Need to lower from an ATC guide? Try the "LSD"
Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.
This tip is from a few great sources: IFMGA Guide Karsten Delap, book from Marc Chauvin and Rob Coppolillo, “The Mountain Guide Manual”, and a video from AMGA Rock Guide Cody Bradford
Black Diamond ATC guide, a “plaquette” style belay device.
Plaquette style belay devices like the Black Diamond ATC Guide and Petzl Reverso are great, allowing smooth rappels, to be rigged as an ascender, and to autolock when belaying your second. But they do have one major drawback - if you need to lower your second, it's generally not safe, easy, nor intuitive to do so.
Doing this incorrectly has led to numerous accidents; read about one of them here.
Here’s a Crafty Rope Trick (CRT) that's about the easiest method you’ll find to lower your second off of a plaquette. Note that this does not require any seldom used, hard-to-remember rescue geek knots like the Munter Mule Overhand (MMO), nor any sudden unweighting of the belay device that might cause your second to wish they wore their brown pants that day.
Plus, it has a great name - the “LSD” or “Load Strand Direct” lower.
Note: this method does require your follower to unweight the rope for a moment and give you a small bit of slack. In just about every climbing situation, this will be possible. Even so, I can already hear the peanut gallery out there, yelping “OMG, what if they’re unconscious! What if they fell on a traverse and are hanging out in space or on a 5.15 blank wall?” True, in those two scenarios this not going to work. However, those two situations are so incredibly unlikely to happen, it's certainly safe to learn this as your primary lowering technique. And, be smart about it - if your second might have a chance to swing out into space, you should probably be belaying with some other method all together, like with a Munter hitch, which is super easy to lower on anytime. (Or use a DMM Pivot belay device, which greatly simplifies the lowering process.)
And, if they REALLY can’t give you any slack, there is another way to do it with a redirected sling, check the video link below.
Safety note: Depending on a few factors, this technique can significantly reduce the friction from your belay device. As mentioned, be sure and practice in a controlled environment such as a stairway to see how it works, and consider tying an overhand on a bight catastrophe knot maybe 20 feet below you when you start to lower, in case you misjudged. As mentioned, always have a third hand back up, and gloves are recommended.
Typically, this technique is used to lower someone a short distance, not the entire length of a pitch. If you want to lower your second a very long way, a better setup may be to redirect the brake strand rather than the load strand. Learn how to do that in this article.
Okay, let's get to it.
Scenario: You’re belaying your second directly off the anchor from a plaquette style belay device. For whatever reason, they need to be lowered (after they’ve reached the top of the pitch, or from anywhere else, 2 feet or 200 feet.) Here's what you do.
1 - Tie a quick overhand or figure 8 on a bight as a backup knot in the brake strand of the rope.
2 - Put a prusik, autoblock or similar friction hitch on the brake strand, and clip it to your belay loop with a locking carabiner. This friction hitch will back up your brake hand when you start to lower in a moment. This is important, don't skip it.
3 - Untie your overhand or figure 8 backup knot.
4 - Clip a spare carabiner (non-locker is fine) to the anchor master point, with the gate opening facing down. Note that this carabiner needs to be the same size or smaller than the carabiner that’s holding your belay device.
5 - When all this is set up and double checked, ask your second to unweight the rope for a moment. Doing this will cause a little slack in the load strand. Pull up this slack rope, and clip the load strand through the new carabiner on the master point. (Load Strand , clipped Direct to the anchor, = “LSD”, get it?)
6 - Normally with a plaquette, the rope leading to the second exits the device at the top. When the rope is weighted, it presses down on the strand underneath it, locking the rope. By clipping the loaded strand higher on the anchor, it's no longer pressing down on the bottom strand, so the rope is now “unlocked”. Slowly let out slack from the brake strand of the rope, backed up with the friction hitch. You should be able to lower your partner slowly and in control.
You definitely want to practice this in a controlled environment before doing it for real on the rock. The friction might be less than what you’re used to, and you need to be ready for that.
There are lots of factors that can affect how fast the lower is, such as rope diameter, whether the rope sheath is new and slippery or old and crusty, the weight of your climber, the amount of rock/snow your rope is running through causing additional friction, the carabiners you’re using, and other variables. That's why you have the friction hitch backup; if the load starts to move too quickly and your palms are smoking, that hitch is there to stop things in a moment. Wear gloves if you have them. Practice in a controlled environment (like a staircase) before you ever do it for real. If the lower is faster than what you like, you can redirect the brake strand through a carabiner on your rope tie in point, which will add additional friction and slow down the lower.
Here’s the sequence.
Our second is on a standard plaquette belay directly off the anchor. (In this example, the second is directly at the anchor. In reality, the second could be anywhere along the length of the pitch, needing to get lowered.)
Step 1 - Add a third hand / autoblock, and clip it to your belay loop.
Step 2 - Add a second carabiner to the master point. (Non locker is fine.)
Ask your climber to give you a few inches of slack. Clip this slack rope into the carabiner you just added. You’re now ready to lower.
Here's a nice video of the whole sequence in action.
And here’s a video from AMGA Certified Guide Cody Bradford showing a simple technique to use the LSD lower even if the rope is fully weighted.
