Rainier_Wolfscastle Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 Anyone got any special tricks for dealing with friction from wet half ropes? I was belaying a second up an ice climb from above with very wet half ropes through a reverso in low friction mode (rounded side) off my harness, up thru a directional, and then down to the climber. The route was pretty straight vertical ice. The friction on the ropes was hideous. Got more of a workout pulling in the slack. I added an extra biner to reverso and the directional without much improvement. The directional above me was adding quite a bit of friction, but I didn't want to remove that from the system since it would be painfull to catch a fall directly off my harness. I guess I could have used a pully at the directional, but this seems like alot of junk to carry. Anyone got any special tricks for dealing with this? Since there was so much friction, prehaps a hip belay w/directional? Never caught a fall on steep terrain with one of these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 I have two questions: 1) why did you choose to belay off your harness rather than use the Reverso in 'plate' mode and belay directly off the anchor? 2) were you pulling in the slack from your side of the directional or from the climber's side? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rainier_Wolfscastle Posted December 31, 2002 Author Share Posted December 31, 2002 I usually belay with the reverso in auto lock off position off the anchor, but I find it is even harder to feed in this fashion if there is already alot of friction from below. I was pulling slack from climbers side. It may just be a case of the weight of 2 full water logged ropes below. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt.Caveman Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 I hated the reverso in any condition when it was less than vertical *and* the anchor was not *high enough* above me. Too touchy of a tool for me in most situations. I'm open to other ideas but skeptical from my experiences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 I agree ... the pretzel backwardo is pretty touchy. I find that with two ropes stuffed in there they bind against each other and there's often way too much friction. Having your ropes swell up with water would just compound that. But it sounds in this case like the friction was coming from the directional? You probably wouldn't have problems catching a fall with a re-directed hip belay if you take care to keep the rope fairly tight at all times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texplorer Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 Is this really a post about something climbing related with real and knowledgeable responses? Well, let this be the beginning of thread creep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attitude Posted December 31, 2002 Share Posted December 31, 2002 Is this really a post about something climbing related with real and knowledgeable responses? Well, let this be the beginning of thread creep. Hey Tex, I'm a little slow. What do you mean by this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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