Dividing Out 4 Person Ropes

[AlpineClimber]

Hey all,

 

I've seen a number of people spend countless amounts of time with rope management trying to evenly divide out middle point tie-ins on a 4 person 60m. rope. (The second middle person tie in). Does anyone have a very quick and easy way to do this when your in a hurry?

 

Thanks,

Chris

[Dru]

cut the rope in half and go with 2 parties of 2

[slothrop]

Approximate a meter (I have a 32" inseam, so I add a few inches to that and eyeball it), measure out 20 of them, and tie a butterfly at that point. Repeat. Works for me.

 

Or measure and mark the distances on your rope beforehand.

[CascadeClimber]

Flake out the rope. Clip two biners on it. Each of two people takes an end of the rope and the biner closer to the opposite end of the rope. Each person holds their end and biner and walks away from the other until there is no slack (or one falls in a crevasse). Biners will be at spots for middle two people. It's much easier to demonstrate than explain.

 

-L

[Gary_Yngve]

Yep, the setup Loren is describing looks like a Z when stretched out completely.

[fenderfour]

If you are really lazy, you can use your rescue pulleys to reduce drag.

[CascadeClimber]

If you are really lazy, you can use your rescue pulleys to reduce drag.

 

Or if you are even more lazy, like me, you can have your partners do it under the guise of teaching them.

 

[iain]

I just feed out some rope and say yeah that looks about right. But I usually don't have 4 on a rope I guess.

[tomtom]

Use a Sharpie to mark the rope into thirds.

[mattp]

Take up coils of the rope using full arm-lengths, or a comfortable reach that you can easily keep consitent, and don't actually coil it up but just work your way from one end to the other. Count how many "coils" it takes to pass over the whole thing. Then divide your total corresponsing to whether you are setting the rope out for three or four poeple or whatever, and you can flake it out and tie overhands to mark the clip-in points for your partners without their all having to be involved in that part of the set-up procedure. You just have to "guage" the rope once, and from then on you can flake out ten or twelve coils for each segment, tie a quick overhand, and you are good to go.

[randygoat]

Flake out the rope. Clip two biners on it. Each of two people takes an end of the rope and the biner closer to the opposite end of the rope. Each person holds their end and biner and walks away from the other until there is no slack (or one falls in a crevasse). Biners will be at spots for middle two people. It's much easier to demonstrate than explain.

 

-L

Sounds cool if you have the working space. I've only worked in 2 or 3 on a rope and have always been able to divide it up pretty evenly by yarding out rope at arms span, then doing the math to make it even, more less. Your way does sound good for 4 though.

[chelle]

cascadeclimber's suggestion works for 5 too.

[dlofgren]

Doesn't the ink in a Sharpie adversely affect the rope?

[dmuja]

I read not to use a sharpie on the instructional for my rope.

 

I just divide 198 feet(60m) by 4 = 50 feet(aprox).

 

Fig 8 knot (for the lead) then flake out 10 arm spans of rope.

 

Put in a butterfly or fig 8 (for the second) then another 10 arm spans.

 

Put in the butterfly or fig 8 (for the third) then another 10 arm spans.

 

Put in the last fig 8 (for the forth climber).

 

A full arm span is about 6 feet avrg. I just shorten the arm span a liitle (about a foot) and you have 5 foot intervals to count out. Not exactly text book....

[Gary_Yngve]

cascadeclimber's suggestion works for 5 too.

 

The mathematician says that Loren's suggestion generalizes for n too.

 

The physicist calculates how much more force is necssary to pull the rope evenly while alternating directions n times.

 

The engineer says that you can't fit that many people on a rope anyway, so why waste your time?

[JoshK]

the climber says

 

1.) that a few foot difference in rope between people doesn't matter for shit and the Z method is for anal people and/or guides taking up a group of tourons.

 

2.) a group of 4 is slow and inefficient. 2+2 is better IMHO.

[genepires]

a guide says

 

1.) "Tourons" are still people and who for the most part are really good people.

 

2.) A group of 4 is safer and smarter for people who are new to all of this climbing stuff. Catching a falling climber alone is a hard thing when not prepared or expecting .

 

3.) A few feet difference between people doesn't matter much, but a fast method of splitting up the rope for 4 is a good thing.

 

4.) Have fun and be safe.

Edited July 20, 2004 by genepires

[chris]

It depends more on the glacier than the nmber of climbers! More distance between climbers does not mean more safety, in fact too much distance makes rope management so difficult as to slow the team down. For Cascade glaciers I typically space climbers out 35 - 45 feet (measured out by armlengths), and coil the remaining amount for the end climber to carry.