Difficulty Getting Over Lips (in a cave, dummy!)

[Ralph E. Powers]

Since George Dasher admitted that he had a hard time getting over lips in a vertical caving situation ... sounded like it be a good new thread for discussion of ideas and methods on the how to's.

Basically in my own experience lips can be of all sorts of types. From the severe undercut where there's roughly 3-6 inches of rock that makes the lip underhang, to the straight wall type with a sharp almost 90 degree edge at the top.
Lips can be difficult to get up and over that is true. Still this is what we all should be practicing on top of the basic SRT maneuvers i.e. change-overs, knot-crossings, etc.

I recall reading in On Rope about various methods to get up and over lips/edges. One method I tried and found that it painfully didn't work at all. It was wedging your arm/elbow between the rope and rock and using that as a wedge to make it easier to put your handled ascender past the lip. Problem with that is that if you don't have your weight off the rope by some degree you're literally crushing your own arm with your own weight. Not a good idear.
Other methods included taking the top ascender off and reaching past the lip (above you) and re-clipping on to the rope. This is well and good provided that you're able to do this quickly and effectively and that the rope has some clearance for the rope-guide of the ascender to "hook" back onto.

With a Frog system I found that by raising my body/croll up high enough I can remove the hand ascender to perform the maneuver easily enough.
I also use my free hand to push my body away from the rock and at the same time slide the hand ascender up past the lip/edge in one quick series of movements. I have to remember to cock my leg that the foot-loop/ascender is on so I'm not defeating the purpose of trying to lift the hand ascender past the lip/edge. Once the ascender is past the edge then I can step down in the foot loop and stand which will bring my upper torso up past the lip and I can climb/crawl my way up and out of that drop.

It's one of the reasons I strongly encourage my students to rely 99% on their leg muscles to get them up the rope and just use their arms to maintain upright balance while climbing. Reserving arm strength helps a great deal in getting one's self up and over and out of tricky lip situations.

Any other ideas/ methods/comments?? This might be a fun (and ed-ew-kay-shun-nal) thread.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

I don't encourage the idea of taking one of your ascender off the rope, our rule is you should always have two ascenders on rope unless you also have a cowstail hooked in or descender rigged and locked off.

That said the easiest way I find to get over a lip (with a frog) is to drop one(preferably) or both of your feet out of the foot loop and use your feet to push yourself away from the rockface this allows you to slide the hand ascender up (remember to take the weight off the footloop) and then your basically past the lip.

When I am in close contact with the rock coming up if it is not too severe I turn ninety degrees so that my left shoulder and arm (I'm right handed and use a right handed hand ascender) are against the wall this pushes the rope and your ascenders away from the wall and protects them from interference. If the slope means I am pulled into the wall harder I drop a foot from my foot loop and head up using one foot using the other foot to hold myself out from the wall.

Note: I don't like the frog setup that uses individual foot loops as it makes it harder to clamp the rope with your feet and (I think) it promotes bad frogging technique by more easily allowing the users feet to go side ways and not below them.

My foot loop is sized so it just fits both my feet without being too tight this means it also suits when I want to use one foot loop.

DO NOT try to slide your hand ascender up by pulling the hand ascender and rope away from the lip / rockface this means you are going to get tired a lot quicker. If you think about it your weight is hanging of that rope pulling the rope away from the rock is always going to be difficult and rarely successful in my experience. Push off the rock don't pull on the rope or hand ascender. preferably use your legs thier much stronger than your arms

If the lip is really severe then it might be worthwhile rigging another short rope to get over the lip or perhaps a rebelay, both achieve the same thing a slack rope so you can get your hand ascender past the lip.

[Vertigo]

I usually get over the lip by pushing out from the lip with my feet and moving the top ascender up, then pushing down on the lip to get the chest roller over. All I have to do then is bring the lower ascender up. I have had to down climb a couple times though, because I climbed my chest roller into the lip and couldn't really do anything. (Easy to do with my Mitchell)

[ian mckenzie]

Any other ideas/ methods/comments??

Put in a rebelay...

[mgmills]

I usually get over the lip by pushing out from the lip with my feet and moving the top ascender up, then pushing down on the lip to get the chest roller over. All I have to do then is bring the lower ascender up.

Wait until you meet up with a severely undercut lip. Very narrow piece of rock and nothingness to put your feet on.

[pacaver]

That's where a QAS and lots of lat pull-downs in the gym pays off.

[RescueMan]

It's not the lips so much that bothers me but the teeth.



I find that a little lip(un)stick sometimes offers just enough lubrication to do the trick.

[blitz134]

QAS...simple enough...no worries about one attachment point...

[GypsumWolf]

QAS...simple enough...no worries about one attachment point...

One attachment point? You would have that plus your climbing gear on, so definitely several.

[RadonJunkie]

Sometimes when you lose a lip its a damn tragedy! Or at least until you find another one.

[Steven Johnson]

I usually get over the lip by pushing out from the lip with my feet and moving the top ascender up, then pushing down on the lip to get the chest roller over. All I have to do then is bring the lower ascender up.

Wait until you meet up with a severely undercut lip. Very narrow piece of rock and nothingness to put your feet on.

A Petzl Pantin can come it very handy in these cases... you can use the rope as a "virtual foothold" to get over the lip.

[George Dasher]

The worst lip I can remember doing was just a flat blade sticking out.

There was NOTHING to put your foot on and the rope had an 80-degree bend at the lip. I hadn't rigged it.

I was using a Texas System, and had to take the top Jumar off the rope and then pull myself, using arm strength and the rope, over the lip and then attach the Jumar again.

Maybe, today, a Frog would work better, but I don't know. I do know I would never nowadays, in my old age, be able to pull myself up using my arms.

[RescueMan]

I was using a Texas System, and had to take the top Jumar off the rope and then pull myself, using arm strength and the rope, over the lip and then attach the Jumar again.

What a perfect reason for carrying a QAS!

[ian mckenzie]

... or using rebelays...

[Tim White]

... or using rebelays...

Whatcha’ gona to rebelay to when there is nothing above the lip but air? (This is all to common with open-air drops in TAG.) I know the closest tree. But the “closestâ€