NZcaver wrote:Solution to both situations - think outside the box.
I am unsure as to exactly why the haul jigger is needed. On descent, you could clip into the rebelay anchor, remove the Prusik, rappel down past where it was so you are now hanging from the rebelay anchor, replace the Prusik, change over to climbing (i.e. put on the upper ascender with the pulley hanging from it and put the rope below the descender through that pulley), ascend up enough very slightly to get your weight onto the descender, unclip from the anchor, and change over to rappelling (i.e. remove the rope below from the upper ascender pulley and remove the upper ascender from rope above).
While creative and in some ways elegant (certainly compared to my joking "bring a sack of Exo's" method), what you describe is only a solution to the problem of passing a rebelay. It doesn't address the problem of passing a knot that has been tied in the middle of the rope to isolate a section of rope that has been damaged. Also, I'm not sure I would trust a single Prusik of any kind as an anchor, much less one tied from 3mm cord. In fact, I think I wouldn't trust two Prusiks made from 3mm parachute cord, even if the weight were distributed more or less equally between them...it seems to me that in the event of a shockload, the Prusiks would slip slightly and be melted by the friction.
On the other hand, if you're willing and able to remove the connection to the rebelay anchor whenever you pass it, you could just untie your knots, descend or ascend past them, and then retie them. This could be accomplished on rappel in the same manner that I described for passing the Prusiks without the haul jigger, and on ascent by inverting yourself after passing them. You could use clove hitches instead if you wanted it to be faster.
All these methods have in common that they are complex and difficult compared to methods used in normal SRT.
I guess, in a similar manner of thinking outside the box (though now I am still thinking inside the box...it's just a different box, introduced by NZcaver who actually thought outside the box), you could come up with a unique way to isolate damaged sections of rope, too--with Prusiks above and below--or tie a knot, but untie it every time you pass it. Just make sure to attach both above and below, before removing the Prusiks or untying the knot. (Actually you would only remove the top Prusik, and then hang the bottom rope from you by that cord.) If the damage is bad and the rope breaks, you're still attached to both sides (the top half holding you up, you holding up the bottom half), and you can replace the Prusiks or retie the knot as an alpine butterfly bend. If it does break, the Exo descender is no longer permanently attached to the rope and, uh, has anybody ever tried threading a GriGri by pushing in an end of the rope? Does that work?
Cavechat RSS Feed