UKC

Im going to open with 'So, i just watched the new Everest film' ...
I fully realise that many of you will sigh and roll your eyes at that, but please humour me

Using Everest as an example because im sure it's not the only place this occurs, but.. when watching the film I couldn't really understand why the 'climbers' weren't in some way attached to the descent ropes on sections they can 'fall off', off slopes, into crevasses etc. After asking some mountaineering type friends i've ruled out assisted devices because of the forward downhill position not working with the devices, the possibility of them not working with frozen ropes, frozen fingers or just generally being rubbish in freezing temps... but i'm still left without a real answer to my query. Would it not be safer to come down backwards perhaps, so as to put tension on the rope and sort of walk rappel on something like a figure8?

As you may have guessed, i haven't a clue in this area... any ideas?

In reply to snowfluke:
Well from what I understand about the fixed ropes on big mountains is that they are only there as a last resort (e.g. If you fall, which you are not supposed to do!)

On top of that the anchors are not always bomber 3 piece jobs or quality tat like you get in the UK and the alps, for instance if you are fixing a line of ropes up a huge face of snow and ice there may not be any good ice to secure the rope to so you end up doing your best to secure it...

Climbers do abseil the harder, steeper sections and these are normally secured well but the easier sections might just have a one piece anchor to hopefully prevent the worst. I can't imagine a large group of climbers abseiling with figure 8's all the way down on dubious anchors over easy-ish terrain.

In reply to David Staples:


From what I've seen the anchors must be nuclear bomb proof as they seem to take about 50 people at a time hauling themselves up the Lhotse face and the like.

It's probably time wise, but I wouldn't take an Everest movie as a good example anyway. At one point during the movie, the guys were ascending the fixed line when an icefall happened. Of course, someone got hit by the ice, started tumbling down the mountain until he stopped. A second later, he clipped back to the fixed rope... with an ascender. Which prevents an exact scenario mentioned. While it's possible to unclip the jumar, I don't think the ascender failure was scripted.