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Chockstone Forum - Gear Lust / Lost & Found

Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

Author
Silent Partner - the finer points
hamish_b
29-Aug-2016
2:07:39 PM
Hey all,
I've just had a bit of a play with my silent partner over the weekend. Some multi pitch sport to get the systems worked out. I had a few questions as to the finer points that other silent partner users may have already worked out.

-It seems to me that a shorter rope is an advantage. I'm tying off clove hitches every 6m or so, so at the start of the climb the whole 60m of rope is hanging off my harness in 10 by 3m loops. Or are people using longer (or shorter loops).
-Following on from the above, how do you keep the whole belay loop area from becoming a total mess...
-The end game is to go and spend a week or so on el cap, but I can see offwidthing/chimneying with all the rope loops and the device itself being fairly ugly and lets face it, offwidthing is already fun enough as it is. Anyone got any experience with rope solo wide cracking?
-when you rap then jumar to clean are you better off cleaning on rap or on the jumar? It might seem heaps easier to clean on rap at first, but i find jummaring less tiring when you have gear a few metres ahead and it becomes esp. interesting on a route that has a lot of sideways movements. I'm leaning towards cleaning on rap and then lowering out off the anchor on climbs with a lot of sideways movement.
-anyone found any good forums/resources for using the silent partner free climbing?

Thanks

Hamish
ima.seriousyoungliza
29-Aug-2016
5:01:38 PM
...this bloke can answer all ur questions in relation to above ...

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?ForumID=&Action=Profile&UserName=sliamese

IdratherbeclimbingM9
29-Aug-2016
9:06:25 PM
On 29/08/2016 ima.seriousyoungliza wrote:
>...this bloke can answer all ur questions in relation to above ...
>
>http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?ForumID=&Action=Profile&UserName=sliamese

... but in the meantime, as sliamese last logged in 16 May-

On 29/08/2016 hamish_b wrote:
>Hey all,
>I've just had a bit of a play with my silent partner over the weekend.
> Some multi pitch sport to get the systems worked out. I had a few questions
>as to the finer points that other silent partner users may have already
>worked out.
>
>-It seems to me that a shorter rope is an advantage.

Not necessarily.

>I'm tying off clove hitches every 6m or so, so at the start of the climb the whole 60m of rope
>is hanging off my harness in 10 by 3m loops. Or are people using longer (or shorter loops).

I use longer loops, hence less of them. Loop length varies with terrain and my mindset at the time.
Having said that, it is easier if you pick your routes to oblige! The more straight up the line, and the more overhanging it is, the easier the loop management is.

A consideration to ponder at your discretion.
The whole process of soloing requires (for me at least) a calculated mindset. In my opinion no-one intends to fall on roped solo, and the distance that one is prepared to fall with backups in place will vary with the terrain involved. Having said that, it is quite feasible to use a SP without any backup loops, other than being tied into the end of the rope, if that is a risk that you are prepared to accept... If that kind of whipper doesn't faze you then I consider it a relatively safe risk when high on a multi-pitch with clean air below..

>-Following on from the above, how do you keep the whole belay loop area from becoming a total mess...

I have found that different harnesses affect the 'mess aspect' differently.
My BD Alpine Bod harness with modified hand tied belay loops definitely has less clusterjam in the central waist area using a SP than my Waldo Bigwall Safetytek harness that has double belay loops.
This due to the basic design layout of the harness features involved.

Longer loops means less cluster on your harness. It is a balancing act as the more wandery or stepped the route, then the more hassle the longer backup loops will be.
Backup loops can be a lot easier to manage if they are back-flaked into a 'stubbie' rope-bag hanging off your harness by a short cows-tail.
Other than that, attaching a 'dedicated to the backup-loops' short sling on rear of harness works tolerably well. Basically it needs to be long enough to allow one handed fetching of the next loop to be dropped. This process also works better if the attachment point (dedicated krabs) for the loops are clipped sequentially chain style, ie instead of racking the backup loops individually and using up harness space, double or triple them up in the racking process.

>-The end game is to go and spend a week or so on el cap, but I can see
>offwidthing/chimneying with all the rope loops and the device itself being
>fairly ugly and lets face it, offwidthing is already fun enough as it is.
> Anyone got any experience with rope solo wide cracking?

?
The wider the crack, then the less hassle the backup loops tend to be, as they are less inclined to snag...

>-when you rap then jumar to clean are you better off cleaning on rap or on the jumar?

It depends on whether you are abseiling on the Silent Partner or another device, as well as how overhanging or traversy the route is.
The more overhanging or traversy the route, then the more I'm inclined to use a separate abseil device, and if necessary, a longer than quickdraw length sling as a trammel clipped in to the 'fixed' lead rope off harness to stay connected to the 'line'.


>It might seem heaps easier to clean on rap at first, but i find jummaring less tiring when you have gear a few metres ahead and it becomes esp. interesting on a route that has a lot of sideways movements.

On straight-forward routes cleaning on abseil is often easiest.

> I'm leaning towards cleaning on rap and then lowering out off the anchor on climbs with a lot of sideways movement.

... This makes sense to me.

>-anyone found any good forums/resources for using the silent partner free climbing?

I haven't especially looked though I find the use of a SP fairly intuitive, ... and I enjoy working out clusterjams and snarfus!
>
>Thanks
>
>Hamish
>

(Post edited 31/08/16, by my adding additional information).

Drake
30-Aug-2016
6:07:01 PM
Standard practice for aid soloing (at least in Yosemite), is to climb with two ropes- a dynamic and a static. Both ropes are anchored to anchor #1. Lead on the dynamic, trailing the static. At the next belay, pull up most of the slack in both ropes, and attach both to anchor #2. Abseil on the static; if the pitch was strongly overhung or traversing, you may need to abseil past anchor #1 and then jumar back up to reach it.

Release the haul bag on the static. Prepare to jumar on the dynamic and clean anchor #1. Jumar the pitch, cleaning as you go, and reach anchor #2. Haul the bag, attach it to anchor #2. Repeat.

On straight-up pitches, it's easy to clean on abseil instead, as you say. I dislike cleaning on abseil on anything with even a bit of traversing or overhang, but that's up to you.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
31-Aug-2016
8:28:27 AM
Drake has raised good points in respect of roped soloing.

There are quite a few threads in the Chockstone archives that discuss the issues involved...
(The search function is your friend!)

Here is one to get you started, and a few posts into it, it has links to some others...

hamish_b
31-Aug-2016
9:18:02 PM
Thanks guys - great advice

There are 6 messages in this topic.

 

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