UKC Forums - 4 man team, changing from Glacier travel to moving together

4 man team, changing from Glacier travel to moving together

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adam001 29 May 2017

Hi,

Back off to the alps in a month or so but this time with 4 of us of mixed ability, plan is only to do F to PD routes, nothing harder this time. Never done it as a 4 so wondering about the best rope system.

Current thoughts are Glacier travel as a 4 on a 50m single with circa 9 metres between us with the 1st and 4th with around 10m coiled. But then I'm forced to think we need to split into 2, 2 man teams if we need to do any reasonable scrambling, thought of taking a separate 30m single for that reason.

Question is, does anyone know of a more efficient way then having to swap around like that?

Cheers,
Adam

timmeehhhh 29 May 2017

In reply to adam001:

Most versatile would be to use a 50m double rope. This will allow you to do glacier tours, move together on easy ground with two two-man teams, and do multi-pitch rock routes with two or three people.

For UK climbing it would allow you to do trad and winter.

It will have most of your basis covered if you plan on progressing trough the grades.

OP adam001 29 May 2017

In reply to timmeehhhh:

I've never used a half rope in isolation, what are the limitations of it?

Normally in the alps we are in a 3 and climbing upto PD+, moving together on a 50m single has worked ok for us, exception being a AD- where we used our spare 30m as well to climb and bring 2 up on halves in effect. In the UK as you say Trad and winter we just use whatever suits the days plans.