UKC

What do you with the rope when one climber leads all pitches of a route or at least blocks? The options are:

1. Leave it as it is with the second's end on top and the leader's end coming out from the bottom and just hope that it all works out.

2. Flake it through before the leader sets off on the next pitch so that his end is now on top.

3. Pick up the whole rope and flip it upside down (a bit like a pancake) so that the leader's end is now on top.

4. Swap ends, i.e. untie and re-tie.

5. Something else which I haven't even thought of.

I guess that a mixture of 1 and 2 would also be possible: leader sets off straight away and belayer then flakes rope through while the leader is already climbing.

I haven't created a poll because I am more interested in opinions than simply in numbers such as XY % do it like this.

Probably depends a lot on how much space you have on the stance, how tidy you expect to be when pulling in the rope, whether you're on doubles, etc. But speaking from recent experience [informally] guiding a novice who I didn't want to risk leaving with a problem to solve... #2 for sure. If the rope is tidy to start with, doesn't take long. If it's not tidy to start with, you'll be glad you flaked it now.

I've normally reflaked. It's the only one that will reliably work if you didn't know to prepare while bringing the second up. 

Flipping works nicely if you make a tight tidy pile and pat it down every few metres, but you need a bit of a ledge or niche to make the pile on.

The last way I use on hanging belays sometimes; I haven't used it regularly enough to have any issue yet. Probably not much good when its windy. When you start pulling up rope, begin with short (~0.5m) coils over your tie in or a sling. Make each loop 20cm longer than the last, so the one nearest you is shortest and the one attached to the second is longest. As you lead off the closing loops pulled up should then never be able to catch another loop and create a tangle. In theory!

Always reflake, always, tangles are a nightmare and can be dangerous if leader is in a critical position. Belayer may not be able to belay safely while also dealing with knots/tangles. It takes about 30 seconds. Whatever your rope management system at that stance, it is never too hard to reflake. Preparing the rope for the next pitch should just be part of what happens at a belay, like swapping and sorting gear.

Untying and retying seems a simple solution but it introduces a lot of possibilities for human error (tired brain, messy belay, distractions, stress) to result in a catastrophic accident, imo.

I always used number 2 (flake it through) - it doesn't take that long to do and avoids issues later on.

Option 2. Much rather spend 2 mins and not have problem later. 

In response to the suggested idea after number 5...if I'm leading, I'd rather my belayer were fully focused on belaying safely and not worrying about having to flake rope through. 

Reflake, I would say. It doesn't take long. Leaving it as it is will virtually guarantee tangles; flipping the whole lot can work, but it's quite likely one loop will go through another, which will likely lose you more time sorting it out than the little bit you saved by not flaking.

In my experience, this principle applies more generally: a little extra time taken at belays to think things through will be more than repaid by the time saving which comes with smooth running of the next pitch. This is especially true with the combination of block leading and rope belays (as opposed to a sling masterpoint).

no.2 with the added comment that by default I tie into the anchor with one of my ropes but after a recent holiday where I was doing all the leading on long routes I found that having both leader and second clipped in with cows tails made reflaking the rope much less likely to result in some sort of tangle. One person flaking the rope and the other sorting gear it doesn't add much time.

I have also used the pancake method, lap coiling the rope over the tie in and then flipping it, though that was when I was seconding a guy who worked rope access and was very slick at everything ropework related, not sure I'd trust it with my own messy lap coiling.

Always either 2 or 4. #2 if there's room on the ledge. #4 if not, or if for any other reason it would be a faff. BUT, whichever it is, plan for it! So when you arrive at the stance set up in a way that will make it easy, and arrange something for your second to clip into. And never untie everything at once because the day you do will be the day you drop a rope all the way to the ground.

The only times I've found it a ballache have been when the plan was alt leads but we changed our minds and everything's on the wrong side and the ropes are all kinds of involved.

#2 almost always.

If there was a chance of a hanging belay or at least one without a decent ledge, I hope to remember to take the Edelrid Tillit and use that, flipping it upside down when required. youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0U_0PZmV4&

Looking at the options you've suggested I'm guessing you're in a scenario where you have a ledge and have just piled the rope onto the ledge?

I just do #1, set off as the leader without doing anything to the pile. People don't seem to believe this, but it is possible for rope to come out of the bottom of a pile! Especially with the belayer there to help it out. I can't recall having a serious problem with this. Inevitably the belayer will have to sort a couple of minor tangles, but this is not that hard. I imagine there has been a problem, but it can't have been very bad or I'd remember.

Couple of caveats:

Belayer just needs to pull through the rope so they've always got a bit that's not tangled and ready to pay out. Ime this is not normally very difficult.

If the start of the next pitch looks hard/sustained I'll make sure we pull out the first 10m or so of rope. Just so a tangle is a bit less likely.

If I was climbing with someone who was new to climbing/rope management I would probably flake it through. 

--

If you're asking about hanging/semi hanging belays with no ledge to pile a rope on. I normally do overhand knots tied off to a piece of gear on the belay. Make the loops longer as you go so the loops on the leaders end are shortest. Then flip the order of the knots before the leader sets off. Belayer undoes knots as required to get more rope.

I tend not to do the flake over the tether to anchor method, or the flake into a sling method, but they're fine too.

If you're really worried about rope management you can't beat a rope bag or two (personally I only use for big walling). If they're roomy rope will come out of the bottom ok, but it is nicer if it's flaked in so the leaders end ends up on top. So may require re-flaking depending on your strategy. I've not used the tillit, but have considered getting one - it looks like it would be pretty great, just have to get over the minor faff of zipping it on every time.

6.  Hang an extra sling and flake the ropes nicely while belaying so leader can go again.

Depends on the situation.

1: if I have someone competent and I'm being lazy, but probably only with a single rope.

2: if I have someone incompetent, it's just guaranteed to work with minimum faff.

3: probably not, always seem to mess it up. 

4: Have done this on long routes before when using a single rope, works very well but you need to be switched on when retieing.

#2. And remember to tie into the belay with slings rather than your end of the rope(s)

That looks like a good bit of kit.

stack and pancake it

why? it was mentioned earlier as well but im afraid twice is too many in my view!

Avoiding twists is not a good reason to bring a lanyard multipitch trad climbing in my view. The key is to be really deliberate with the rope, for example stacking over your clove hitched attachment when belaying, then reflaking back over the attachment to restack to lead off.

I'd even suggest the opposite, when a friend agonizingly insisted on bringing their lanyard climbing as a three on Munich Climb, inevitably we ended up with loads of twists. Its all too easy to just clip in without thinking and being careful about where the rope is going.

The seconds back coils whilst the leader sorts their rack and reads the description. Costs a minute max, potentially saves many more. 

Option 5. Something else:

Freesnake fix and follow. See:

https://www.freesnakeclimbing.com/advanced-climbing-systems/freesnake-fix-a...
 

Depends on the situation. I've not done non-swinging leads for a while but I think what I generally did was:

Have the leader sort the gear out, including taking it off the second's harness while the second flakes the rope so it's ready for the next pitch and puts the leader on belay. Hopefully these two tasks take about the same length of time if it's a long route and speed is important. If the second is faster with their tasks, they can help out with sorting the gear or reading a description for the next pitch.

Think I've also done the shrove tuesday manoeuvrer before too but it does rather tend to end up with the second needing to do a bit of making sure the next bit of rope is not fankled too.

When there is a hanging belay and really nothing to have the rope sitting on and it's just trailing down the wall, none of these approaches work though and you are looking at tying off big loops of rope or flaking it over the belay slings or the like, I don't really remember doing this often without swinging leads but it might become easier to un-tie and retie.

Interesting. Have you used this one regularly?

My initial thought is that this sounds time-consuming. Let's image that the leader has just completed a 30 m pitch on 60 m ropes. He has now got to haul in another 30 m of rope and carefully feed it into the sling before starting to belay the second, which is going to be slower than just hauling it in normally. However, maybe you get this time back when you then do not need to flake through before setting off to lead the next pitch.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I think we can see a clear majority in favour of re-flaking.

I also do mainly 2 (re-flake) but sometimes 1 (a.k.a. "It'll be reet on t'neet").

I would have thought that 3 (pancake) would be a recipe for a big bird's nest every time, but a climbing partner recently proved me wrong on this one: at least on that one climb it worked surprisingly well.

I don't like 4 (untie / re-tie) and only use it if forced to, e.g. if having built the belay with the rope and then changing plan at the last minute who is going to lead the next pitch.

Yes.

And I haven't explained well enough - you don't feed it into the sling, you drape it over

If space is limited:
Fix yourself with a self-belay (sling, rope with knot, device like petzl connect etc.), during belay take in the rope in slings across this self-belay. When the seconding climber arrives, flip the whole stack of rope slings onto his/her self-belay and happily start leading.

Surely it doesn't matter what system you use, avoiding twists is important and being well organised is the way to do that. You're no more prone to cockups using a lanyard than tieing in with the rope. In system 4, clipping the belay with a lanyard and swapping ends is surprisingly fast and you simply don't get tangles. Maybe less convenient if you're using a double rope system, but with single ropes, it works well. Don't like the idea of saying never do this or that - it's merely a question of being au fait with the system you're using. 

both of the comments i'm replying to suggest using lanyard with option 2 so my reply is about use of a lanyard when reflaking, not option 4 where it's obviously needed.

yes exactly, but the comments provide advice that using a lanyard is the way to avoid twists when reflaking which is simply not the case.

Yet another vote for (2).

I've tried (3) but it often doesn't work. (1) sometimes works but is asking for trouble. Re-flaking can mostly be done while the leader is re-racking the gear for the coming pitch, so doesn't cost the team much if any time overall.

Can be more convenient, because you can take out the mystery twist that always seems to creep in despite your second insisting they didn't turn back round the wrong way after they turned around to put their shoes on.

Everyone loves a bit of "can you just duck underneath there before heading off", "oops no the other way, you climb over the top of me", "Oh stuff it, climb and I'll fix it as you go or untie one if I need to".

Just jumping back in with some more thoughts.

There are lots of different belay/rope management strategies. Everyone has their favourites for different situations, there isn't a single objectively best way that caters to every scenario, so you should do some experimenting to work out what you like. Worth experimenting on easy for you routes rather than on big/hard for you objectives.

I will likely do different things in different scenarios and depending on what my partner wants.

I am way more likely to make sure the rope is flaked/in some way prepped to run smoothly if I'm on a relatively short, hard for me route. In that scenario there's not likely to be much time pressure, so taking a minute or two at each belay to sort the rope is not an issue time wise and reduces the chance of me being short roped in a section I'm struggling on. Despite this, I'm still likely to just take the rope from the bottom of the pile if it's on a ledge as I just don't seem to have issues with this - evidently most people disagree with this strategy though!

Whereas if I'm climbing a long relatively easy for me route the incentives are mostly the other way. If you spend 30s - 2mins sorting the rope at each belay you'll lose a lot of time. Gear transfer is pretty rapid on these sorts of routes because given the relatively easy terrain you probably haven't placed loads. So it's not like there's loads of gear sorting time to mess with the rope. As the leader you shouldn't need time to read the description/topo for the next pitch and work out where you're going. You've been there for ages belaying, have a look around then! Guide mode is great for this. If the rope does get a bit snagged or tangled coming from the bottom of the pile, due to the relatively easy nature of the climbing the leader is likely to be in a position where they can just wait a little for the tangle to be sorted without much bother.

I'm sure I'm not the best climber in the world at rope management, so feel free to ignore/critique, it's just my opinions/what I do. Maybe I'd be better off doing something else.

Sure, but like I say, you need to be diligent which ever system you use. I sometimes use a lanyard with system 2. Its not really that hard to stay organised and on top of it IMO. I'd say that you can avoid tangles (what I take they mean by twists) either way.

Yeah, I suppose I'm looking at it from a time perspective, I tend to prefer a single rope and an emergency tag line on big easyish routes as I find the ropework so much less complex.

I mostly preferred 1 with a few meters of 2 to give the belayer a head start sorting out the ratnest. Zero effort and it works almost every time.

jk

I did a route with over 30 pitches and led every pitch.

Tie in with double opposed screwgates. 

When you get to stance belay as normal. Flake rope over rope ends leading from harness to belay if no where else to put it, or into a sling as has already been mentioned.

Have cows tail/sling  larks footed into belay loop for each of you.

Second arrives and clips in with cow's tail. Swap rope ends and even belay plate( no need to take off rope). And you are ready to go. 

It is very quick.

From reading this thread, it seems option 4 (un/retie) gets a few votes. Many years ago I was taught that this was very much never the thing to do on a multipitch. Have modern guidelines changed?

Either way I wouldn't do it, it would give me the willies!

#2 is what I do, especially with less experienced seconds.

2