Ascending up rappel ropes?

What I have done in this actual situation (I rap with an ATC and no backup):

1. If it's not too steep, just batman up the doubled ropes.
    Stop every once in awhile, hang on with one hand and wrap the rope around your thigh with your other hand.
    Then rest, and feed the rope through the ATC.
    One backup knot when I first start batmanning.
    I once did this when I tried to rap from the second anchor on the Central Pillar of Frenzy to the ground on two 60m ropes
      (this does not reach unless there is a big snow cone at the base!).
    This was one of the steeper and slicker places to do this - somewhat challenging.
2. If it's too steep to batman, and you don't have a partner at the upper anchor, put one prusik on each strand of the rope and slowly prusik up.
    I think I only had to do this once - when I realized one of the ropes below me was damaged by rockfall.
    I was lucky and had a 5mm perlon cord that I used to tie my chalkbag around my waist.
    Regular dyneema alpine draws slip a lot when you try to prusik with them.
    If you are lucky and your partner is at the upper anchor, they can knot one side of the rope once you unweight it,
   and then you can prusik up a single strand, which is easier / faster.
   But usually you are ascending because you can't pull your rope down, so your partner is at the lower anchor with you.
   Another option is to fix one side of the rope to the lower anchor and ascend the other strand (assumes you have both strands at the lower anchor).

The more dangerous situation is when you only have one strand at the lower anchor, and you were unable to pull your rope down.
Usually this means you have to lead on what rope you have with you, up to reach where the rope is snagged.
Sometimes the terrain is not climbable, and you have to cut your rope and try to rap down with what you have left.
We had to do this when rapping off the Beckey-Chouinard when one of our ropes hung up.  This left us with 1.5 ropes to get down, which was enough.

P.S. None of these techniques are for "Beginning Climbers" (this sub forum).  These are (self-) rescue techniques.
Beginning climbers should be climbing with someone more experienced, or should be tackling easier climbs where they don't have to deal with stuck rappels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemheist_knot

the klemheist to ascend with a prusik to capture progress as a third hand works with pretty bare minimum gear like your asking (a couple alpines) but you're not going to have any fun up there with it I'll tell you that.

Foot loop or two on a friction knot or two or a tube and a friction.  Practice!

Where is the snark I heard about? Doesn’t everyone usually jump to worst case scenario?  

J-- Kaiser wrote: Wow.  I'm glad I use a regular ATC, that does not need to be in different "modes" in order to work.  Makes the process of ascending and descending so, so, so much easier and intuitive than what is written here.  My only advice.  Make catastrophe knots as one ascends, just in case you let go your break hand.  That way you don't go all the way to the bottom of the rope if you fall.

Most devices with a "guide mode" work exactly the same as your regular ATC by default, but have an extra clip point. When set up in regular mode on extension, it is fairly easy to clip the guide point, and now you have an auto-blocking device that can capture upward progress. This works with a third hand to ascend a rope instead of needing 2 prussik loops in addition to your classic ATC.

I've never done it but I'd try this if I had my grigri.

Tie a friction knot or two with a catastrophe knot above my atc. Weight those by stepping on a sling attached to one of the friction knots. Undo my atc, then tie into one strand (with a locker on my belay loop) and use my grigri on the other strand. Then I'd grigri redirect ascend up overhangs with ease like a boss.

With the Megajul, I typically rap in blocking mode. As long as it isn't free hanging it is pretty easy to just walk your feet up and bump the Jul up a foot or two at a time, especially towards the middle or bottom of the rap. This is pretty convenient if you blew past the rap anchors or spotted some booty, or whatever. If you had to ascend a whole rope this way it would probably be better to use this in conjunction with one foot in a sling, clipped to a prussic. Especially towards the top with a lot of rope weight hanging below you.

Ryan Pfleger wrote: With the Megajul, I typically rap in blocking mode. As long as it isn't free hanging it is pretty easy to just walk your feet up and bump the Jul up a foot or two at a time, especially towards the middle or bottom of the rap. This is pretty convenient if you blew past the rap anchors or spotted some booty, or whatever. If you had to ascend a whole rope this way it would probably be better to use this in conjunction with one foot in a sling, clipped to a prussic. Especially towards the top with a lot of rope weight hanging below you.

Thanks Ryan. That is a Megajul feature I didn’t know about.