UKC

My partner and I just discussing our route yesterday

Glacier approach with some large crevasses and snow bridges. We travelled in a pair with 15+ meters between us and three stopper knots.

We transition off the glacier to some relatively steep icy ground. Still walkable but a fall would have been quick and not possible to arrest and most likely if one went would have dragged the other. 

We just carried on with the rope the same length and did not adjust. On the descent I was in the rear and took hand coils in at steeper sections 

For speed we would not de rope entirely due to time. but on the icy terrain with no crevasse risk it might have been a bit easier to move in a pair with a shorter rope of 4-10m. Accepting that if one of us fell it would be a high possibility one would drag the other off

Is there a correct approach to this when in a pair? An ideal rope length between two? We debated both taking in hand coils next time. To shorten rope and give some flexibility when going up steep dog legs

Of course the answer is always 'it depends'. You say the 'steeper icy terrain' is walkable, which sounds like its unlikely you are going to fall. In this scenario, its common to short rope partners, especially if one is less comfortable on the terrain, so taking hand coils at steeper sections as you described seems appropriate. This would work in both ascent and descent.

If the terrain warrants it, I would probably have more rope between you (say 30m+) and not have stopper knots. Then you can pop an ice screw in every 30m and move together over the steeper terrain for however many screws you have given the leader. You could cover 150m ((4 x 30) + 30)) of icy terrain with just 4 screws with minimal faff and no change in rope management.

Taking stopper knots out we agreed in case we wanted to transition or place pro and make transition onto rock! 

we were both comfortable on terrain

Think next time we will both take hand coils to just tidy up the rope and move closer together and take knots out! Maybe take a few coils as well to shorten rope a bit

It depends..... what's your steep, if it's grade I ish terrain the most experienced goes above and short ropes the second, or if steep the one below unties and you go up independently, until you feel the need to pitch.

I think there are always these time-vs-safety balances in Alpine climbing so setting up your systems so it's quick and easy to do the safer thing is the key to achieving the twin goals of safe and slick.  (Oh, and reviewing your day, identifying something that was a bit iffy and asking questions like this about how to do deal with it, is a great habit, too.)

In the situation you describe, with a partner of roughly equal ability, I'd unrope.  The rope is adding no safety and, as you identified, it means "one-off-all-off."  Carrying coils in this scenario should reduce the trip hazard but it's also going to increase the shock-load if one of you does slip.  It sounds like you were tempted to unrope but were put off by the time delay so maybe think about how to make it quick and easy for one person to undo their end of your glacier-travel set-up and hand their end of the rope to the other person until it's needed again.

If there's a difference in ability / confidence then short-roping is an option but that's an advanced technique and if it's not done well it leads you right back to "one-off-all-off."

We don't think un roping makes sense as it would mean 

1. Taking time to uncoil and then recoil one of us again. The whole point is to keep unnecessary stopping time to a minimum.

2. One partner carrying the weight of the rope so speeds would be changed potentially at altitude

I think the key question I am getting at is their an optimum/ agreed length when moving on to steep icy terrain when roped up, steep enough to have lots of switch backs but not steep enough you could use need to use an axe and your points

Advantages of shorter rope - move closer as a pair making going around dog legs there is less slack

Longer rope, we didn't stop to adjust but when going round dog legs I would get ahead of my partner and have to back up to let him around the dog leg or he would have to go straight upon and cut the corner

Both have the same drag off risk, but just wondering if their is a consensus on what is the best approach and length of rope to have. 

Guides would undoubtably be short roping with coils in hand and probably 3m to the person they are guiding. But in our case of equal abilities what is the most efficient way to move.

At the moment we have settled on next time we will both take coils in from our glacier length 15+m remove the knots and leave about 10m in length between us, which we will shorten further by both taking hand coils and moving together.

This way when we hit the mixed climbing we can transition straight in and let out coils to begin simul climbing. in this case onto a mixed ridgeline.

In decent I think taking coils at the top just makes sense as it allows you to let them out and stop you partner dragging you down the hill, as well as being able to give him some support in case of a slip

I understand you want to keep stopping time to a minimum.  I don't know how you had your coils tied off but it is definitely possible to do that in a way that means you don't have to uncoil them to remove the rope.  You'd just be untying the end, unclipping the coil tie-off point from your harness and handing those coils to the other person.

Yes - one person would have all the rope at that point.

It does sound like somewhere you'd short rope if guiding.  Any coils in hand would be locked off so there's no slack in that case.

But to your question about length of rope between you if that's how you choose to travel, I don't think there's an "agreed" best length.  It's more like glacier travel - the climbers need to constantly manage the rope and their pace in relation to each other to avoid pulling each other off or tripping over the slack.

Thanks

We tie off coils through our harness loop so would need to untie this and have loose coils, you could then hand them over to partner but I would be a bit worried about creating rope tangles attempting to do so, would probably get partner to re coil them onto himself.

I will look at alternative ways to tie them off in a way we could hand the system across

Re the length I guess it needs to just work, if we wanted to place some pro would probably space out more, if we are just moving together then having space doesn't matter so much

But if the rope length is shorter instinct tells me I might hold/be held more likely than if we have a much longer rope which is prone to become slack whilst moving more than a short one.

I'll jump in here and say that in my view what AdrianC suggests is good advice, and basically represents the consensus and recommended best practice for mountaineering.  For a party of two climbers of equal ability, this idea would be to avoid climbing tied together with no protection between you as much as possible.  If this means stopping to coil/uncoil, so be it. 

Exceptions might be made for very gentle terrain, short sections where protection is soon available, moving on ridges, and so forth, but for the terrain you describe, the preferred technique would be to take the rope off, and not to try to use guide techniques like short-roping, holding loops of coil in the hand, and so on.  These are deceptively complicated skills, difficult to master, and usually add significant risks. 

Of course, if protection is available (rock pro, ice screws, pickets, flukes) by all means keep the rope on and use pro.  But walking roped together, especially with slack between you (loose or in the form of coils) is a recipe for disaster, and has lead to many accidents and deaths. 

One does see people climbing like this all the time.  I certainly have, although the last time I definitely thought about it a great deal later, and decided that it was the wrong call made in haste.  I promised myself not to climb that way in the future if at all possible.   

One suggestion is clip into the ends of the rope with an overhand or figure eight on a bight and a triple action carabiner, instead of tying through the hard points of your harness.  This makes some aspects of crevasse rescue easier, and means that you can easily unclip, uncoil or coil to change the rope length, and so on, without having to fiddle with knots.

I would say that streamlining, and accepting, these transitions, is the key to efficient and safe travel.

If you don't want to untie and you're no longer on glaciated terrain, and there's no gear, the only sensible way to move in my humble opinion would be to shorten the rope (ideally only with hand coils for speed) and short-rope it (with the emphasis firmly on short - a few metres at most). If there's the possibility of gear and the terrain gives you the willies enough to warrant it, then the other choice would be to untie the knots, leave the rope the length it is, and move together with gear between you.

Probably worth practising the art of short-roping somewhere safe and stress-free first, too.

I found some stats in a Swiss/German study I will try find link again, it mentioned 25% of climber deaths were unroped and 28% were dragging deaths e.g pulled off by their partner/s. It mentioned some serious group accidents were large teams were all killed due to being tied in specifically when moving onto this type of terrain e.g hard ice 

ultimately there does not seem to be a safety benefit to being roped up on hard ice terrain when not placing any pro, except for the professionals e.g leaving it to the guides, but there seems to be some debate on that even as well aka death roping 

for us we are thinking just take in coils and move closer together for better rope management, less slack And trust each other not to fall. On a shorter rope with less slack might it make a difference I one slopes I think it might help! But the long slack rope I think he would certainly rip me off my feet. I would trust him the same in this as well 

shorter equals better in this circumstance 

if I didn’t trust my partner think I would be giving him the rope now and wishing bin voyage, might be a difficult trip back across the glacier without him though 

I can see what you're saying.  I would still question the tactic of moving roped together on steeper ground with no protection in place, although, of course, people do this all the time, and, as I said, I've done it too!

Maybe some practical examples of places where you would consider doing this would help people understand your reasoning, for example, popular easy or moderate routes around Chamonix, like the Pointes Lachenal, Cosmique, Midi-Plan traverse, Midi Helbronner crossing, Aiguille Entreves, and so on.

Here's a link about short roping. As always, there are some strong opinions and colorful views, but also some really good information:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/121646627/is-short-roping-only-...

Let's keep the conversation going--it's an important topic!

Most of those routes you don’t encounter a long deep section of hard ice! The route we were on was gran paradiso from chambod! On top of the glacier we transitioned to hard ice section which was relatively steep! Totally within our comfort zone but I was considering our approach

All the guided groups were on short rope 

OK, cool, I can work with that--I've climbed in that area, so I have some knowledge of the terrain, although it’s been a couple of years.  Just to be clear, we're talking about the standard glacier route up from the Chabod, correct?  When I was there, we descended that route, and if I remember correctly, near the intersection with the normal route from the Vittorio Emmanuelle, there is a somewhat steep part that would require care if hard and icy.  Am I envisioning this right?

So, if I was coming up from Chabod, having crossed the glacier, I would likely be roped up, much as you described, with about 15 meters distance, and stopper knots. 

If I reached a steep section of hard ice, I would likely remove the stopper knots, and climb it as a short pitch of low angle ice, using ice screws at protection.  If the ice conditions weren't good enough to place solid ice screws, and I judged the terrain steep enough that a fall was possible, and the consequences were serious (steep terrain, crevasses, and so on) I would remove the rope and solo over the ice.  If my partner did not feel confident doing this, the climb would be over; I'd go down.  For me, if my partner wouldn't feel comfortable soling the ice, I wouldn't feel comfortable climbing roped to them with no protection.  And if my partner was not confident soloing, they wouldn’t gain any safety from being roped to me.  Without very specialized skills--that I don’t have--I wouldn’t be able to stop them if they slipped and fell.  No amount of shortening the rope, changes of distance, holding loose coils or fixed hand loops, and so forth, would change this equation. 

Now, let's say you were a guide--how would you short-rope a client on this terrain?  The rope distance would likely be very short, probably a meter or two, just short enough so the client wasn’t kicked in the face by the guide.  The guide would hold the rope in one hand, maybe an ice axe in the other, and would be constantly feeling the light tension on the rope, listening to the client, looking down at the client’s movements, to prevent a slip from becoming a fall.  If the client slipped, and the guide did not immediately react, both would fall.  The guide might hold loose coils, or a fixed hand loop, but they would need to be able to control the rope precisely and powerfully, while also maintaining their footing securely.  This is difficult to master, and dangerous even for experienced guides.

What if it wasn’t so steep?  What if it was comfortable walking on gentle slopes that were hard and icy?  I guess I’d have to see the terrain, the distance, the run out, and everything else, to make a judgement, but again, the rope would basically offer no safety if protection if it was not being used, so I’d probably just un-rope, and if my partner wasn’t cool with that, the climb would be over. 

If you did decide to keep moving with the rope, perhaps shortened to 5 meters of so, holding the excess in hand loops, what would the reasoning be behind that decision?  It would basically be one way to carry the rope from A to B.  You would be trading a very small time gain, something with little to no consequence in the grand scheme of things, for a small but real chance of both of you having a serious fall, which would obviously have big consequences! 

Also, taking in hand coils, the rope getting tangled, holding an ice axe at the same time, and so forth, can be inefficient. It might actually be faster to quickly untie/unclip one partner, wrap the excess rope around the other partner’s shoulders, and keep moving.  So I’m not convinced the "saving time" argument has merit.

There might be some value in the "giving the less experienced partner confidence and direction" argument, but it would be a false confidence, with a cost. 

Anyway, it’s hard to armchair quarterback all this, and I apologize if I’m coming across as pedantic. 

You were climbing in the mountains.  You encountered an interesting situation—one of the infinite number of decisions that make mountaineering so engaging—and you decided to keep moving with the rope on.  Maybe next time you would make a different decision, maybe not.  Hard to know. 

Ultimately, I just think it’s good to talk about it, so we make these decisions as consciously as possible.

We have settled on remaining roped, taking out the knots and leaving the distance pretty much the same e.g 15m but with slack in the system to stop dragging the partner into a misstep. 

This leaves the option to place gear if the ice section steepens and we can transition straight into the rock  simul climbing

your then into the classic don’t fall off here alpine scenario because if one falls undoubtably we both go when partner gets shock loaded
 

Appreciate that in the solo it option you suggest the risk is to one partner, but remaining roped does give you options if you have assessed the situation from below incorrectly e.g the ground gets steeper than you thought from below and you need to put pro in

otherwise we would have to down climb or re rope on route

as always it is an assessment of objective risk as well as your acceptance and assessment of it which decided your approach. 
 

For us we were in a time window that day storms were coming in at lunch time so speed was important! And it is noticeable how what appear to be very small stops to adjust gear make a large difference in time on the mountain. Hence we just carried straight on from the glacier 

thanks again for your input

I think there are two very important things to keep in mind here: 1) how quickly does one type of terrain transition into another one, in other words would you be unroping and re-roping constantly if taking the solo-approach; 2) how serious would a fall be in any given terrain, for either one or all members of a party? 

I like the German concepts of Gehgelände and Abstürzgelände for decision making in such situations.

Gehgelände is easy terrain where a fall would not necessarily be disastrous. I'd solo this or be comfortable short-roping this if my partner would want to. For me, this is terrain up to about UIAA II+ with low to limited exposure and in good conditions. 

Abstürzgelände is terrain where a fall would be very disastrous indeed. This can also be low-level climbing, just very much exposed. In such cases it would be better to move together or pitch it out if the difficulty of the rock steps or steepness of the ice warrants. For me, this would start at WI2+, UIAA III or rock steps above French 4a or on very exposed but easy scrambling. You never know when that rock is coming down on your helmet...