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Posted

It's uncommon to have to give slack to a person while another is hanging. As both people are ascending and not descending, it's usually not an issue. But...

 

If one person is actually hanging it is quite difficult to give slack to the other. The easiest thing to do would be to tell the hanging person to unweight the rope while you pull some slack for the other. If this is not possible, you will have to rig the reverso for a lower...this is where things get tricky.

 

To lower a person on a reverso:

 

1) Girth hitch a cordellete to the carabiner that the rope is running through on the back of the reverso.

 

2) Run the end of the cordellete up through a strong point in the anchor -- ideally the shelf or powerpoint.

 

3) Now that the cordellete is redirected through a piece, rig a loop in the end of it.

 

4) Carefully step in the loop. This will pull back the biner which is locking off the climber. Don't stand in the loop, just put a little weight on it and then release. Do this slowly and carefully so that you don't lose control of the climber.

 

If you mess around with a reverso enough, most of the problems people have complained about here will go away. If you climb in three man teams a lot with reversos, you'll eventually be climbing as fast as a two man team.

 

Jason

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Posted

just one clarification Jason on your step 4. Once the device is lifted back like you say, it becomes a tubular belay device and one MUST hold the climber appropriatly. It is not like a gri gri were you could "throttle" the brake affect with the lever. Just didn't want anyone to think incorrectly about this.

 

Once again, nice job Jason.

Posted
Petzl's version

 

They suggest using an "Italian Hitch" (Munter?) to belay when you release the brake biner.

 

I haven't tried it with a back-up. They show using a munter hitch after the steps that I essentially described. I can see where it might be safer to use this than without and have to recommend it for your early experiments with lowering.

 

One great advantage to the Petzl system shown is that once the reverso's angle is changed you can simply lower the person to the ground without the jerky ride that the system I described generally entails.

 

Jason

Posted

The only trick I see to the Petzl version is getting the sling the precise length on the sling or cordelette so that you can pull down on it using your harness. By using your foot, you get more travel so the length isn't as important.

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