handline for scrambling

[MITllama02]

The "75 scrambles" book says that a handline may be wanted and recommends some perlon. I have taken a climbing class but it went into the full rope with harness and belay/rapel lessons. Handlines sound more informal.

 

Do you just loop the perlon through a sling like a rope?

Do you attach it to a harness at all, hold onto it with one hand as you descend, or just dangle it down in front of you in case you want to grab onto it?

[Greg_W]

MITllama02 said:

The "75 scrambles" book says that a handline may be wanted and recommends some perlon. I have taken a climbing class but it went into the full rope with harness and belay/rapel lessons. Handlines sound more informal.

 

Do you just loop the perlon through a sling like a rope?

Do you attach it to a harness at all, hold onto it with one hand as you descend, or just dangle it down in front of you in case you want to grab onto it?

 

drill bolts all over the Cascades and fix permanent lines. That will make it safer. Also, glue down all loose rock.

[chucK]

Handline sounds more like a line that you use as a handhold (i.e. not a full blown rappel with harness etc.). Probably set it up like a rappel though, for retrieval after you get down.

 

What scrambles does it recommend a handline for?

[Dru]

Handlines are aid

[Bronco]

chucK said:

What scrambles does it recommend a handline for?

 

North face of Mt. Baring.

 

Just kidding, but they recomend one for the walk up on Baring. I have carried one while hiking for years and never used it. Once I started learning technical climbing, I realized how useless a 50' piece of cord is other than guying out a tent.

[Toast]

I've been out twice where handlines have come in handy. Once was getting over an icy bulge with a LOT of exposure. We did a quick hip belay for one of our party who wasn't so comfortable, rigged them up with a quick bowline on a coil, no harness necessary. The other time was for a short rap down a steep gully. We rigged a sling and a locking biner up as a diaper harness. Again no harness necessary.

 

As Samwise Gamgee would say, a trusty piece of rope comes in handy.

[catbirdseat]

You can use an arm rappel if you like or go hand over hand. You can tie the rope off single strand to a tree with a bowline and send your more timid scramblers down on it and have the last guy retrieve it. You can double it around a tree if it is long enough and pull it from below, but it might get sap on the rope or damage the tree. Better yet, bring a leaver sling for the purpose. If you have one locking biner (and a sling), you can belay someone down (or up) using a Munter Hitch.

 

Beal makes an 8 mm x 30 m rope that would be ideal for the purpose. Klenke had one that we used for a 15 m rappel once. We happened to have harnesses, but you can also do a dulfersitz or an arm rappel, though both are hard on your fine apparel.

[mattp]

I have used a "handline" lots of times when climbing with groups of varying ability. The more compfident climber sets the rope and the others simply hang onto it or they may use a harness and clip theirselves into it using a short runner and locking 'biner (or two) as if it were a via ferrata. (Don't start that fall factor and dynamic vs static stuff, you guys -- hand lines are usually used in places that may be exposed or loose but are barely technical and hence not steep enough to generate large fall forces.) In this application, the handline may be tied to rock-climbing anchors, buried ice axes (deadman style) or rocks or trees, and should be securely anchored at both ends, and perhaps in the middle or at multiple intermediate points. At intermediate anchors, the handline should be tied directly to the anchor or to a carabiner clipped to a sling leading to the anchor (a locking biner or pair of biners reverssed is preferrable here). Use a figure eight or (perhaps better) a butterfly knot -- rather than simply running the rope through a 'biner -- so each segment of the handline is a separate and isolated segment -- and do not "loop it through a sling like a rope." (Of course, you should generally not loop a rope through a sling, either.)

 

Another place where I've used hand lines is in crossing rivers. In this application you definitely DO NOT clip anybody to it because a person held by a rope will be dragged under if they lose their footing in the middle of rapid stream.

 

I know that "light is right" is the style these days, but if you are going to hang onto a rope, I bet most people will prefer to hang onto a 10 or 11 mm piece of cord than an 8 mm one. Dependng on what you are doing, who is going to be hanging on to it, and how many people are in your group, the extra weight may well be worth it and a retired lead rope, or half of one, will probably work just fine.

 

In canyons, a haul-line/rappel rope comes in very handy and if you are going to go of-trail hiking in Canyonlands or some place like that, I probably would take the 30m piece of 8mm cord Catbird suggests.

[Off_Route]

You may do well with a "handline" of 8mm perlon, 30 meters long. As already mentioned, a thin, static rope like this can be shorter than 30 meters and still be plenty useful for giving you a way to help a newbie scrambler discover self-confidence while negotiating exposed terrain.

 

But with a full 30 meters, you can double it over a horn or through a runner and have enough rope for a dulfersitz rappel that will let you get back down a forty-foot off-route pitch. Getting stuck is bad. Getting back down is good.

 

By the way, as an additional length consideration, if that "handline" is long enough, it can be used with a regular climbing rope to provide for full-length rappels.

 

 

mC

[cluck]

Great example of a place where many folks fix a hand line is "the crawl" on 3 Fingered Jack in central Oregon. One short traverse with some exposure that is too time consuming to belay if you have several folks climbing, but may be too exposed to free for many since consequences of a fall are dire.

 

1st climber is belayed across from an anchor built at one end (sling around a rock horn). Leader builds an anchor (another sling and horn) at far end and ties off the rope onto a biner cliped into the sling. Belayer then ties off other end. Bingo. Hand line attached to two rock solid anchors. Rest of the party follows, often with a prussik knot on rope (clipped into a biner on the harness) so any fall would be stopped quickly.

 

On this route, there is a short section of roped climbing later on, so typically everyone has harnesses anyway. Process is reversed on the way out.

 

Works in the vert. world too for short rock scrambles that are pretty easy to climb (some 4th and low 5th), but exposure is of concern to climbers. Way slower than free climbing but safer. Faster than individual belays for a group larger than 2.