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Belaying the second on double ropes? 17-Feb-2006 At 10:23:58 PM Andrew_M

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Hey LBN,

Jeez, it depends. You've just built the anchor, lead the pitch and know what the climbing is like so you can plug in a whole lot of factors into a brain equation and work out what would be best for the circumstances.

The reverso is great for most cases as long as the anchor is bomber and you can get a powerpoint above about waist height. Personally If I'm doing a multipitch with doubles it's usually (always?) some rambly low grade affair or on snow/ice and the seconds are unlikely to be hanging in space somewhere without being able to get some weight off the rope...so they shouldn't need to be lowered...although a couple of times seconds have wanted to traverse to a line further out after rope had been taken in and yes it was a pain. If you're climbing stuff that is going to be hard for the second to get back on and unweight the rope then you'd probably know this on your way up. if the shit really did hit the fan and you had to unweight the reverso it doesn't SEEM all that hard (dicked around with it but never had to do it in anger though). You've seen the description on the Petzl site on how to do this?

Munters are good too. Two separate munters on separate biners...though they do tend to get in each other's way it doesn't feel unsafe. How do other folks do this if they use munters? It's never occurred to me to use a big 'double munter' on a single biner (is this what you mean...done like you'd be setting it up to abseil on it?) because of the problem of ropes moving at different rates. Particularly if you're belaying 2 seconders.

Directly off the body if it's hard to get the anchor 'powerpoint' in the right place or if you're worried about the anchors but have a ripper of stance (or variations thereof).

Have thought about the slingshot method but never tried it. Yeah you're doubling forces (well, a bit less because of friction) but you're belaying someone on top rope and there shouldn't be much shockloading in the system if you're attentive. Still hard to see what else there is to recommend it over other methods.

Interested to hear what others do as well.

Andrew