UKC

I'm getting some Mini traxions so I can do some toprope mileage outdoors and I've pretty much found out everything I think I need to know. Only obvious thing is, how to escape from the system if I can't go up/pull on holds to disengage the traxions and abseil down?

My thought was to attach my gri-gri below the traxions, put my weight on a prussik above the traxions to disengage them and then descend on the gri-gri.

Does that sound about right or am I totally overthinking this? I looked around the web and didn't see anything mentioning escaping the system

cheers for your input guys n gals

In reply to jsmcfarland:
If you have your Traxion set on a lanyard (a sling would do, perhaps rope would alleviate some people's fear of something that won't happen), and have this at a length to your chest. To hold it in place at chest height, either a dedicated chest harness or just some bungee cord - it's just to hold it in place.

This will mitigate any need to faff about with un-weighting the Traxion before you can attach the descender (as you will have slack and the necessary room, below the Traxion, to attach the descender and un-weigh the Traxion - a sling will be handy to stand up in which can be clipped to the krab on the Traxion).

This method means you haven't got to fanny about standing in a sling trying to fiddle the Traxion off its cam and then pulling slack through the descender.

Hope this makes sense.

In reply to Stuart (aka brt):

In reply to Stuart (aka brt):

http://www.supertopo.com/inc/photo_zoom.php?dpid=Pzk7NTo8KSYi there's a pic of the set-up I was going to use.

I still don't fully understand, at some point I have to take my weight off the top traxion, otherwise the cam won't disengage and I won't be able to take it off.

How is it possible to unweight the top traxion without standing in in a sling (either connected to gri-gri between the two traxions or connected to bottom traxion)

Maybe it will make perfect sense when I actually get it all in front of me :P

In reply to jsmcfarland:


Yep, that'll do.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

My preference would be stick a descender below the Traxion and lock descender off.

Put a prussik or similar above Traxion, stand up in a sling.

Release Traxion and sit back onto descender.

Release descender and retreat.

It's basically the same as an SRT change over in caving.

In reply to ewar woowar:

Agree with the above. Done many change overs myself underground as well that way. Practice it twenty times and you should be able to do it super fast.

In reply to jsmcfarland:



Correct. With the Traxion at chest height you have just enough wriggle room with a lanyard to the Traxion to:

1 attach the GriGri
2 step up in the sling
3 pull the rope through the GriGri at the same time as step 2
4 sit your weight on the GriGri
5 this takes the weight off the Traxion and Bob's your uncle.



Yes. Practise.

I only use one Traxion. On your head be it though.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Take a prussik to pull up on the ropes so you can get to the top in any case.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Don't overthink it. Put a short loop or rope (or open sling) on yer belayloop and then attache the traxion to said rope loop (or sling). In-prompt chest harness might make things nicer, so attach the traxion to said chest harness with say some elastics.

Climb until you can't get up anymore. Place GriGri on normally on the rope and yer belay loop. Pull up from the traxion and tighten the rope at the same time on the grigri. You should now have yer weight on the grigri and some slack on the rope loop (or sling), infact there should be enough slack to release the traxing and then descent using the grigri.


If yer scared or what ever, add a prusic above the traxion as backup.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

I use an ascender+grigri combo to unweight the trax/descend.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Thank you everyone for your kind advice, everything makes perfect sense and glad I wasn't totally on the wrong track. Ordered all my bits so very excited to get out and do some climbing! (finding partners can be a nightmare)

In reply to jsmcfarland:

You can save having to put the prussik on by just wrapping the rope around your foot a couple of times and standing up on that. Do it all the time when swapping from a shunt on to belay plate to ab back down the rope.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Just in case you aren't aware, Petzl explicitly advise against that set up. There is an explanation of why under "Use of the MINI TRAXION pulley"
on both http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/self-belay-solo-climbing/solution2-two-asce... and the more comprehensive http://www.petzl.com/en/outdoor/product-experience/self-belay-solo-climbing... (see Section 4)

Most of the safety concerns can probably be resolved by modifying the Mini-Traxions, such as per http://www.supertopo.com/photos/1/71/138598_20946_L.jpg

My preference would be to use two different devices (as Petzl recommend) but plenty of people seem to by happy with two Mini-Traxions.

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:

Hey there,

Yes I saw Petzl weren't particularly happy, but then again they say that any self-belay climbing is dangerous enough that you basically shouldn't do it.

The main risks seemed to be climbing on overhanging terrain, getting clothing/tape/slings/whatever caught in devices and people overcomplicating the setup with hundreds of backups which inevitably cause the failure of the whole system (what happened to the guy in that supertopo thread)

I looked at that pic of the modified mini-traxion and tried to work out what exactly that achieved but until I have one in my hands I don't understand it. What exactly does that small pin in the picture do?

In reply to jsmcfarland:




It keeps the cam open, i.e. stops it locking onto the rope.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

If you're using 2 trax don't wouldn't worry about it. Petzl have to post that kind of thing for 'elth n' safety.

In reply to jsmcfarland:

get a cinch, you can put it on a loaded rope above whichever ascender you use and attach to your harness via a sshort sling then you can just inclip the ascender and away you go