Alone, developing, dropped gri gri from anchor, what to do?

And as of yesterday I'm in the 50 plus club myself!

Happy birthday young fella! Welcome to the club that self-empties at closing time.

The no-twist part of the no-twist munter is so clutch

Last night as I was death gripping my grigri 200’ off the deck above a big roof, alone in the dark, I thought about this post.  I’m not sure if it helps, but this is a perfectly rational fear, and even having a back-up plan doesn’t make it much less scary.  I usually always climb with two devices, often two grigri’s when developing. I have dropped my grigri alone developing before and it’s kinda inconvenient.  It’s good to have a back-up and better to have thought of it before you need it.

One thing I do differently when I am solo is one on/one off. When I remove my grigri from a rope to pull it, I don’t put the grigri back on my harness, instead I put it right back on the rope to start my next rappel.  When I arrive at the top of a TRS pitch I don’t take off any of my devices before I have put myself on for the rap. This is one device on, two devices off. I can’t say for sure that this decreases my chances of fumbling, but it does cut down the times you are fiddling with devices, so hopefully you can be more focused when you are transitioning. Good job starting this discussion. 

Though these threads can start out related to an individual's experience or query, at some point they become a broader discussion. To that end, my comment about developing wasn't necessarily targeted at the OP specifically, rather than being a more generalized statement: maybe not everything needs to be 'developed'.

apogeewrote:

Though these threads can start out related to an individual's experience or query, at some point they become a broader discussion. To that end, my comment about developing wasn't necessarily targeted at the OP specifically, rather than being a more generalized statement: maybe not everything needs to be 'developed'.

At the very least, learning the basics before developing might be helpful 

apogeewrote:

Though these threads can start out related to an individual's experience or query, at some point they become a broader discussion. To that end, my comment about developing wasn't necessarily targeted at the OP specifically, rather than being a more generalized statement: maybe not everything needs to be 'developed'.

Understood. Though there are many threads on that issue already. But the climbing population keeps exploding and it's nice to have obscure crags to climb at in relative peace and quiet. (For 5 years I've been building one from the ground up that is not on MP and now has almost 50 routes) Back in 2004 I was part of developing Ozone, one of the most popular walls (it's maybe 2/3 sport) just 30-35 minutes from downtown Portland. Every year it gets more crowded. On weekends you can see 10 to 20 cars parked for barely 100 routes. I joke that it turns out we built Ozone as a decoy, to keep the other crags nice and quiet.  It's more or less dead to me, yet I'm delighted other people like it and aren't at the other crags in town and I'm grateful for the experiences I had there.

Smith Rock has also exploded in popularity and I can't imagine how hard it would be to simply get on a sub 5.12 route these days if not for the hundreds of new routes that have gone up in the last few years at the Monument, Smith Rock Group and Marsupials. If people are willing to put in the work to clean routes safely and install sustainable hardware, I'm not sure I really see the downside. (Standard caveats that there are no access issues, the trail situation is OK, the area is safe, you aren't jamming bolted routes into an area established with a trad ethic, etc)

Nothing wrong with developing Mt Wishicouldtellya as long as don't tell the wrong people.. of course if you drop your rope when you are on Mt Wishicouldtellya alone you will be in a real pickle. 

Aint adventures grand!  

Plan ahead, be prepared (to face the consequences of your decisions). Study.  Train.  Venture forth, experience unknowns, grow and learn (from making mistakes and from others foul ups) and GET SCARED.  If you aint fallin', you aint tryin'. 

Life is beautiful!  Lets have fun!!

Some Munter rappel decisions I would experiment with in the garage:

(1) Do you want to worry about putting the brake strand on the side of the carabiner opposite the gate, or does the possibility of the brake strand unscrewing the gate seem too remote to justify the extra time needed to get it on the favorable side ?

(2) Do you want to direct the brake strand up (more friction, less twisting, but possibly requires gloves) or down (less effect on the rest of the system) ?

(3) If a 3rd hand friction hitch is needed, do you put it below the "device" (as most recommend these days) or above (allows the brake strand to be directed up, but requires knowing how to unweight the friction hitch if it gets weighted) ?

(4) If your configuration of choice puts the munter hitch on a rappel extension, do you worry about the brake strand rubbing against the top of the extension, or does it seem easy enough to mitigate ?

(5) As Big Red hinted, do you need a Super Munter or is a regular enough for your rope/weight ?

From what I've seen, you can find reasonable people on either side of each of these. But it's better to decide where you stand ahead of time, so you don't stress about it when the grigri is dropped.

I have seen the munter unscrew a gate. that is real. 

I know I'm not the only person here who's worked in rope access.

The bread and butter device there is a Petzl ID. It's got a lot in common with a grigri as a descender. I'd imagine it would suck to lead belay with.

It's got two features that would come in handy for developers. 

Only one of its plates has a complete hole in it, the other hole has a gate, so to remove it from the rope, you don't remove it from the belay loop. You could tighten it on with a quick link and a wrench if you wanted to, it wouldn't change how you use it.

The other feature is a way to officially lock the handle, so you are allowed to go hands free without a backup. I know, in practice this hardly matters, my grigris have never slipped when weighted. Still, it's a thing it can do.

FWIW, I did have a Cinch that couldn't lock me in place on rappel. It was a pretty clean rope in pretty high humidity. Solved that pretty quick with a prussic then switched back to the grigri and it never slipped again.

The ID is expensive and bulky. Also, they are a pleasure to use when it makes sense.

Munter-schmunter,  It seems the obvious answer here has been missed….carry two Gri Gris 

I love learning as much as I can. I am still new to venturing into the outdoors, but want to facilitate a mentality of always learning. I'd say practice everything in the back yard before needing it. 

Super-munter is really great, it has almost too much friction with double ropes, but allows you to have the brake strand down like a normal ATC. 

The three locker rappel is mad sketchy, maybe I don't fully understand it, but the friction with that method is scary low. I'm not sure I have the strength to do a full 100ft rap with that method.

The sitz looks like proper hard man mountaineering, I'll have to practice that one. More tools in the tool kit is always a good idea to me.

Kevin Codewrote:

I love learning as much as I can. I am still new to venturing into the outdoors, but want to facilitate a mentality of always learning. I'd say practice everything in the back yard before needing it. 

The three locker rappel is mad sketchy, maybe I don't fully understand it, but the friction with that method is scary low. I'm not sure I have the strength to do a full 100ft rap with that method.

The locker biner brake isn't sketchy if done correctly.  Like many things in climbing there is nuance though and understanding the nuances takes experience and practice.  So I'd say you are correct, practice everything before you need and I'd add, try it with different biner, rope and friction hitch combos.    

personally the Munter works well enough for me to get through a day of a dropped or forgotten device with no hassels. My brake strand is down and runs through my auto block just the same as if it was  an ATC. it only takes one locker to be moving along as if nothing was amiss. 

I always keep a knife and extra ATC in my chalk bag.

Mikey Schaeferwrote:

The locker biner brake isn't sketchy if done correctly.  Like many things in climbing there is nuance though and understanding the nuances takes experience and practice.  So I'd say you are correct, practice everything before you need and I'd add, try it with different biner, rope and friction hitch combos.    

The context of this thread is 1 strand.  My experiments with a 1-strand triple locker agree with Kevin - mad sketchy.  If somebody has made it work, hints would be nice. 

If you have three lockers, why would you not just use a munter, which is super secure and needs just one biner?

The issue with Munters is that if you drop it, you need to get a new one. 

Mark Pilatewrote:

The issue with Munters is that if you drop it, you need to get a new one. 

Tradiban would be proud of this answer.