Gear distribution- 4 man rope team

[hvydrt]

I have been learning and practicing crevasse rescue in my garage and plan to get out and work on anchors once we get some snow here in California. I am planning a trip to Rainier next year and have been thinking about how much and what gear to bring for crevasse rescue if traveling in a 4 man team.

 

I am thinking each person would have 1 pulley, foot, waist and extra prusik, 2 locking biners and 3 wire gate ovals, belay device and a runner or 2. My main question is about how many pickets to carry. One each seems like a lot for a four man team. I was thinking about bringing 2, carried by the 2nd and 3rd.

 

Any opinions on how to distribute gear for travel on a glacier with 4 people? Any other suggestion or tips?

[Dave7]

Depends on personal preference and what kind of route you are traveling on. Depending on the route and season on rainier will help you determine the proper gear.

 

For 4 people on the DC route midsummer, i would probably bring 3 pickets. Pulleys will be excess weight, i would leave them at home, with multiple people hauling on a z pulley you can easily overcome the friction by just using biners.

 

With all the gear you listed you will have no problem building a bomber anchor and hauling out someone if you needed to. Your distribution plan is pretty solid. As long as all the gear isn't with one person you'll be just fine.

Edited September 9, 2011 by Dave7

[genepires]

a couple pulleys per team is fine.

 

a couple pickets per team is fine too. If the person in the hole has a picket, you can bury a axe to replace. I would suggest those runners be double length to allow enough space between anchors for strength.

 

good job with the preparation by learning the right skills.

[DPS]

I have a healthy respect for glaciers, with very good reason. Everyone on the rope team should carry at least the following:

 

1 picket

1 pulley - the weight is negligble

1 pair of prusik slings or Tibloc

a couple of sewn runners

a couple of locking carabiners

3-4 non locking carabiners

and last but not least, the knowledge and practice to use the gear safely.

 

Also the comment "you will have no problem building a bomber anchor" troubles me. Depending on the snow conditions, it may be difficult to set a reliable anchor.

[Dave7]

Depends on personal preference and what kind of route you are traveling on. Depending on the route and season on rainier will help you determine the proper gear.

 

For 4 people on the DC route midsummer average conditions

 

should have reiterated that point again, thanks for the reminder DPS

[TraverseFiend]

IMNSHO: Each person should carry a picket -- and stashed in a way so if you're holding a fall, you can whip out the picket one-handed, and place it, whilst still keeping t' other hand on your ice axe anchor. Practice a bit beforehand.

 

Bit of a drag if the persons carrying the pickets are the ones in the hole.

 

Of course, the later in the season, the harder the snow and the less the likelihood of getting a picket in solidly one-handed.

[genepires]

IMNSHO: Each person should carry a picket -- and stashed in a way so if you're holding a fall, you can whip out the picket one-handed, and place it, whilst still keeping t' other hand on your ice axe anchor. Practice a bit beforehand.

 

Of course, the later in the season, the harder the snow and the less the likelihood of getting a picket in solidly one-handed.

 

 

placing the picket while in self arrest skill is a skill needed for teams of 2. assuming a middle person fell in, the 2 people on either side of the victim hold the weight while the remaining end person self belays his/her way to the nearest person. The person standing builds an anchor right below the person holding the weight and continues with the rest of the recon, assist and/or rescue.

 

for steeper ground, this may need to be changed to fit the situation but the basics is the same. But the need to build an anchor and hold the weight is not needed unless 3 of the team members fall in.

(this assumes that all members of the team have at least basic skills)

 

I would rather pound in a picket into super strong snow than try to build a t slot. It is really hard to hold the weight with feet only (the holding is the easy part) and use the axe to carve out a t slot deep enough to really hold. try it sometime.

 

If the bridges are weak enough to fall in, the snow is weak enough that vertical placements are questionable. Digging a t slot deep enough with one hand is very hard to do. So the concept of placing a picket one handed while holding the axe is questionable.

[Mike Barter]

[hvydrt]

Thanks for the info everyone. Looking forward to experimenting with anchors once we get some snow.

 

Thanks for the link Mike, I was browsing videos on that channel and got an excellent review of

and the

.

[CaleHoopes]

One suggestion.... cordelette for building an equalized anchor. I do see that each are bringing some runners. If you want to build a good equalized anchor it might be nice to have a 20ftish piece of 6mm (7 or 5 can work too) to build your anchors with. If each person had a cordelette, you would probably have too much, but consider safety vs. weight and decide from there. Just didn't see anything there about how you'd equalize your anchor (unless you're girthing a bunch of runners together). Just a thought.

[Mike Barter]

Thanks for the info everyone. Looking forward to experimenting with anchors once we get some snow.

 

Thanks for the link Mike, I was browsing videos on that channel and got an excellent review of

and the

.

 

Not sure that is such a great example there are a couple things in that video that distract me from what I should be learning.

[bstach]

[chris]

With:

1 picket (or ice axe or ski),

1 cordellete,

1 double shoulder length sling (usually dyneema),

1 shoulder length sling (usually dyneema),

1 short prussik,

3 non-locking carabiners, and

2 locking carabiners.

 

I have, on a two man rope team

arrested a fall,

built an anchor,

transferred the load from my harness to the anchor,

rappelled to the victim,

put them in a chest harness,

taken their pack and/or skis,

ascended the rope,

built a 6:1 haul system,

gotten them out of the crevasse.

 

In less than 45 minutes.

 

That's not a lot of kit for each person to carry. And, if you're on a four man team, that means you can afford to have each person carry everything above, and make crevasse rescue even easier!

[Sean_T_Stevenson]

I think an important consideration would be to carry, at minimum, sufficient gear to effect a rescue by yourself in consideration of the possibility that every other member is in the hole. This doesn't mean you need the best possible bomber anchors, pulleys and so forth, but rather that you, if pushed under this exceptional circumstance, can improvise a plan using the gear you have available (burying axes or packs, using double biners in place of a pulley, etc.) Additionally, you must also carry sufficient gear to effect a self-rescue should you fall in the hole, but the same ethos applies. Once your absolute minimum gear is determined, what you choose to add becomes a tradeoff between carried weight and ease of use / speed of rescue, and in the case of protection, will also be dictated by the snow / ice conditions expected. No one set of gear will be appropriate to every situation. Accordingly, I will carry only an axe and a set of Texas-prusik slings for one objective, and 2 pickets, a fluke, 2 pulleys and a pair of etriers and ascenders for another, depending on what I'm doing elsewhere on the route and also how remote / removed in time from medical assistance you are. Saving a few ounces here and there is less important than ensuring a timely response to an unconscious and injured climber, for example. Consider the totality of circumstances, and also consider that how you choose to go about effecting a team or self-rescue is less important than simply getting it done.

[catbirdseat]

I have wondered about the use of knots in the rope to slow the rate of falling. If you have to prussik out, how do you deal with the knots? You'd have to take the prussiks off and retie then around each knot.

 

If hauling with a z-pulley, they would make the job more difficult. In the video in which Barter fell in, he mentions that his buddies pulled him out as he bridged using his feet and axe. On a team of 4, I imagine that one could put one guy to work as a belayer using the hip belay while the other two heaved. The knots would not be a problem with a hip belay.

[genepires]

good question. That is why it is vital to have enough rescue coils to be able to reach the person in the hole. With another rope that is thrown down a prepared lip (no overhanging lip of snow to cut through) the person can have an easier time prussiking out this extra line without the knots. or being pulled out. This extra rope is also the only way to be able to go to the victim if they are in need of medical help.

People who go out with 25m ropes simply do not have enough rope to be able to do this. 50m ropes is a minimum.

[Sean_T_Stevenson]

Using knots at all is a judgement call based on the snow and ice conditions. The theory is that the rope will cut a slot in the crevasse lip during a fall, and the knots will jam and arrest, or at least add significant friction so that your rope team can arrest. In either case, you won't be hauled out on a knotted rope, so must either self-rescue or have an additional line lowered. If you choose to self-rescue on the knotted line, then as you suggested you can just retie your prusiks around each knot - slow, but it will get you there. Such a situation is made easier with ascenders since they clip on and off quickly, but it's the same idea. Alternatively, if you have enough rope to tie closely spaced knots and don't mind the weight, you can put butterfly knots in with large enough loops to use as footholds, and simply climb those, tying-in short at each loop passed (or clip your prusik slings to the knots with carabiners). Of course, for this to work you need knots only an arm-length apart, so this may be impractical. In general, the choice to use knots comes down to the expected ability of the team to hold a fall - if successful team arrest on a clear line is unlikely, then knot it. Either way, hauling on the same rope you fell on is likely to be extremely difficult - hence the recommendation to carry coils, so the topside team has enough clear rope to effect the rescue. If the fallen climber can establish a secure anchor in the crevasse wall (ice screws, etc.), then you can unload the rope and set up a proper system at your leisure. If you can stem the crevasse, you can use the knotted rope as a belay by clipping successive knots into an anchor as the fallen climber free climbs out, or use a hip belay as mentioned by another poster, but I would only do this if the climb out was easy and a failed move was very unlikely.

 

The upper knot on both of the Texas prusik slings I use on every glacier climb is adjusted to the correct distance so that if I tie them on to the rope as prusiks, or clip into ascenders at the knot, the effective length is the same. Ascenders are heavy to carry if you don't need them elsewhere on the route, but a great tool to use in a crevasse if you have them on you anyway.