History of ethics of lowering and TRing through fixed gear/quickdraws

eli poss wrote: The communication should...

NM good communication isn't always possible, you should also finish tying your knot before climbing, actually tie into the auto belay before you leave the ground. Should hasn't helped many very experienced climbers on occasions.

reboot wrote: NM good communication isn't always possible, you should also finish tying your knot before climbing, actually tie into the auto belay before you leave the ground. Should hasn't helped many very experienced climbers on occasions.

IMO this is not a good analogy to failing to finish tying in. Think about it: your tether is weighted so you have the unweight it in order to un-clip it; this is not the kind of thing you might do without being very conscious of what you're doing. Tying in, on the other hand, many climbers can do without being extremely conscious of their actions.

This does not seem like something people do because they were distracted and forgot, like forgetting to finish tying in.

Also, I understand that good communication isn't always possible. The sport crag I sometimes climb at is right next to a busy highway. A mentor of mine who developed said crag once decked from 65' because he said "take" and his belayer heard "off belay" and miraculously escaped death with several shattered and broken bones, all because he didn't wait for belayer confirmation before weighting the rope.

Even though communication is sometimes difficult, I always communicate with my belayer before weighting the rope, even if it means waiting a couple min for traffic to pass. Perhaps, because of my mentor's experience, I am overly cautious in this regard, and this may be an excusable error to some climbers.

eli poss wrote: Think about it...This does not seem like something people do because they were distracted and forgot, like forgetting to finish tying in.

You don't have to THINK about how it can happen. And frankly, if you are convinced your method is fail safe, I can't convince you otherwise. However, you can just read about the number of cases of shit going wrong by climbers much more experienced than you to KNOW it does happen.

Guy Keesee wrote:Dixion.... thanks for the explanation. It is impossible for me to understand. If she was leading a 170 foot pitch and wished to get down you can't get lowered unless you pull the entire cord up to you, toss it back down (so its not in the gear) have one of your buddies tie the other cord on to it, then put the end that is tied to you through the hooks, rings whatever.... have the ground man put you on belay and "take" then you can lower down.... when I do this.... I climb at a place where all the pitches are 150 or so... I rap. I have run across some new sport deal that my young friends have told me is called ... "Lower, then Rap." The belayer can lower you about 40-50 feet to another set of anchors... one clips in, goes off belay, pulls cord to the middle mark and finishes off rappelling to the deck.

I don't have any inside information, but this is my understanding-

I believe she was toproing and the last person up the climb.
So once she got to the anchor, she would only need to pull up the trailing 30 feet of rope, thread that through the anchor and then retie her figure 8 and clip back into the rope. Unfortunately she had her tie in on the belayer side of the anchor.

For "lower, then rap" set ups, my preference is to lower to the midway anchors, then pull the rope, then be lowered again. The exact mechanics will vary with particular situations. But with what I climb around here these situations are uncommon enough that all involved will have heightened attention. So we could make any variation work safely.

Mark E Dixon wrote: For "lower, then rap" set ups, my preference is to lower to the midway anchors, then pull the rope, then be lowered again.

Just as a side note, I've never heard of a set up called "lower, then rap". Everywhere that I've seen a similar setup it is called LPL which obviously stands for Lower, Pull, Lower. This setup is extremely common at the Riverside Quarry in southern California. I don't know if Guy climbs at the quarry, but I know he is from southern California so that would be my guess as to where his friends heard of this method and then confused it and turned it into lower, then rap.

Kennoyce.... sorry to get it wrong... It is LPL from now on... :>)

and yes the quarry was the first place.... this is becoming a more common deal esp at places where the climbs artificially stopped at 30m.

But is this really ethical?

Again just for the stubborns out there - in a strictly sport climbing setting (i.e. climber leads, partner leads, cleans anchors, pull the rope, RINSE & REPEAT), lowering is inherently safer than rappelling. Even if you fuck up and somehow miss the anchors, you still have bolts below protecting you. They are useless if the climber unties.

When you top rope sport routes, perhaps we need to start practice leaving the last bolt clipped on the belayer side? Climbers already do that when one of the anchor bolts is suspect. This way when the last person to climb, cleans the anchors and lowers they are still clipped through to the last bolt.

Guy Keesee wrote:Kennoyce.... sorry to get it wrong... It is LPL from now on... :>) and yes the quarry was the first place.... this is becoming a more common deal esp at places where the climbs artificially stopped at 30m. But is this really ethical?

Definitely not ethical, but certainly better than artificially stopping a climb at 30m!

As a side note, just purchased my first 80m rope, that means I can now lower safely from a 130 foot route with no LPL shenanigans!

Btw ... it costs about 6 dollars for each bolt/hanger. Route development is expensive.

Todd Graham wrote:Btw ... it costs about 6 dollars for each bolt/hanger. Route development is expensive.

You're right Todd. Even more than that when you throw in the anchors. I'll continue to rappel when it's not prohibitively steep or diagonal. I've spent some coin installing bolts and anchors. And I can rappel because I tell my partner what I'm going to do and I actually know how to do it safely!

Todd Graham wrote:Btw ... it costs about 6 dollars for each bolt/hanger. Route development is expensive.

Not sure how this is relevant to the thread at hand, but since we're talking about cost... in my opinion, the best option for lower offs are either steel biners or mussy hooks, either option is going to run you about $12 per anchor which may sound quite expensive, but if every climber added steel biners or mussy's to a single worn anchor once a year, I'm fairly confident that there would never be a problem with worn anchors ever again.

kennoyce wrote: Not sure how this is relevant to the thread at hand, but since we're talking about cost... in my opinion, the best option for lower offs are either steel biners or mussy hooks, either option is going to run you about $12 per anchor which may sound quite expensive, but if every climber added steel biners or mussy's to a single worn anchor once a year, I'm fairly confident that there would never be a problem with worn anchors ever again.

Keep dreaming!

^^^^^^^
Ditto. 3/8" steel quick links wear out very quickly in many popular climbing areas.

FrankPS wrote: Thanks for your input, Elena.

Chuffer!

To all climbers and the crusties, noobs, and weaklings aka camp 1(chuffers).

All routes should just have perma draws then no one has to worry about cleaning and even the chuffers can rappel down steep lines... well thats if the weaklings could ever get up a real route!

Bruce Hildenbrand wrote:^^^^^^^ Ditto. 3/8" steel quick links wear out very quickly in many popular climbing areas.

Use 1/2" ones. They last pretty well and are easy and relatively cheap to replace. In most cases non stainless in this size is OK for these IMO, unlike the bolts and hangers.

M Sprague wrote: Use 1/2" ones. They last pretty well and are easy and relatively cheap to replace. In most cases non stainless in this size is OK for these IMO, unlike the bolts and hangers.

Or switch out to shackles which will last as long as 5/8" quicklinks.

Yeitti wrote: Chuffer! To all climbers and the crusties, noobs, and weaklings aka camp 1(chuffers). All routes should just have perma draws then no one has to worry about cleaning and even the chuffers can rappel down steep lines... well thats if the weaklings could ever get up a real route!

Don't you have some 18 foot high WI2 someplace else you need to pose on for pictures?

Frankly ... I just climb. Do what you want re getting down from the route. Peace.