Hello,
I thought I might share a quick story about my weekend. A friend and were climbing a two pitch route at Red Rock Canyon (Pitch 1, Old'n 5.6 and Pitch 2, In The Way 5.6) Saturday morning. After two easy climbs, we repelled back down the second pitch and subsequently realized that the rope was stuck in the rappel anchor. Of course we still needed the rope to get back to the ground! So, my buddy tied into one end, in case the rope should come loose, and I clipped into an eight on a bight and attached a prusik on the other end. It was a neat experience re-leading the route and constantly having to push my prusik up the line. I also stopped periodically to re-clip into the rope using more eight on a bight knots. Once I got to the top I had to reset the rope for rappel. After rappelling down the rope it pulled down fine.
I don't think I've seen very many people using prusik knots during rappel in the Springs. I suppose that's probably due to the abundance of single pitch sport routes. I would imagine that 30m falls kill just like 300m falls though. Anyway, a $2 piece of rope probably saved us from a very anxious re-lead free solo style.
Climb on,
Rob
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Dr. Goodwack says:
Good call on the prussiks...I NEVER leave the ground (or belay) without 'em!
Anykineclimb says:
yep, I always keep two prussiks and a knife on my chalkbag
ped says:
Prussiks saved my butt last year in a big big way. The event involved stuck ropes at 12,000 feet in a thunderstorm. I rarely leave the ground w/o 'em, esp. on multipitch.
I even use them on single pitch climbs. Last week, my buddy and I were in Lumpy Ridge. We struck a deal: whoever could first lead these three specific one-pitch climbs in a day without any falls or hangs would get first crack at another climb called Gollum’s Arch. This meant that neither of us wanted to follow the other for cleanup duty—that way, we could reserve our energy. LOL, stupid and selfish, I know =). Such is the nature of competition. So, we each led all three climbs and cleaned each on rappel. Winds were buffeting us pretty hard that day, so we decided to use prussiks on rappel as an extra safety measure. It made *all* the difference. There's nothing worse than fighting with a rope blowing around in 40mph winds, while at the same time trying to clean your pieces. And all this while trying to remember to keep your break-hand on the rope.
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