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Advice on lowering from a bolt..

SHANESHAW

11-Sep-2007
5:13:21 PM

On 11/09/2007 The good Dr wrote:
>Why bother with frigging around with crappy carrots when you can just rap
>off a skyhook anyway. Means you don't have to find any bolts!

GEEZ, I didn't think about using a skyhook!!!!! How silly. I had an extenable piece of of steel timber in my backpack maybe I could have used that to climbdown......... The other thing I forgot was I had a left handed screw driver in my pcoket cud have stuck that into the rock and rapped of that.


mousey

11-Sep-2007
5:34:00 PM

On 11/09/2007 wallwombat wrote:
>Skyhooks aren't cheap.
>
>A couple of months ago I rapped of a piece of sandstone I wedged in a
>crack. I backed it up with gear and my partner went first and when it didn't
>disintergrate, I took away the pieces and very tentatively abseiled of
>it. At the time I was a bit pissed off that I had to leave a sling .

yiewww old school chockstones are the best! though ive only used one once, bailing off an offwidth on mt wellington when it started pissing down rain. heart thumping fun!


The good Dr

11-Sep-2007
5:39:37 PM

Macciza is right though, he probably remembers the days when you would just aim for a tree or a soft looking rock and jump for it. That were in the days before all your'e fancy bolts and ropes and stuff. Aye.


Macciza

11-Sep-2007
7:03:52 PM

Whislt the first two answers were certainly interesting they obviously have problems which were noticed
so not too bad there chaps - good effort but no prize.
WW&S was gonna get a touchdown until I checked to see who it was - thanks Dave I was gonna string
em along a bit longer but you did describe it perfectly, well done
This technique also works on rings.
Remember if lowering of a single dodgy piece - if you are backcleaningho;d on to the down rope or better
yet put a prussick on it and hold that . . .


Chuck Norris

11-Sep-2007
8:59:25 PM

I actually wasn't after a prize. I was just trying to cut off the stupid "i'm experienced & your not ha ha"
challenge. I'm more pissed off with myself that a 39.5 degree fever and 8 years overseas didn't make the
3 seconds thought that I gave it sufficient to recall the more efficient method mentioned by the other
dude.


Macciza

11-Sep-2007
9:30:31 PM

The prize bit was just a figure of speech and I'm just ticked off at the number of ring-coddled juniors
pretending to be experts about what is 'safe' when they really have no experience of what is dangerous
and little understanding of the physics behind what is actually happening - sorry about that . . .

dalai

11-Sep-2007
9:54:08 PM

On 11/09/2007 Macciza wrote:
>The prize bit was just a figure of speech and I'm just ticked off at the
>number of ring-coddled juniors
>pretending to be experts about what is 'safe' when they really have no
>experience of what is dangerous
>and little understanding of the physics behind what is actually happening
>- sorry about that . . .

Wow, how did you know all that about me!! ;-)

Don't be so self riteous and try be more open to other peoples opinions. Rather than just put down others just because they hold a different view. Mention an opinion that differs from yours or the R word you will appear from the wood work to mount your great quest to educate the masses with a religeous zeal...

I've hand drilled enough and placed enough carrots to know how variable each carrot bolt can be. Regardless how good it may still look on the surface, just with my own which I know how deep I've drilled the hole and how long my bolt is, what taper I've filed it to and how it sat in the hole before I started bashing the living daylights out of it in a vain attempt for the bolt to sit in far enough. Then knowing others will have had the same variable result!

Just because you want to beat your chest and show how brave you are and what you would use to bail off a route. We have a relative new climber to the caper who has asked a pertinent question. Rather than just say that single carrots a bomber (or ring for that matter), it probably wouldn't hurt early on in particular to try and give them a good degree of sceptism as to the reliability of individual bits of fixed gear?


Macciza

11-Sep-2007
10:47:03 PM

Sorry - but I did not mean to come across self-righteous and I don't think I put anyone down.
I don't think I was 'beating my chest' and it's really not a question of bravery - simply what works
sufficiently to solve the problem with the least drama and loss of gear; and he asked . . .
The bolt Shaneshaw mentioned was a glue-in and they had evaluated it as fine - I believe them.
At least you got me to re-read the thread - sorry shane, I will PM you the details to avoid problems . . .

james

11-Sep-2007
11:18:52 PM

I think it was Squeak (or some other old Qld climber person... Eduardo maybe? otherwise I might just be making things up..) that had a reputation for lowering off nut keys. much less faffing round than wires & bolt plates & carrots...


muki

11-Sep-2007
11:47:01 PM

I have lowered off on wires more than once, usually cos when onsighting, I did'nt have a plate with me
and used a wire instead of a plate, then found that the crux was too hard and lowered out, back
cleaning as I went, then give it a good flick and down it comes. (in a perfect world)
Have to agree with the wisdom that any single piece you rely on, fixed or natural, can get spooky, if
the gear was put in by myself then bailed off on then thats a different story! but most of the time I feel
a little scetch lowering out off a single piece.
There have been occasions where I have replaced a plate with a wire, (cos I'm a tight arse), and don't
have a problem with trusting the wire, I've usualy taken some pretty big dives off the wall onto the bolt
for me to have to bail off the climb in the first place!
The method I use is to slide the nut down the cable, leaving a nice long loop of stainless cable, any
number nut will do.
Then hold the loop open over the top of the plate and biner as if you are sliping it onto the bolt, this is
of course impossible due to the draw and rope! then clip in hard through the open loop in the cable that
you are holding open, to the top biner on the plate with a short sling from the belay loop on your
harness.
Once in hard on the top biner it will allow you to unclip the rope and feed the draw through the loop in
the cable, put the wire down behind the plate and clip the rope into a biner or draw on the nut.
Then unclip the hard point you made to the top biner on the draw and carefully body wieght the wire.
Put the draw and plate away, then lower out "GENTLY" and flick it all down.
I NEVER do this on droopy bolts, bad looking bolts, or overhanging climbs (where the force on the wire
is outwards rather than straight down on the bolt) practice this in a safe place, ie: a bolt on a wall with
a top rope from above, good luck, and for what its worth, do whatever makes you feel safe, leaver
biner, locking biner, draw, two draws, a malion rapide, whatever!!! it's your life, your gear, do what ever
makes you happy!!! you might live longer!!!.... BP


Cool Hand Lock

12-Sep-2007
12:05:24 AM

Ah, I have seen this wire lowering Bomber speaks of. I remember Moonaire. That ferkin huge wire you lowered off. It seemed really secure. I'd lower off a single wire if it was that secure, anyday.


nmonteith

12-Sep-2007
9:29:01 AM

On 11/09/2007 Macciza wrote:
>Sorry - but I did not mean to come across self-righteous and I don't think
>I put anyone down.
>I don't think I was 'beating my chest' and it's really not a question
>of bravery - simply what works
>sufficiently to solve the problem with the least drama and loss of gear;
>and he asked . . .

That was the tone i detected as well Macca.

All training teaches that using a single piece of gear for a belay or a rap anchor is bad. Double bolts
are the norm for rap stations. Two or three bits of trad gear is considered the norm for a belay. The
concept is simple - redundancy.

There has been a few accidents in recent years which involved deaths caused from people trusting a
single bit of gear to rap off. The most recent was in NZ a few years back. My vauge memory is that
the bit of gear held the first absieler down the rope, then ripped out on the second absieler.

I have removed hundreds of carrots, 90% were bomber, but the 10% that weren't looked just like any
other bomber carrot. These INCLLUDED glue in carrots that i pulled out with my fingers. I have also
placed plenty of (crap) bash-in carrots in the past as well. I would be very scared to know that people
would absiel off a single one of these. Brings shivers down my spine....


Eduardo Slabofvic

12-Sep-2007
10:26:25 AM

On 11/09/2007 james wrote:
>I think it was Squeak (or some other old Qld climber person... Eduardo
>maybe? otherwise I might just be making things up..) that had a reputation
>for lowering off nut keys.

Huuuuurrrlllll!

I've always liked the mentality of leaving gear behind to bail from a route. Like, we'll go to great lengths to
justify leaving as little gear as possible, and rightly so, as gear costs money. Its obviously much more
sensible to save $50 and risk your life.

I've never done the nut key thang, but have done the flicked wire thing many times. I’ve also rapped off
my chalk bag sling several times.

Another technique is the small bail-out sling with two ropes (or two ends of one rope) so that you rap on
one rope doubled, then tie the end of the other to the other to one end of the sling so you can pull it down
when your on the ground. Obviously, your still leaving something behind as the anchor, like a 0 RP or your
friends Link Cam.

Going hand over hand down the rope whilst being lowered will have the potential to reduce the weight on
the anchor.


tnd

12-Sep-2007
11:06:37 AM

On 12/09/2007 nmonteith wrote:
>...The most recent was in NZ a few years back.
>My vauge memory is that
>the bit of gear held the first absieler down the rope, then ripped out
>on the second absieler...

Justin McDonald in 2001. That incident was also an example of how the so-called backup piece in place for the first rap can fool you into a false sense of security. They rapped off a decent sized nut in a good placement as they didn't want to leave a cam. For the first rap they placed another piece, unweighted, as a back up. The first person to descend did so incident free. Justin then removed the back up and started down. Several metres above the ground the system gave way and Justin ended up sliding a long way down an ice slope into a crevasse, eventually dying in hospital of his injuries.

When found, the nut was still attached to the rope, so presumably it had pulled through the rock.


Richard

12-Sep-2007
1:14:46 PM

>Justin McDonald in 2001.

Id just met Justin in Unwin hut a few days before this. He seemed like a really nice guy. A few days later, in the place where he'd been sitting was a newspaper describing the his death...

A similar incident is this one in Tas (abseil anchor failure):

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=5&MessageID=1869&Replies=23&PagePos=80&Sort=LastMessage#newpost


Chuck Norris

12-Sep-2007
7:59:22 PM

On 12/09/2007 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:
>
>Another technique is the small bail-out sling with two ropes (or two ends
>of one rope) so that you rap on
>one rope doubled, then tie the end of the other to the other to one end
>of the sling so you can pull it down
>when your on the ground. Obviously, your still leaving something behind
>as the anchor, like a 0 RP or your
>friends Link Cam.

probably worth mentioning that this is a good way of retreating from a route with a fixed hanger bolt.
You can only do a 1/3 rope length retreat but at least it doesn't leave anything behind like a bail biner.

Also just for clarity in terms of retreating from a carrot - the way WW&S recommended is clearly the
best (IMO)...I used the way I mentioned above for a long time and then one day someone showed me
the alternative...it was so easy and "safe" (in terms of messing about) that I felt stupid for doing
something else for so long.


Macciza

12-Sep-2007
8:29:41 PM

Well I'm sorry that feathers got ruffled in the process but this was what I suggested in the first place
and I am glad the info will live on slightly longer because of it. Thanks to all concerned. I find this
system works well, leaves no gear behind, and has a acceptable safety margin. Yes I know that bolts
can fail but the effective danger is really no greater doing it like this than leaving a plate and biner.

Yes I now the books teach 2 points etc etc but in some way that is the 'economists' view.
Real life is not always like that and epics never are. Improvised survival techniques that deal with the
situation are valuable assets in a climbers arsenal. That is really what can keep us alive not 2 biners,

Maybe there should be a scenario thread where people can post problematic situation and then offer
solutions that solve the problem . . . It's a game I used to play quite often . . .


Chuck Norris

12-Sep-2007
9:43:32 PM

On 12/09/2007 Macciza wrote:
>the books teach 2 points etc etc but in some way that is the
>'economists' view.
>Real life is not always like that and epics never are. Improvised survival
>techniques that deal with the
>situation are valuable assets in a climbers arsenal. That is really what
>can keep us alive not 2 biners,

I agree 1000%. All I would add is that the thread started with a guy who was first time faced with such
a decision. The response "simulrap cos you made the judgement it was bomber" i personally think was
a bit reckless. Pointing out that 2 biners were redundant given the variability of a single glue in would
have
helped a bit more in giving the guy a foothold into the next level of judgement.

Finally I also agree that the 'bean counting/do it by the book keeping" message *sometimes* given on
threads is infuriating. In general I am refreshed when you point out that in real life thunderstorms
happen, you drop your #6 rock and the #7 just wont fit, it gets dark and you are 70m off the deck not
50m etc....and crazy people we are...in those situations we don't do it by the book!!! I'm a fan of the
scenario thread...so start it....

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