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Lowering Off The End Of The Rope

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 Ats.Scott 26 Dec 2019

From general reading it seems that one of the most common accidents that happen when climbing is the belayer accidentally lowering a climber off the end of the rope resulting in a free fall. 
 

Advice and common sense to stop this is to tie a stopper in the end of the rope or the belayer to tie into the end so to close the system. The answer that I can’t find is what to do if you get to the point of lowering someone off the end end but are stopped by the knot you have put in place to stop an accident? 
 

You’ve lowered your partner as far as you can and reached the stopper knot with your partner not all the way down. Thankfully your safety precaution of tying in or using a stopper has worked but what now???? 
 

Thanks for your advice. 

1
 Luke90 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

Lots of different options depending on the details of the situation. In a lot of cases, the simplest option would be for the climber to climb back up to a bolt, attach themselves to it, pull the rope and then rethread to either abseil or be lowered again.

 andyb211 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

What Luke90 said

 Billhook 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

Avoidance by making sure you have enough rope before you contemplate lowering off.

22
 nikoid 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

Another consideration - if you re lower rather than abseil you don't have to untie from your harness, therefore you can't drop the rope. 

And resign yourself to losing a krab, don't thread the rope directly through the bolt. Sorry if that's patronising and you can't believe anyone would do that, but I've seen it done. 

Finally as Billhook says, try and avoid, if you have a middle mark on your rope, this situation shouldn't arise.

 James Oswald 26 Dec 2019

"And resign yourself to losing a krab, don't thread the rope directly through the bolt. Sorry if that's patronising and you can't believe anyone would do that, but I've seen it done."

I see your point but I think that lowering directly off bolts is more nuanced than you describe. Lowering directly/ abseiling from glue in bolts is generally fine providing you check for sharp edges on them. Lowering/ abseiling directly from expansion bolts , which are generally sharper, is less safe.

​​

5
 GrahamD 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

Normally the answer  is to lower off a bolt part way down the route. No drama particularly. 

 nikoid 26 Dec 2019
In reply to James Oswald:

Yes I could have been clearer, I was referring to expansion bolts, I agree that lowering directly off glue ins/staples is generally OK. 

2
 Lord_ash2000 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

I've never lowered someone to the point of the knot getting jammed in the belay but the odd occasions where the rope wasn't long enough to get them to the ground (on an overhanging route)  the solution was to start to scrambling up the start of the climb assisted by their weight until they made it to the ground then clipped myself I to the first or second bolt then pulled the rope and lowered off from there via the draw or directly off the hanger of it is staple. 

Post edited at 21:50
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 Iamgregp 26 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

This happened to me once, luckily i had enough rope to lower the climber to a ledge, and the route was equipped with staples so he could rethread from there. It got a bit complicated but we managed it.

We suspected we might run out of rope before we started so made sure we put a knot in the end!

 henwardian 27 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

Depends greatly on the situation. Possibilities include:

- use an intermediate lower-off - leader clips to intermediate loweroff when part way down, unties, pulls rope, threads intermediate loweroff, ties back in, belayer takes up slack, leader unclips from intermediate loweroff, lower continues to the ground.

- If the knot is proper safe, belayer starts climbing the start of the route, when leader gets to the ground, belayer clips to a single bolt, leader unties, belayer pulls rope and uses it to get themselves back down by lowering themselves off the one bolt (or equalise 2 bolts if you have plenty of draws around and are paranoid). Just make sure that as the belayer, you unclip quickdraws as soon as you can on the way up - climb too high before trying to unclip and you can get stuck on the quickdraw, unable to unclip it, then you are in a bit of a pickle.

- if the leader can touch the wall and isn't dangling in space, get them to climb back up slightly, clip into a bolt, untie and pull rope without letting it go entirely then tie back in and lower as before but from half way up, allowing the ground to be reached.

- Shout over to someone else at the crag, they could climb a route next to your leader, lower off (with a long enough rope!), attach to your leader with quickdraws and then you can take your leader off belay and the other belayer can lower the two leaders that are connected together.

- If another rope is available, you could throw it to the leader and, when attached to him/her it can be used to swing them more and more till they can contact the wall, then continue as for the 2nd method above.

- Boulder mat stack and big balls!

- Throw the leader some jumars/prussic loops and tell them to get going while you sun yourself lying at the base of the route and get gently rocked to sleep.

- Tie the leader off on the first bolt/ground anchor (in extremis you could even step out of your harness once you have done this if you can't unload the harness). Then go get another rope from other climbers/the car/etc. Walk round to the top of the crag, make a tree/boulder/etc. anchor in the right place, abseil down and to the leader, clip them to you, release them from their rope (this is going to be darn tricky when free hanging unless you bring a knife) and abseil to the ground. If you had to leave your harness behind and have jury rigged a sling harness this is going to be abject agony enough to persuade you to never ever do something like this again!

bottom line really should be that you are trying to solve a problem of only a small shortage in the rope so you should need a minor fudge. If the rope is far too short, the error should become clear long before you lower the leader to hanging position miles above the ground.

The first option is standard procedure. The second option is something I've done a few times, I think always when knowing the rope length could be an issue. If you find yourself doing the fourth, fifth or seventh, it's not a good sign of your climbing competence. I've never owned a bouldering mat. Amazingly I've actually had to do the first part of the eighth option, making a ground anchor with trad gear on a sport route because the rope, while long enough, had gotten totally wedged in a crack in the ground and there was no way to get it out without escaping the system to collect a nut key from the backpacks to free the rope.

 Pero 27 Dec 2019
In reply to Ats.Scott:

Getting to the end of the rope on a lower off can't just happen out of the blue without any warning.  General good practice:

Recognise when you are climbing a route at the limit of your rope and plan the lower off strategy in advance.

If a route is longer than expected, then make a decision when the lead climber is at the lower off.  E.g. the belayer might be able to scramble up a few metres and belay safely from higher up.  Or, the leader could aim for an intermediate lower off on another climb.

It's a last resort to wait until the rope runs out and then start thinking about what to do.

 Chris Craggs Global Crag Moderator 27 Dec 2019
In reply to Pero:

It always surprises me that when this happens it didn't occur to either climber that the pitch might be  a long one and a little care is needed,

Chris

 deepsoup 27 Dec 2019
In reply to Chris Craggs:

That was the one thing that really bugged me about Free Solo (the film).  When Sanni lowers Alex off the end of the rope and he injures his ankle she's consumed with guilt. 

It's his choice of route, his rope and he's a *vastly* more experienced climber than she is, the accident is clearly more his fault than hers and yet the narrative of the film is that it's entirely her fault, and Alex seems to go along with that.  Either he really fails to take responsibility for his own mistake there, or the film maker is being a bit dishonest and making it seem that way to inject a bit of extra drama into their relationship.

In reply to deepsoup:

Yeah I couldn't stand that. There was a definite vibe of "It couldn't have been my fault, there seems to be a link between climbing with people of lower standards and me falling". When I'm climbing with anyone that has even slightly less experience than me I take total responsibility for them as their guide. I know any mistake will be on my conscience. 

Others have said they struggle to see how it can happen. Climbing in groups with ropes of different lengths, climbing drastically different length routes etc. There are so many factors that could make this accident happen, knotting the end of the rope has to be an ingrained habit like the buddy check. 

1

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