Looking for Routes to Top Rope Solo and Practice Trad Gear - Tips?

Interesting, I never thought about teaching TRS to clients. Interesting avenue to explore.

Hey @some guy - I spend some time in your area. Happy to connect and go out with you to Moore's or Pilot! I have a pretty dialed TRS setup.

Regarding finding TRS-friendly routes, that's kinda fun. I have had a lot of success reading skimming comments  AND ticks on mtnproject; folks often reference anchors, natural or otherwise, that can be accessed from above, or approached, or accessed, or whatever. Guides rarely make mention of these, other than very obvious top rope placements. My experience is many routes can be accessed safely with some creativity, the key is having a broader understanding of the layout of the particular crag or area to know if it's possible at all to get above the climbing faces. If you can get above it on non technical terrain, you can very often (especially here in the SE), find a safe rappel point to get down and set a rope. 

Other thoughts:

- Rebelaying and keeping your rope safe is extremely important.

- practice transitioning from your TRS gear to your rappel device, and think through the complications of your TRS devices getting bound up, or running into a knot, etc. It is worth spending a lot of time hanging from a tree limb or whatever and trying to work out the problems, rather than finding yourself unable to release our gear when you need to get your grigri on to get down!

- overdo your "checks". You are entirely responsible for your fate; practice it all on the ground many times, then two feet above, then practice dealing with things that "could" go wrong (ie, your device getting jammed with a sling). 

Regarding your plan to check gear - rather than just taking pics of your placements, use the fact that you're on a TR to test your gear. Use a PAS to weight every piece you place, then progress to "falling" on your gear with your TRS backup. (Think through the logistics of your static or dynamic setups here...dont' fall on your gear on a static rope, and don't fall on a piece of gear that could blow and leave you falling on a static TRS...)

Reach out if you want to get together and climb!

-Aaron

The PITA that is zipping your trax's into your knot is something that isn't mentioned nearly enough.

J Lwrote:

The PITA that is zipping your trax's into your knot is something that isn't mentioned nearly enough.

Is it that'd hard to avoid? I have been a regular top rope soloist for 7 years or something like that including a year and a half where it was my main form of climbing and have never experienced this once. 

No, it's mostly something that happens without thinking. One example that comes to mind is coming up to your rebelay and climbing too far.