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Hey guys experienced climber here new to srt, please forgive my ignorance. Is tandem ascending acceptible pratice on an 11mm rope or is it generally only done on a 1/2'' two person rescue rope. Thanks in advance.

Kidd785 wrote:Hey guys experienced climber here new to srt, please forgive my ignorance. Is tandem ascending acceptible pratice on an 11mm rope or is it generally only done on a 1/2'' two person rescue rope. Thanks in advance.

I've only done it twice (can't say I particularly enjoyed it either time on 11mm.

Ive done more tandem climbing on 10mm than 11mm, never on 1/2"

Ok. Thanks for sharing guys.

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With a ropewalker, the foot ascender keeps you fairly upright. With a Mitchell, your feet tend to push further out, which means the weighted rope is riding right in your crotch all the way up, and is quite uncomfortable IMO.[/quote]


clip a small non-locking biner from the footstirips or chicken loop onto the rope........that'll keep your feet a little closer to center, works best as top in tandem climb.......

ok.......cavers don't really need to have tandem climbing explained......sooner or later we all end up doing it... ..

tandem rappelling is another issue entirely.....viewed as a stunt i contend it is a necessary skill that every caver should feel confortable doing just as they view learning how to do a changeover... ...do we not all support the value of certain basic skills and insist on cavers practicing when they are in their novice phase?..... .

two types of tandem rappel........with two or more separate racks with separate cavers attached to one rope......and another with two or more attached to the same rack............one real big point here men......everyone listening?.......never attach the weight of anything heavy to anything but the rack..... .......in the first scenario the rope weight, speed and other factors are all normal for the bottom rapper.....except for the rope above the rack's suddenly changing location and other movements and, of course, rockfall...... ........the second man has a heavy rope which can be managed with a regular six bar rack..using a megarack is much easier and safer....however;....if bars need to be added or subtracted some gyrating of the body will be required to do this.. ..if you don't know what i mean by body gyrations when adding or taking bars on during a very heavy rope situation find someone who does and let them explain...or hang a rope off a tree limb and put 150 pounds on the bottom end...climb up the stepladder to the attachment point where you had already threaded your rack onto the rope before the weight was added.......clip into it with your seat harness...get onto the rack by sitting down and then kick away the ladder..........now add a bar and then take one off........make sure you have a pocket knife before you ever do this by yourself....anytime any of you knuckleheads do anything i suggest by yourself you be sure you have a sharp knife and a cell phone attached to your body......when you start putting three people on the same rope my suggestion is to start caving with smaller groups...if you already cave with a small group spend more time with the ladies it will make all things better...... ..

much more seriously when you have two cavers on one rack you are talking about a skill we all, as cavers, should require all of us to be able to do........a caver stranded on rope is in a very serious situation......our ability to be able to descend to, attach to and then transport this person to the bottom of the drop...it should be a skill we all have...both as individuals and as small teams.....i can see a lot of vertical equipment usage evolving... ....

if ever you have three cavers attached to one rack (be dang sure that none of the other two cavers weight is attached to your seat harness......make dang sure its attached directly to the rack biner.......)....my advice is the same......cave with smaller groups of people or people who can afford a rack.. or control freaks.....

Stridergdm wrote:

Kidd785 wrote:Hey guys experienced climber here new to srt, please forgive my ignorance. Is tandem ascending acceptible pratice on an 11mm rope or is it generally only done on a 1/2'' two person rescue rope. Thanks in advance.

I've only done it twice (can't say I particularly enjoyed it either time on 11mm.

its more fun to climb by oneself... ....you are good with the 11mm rope.....no prob.....climbing a rope is not so fun tandem.....but it is definitely faster and preferable to hypothermia..... .

It beats the heck out of standing on the bottom of a 200'+ pit and having to bounce the climber on the rope against the wall multiple times to keep waking him up at 4 am after better than 10 hours of a tough survey trip! Too bad I didn't get to the bottom of the entrance drop before he did.

Stridergdm wrote:

Kidd785 wrote:Hey guys experienced climber here new to srt, please forgive my ignorance. Is tandem ascending acceptible pratice on an 11mm rope or is it generally only done on a 1/2'' two person rescue rope. Thanks in advance.

I've only done it twice (can't say I particularly enjoyed it either time on 11mm.