Jugging The Froggy Way

Pete, I have a Gonzo Guano rope walker system with the chest harness.

gonzoguanogear.com/ascendin…

Dude, watch the coffee, sure seems to amp you up...

1. 2 points of attachment. So somehow with zero points of attachment I not only didn't fall out of the sky, but even levitated up? Wow, I did tricks and didn't know it. I disagree that it matters if it's the main rope through the chest box, or a line between the stirrup and jug. So are you arguing the Mitchell system is only 1 point of attachment (since one jug is on a cord through the chestbox before attaching to the rope)? Either way, if the chestbox blows you'll be needing that third point of attachment (gri-gri in my case). With this system (including the gri-gri) I can cut any one line and not die, so yes, there is redundancy. How's that double-munter jugging knot work again? Oh yeah, poorly...

2. Lockers. No shit. I was illustrating the system, and didn't bother to drag my lazy butt to the gear bunker to grab more lockers. Sheesh.

3. email. You don't show up in my email or spam box for months back. Don't know why. Maybe even Yahoo mail is tiring of you?

Sorry, my bad. Got sidetracked. Anyway I just found the email I sent you on Feb 21, and resent it. Just some questions about how to set up the Russkies.

Heads up for the factor two fall potential while belly flopping to the anchor. One of the few moments during rope ascension where you aren't in suspension.

On my recent ascent of South Seas to P.O. on El Cap, I decided to again try out my Petzl Pantin ankle ascender. Here is what the thing looks like - it is a little ascender that you put onto your ankle to help convert your Frog System to a Ropewalker system. I do not know if you could adapt it to the Yosemite system because I don't really know how to work the Yosemite system very well.

The first time I tried the Pantin, I was not impressed. What the hell was wrong with me? This thing is ETS - Emphatically The Shit! It was so helpful on the free-hanging jug up to the top of 3 on South Seas, that I sent it down to Mark to use when he jugged up.

Yesterday, I was fixing pitches on Born Under A Bad Sign. A team of four was just blasting on the Zodiac. I asked one of them if she wanted me to show her how to convert her standard arm-intensive Yosemite jugging system into a Frog, but she decided to stick with what she had. Her partner told me that he did have a Croll ascender, although not with him at the moment. I could have converted her system by rigging her one jug low, and using a sling around her neck and shoulders.

At any rate, some minutes later buddy started up the wall using a standard Yosemite jugging system. He was free-hanging pretty much, while my fixed rope was barely touching the wall. In fairness to him, he appeared strong, competent and reasonably fast for using a Yosemite system, which is notoriously slow and difficult on free-hanging drops. Some minutes after he started, I put the Pantin onto my ankle, and I *RAN* up the rope. I was about a hundred and fifty feet to his right, and could very accurately judge how much faster I was able to climb compared to him. I was honestly four times as fast as him, if not five times as fast.

Case closed, the Petzl Pantin ROCKS!

Note: This device is not for everyone. I did not like it at first, and it absolutely takes some practising and getting used to. The thing is that because it attaches to your ankle, and not to your waist or chest harness, it is by definition not a point of contact to the rope. You must always maintain two points of contact to not end up dead. This thing doesn't count as one.

In order to dissuade people from thinking it is a point of contact, Petzl in its infinite wisdom decided to put no locking device on the cam. What this means is that you can [with large amounts of practice] kick the thing onto the rope without even touching it. The converse is also true - when you first try it out, it will disconnect from the rope by itself.

A Pantin is fiddly - it will disengage for you the first few times you try it. It requires precise body and leg motion to operate. You may not like it at first, you may think it's stupid and fiddly. It requires some weight of rope beneath you to operate so the rope will feed through the ankle cam. Yesterday I tied a small pack on the end of the rope before I started jugging.

Trust me on this one - PERSEVERE.

I have backordered a CMI Foot Ascender, which looks like this, to see how it compares. You can see from the photo below that the device uses a regular type of cam, that requires you to pull down and out on a knob on a lever in order to remove it from the rope. You can see from the photo above the Pantin does not have a locking mechanism.



Mawk has uploaded a little video of me on RC.com, but I was just figuring the thing out. I'll see if I can get Kate to shoot me on the rope tomorrow, and you'll see what I mean.

At any rate, I shit you knott - FOUR TIMES as fast. Not bad for an old fart, eh? Video proof coming.

Thanks for the update. Sounds like a pretty good system...

Throw away your Petzl Pantin ankle ascender, and instead get yourself a CMI ankle cam pictured above. You will positively FLY up the rope!

In fact, this old fart would be happy to get up off the couch and race any of you young big-biceped whippersnappers up a free-hanging rope any time. The slowest jugger buys the beer.

"Pass the Pitons" Pete Zabrok wrote:Throw away your Petzl Pantin ankle ascender, and instead get yourself a CMI ankle cam pictured above. You will positively FLY up the rope! In fact, this old fart would be happy to get up off the couch and race any of you young big-biceped whippersnappers up a free-hanging rope any time. The slowest jugger buys the beer.

That sounds fun.

Im in...

Valley in june??? :) :)

I'd like to add that i finally went for a set of adjustable aiders and they were sweet for this stuff. I was able to switch in and out of froggy and low angle much quicker and with less mess.
So I give 2 thumbs up for that.

I did not like the short range of motion you had though with out adjusting them for other cleaning and low angle duties.
Otherwise a dream for following pitches.
Go team frog!

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!! The gauntlet has been thrown! It looks pretty much like a win-win proposition, because we'll end up with beers one way or the other.

Concur on using adjustable aiders for jugging. I tried them once for leading, and didn't really like them, although it was so many years ago I have forgotten why. Metolius used to have a slick little video on their website of some hottie climbing in them, I remember that much.

Aw, frig - you use the Frog, too?! Sheeeee-yit! When I challenged you young whippersnappers, I expected that you-all would be using a regular Yosemite jugging system. I see I failed to mention that in my challenge - uh-oh. Too late to go back and edit my post.

Geez, um .... just in case [ahem] "what kind of beer do you like?"

Sheesh.

So I just spent over a week schlepping, fixing, climbing and jugging in the most overhanging section of El Cap, in order to avoid the rain. Accordingly I had the opportunity to watch a LOT of people jug free-hanging ropes.

For the most part, wall climbers are without clue as to how to jug. They work way too hard, and have horrendously inefficient systems. When it comes to jugging free-hanging ropes, you need to work smarter, not harder. The Froggy system, converted to a rope walker with the addition of the CMI ankle cam ascender, allowed me to climb no slower than three times as fast as the fastest, and quite often five times as fast as the slowest. And those were guys half my age with biceps twice as big!

All you need to do is buy a Croll ascender, a Torse chest harness, and CMI ankle ascender, and you'll be off to the races.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Hey Pete!!!!

Sorry I missed you on the summit that evening last week.

I was the guy topping out zodiac and your invite for beer and coffee sounded great.

Luckily for use we had two friends surprise us on top to schlep loads down so we decided to charge east ledges that night.

next time for sure brother!!!

seemed like yall were having fun up there all week.

BUMP!

To go with the other question on top regarding using a Croll ascender.

Don't forget to add your CMI Ankle cam. Email me if you need one.

:P

Texas sit-stand method, not quite the Frog method, though roughly similar.

So after doing some digging around on this site, around the webz, and playing around at the crag, i'm pretty much convinced that the froggy system with an ankle ascender would be the way to go.  

This is what i've come up with so far, any critiques would be super helpful: 

• It seems like the frog system is entirely dependent on dialing the setup to the individual. Using a petzl torse chest harness with a regular climbing harness (ie, not a harness specifically designed for jugging) allows you to fine tune the length of the chest harness and also allows you to release the chest harness at the belay. I found this pdf incredibly useful for getting the webbing dialed in.
• The bottom ascender should be as low as possible. Using a CE stamped quick link into the tie in points would get the device lower but i think swapping it in and out would be a pain, so maybe an auto-locker into the tie-in points would be a good compromise. A regular jug could be used for the bottom ascender but a croll would be better. A croll has twists in the metal so that the device sits flat against your chest and it also sits lower, both making it more efficient in the froggy method than a regular ascension jug. 
• For the free hanging line or when the line touches the wall, the froggy and ankle ascender are the fastest. 
• It sounds like the CMI foot ascender is better than other options because it locks itself onto the rope and is the most durable. The camp is nice because of the rollers but how much extra friction would you have on the ankle? my guess is probably not a ton. The camp has the option of putting in a biner to lock it on the rope but it sounds like this adds to the cluster and is more difficult to install. the petzl pantin doesn't have either the biner hole or the locking mechanism and it sounds like it can be pretty easy to kick it off the rope, mid-stride.
• When cleaning a re-belay, a traversing/roof pitch or passing a knot, throw a gri-gri on first so you always have two points of contact. 
• Throw a piece of carpet or other rope protector under the rope anytime it touches anything sharp and for that matter use a thick rope anytime the rope touches the wall. 
• The ankle ascender doesn't count as a point of contact, so when jugging normally, you'd have jug, croll and ankle ascender. 

Questions:

It seems to me that the froggy and ankle ascender would still out perform the yosemite system for less than vertical pitches as well or am i misunderstanding the situation?

Would a mini-trax work just as well as a croll for the bottom ascender? I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, only because the croll would be much easier to pass knots/re-belay/etc, but what about a pro-trax?

For the ankle ascender is it best to put it on your dominant foot or non-dominant foot? I was thinking non-dominant foot and have the dominant foot go into the froggy sling. 

This looks like a good video showing the frog with an ankle ascender. 

Here's a setup that is the best blend of Texas and roperwalker I've seen.  With a very minimal amount of extra gear, you can easily transition between ropewalker and Texas.  It has clear application for the big wall context.  It avoids the high cost and "don't need this gear up higher" issues of a commercial chest roller rig.  You can use the same handled ascenders that you'll want when cleaning pitches, no need for a Croll.  Passing knots or rebelays is simple.  It takes even less arm and hand strength than the MicroFrog.  Of course, replace the caver's cow tails and foot stirrups with adjustable daisies and regular aiders.


Here's a slight variation, though I think the first guy has it dialed in better:

For detailed pics of the homemade chest roller go to this Google+ link.  I made my roller from the bushing & sheave removed from an old Pezl Fixe pulley.

For those with strong arms and no injuries, these machinations are likely unnecessary.  For those of us whose arms and hands have suffered wear and tear from decades of bustin' it, this system can make a real difference.

Steve "Crusher" Bartlett wrote: Sorry to disagree Pete, but I had a partner almost die using this technique. He jumared 150 feet in--as promised--super fast record time, then, to his horror, found that the rope was nearly cut through, over a dull innocent rounded edge, just below the anchor. 

I set up a free hanging rope today and experimented with a couple of different variations including the froggy system, Texas-style, and using a gri-gri under a top ascender.  To my surprise, I actually found the froggy method to be the least bouncy by far, not to mention the most efficient.  The Texas style was the bounciest.

I went back and re-watched Chris McNamara's video on jugging overhanging terrain (Texas style) to see if I was doing something wrong, but no, Chris is really bouncing hard as he lunges up in those explosive motions.  If anyone would have figured out how to do it smoothly and efficiently, it's him.

Froggy for life! (on free-hanging ropes, that is)

Thank you, Pete for this post.   And all the helpful comments.   Here's a Youtube video of a caver demonstrating the Frog system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwV7Jk_WW4g

Check out the Harken Ninja foot ascender. I like it over the cmi & camp turbo.