UKC

Climbing at Helsby today using a sling round a tree, and then clipped to an alpine butterfly backed up with a clove hitch (on a seperate carabiner and sling). Had enough 'live' rope to allow it to touch the base of the route with alpine butterflies tied around every meter or so - probably more. The idea was as I climb I can clip into the loops using a sling larks footed around my belay loop. I came up with the idea for the system on the spot, and it seemed to take a 2m fall well (with a rope length of around 6m to the top anchor, so a small fall factor.)

The only concern I can think of for using this system again is any damage to the slings, either the ones at the top or the one I was using to clip in, or will shock loading have been mitigated by the rope?

Would appreciate anyone letting me know if I was incredibly stupid/lucky today, cheers.

In reply to Bennett Leather:

I have top roped solo'd like that before, but on a back up strand, the main strand I shunted up. The main concern for me would be that towards the top, if you move up past your clipped sling, then take a fall, you might only have 1m of rope to absorb the shock, then a 'factor 2' onto your sling. Lower down this isn't as much of a problem as it would be higher up as there is more rope in the system. Essentially the higher you climb, the greater the fall factor on the rope is and the greater the shockload on the sling is due to less live rope being in the system. One way around this is to try and never move above your sling to reduce the factor on it; but that can be tedious clipping every move. I wouldn't say that it was totally unsafe/stupid, however it doesn't seem like best practise for top rope soloing.

Alternative ideas...

Buy a shunt, my go to gear for TR soloing, easy to set up, considered safe enough for the job by many
Have a loose clove hitch that you pull through on your way up, con; a bit faffy
Buy a Petzl Micro Traxion; can be used for other useful things as well, con; aggressive teeth could wear a rope.
Find a climbing buddy

In reply to Bennett Leather:

I think if you're happy you can do the routes solo then you could consider clipping the butterflies as a backup rather than actual progress capture. If you intend to do a lot of soloing though (tomorrow will be glorious weather at helsby) I'd get a mini traxion and use that.

Did you get to do flake crack? My first HVS

In reply to Bennett Leather:

Bennett, sorry I dont fully understand your set up..did you fix a rope down your chosen route, put alpine butterflies in it and clip to these butterflies with a sling you'd Larks footed to your harness? If so it looks like a lot of FF2 potential (onto a sling..not advised) See DMM's Nylon slings Vs Dyneema slings FF's vid for details...

I'd buy a suitable ascende,(a shunt perhaps), if I were you...Or find a reliable partner!

Cheers

In reply to Bennett Leather:

The main problems are:
*Falling while moving lanyard from one loop to the next - use two lanyards
*High forces if you fall near the top due to little energy absorbing rope above you - can be mitigated with careful belay rigging and short lanyards
*Getting tangled and hung up if you fall - Have an escape route/plan using another strand of rope
*Hassle. It sounds like quite a palaver with all those knots - Get a shunt/ascender

It sounds like you're not entirely clear about the forces/energy involved so be careful straying too far from what you know works when making these things up on the fly.

jk

In reply to Bennett Leather:
In general a sling is not the thing to withstand a dynamic load. Dyneema is by far the worst, with nylon a lot better - but still breakable. What's far better sling is a dynamic sling: http://www.beal-planet.com/2014/anglais/longe-dynaclip-50.html (check out the other lanyards, this is just 'a' link as I couldn't seem to get a link to all lanyards page)
I'm considering getting one to just use as my cowstail for normal climbing.

In reply to SenzuBean:

Or just get a bit of (dynamic) tat and tie a fig 8 with stopper on each end? Bulkier, but basically the same thing.

Or just make a big prussic (double-fisherman's) out of dynamic rope?

In reply to Bossys gran:

I think you have described the system correctly but there is no potential for a true FF2 there. I assume your FF2 situation would be a fall from 1 lanyard-length above a butterfly to 1 lanyard-length below. This would be FF2 if the butterfly was a rigid anchor, but it isn't, it's connected to a rigid anchor by a length of dynamic rope. The only potential for FF2 is if the OP reaches the last butterfly which is tight up against the anchor (so zero rope in the system, ignoring the knot) and then climbs above it by a lanyard-length.

There is nothing inherently unsafe about the use of slings in this scenario as the impact force is lessened by the dynamic rope - as in normal climbing. However as noted by BStar the impact force will get higher as you get closer to the anchor. You could mitigate this by setting the anchor (i.e. the top of the rope) well above the end of the climb if that's possible, so you always have some rope out. You could also use a thinner rope to give greater elongation and less impact force.

In reply to Bennett Leather:

Should have made myself clearer, all the top anchors I used were set way back from the top of the route, even at the knot closest to the anchor there was 4m of rope, as at the tope of the routes I did were gentle grass slopes up to anchors good enough to hold a bus.

Cheers for the input so far guys I'm going to look at the shunt, don't like traxions/mini traxions as have seen the traxions fail as part of a pully system and wouldn't feel right, plus don't the mini traxions need a chest harness?

In reply to Bossys gran:

Yeah I do need a reliable partner, off along to my local clubs mid week meet today so hopefully that will lead to something...

In reply to Oujmik:

Check out the link I posted (admittedly it's manufacturer data), but they claim a normal sling is only good for 4-8 falls with FF1. If FF is somewhere in between at say 1.5, you might only get 3-4 falls. So I think there's definitely a case to be made for using a dynamic sling.
There's also the case where the butterflies could catch on a flake/spike, significantly increasing the fall-factor - it's worth protecting against this case I think.

In reply to Bennett Leather:


They're a pain to release would be my main gripe.

If you're working a route doing a small section over and over again then something smooth that can be slid up or down easily like a shunt or a GriGri or one of the many other similar modern devices is what you want.

If you're doing laps or just climbing 'easy' routes where you want a back-up but won't be frequently stopping and reversing then the toothed jammers work well. Petzl's handled units are useful and hard to fault.

A second, parallel back-up line to keep you off the ground should it all go wrong (most mechanical devices can and eventually will drop you) is a good idea. It's also a quick easy way down if you're doing laps.

jk

In reply to SenzuBean:

Yes, to be extra safe (given the potential for higher FF as you work higher and the possibility of repeated falls) you may as well use something sturdier and/or dynamic in place of the slings. You could replace the lanyard with something dynamic and the anchor sling with a loop of 10mm static rope for example.

In reply to Bennett Leather:

Shunts are really good for solo top roping,or you could just make a cows tail out of a bit of dynamic rope,or you may be able to make your top rope slightly longer and put a crab on the end, clip your harness to it using another crab and an alpine butterfly so you'd be using it as a dynamic cows tail.it works in my head but I don't know how practical it'd be though

In reply to Bennett Leather:

Sounds like a good idea in theory.

And you could use dynamic rope as your lanyard
or set up a small pully system at the top but you might aswell just use a shunt.

In reply to Neil Williams:
Just tied now with a bit of spare rope, and it looks fine and solid but is just a bit bulky. Did the small eye loop with overhand + stopper, and the big eye loop with bowline + stopper.

In reply to Bennett Leather:

What about using 2 strands of rope to climb on, but knotted together every 1.5m or so, like a giant daisy chain.
Use dynamic rope for a sling, with 2 krabs at the business end. As you climb you clip in/out of one of the ropes, every time you pass a knot. Via ferrata style. Locking krabs a must!

In reply to Bennett Leather:


Hi, please tell us more if you can about traxions failing as part of a pulley system. This is their main use. And as I type there will be 20 haul bags hanging off them on El Cap alone.

It is also worth noting that Petzl do not recommend using a shunt (although many of us have used one!) and they do recommend using a traxion as part of a solo top rope system.

No, you don't need a chest harness, just a sling or some elastic. See Petzl's instructions or the photos on my website (www.multipitchclimbing.com)

In reply to SenzuBean:

A barrel knot at the clipping krab end is less bulky and keeps the krab lined up nicely.

That said, there's some serious overkill being discussed here. So long as there's a knot or two (in the rope) and a bit of rope involved you won't break a sling without really silly, deliberate and repeated abuse. Even then you'd struggle.

That infamous DMM vid is interesting and a useful warning that things can go wrong but everything attatched to the sling is rigid: rigid steel belay pin on a rigid steel tower, rigid dead weight. That's not the scenario being discussed here.

jk

In reply to Bennett Leather:

This is 2 mini's on a rope solo (Steph Davis) - I use the same method. Bit of a bitch to set up but once you've got the hang of it the process gets a bit quicker. Ideally you'd want a nice 60-70m pitch and climb on the single strand but we don't get a great deal of that in the uk!

In reply to jkarran:


I wouldn't call it serious overkill - there is a distinct chance (albeit very low) of the cowstail catching on a rock feature and giving you a static arrest - that's not silly or deliberate, and neither would it give you a chance to repeat it.

In reply to SenzuBean:


The same could be said of your harness, belay loop, rucksack, even the sling-cowstail it's now fashionable to wear for sport climbing where falls are commonplace... all the other things we normally climb with that kill no one.

Anyway, each to their own. If slings make you twitchy then enjoy your rope lanyards.

jk

In reply to jkarran:


That's comparing an elderberry to a pumpkin, my dear sir.

In reply to SenzuBean:

If you say so.

In reply to Bennett Leather:

Read about 'french freeing'. You can lead a route on your own, by tying one end of the rope securely to a solid ground anchor and you then connect to the with a clove hitch. Climb , place gear, clip, THEN whilst holding on to the wall pull rope through the clove hitch to allow the next move to be completed. You can back up the clove hitch. Worth reading about though and perhaps practice at ground level.

All the other advice about a shunt is definitely good advice.