UKC

was thinkin bout doin some top rope solo climbing when i cant find a partner any tips/advice im all ears.

ta
adam

In reply to Pj84:

Boulder instead

In reply to pauldr:
how come?

In reply to Pj84:

There are about a billion threads on this in the archive. Happy hunting.

In reply to Pj84:
I use a mini traxion with a gr gri back up.
Where you based?

In reply to Croakinglizard:
flintshire, north wales..

In reply to Pj84:
A little far to meet up sorry.
If you look for top rope self belay on YouTube you'll find some ideas.
If I remember Petzl actually have a video on using traxion
for self belay.
I started out working out how it works in my lounge with rope round a bannister
then on very easy routes. I chose a easy slab I'd soloed a few times so I knew all
the holds n good resting points, n just concentrated on ropes.
The main thing is back up back back up!

Hope that helps get you started.

In reply to Pj84:

I think that's an oxymoron.

In reply to Pj84: good article here http://www.planetfear.com/articles/Self_Belaying_404.html

In reply to Croakinglizard:
cool. petzl got some stuff on it like some diagrams that are ok, and back up seems to be the theme, good pointer in that diection, ta mate..

In reply to Pj84:
Use a shunt, its the best by far. You often need to move down the rope to reverse a move or sort something out, and a shunt makes this way easier cos it an be quickly released without any danger of damaging the sheath - which i did when i was learning to toprope solo on a mini traxion.

One thing of crucial importance that nobody has mentioned here is that whichever device you use, it must be held up to your chest.

I just make a chest harness from a 120cm sling and hold the shunt up to it with a piece of 3mm cord through its biner hole. The chest setup isnt load bearing it just holds the shunt in the correct position. Without it, there is nothing to stop you from falling awkwardly onto the device (whichever one you use), preventing it from catching you.

Trust me, i learned this the hard way by plummeting 4m down the rope, stopping just above the ground.

With the chest setup, there's very little that can go wrong and after doing quite a bit of TR soloing i feel totally safe on it, i dont even back it up any more.

I feel like I link to this on every TR thread, but Petzl has instruction on this matter
http://www.petzl.com/en/outdoor/product-experience/self-belay-solo-climbing...

In reply to skunky456:

Not in my opinion. I think it's one of the poorer choices.


Not true at all.


You fell 4m?! On a solo TR?! Damn.


Given you fell 4m once, I'm surprised you can feel totally safe, but each to their own. I think it's worth backing up, it's probably only one more piece of gear to carry.

In reply to needvert:

Needvert, if you're gona say that everything i've written is wrong, you could at least explain why.

Why is a shunt a poorer choice? It is the least likely of all to damage the rope since it has no teeth.
I explained that it doesn't work without a chest harness, but with one it's held in a position where cross loading the biner or the shunt rotating into a bad position is impossible. There's really nothing that can go wrong if you do it right.

As for your petzl article, look at the picture: As the guy climbs the biner is going to pull the ascender (whichever one you use) from above. If you fall, the biner is going to whip into a downwards position. But theres no guarantee it'll happen cleanly. When i took the 4m fall it was because the biner cross loaded and turned the shunt sideways. If you were using a toothed device then landing on it sideways could really f*ck your rope up. This is why most people choose to back it up which turns the system into a faf.

When its on your chest, the device is already in the position it'll end up in when you fall. I dont feel the need to back it up because i've done it dozens of times this way and seen how reliable it is.

For the record, how exactly would you go about backing up your system? if you do it with the ascender clipped to your belay loop, where do u put the backup?

In reply to skunky456:

Well, I didn't say that. I thought that page was sufficient explanation


Petzl feels strongly enough about the shunt being a poor choice for TR self belaying that they've amended their instructions for the shunt to not mention it. Furthermore, their publication on self-belaying explicitly tells one not to use the shunt.

They don't feel this way about some of their other devices, ergo, the designers and manufacturers of the device we're debating, who know a whole lot more about the subject then us, would seem to think the shunt isn't he best choice.

Personally I have a minitrax, microtrax, basic and ascensions. I like the basic best for self belaying, with a trax second best. The ascension is a bit too bulky. The basic, compared to the shunt, has a camming mechanism which is much more difficult to interfere with, is lighter, and though I haven't measured it I suspect it slides up the rope with less effort.



Taking the basic as an example, that's not a problem.


The basic will grab when turned sides, or upside down, or in any other orientation.


It doesn't.


Well, having a rope is faf. Most people choose to back it up though? So popular consensus is a backup is a worthwhile endeavour then?


Dozens? That's not really a huge sample.


http://www.petzl.com/files/fckfiles/image/product-experience/self-belay/sol...

Heh, I didn't know that file was named solution-best until I pasted it.

In reply to skunky456:

Toothed jammers don't f*** your rope up unless you're clumsily moving them down the rope or take hard falls onto them, while sliding up and grabbing it they're just fine. Which brings me to their main drawback and why a lot of people prefer the shunt: Working moves. The systems recommended by Petzl are great for running up long pitches but that's not generally what we do in the uk. If your game is headpointing they're not ideal, you need to be able to move up and down very freely which is why people use the smooth-cam devices like GriGri and Shunt, not because they're safer but because they're convenient.

A backup is so trivially quick and easy to set-up you'd be a fool not to in any situation where a fall would be serious.
jk

In reply to jkarran:

And Rocker. :O)