Red Rocks stuck rope on Prince of Darkness

Hey!!!

We lost our 70m and tag line at the top of Prince of Darkness after thet got stuck yesterday. If anyone is coming down the route and frees them we would love to get them back and trade you some beers 😉

Thanks and happy sending!!

This you guys? 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPwKYJDkeaG/

Literally, a day after torrential rain in Red Rock. There's no way the ground was dry on the way there in Black Velvet.

Make better choices, guys.

Went back up and got them back today... rock was solid, no rain 36hrs might be a tad short but everything was bone dry

Keith Gwrote:

Went back up and got them back today... rock was solid, no rain 36hrs might be a tad short but everything was bone dry

Could you please tell use how ropes got stuck?  What would you different in hindsight?  Anything that could have prevented it?

rapping with a biner block and a tag (60m 6mm cord i got for free, not rated or ever tested actually rapping with)

rope got twisted at the anchor on first pull and i jugged back up and fixed it and rapped again. it pulled fine for the first 10m then we let go of our climbing rope and only had the tag, pulled 10more meters and it started getting harder and harder until we couldnt get anything more. hauled on it with a trax, set up a 3:1 and still nothing. tried for like 1.5 hrs.

so now we have ab 15 or so meters of a 6mm cord and climbing rope is way above us. we talked to the other parties climbing but nobody was eager to come up and give us a ride down. one party suggested to call SAR and at least let them know whats going on. we did and they were on the way pretty much.

The way i see it the only option we had was to cut the 15m of cord and rap bolt to bolt down POD, or get a rescue as i was not going to jug up the cord, too much risk even is i prussiked and clipped bolts on the way up, if it was a half rope or single different story. my climbing parter is just a good friend and is super inexperienced so i would have to make the call myself to rap down individual bolts and snapgates, probably about 15-20 raps id imagine, last pitch had no bolts also but we had a rack from climbing DOWT i guess.

either way, SAR came and climbed up the route and gave us a rap down, they flew in and dropped off at the base of the route with a heli... to be honest was badass to see and they were super amazing people

very embarrasing to get rescued obivously and a huge scar on my climbing CV, especially rapping down essentially a sport route but i didnt want to put my friend in the position of having to rap off 6mm cord and snapgates off single bolts on his second multipitch (both with me😭)

some things to learn from is i will not be fucking around with biner blocked raps in the future, just tag up another single or use halves. would have been a seriously fucked situation anywhere more remote. only been climbing 3 years but climbed a few big routes and this was the first time my ropes got stuck in a way i was unable to free them. i think rapping with a tag is best done with a big block off knot and not a biner block unless necessary

dont be lazy people, i could have taken an extra rap and rapped off my single 70m when i jugged up and fixed the rope the first time, but was too confident i fixed the issue

got all our gear back and the rescue was free (thanks taxpayers)

happy sending

@mikek if u have any other options i could have thought about but didnt please share, id love to hear what others would have done as i could have missed something obivous

Might be nice to give a donation to the southern nevada climbers coalition. Since you got all your gear back and the rescue cost nothing. Just something to think about. 

So there were other climbers on the wall who saw you were stuck and declined to help? WTF has happened to the climbing "community"?  

Climbers have been doing double rope rappels with two full thickness ropes for a long, long time. The only debate there has been what knot to use to join the two ropes.

The use of tag lines (for double rope rappels) has really only gained widespread popularity in the last decade or so. Way more debate: How thin to go? How much diameter disparity is OK? How to join them? Do you have some sort of block and if so should it be a knot, a carabiner, or should one rope be clipped to the other to create a closed loop? Which one to pull? Should you be able to lead on the tag? Etc, etc. 

That debate will continue because there are problems with this system. I'm not saying don't use it - but you need to be aware of what can go wrong.

In 2019 I soloed the Howling on the Warlock in the Needles and then rapped the entire SW side of the formation in order to check out/rehearse the Sea of Tranquility. After the final rap to the ground which was 200' and mostly free-hanging, I pulled my tag and my two ropes twisted hopelessly around one another. If this had happened on any of the 10 raps prior to this I would have been completely screwed with no choice but to die of exposure or to ascend my tag - held in place by only friction with another rope. I got very lucky and spent the next couple days contemplating what could have happened and what I could have done to get out of it... not much. But as it was, I was able to leave my ropes there and free them a few days later when my partner arrived and we climbed the route. The cause? Horizontally spaced anchors. These are notorious for twisting a rope when lowering or pulling the rope, but usually (with a single rope) it is no more than an inconvenience. However, when one strand is clipped to the other (as is the case with a typical closed-loop 'biner block), and you have 200' plus of rope out, and when one of the ropes is dental floss, the twists can quickly make the ropes unretrievable. 

This past spring I rapped Prince of Darkness over a dozen times. I got it pretty dialed (*see note below). One thing you'll see on that wall is a lot of vertically staggered anchors (a high bolt connected to a low bolt with a chain and a single rap ring) with a third bolt next to it with a rap ring of some sort. The vertically staggered set is redundant; the third bolt makes it extra redundant. However, that third bolt is often horizontally spaced and thus can create twists in the rope.

Here are some takeaways:

1. If you're doing pretty short rappels with a single, fatter lead line, it's probably no big deal to clip through horizontally spaced anchors. But if you're relying on a tag line, and the anchors are in a configuration that can twist the ropes around each other, consider NOT clipping one to the other to create a closed loop. Yeah, this reduces safety a bit in the rare event your tag were to cut or something, but you still have the knot or loose 'biner that should get wedged into the anchor (provided the knot/carabiner are bigger than the rings/chain links/whatever) preventing catastrophe.
2. Do you really want to use a tag that is so skinny or static that you not only wouldn't lead on it but also are reluctant to even rap on it or are afraid of something happening to it?
3. Even with perfect anchor configurations, a carabiner or knot can get stuck on a flake or in a crack and once you've lost control of the other end, that's that. Best to avoid knots and carabiners altogether.
4. In Red Rocks (and probably in general) it is solid decision making to never skip a rappel. Another way to look at this is: bring/use/deploy as little rope as possible when rapping - If for no other reason than getting your rope caught on all the flakes and chicken heads there when you pull them. Not to mention you have that much more distance to potentially re-climb if something goes wrong.
5. Taking a "super inexperienced friend" up a big multi pitch is probably something worth considering carefully. Having a second person along should be an asset for getting out of difficult situations not a liability. This is only slightly less dumb than rapping the Warlock solo.
6. I also highly recommend not climbing on wet rock in Red Rocks. People often think that if they don't break holds then either it was dry enough or they got away with it. But every time you hang from an anchor in wet sandstone you damage that anchor. I've drilled enough holes in sandstone to know that even when things seem bone dry on the surface, the rock can still be wet beneath the surface.

*Some common scenarios where you might be tempted to do a double rope rap when you don't need to in Red Rocks: When climbing Birdland as a party of three. You may have two ropes but you should not skip rappels just because you can. A single 70 is enough. Put the other rope away and use one rope. Not only do you risk getting your ropes stuck, but you're also throwing twice as much rope onto the people below you. Same goes for Prince of Darkness. You can, in fact, rappel the entire route with a single 70. The only tight spot is the third rap from the bottom. After doing this countless times my best advice is... bring an 80. But if you don't want to do that, bring a 70. On this rap, send the first person down on a single strand with a bit of extra length to make sure they reach the anchor. The first person can then clip in to the anchor and tie their end of the rope to the anchor securely to serve as a counter weight for the second person. The second person then raps the other end of the rope, also on a single strand, and gets right to the knot they hopefully tied in the end of the rope and can swing over and clip in. Works like a charm. The reason I use this method is that it gives the second person the entire length of the 70 meter ropes' stretch to ensure they have as much rope as possible to reach the anchor. With "longer", stretchier 70's it's a non-issue, but with that 68m, not-very-strechy 70, you need that extra stretch to reach. This avoids all the pitfalls of clipping a daisy chain of slings to one end of your rope, estimating the new middle of the rope, and 'biner-blocking it. It avoids simul-rapping BS. It also eliminates the need for two ropes on this wall. Again, having rapped POD over a dozen times this spring alone and several dozen times over my career I conclude an 80 is the way. But this works almost as well.

Kudos to the OP for going back to get their ropes themselves (but... was the rock still wet?). I hope they gave that "beer reward" to the LVMPDSAR volunteers that saved their asses.

Thanks for the replies and tips, the rap story was a good read

I get it now with the horizontial bolts, never understood before. u are right with a lot of your points, and i probably should stick to single pitch or smaller routes until i can gain my friend some experience to make informed decisions with me... we are all a little ambitious sometimes, i just didnt get away with it

I am new to sandstone climbing but the rock and ground, everything was totally dry sunday and monday, it was not the day after, but 2 (1.5)days with 80 degrees. I could be wrong as there was significantly less people climbing sunday than monday, but we were willing to bail on the day and just take our gear on a hike if it was showing signs of moisture.

The parties climbing back there suggested to call SAR as it would be dark and at their limit i guess. They were otherwise kind and helpful folks

Out of curiosity, were you set up with the biner clipped back into the rap strand? I've given up on blocking this way and now just clove hitch onto a large locker. 

Any information to share from the party that retrieved the ropes on what exactly was stuck? 

clove on a large locker and block the ring? thats smart

i usually use a fishermans to block if its chains, block off with clove clipped back into climbing side if its rings... thats how i had it setup here

twisting was the issue just the same as josh described, his advice seems totally spot on on how to prevent and what the issue was, extremely helpful

i had jugged up once and fixed the twists before but thought it was a fluke, did not understand how having the rope clipped into itself with horizontial bolts would fuck us over like that every time...