Working a sport route solo...SAFETY-Stick Clip concern....

[RyanG]

To preface, I've top roped solo for quite awhile now, and feel completely comfortable with my set-up. I use a Petzl croll with a torse chest harness and a micro traxion as a back-up. Both of these devices are attached via steel carabiner.

NOW for the question...I solo aided a sport route the other day stick clipping my way up the route to setup my solo top-rope. The anchors are obviously not accessible from the top. This worked out fine, but I'm not entirely comfortable going direct into one limestone bolt. I need to feed out so much slack between my grigri and the next bolt that if the bolt were to fail, I'd be hurting.

My thoughts are to try cloving into each quickdraw, I'd be limiting my dynamic rope stretch by doing this, but at least I'd have the next bolt to catch me..Am I thinking this through properly?

I can simply undo the cloves once I'm rapping down to start the route.

SECOND QUESTION....When no ground anchor is present. Stick clip a knot into the first two bolts (locking biners)?? Never done this method, but it seems fine.

Thanks so much for the replies.

Ryan

[RyanG]

BTW...I would have asked this on MProject, but didn't want to hear all the BS. This site is much more formal, with constructive response!

Thanks,

Ryan

[Chris W]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by clove hitching into each draw. Can you clarify?

[Chris W]

I would assume that the higher you got on the route, the safer it would be in the event of a bolt failure. The only other thing I can think of would be bringing a hook up and weighing that on the rock, though I'm not sure that's a good option. If the bolts are really bad, can you replace them?

[MarkAnderson]

Thanks for the compliments on the tone of our forum! I'm continuously amazed at how positive and supportive this community is. Now DON"T TELL ANYONE! We don't need this turning into RC.com, haha.

Two lockers on the first two bolts is what I do (figure eight on a bite on the first bolt, clove hitch on the 2nd). This is a lot easier to rig if your stick clip is long enough to reach the 2nd or 3rd bolt.

For the first question, I don't clove each draw, or use any other sort of backup. I figure if the bolt fails I will whip, and hopefully not deck. I tend to have a lot of faith in bolts though (maybe too much).

Anyway, I will assume you are jugging with one GriGri (or similar) and one Ascender. In this case, I think the best way to go would be to self-belay with a Grigri (which I assume you are doing anyway), but stick clip with the slack end of the rope (or brake hand end of the rope, so you aren't pulling out slack on the climber's end to clip), then once clipped, clip into a bite on the free-hanging end (so the toprope is backing up the bolt you are straight-in to) while you disconnect the grigri and move it to the proper strand of rope (the "free-hanging end") for jugging to the next bolt. The downside of this approach is that you're having to disconnect the GriGri at each bolt, but at least you're still "on belay" while stick clipping. You could potentially use two Grigris to avoid disconnecting but I think that would be a bit of a PITA.

[latestarter]

Thank-you. Interesting...I'am self belaying with a Grigri, but I would clip in direct to the draw/anchor, at that point I would pull slack from the "live rope" side of the Grigri (I.e. Not the slack side). I tried to be vigilant about pulling up enough slack to reach the next bolt, and tie an overhand backup to a steel biner. The bolts aren't sketchy by any means, but I couldn't help but think that if this bolt blows while I'm getting slack...I'd be looking at a 15-20ft min. Drop. I guess I was thinking I could use a clove or a reverse klemheist to keep all the excess slack/stretch out. My thought being this would help minimize a little bit of the fall. I'm starting to think I'm over analyzing this....

[Chris W]

OK, now I see what you mean. I think what you're doing sounds fine; about as safe as something like that can be.

[tedwelser]

Hey folks-

I usually dont worry about the fact of the extra slack. But when I do, I pull out all the needed slack and then tie a temporary figure 8 on a bight at the anchor end of the rope (right after it runs through the current draw) this also keeps the rope from tugging downward on the stick clip. I clip this 8 into my belay loop. This means that you are as good as on belay to your bolt anchor, but have plenty of rope to clip the next bolt.

After the next bolt is clipped and I pull mostly tight on the gri gri I unclip the 8 and untie it.

[tsh]

Ryan,
For your first question, if you can afford a Silent Partner and a pair of aiders, I would highly recommend it.  Whenever I need to solo-aid a sport route, rather than pulling out a bunch of slack to clip the next bolt with a stick clip, I clip an aider into the next bolt with the stick clip.  Then I'll use a daisy chain  to clip into the highest aider step I can reach so that the aider is supporting all of my weight.  Only then will I clip the lead rope into the bolt I was at (by now that bolt should be at your level or lower, so there is no need to pull out a bunch of slack to clip it) like you normally would with a quickdraw when leading a route. Then climb your way up the aider, clip directly into that bolt, and repeat.  When done correctly, you never even weight the rope while leading the route.  It's standard aid climbing technique, and much less dangerous than what it sounds like you're doing.  Granted, it's unlikely a bolt will fail on you, but if you're uncomfortable with the size of the resulting whipper, then you may want to consider this method.  Hopefully my description makes sense.  If it doesn't, you can just look up a youtube tutorial on aid climbing to get the idea.  The only difference here is that bolt spacing on a sport route is much bigger than an aid climbing bolt ladder, so you need to incorporate the stick clip and also clip into aider steps like I described.  Hope that helps.

[RichF]

I think "tsh" is on the right track if you are worried about the quality of any of the bolts. If you don't have aiders, you could also just make use of the other end of the rope. Use your stick clip to hang that end of the rope from the next bolt. Jug that section of rope while still belaying yourself on the grigri on the other end of the rope that runs back through the draws below you.

The few times I've had to do something like this I've been on bomber rock, wasn't worried about the bolts, and used the method you're doing now. I think it's totally fine as long as you are clipping in short before paying out the slack to clip the next bolt above you.

[jrblack]

I stick-clipped up a sport route today using the standard ascender-plus-grigri to go bolt-to-bolt. At times I was in direct to a single bolt and while transferring the grigri over to the other strand (as Mark describes above) I would be hanging from one bolt period (ie, no attachment to the rope for 10 seconds while I moved the grigri). The ascender wasn't attached to me, so it wasn't a backup (maybe it should be, but there was already enough crap on my belay loop).

A couple things to note plus questions:

• Although I thought about the wisdom of hanging my life from one bolt over and over, they were all shiny 1/2" bolts.  And I thought of videos of Dean Potter or Alex Honnold soloing walls with daisies, trusting their lives to a single bolt without seeming to worry much.
• Ascending overhanging rock with a grigri and ascender-plus-footsling is way strenuous.  It sucks that I'm so wasted after doing this (takes me about 1 hour to get the rope up)
• The most stressful part of this whole deal is handling the stick clip to make a 15' reach, with the weight of the rope, wobbling as I try to stick the hanger.  I'm constantly worried I'm going to drop the stick-clip and have to go all the way back down to get it.  Do folks usually have a tether?
• If a bolt blows while I'm moving the grigri, I'm dead.  If a bolt blows any other time, I'm going for a 20 footer on a static rope.  Should I be using a dynamic rope for this?  (They suck for rope-soloing, and I really don't want to hump two ropes to this climb)

P.S. With respect to MP and the OP's disinclination to post there: I fully agree!  I once posted something like this on MP and it was just a sh*tstorm.

[Chris W]

I use a dynamic rope. I anchor mine in and stick clip up. Once I get to the bolt, I clip directly into the bolt and take my ascender off the rope. I NEVER unclip my grigri. Once I'm in direct, I just feed out as much slack as I think I need and then stick clip, re-attach my ascender, and jug up to the next bolt. I don't tether my stick clip. I use the (beta stick?) stick clip from Trango's website. When I'm done with it, I just clip it onto one of my gear loops and go.

I've seen the videos of Dean Potter and Alex Honold using those single bolts. That's a risk Alex will have to take. Dean Potter is dead and can no longer take risks. He died in a base jump wing suit accident. Technically, I'm not trusting my life to a single bolt, but a bolt failure would still be bad. If a bolt close to the ground blew, I could have enough slack in the system that I'd deck. Fortunately, bolt failure is rare. I replace bolts at my local crag, and even the bad ones that I've replaced were still plenty strong.

I use a dynamic rope for all of this. Even with the dynamic rope, I still feel like my body is getting racked every time I fall onto the rope. There is always at least a foot of slack in the system to fall onto when working moves, at least the way I have it set up.

BTW, I only have one thing on my belay loop; my grigri. I have two slings through my harness tie in points that I can use to clip in direct.

Ideally, I'd be out with a partner doing this, but often my option is either to go out solo or not at all.

[cozisco]

jrblack,
When you're using Mark's method described above:

Jun 28, 2017 16:27:46 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

...stick clip with the slack end of the rope (or brake hand end of the rope, so you aren't pulling out slack on the climber's end to clip), then once clipped, clip into a bite on the free-hanging end (so the toprope is backing up the bolt you are straight-in to) while you disconnect the grigri and move it to the proper strand of rope (the "free-hanging end") for jugging to the next bolt.

while you're transferring over the grigri, you should be (a) clipped in direct to the bolt at your waist and (b) clipped in to the bolt above you using a bight on the backside of the rope (eg, figure eight on a bight w/ a locking carabiner). Since you're clipped in to two bolts while transferring the grigri, I'm not sure I'm not sure I'd worry about your fourth bullet point. Echoing your third bullet point above, with this method I'm more concerned about dropping the grigri if I'm transferring it over at every bolt (while trying to secure the stick clip).

Also, what stick clip are you using? I love Mr. Longarm but I've found switching to a lighter/smaller stick clip (eg trango beta stick) is easier for aiding up routes.

[jrblack]

Apr 1, 2018 0:30:22 GMT -7 cozisco said:

Also, what stick clip are you using? I love Mr. Longarm but I've found switching to a lighter/smaller stick clip (eg trango beta stick) is easier for aiding up routes.

I'm using a 24' long light-bulb changing pole with a superclip on the end of it.  It's heavy, and probably part of the reason I find it so unwieldy clipping up routes.  It's great for clipping high first bolts from the ground (my original intent when I bought it).

I'm worried the beta stick would be too short for this route (the distance from the last bolt to the chains is probably 15').

[jcm]

Simple solution to the issue of having a big loop of slack when you clip up: have a second piece of rope for jugging on. I have a 20’ scrap of rope (from a trimmed lead line) I use for this. Tie a knot at the end of this piece of rope, and clip it to the highest bolt you can reach. Then jug up it with two jumars. Get to that bolt, go in direct with a daisy, detach jumars, clip it as high as you can (I try to go every other bolt), and repeat.

Meanwhile, as you go up, you use the gri-gri and the regular lead/tr rope to self-belay in the typical manner. Because this is a separate system, you can give yourself a normal, safe belay the entire time. No big sketchy slack loops, no detaching from the gri gri. Use a dynamic rope.