Most Efficient Techniques for Multi-pitch with Kids

Know the route and the ability of the kid(s) well and review back-up, self-rescue and escape options beforehand.

3 summers ago I did a multi I'd never done before (so there goes the first point) with a friend and his nephew (9) and I did not follow points 2 & 3 either. My friend told me that the climb was straightforward and well-within his nephew's ability and I trusted that assessment. We're generally of similar ability and he had led the route before (but, as it turns out, at a time when he was leading more regularly). The route was OK for me to lead and for him to second but too hard for the nephew. This was a 4-pitch route that could be done in two rope-stretcher pitches. On my friend's recommendation, we chose to do it in two pitches, which was another mistake. We used double 60m ropes. The first pitch went well-enough. My friend climbed just below the kid and I could see them most of the way. They were slow but the kid was managing mostly under his own power.

However, the second pitch was harder and ended in a long, increasingly rounded slab that made it impossible for me to see the lower, harder half of the pitch. I found them really slow again but did not think much more of it at first, based on the experience of the 1st pitch. Unbeknownst to me, the little guy was unable to climb this lower part and was freaking out (sobbing that he would undo his knot and jump off, etc., as my friend told me later). My friend yelled for tight ropes, which I gave, and, after the bum-boosts and pushing the kid's feet against the rock proved insufficient, he had the kid scramble on him (using his knees, shoulders and helmet as footholds). However, he did not consider self-rescue options, like having the kid get past the harder parts by ascending the friend's rope on prusiks while being belayed tight on his own rope, or telling me to haul him.

As they kept yelling for tight ropes, I provided increasingly tight belays. For belaying I was using two separate munters backed-up on the brake strands by heddens attached to my harness to provide autoblock function. I find that two munters in this configuration are better than a guide plate when climbing with two seconds of uncertain ability because they allow you to provide much tighter belays and can also reverse easily and independently of one another. The tighter belay of the kid evolved into a 1:1 haul as I crept down the rounded top to try and see them, installed an additional hedden to pull up hard on the live strand and eventually used my own weight, pulling down on the brake-side back-up hedden.

All ended well and the kid was in high spirits on the hike out but, once the story was told to his parents, they said that never again would they let him climb a multi with his uncle.

You all are awesome. Wish someone took me out as a little one

mike again wrote: I'm not finding this - could you please send a link, or paste it in to the thread? Thanks!

Great posts and suggestions. Fun to see others who like to get their kids out as well. Too bad there aren't more like-minded folks nearby where we could do some of this together.

Along these lines, just a fun couple of photos when the kids were with me:

Rob Owens wrote:Oh Jesus, these kids aren't wearing helmets. Let the fun begin...

Guy Keesee wrote:child abuse....

Interesting. What did you see as the benefit of doing it this way rather than having the leader top belay as usual? Being able to lower and/or easily set up a haul is important to me when bringing up unpredictable or inexperienced followers (I.e., kids).

I think in easy terrain it would be optimal to end rope - tie both followers at the end of one rope, putting the middle follower on a short cow’s tail to smooth movement and isolate their weight while still allowing proximity. With an additional third follower who needs less minding, put them on their own rope. Top belay as normal in parallel, giving the single-tied follower a long head start as appropriate.

Edit: I think I see that you wanted to use a single rope. If the pitches are short (good idea with kids regardless) the leader could tie into the middle of the rope and trail two ropes that way. They could set up fix and follow for the independent climber only or belay both in parallel as above.

I can only see disadvantages to three people top rope soloing low-angle terrain on the same rope and not many advantages - I would be especially curious what might happen rope- and/or capture effectiveness-wise if the last and heaviest climber actually fell, especially if there was any slack above or below any of the middle devices or other weird variables. This is pretty far beyond the recommended use (fine) and imo gets into that weird world where there are too many factors and variables to anticipate potential failure modes (for me, not fine). That said, I guess it really depends on terrain and the climber’s ability level - if you are really more trying to add a level of security to low-risk scrambling vs actually use the technical systems (with all their advantages and disadvantages) of 5th class climbing.