Climb Safe: Knot Passing 101
Rappelling past a knot that links two ropes end-to-end, however, need not puzzle you, nor must you learn this seemingly complicated yet vital bit of ropework the hard way. The following five-step method for passing a knot is easy to master, safe and efficient.
Rappelling past a knot that links two ropes end-to-end, need not puzzle you, nor must you learn this seemingly complicated yet vital bit of ropework the hard way. The following five-step method for passing a knot is easy to master, safe and efficient. It does assume that you have two ascenders and are using one on the rope above your rappel device, as a back-up, held with the cam thumbed open by your “guide”hand. (For more on rappel back-ups, see Rock and Ice No. 136.) Though prusiks can substitute for ascenders, they are much harder to operate.
Since you are most likely to pass knots in a big-wall situation, where ascenders are necessary and standard gear, we’ve used ascenders to demonstrate the five steps. Regardless of whether you use ascenders or prusiks, connect them to your harness by girth-hitching a sling or daisy chain through your belay/rappel loop before you begin the rappel. Clip the sling or daisy to each ascender or prusik with a locking carabiner, or two standard biners with their gates opposed and reversed.
Climb Safe: The Skinny on Super Light Ropes
You don’t have to have an apple konk you on the head to realize that as climbers our greatest enemy is gravity, and that gravity’s minion is weight. Defeating gravity by getting lighter, both in terms of ourselves and our gear, is in fact one of our favorite pastimes.
read moreClimb Safe: Top Roping is Not So Safe
Toproping is so safe it’s virtually foolproof, right? Think again. Just a brief belay lapse can produce high loads, testing the holding power of your gear. In this week’s Climb Safe, Rock and Ice field-tests real-world climbing scenarios.
read moreClimb Safe: How To Survive Bad Weather on El Cap
Yosemite seems like a fair-weather paradise, but because it sits high in the Sierra Nevada and close to the Pacific Ocean, cold, wet storms can strike any time. Bad weather and lack of preparedness can be a deadly combination. Here’s how you can avoid becoming a Valley statistic.
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