking cord to not be ideal as it can be hard for me to reach up and undo the MM and grab the biner it was attached to.  If I anticipate this being a problem while docking the bags i feed the tail of the docking cord through the chains (or rings) and then tie the MM back on to the bags essentially creating a top rope setup.  This makes it a lot easier to release the MM.

And I find it interesting you clip the shoulder length slings directly into the grigri locker and then attach yourself/bags via a locker.  I usually reverse that setup.  I girth a sling to the bags and attach a locker to that which then clips to the locker on the grigri.  I do the same setup for myself.  

Thanks, Mark. Very helpful.

Don’t discount anything Mikey posts. He frequently has different opinions than mine but he’s rock solid. 

Any tips for rapping solo on a diagonal pitch? I'm guessing either:
1) Rap alone first, fix rope at the lower anchor (with a bit of slack so you can feed your device), jug back up to upper anchor, then rap with the bags (letting the fixed line pull you towards the lower anchor).
2) Lower the bags on the haul line straight down to slightly below the lower anchor, fix haul line. Rap on lead line down to the bags, attach lower-out line or remaining haul line to bags. Swing over to lower anchor, then use lower-out line or haul line to pull the bags to anchor. Jug back up to upper anchor, tie haul line to lead line with biner block, rap back to anchor.

Is one of these better than the other, or is there a third option I'm missing?

Mikey - when rapping with a big load using the ATC/prusik setup, I'd be curious how you are setup to get plenty of friction to rap with one hand.  Two biners below the ATC? Something else? 

Stimpy,
I was thinking a lot about this one last night. I was trying to think of the worst case senario (severely overhanging and diagonal) and come up with a good and maybe even elegant solution.
I think the best way to go is to down aid the pitch as much or as little as needed, anchor the haul line fairly tight, jug back up the line you down aided on and then rap with the bags on the haul line, and near the bottom, pull yourself over to the anchor (DON‘T GO BELOW IT) with your ascenders. Dock the bags and then pull your ropes. The devil is in the details here and I haven’t yet ironed them all out.

You know, now that I think about it, don’t put any tension in the haul line at all, leave it full slack. Rap it and keep pulling yourself over to the anchor.

Thanks Mark. Do you keep the swivel between the rap device and bags? Seems like any unintentional swinging around could start twisting up the two slings going to the rap device.

For example, rapping down the Heart Lines or East Ledges, no I don’t. Maybe if you were retreating down something less than vertical, then yes. 

On the note of triple locking carabiners: one of my partners dropped a portaledge down the east ledges when his locking carabiner opened during a rappel. Everyone below and the ledge were fine but it could have been a nasty way to end a relatively painless ascent. 

I’m still not going to buy any but Max watched a locker open itself while the bags came over an edge on the AO Wall. 

Another thing i like to do is placing an ATC extended on a sling and a grigri instead of a prusik, i usually do this when tandem rappelling, ie in a rescue situation. Any of the more experienced climbers on MP that can tell YGD or if it is a good idea. As said i have used this technique a couple of times but there could be a draw back that i do not see? 

Digging up this old thread because I found myself rapping with pigs and a situation that I didn't know the best way to proceed.

Suppose you're rapping on a single strand with pigs, which are too heavy to lift, and you need to pass a knot on vertical/overhanging terrain. What's the ideal way to do this?

In my scenario I actually could lift the pigs and muscled my way through it, but thinking about it the best I came up with is:

1. Approaching the knot, clip an ascender above you. Use the bag docking cord to tie a munter mule overhand to the ascender, or similar.

2. Tie a backup knot below the knot for yourself, and the bags (??)

3. With your bags off your Grigri, pass yourself and the Grigri around the knot. Lower the bags back onto the Grigri with the munter.

4. Finish the rap.

In my mind this seems like it would work, not sure if it's ideal. The bags falling on the backup knot seems like a bad time, only recoverable with building a pulley system. Maybe this is unlikely, but I found that the rope I was rapping on was a relatively skinny lead line and was so taut that I had a hard time to even get the ascender to catch on the rope above me and kind of sketched me out.

Thoughts or suggestions? Thanks.

abandon moderation wrote:

Digging up this old thread because I found myself rapping with pigs and a situation that I didn't know the best way to proceed.

Suppose you're rapping on a single strand with pigs, which are too heavy to lift, and you need to pass a knot on vertical/overhanging terrain. What's the ideal way to do this?

In my scenario I actually could lift the pigs and muscled my way through it, but thinking about it the best I came up with is:

1. Approaching the knot, clip an ascender above you. Use the bag docking cord to tie a munter mule overhand to the ascender, or similar.

2. Tie a backup knot below the knot for yourself, and the bags (??)

3. With your bags off your Grigri, pass yourself and the Grigri around the knot. Lower the bags back onto the Grigri with the munter.

4. Finish the rap.

In my mind this seems like it would work, not sure if it's ideal. The bags falling on the backup knot seems like a bad time, only recoverable with building a pulley system. Maybe this is unlikely, but I found that the rope I was rapping on was a relatively skinny lead line and was so taut that I had a hard time to even get the ascender to catch on the rope above me and kind of sketched me out.

Thoughts or suggestions? Thanks.

Hope folks will provide a response, but check out the 25 min mark in this HowNot2 vid:

https://youtu.be/BOyd4oQCn0M?si=vFFW_UUO_bW2fv7Q

John Vang wrote:

Hope folks will provide a response, but check out the 25 min mark in this HowNot2 vid:

https://youtu.be/BOyd4oQCn0M?si=vFFW_UUO_bW2fv7Q

Thanks, that video is almost exactly what I ended up doing, good to know I was on the right track. I actually had that exact setup with my Grigri and haul bag on the same loop, which I can see from Marks original post isn't quite optimal.

My concern was that it required me to stand in the ladders to lift the haul bag to clean the ascender, which he mentions the Yates daisy being a workaround for. I guess anything that can release the bags under load off the ascender would work there.

Yates style daisy is a good backup, but you really need a proper docking tether where you can tie a load release knot to ultimately release the pig once you're past the knot. When you start building stretch into the system as you get with heavy loads, you might well end up getting hosed on the adjustable daisy because it's just not quite long enough.

In our book HOOKING UP, Fabio and I have a step-by-step description including detailed photos showing you how to easily cross a knot while riding a gigantic pig on rappel.  You only have to employ one or two ideas in the book to save enough time, energy and heartache to completely underwrite the cost of the book.  I can't imagine more heartache than getting hosed on a knot while riding a pig on rappel!  Message me for your copy.  Cheers.