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General Climbing Discussion

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28-Jun-2016 At 5:24:15 PM gfdonc

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OK I'll weigh in. I've been climbing since the late 70's so a similar length of experience.

The scouts and MUMC can take some responsibility for my climbing education. Actually not so much education, more access to cheap loaner gear rather than expertise or supervision. My first lead instruction involved making sure I could tie in properly then saying "go up there".
Nevertheless a few of us worked it out and climbed with enough more experienced folk to pick up enough tips so as not to perish too quickly.

Over the years I've stuck with what I am comfortable with. There have been a few additional ideas thrown in along the way. Some of these have fortunately stayed with me, such as using a proper quickdraw for clipping bolts (back in the bad days we used to just use two biners). Others not, such as belaying off a munter (I could probably work it out if I had to).

Nevertheless I still prefer to belay off the harness, but I'll run the rope through a bomber redirect when bringing up the second.

I still stick with a double fishermans. When rapping, the last person should always feed the knot over the edge. I can only recall one instance where the rope got stuck due to the knot, on the Mirrorball rap where it went into a crack and any type of knot would have stuck just the same.

EDK still has limits with ropes of unequal diameter I believe.

I don't use an autoblock on raps. I find it's better to have two hands free to hold the rope and I think less complicated systems are inherently safer over a long time. If taking beginners, I let them rap on a single and belay them on the other rope.

Never owned a PAS, I can see the point but it's one more thing to carry. I will take a cordelette a lot of the time, 7mm or 8mm nylon cord, which is tough and stretchy enough to absorb shock. However if moving fast or saving weight I'll just use the rope to tie into the belay.

My 2c.