Descending and Climbing at angles

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Descending and Climbing at angles

Postby Elliott-Hellmann » May 2, 2013 7:19 am

Image

It may be hard to see from the picture but the rope is re-belayed and goes up at a 45 degree angle. This is from a multi-drop from Smokey 2 in Ellisons.
How do you do this? I use a frog system. Do you just pass the knot there and continue climbing at an angle or is there a special technique or accessories needed for this?

Does the same thing apply going down with a rack? I have no experience descending or climbing at angles like this so i went back down and took another way out.

Another question. How the heck did that bolt or rope get there? There is no ledge or anything nearby for someone to stand on to rig it. It's literally on the side of vertical wall 20ft above the ledge in the window I'm standing on.
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Re: Descending and Climbing at angles

Postby Anonymous_Coward » May 2, 2013 9:18 am

There are many angled ropes like this in Lechuguilla fissures. Many different approaches are taken by many different people. In the low ones, I prefer to detach the croll and use two upper ascenders, only one with a footloop, like a Texas system. This allows you to get your croll and face up off the footwall.

For rappelling, you need some kind of low-friction mode on your device. On a full-size rack, go down to four bars. On a simple, go to a C rig. For a mini-rack, sometimes the only option is two bars plus the hyperbar. This works as long as you make damn sure the rope does not come off the hyperbar. If it does, things can get exciting real quick.
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Re: Descending and Climbing at angles

Postby Tlaloc » May 2, 2013 5:40 pm

The Mitchell system with the ropes out of the chest roller works great for this. Froggers have struggled with the aforementioned drops in Lechuguilla.
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Re: Descending and Climbing at angles

Postby Smells_Familiar » May 3, 2013 7:14 am

Do you guys use carabiners to make sure the ascenders don't twist off the rope?
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Re: Descending and Climbing at angles

Postby ian mckenzie » May 4, 2013 10:16 am

Anonymous_Coward wrote: In the low ones, I prefer to detach the croll and use two upper ascenders, only one with a footloop, like a Texas system. This allows you to get your croll and face up off the footwall.


With a low-attachment Croll, sometimes you can just detach the upper eye from your chest harness (or loosen the chest harness, if adjustable) and continue to Frog up (hand-pulling the rope thru the Croll) without your chest being tight to the rope. Otherwise I agree with A_C about the Texan, tho that implies carrying a third asender with a ready tether.
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Re: Descending and Climbing at angles

Postby ian mckenzie » May 4, 2013 10:19 am

Smells_Familiar wrote:Do you guys use carabiners to make sure the ascenders don't twist off the rope?

Never have, except on a Tyrolean or tensioned traverse line, where a biner on the 'bottom' of the handled ascender helps keep it horizontal (parallel to the rope).
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