Rappel tips for tricky terrain
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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 an experienced climber, 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.
The standard rappel practice of “toss-rope-with-a-knot-on-each-end-and-hope-for-the-best” usually works fine in friendly conditions.
But, if you have any one or combination of these potential rappel problems:
high winds
traversing and/or overhanging rappel
low angle
vegetation, deep cracks, or other rope eating features
then the typical rope toss might cause some issues.
Here are some alternative rappel methods for these difficult conditions. (Listed in my rough personal order of preference. )
Rope bomb
Lower your partner
Rope bag
Saddlebag
Tie both ends to your harness
Lower down both rope ends with a weight
Let's take a closer look at each one.
1 - The “rope bomb”
I wrote a detailed article about the benefits of “casting” your rope, like casting a fishing lure; a sort of weight on the end that spools off the rest of the line.
That's the idea here. Flake each half of the rope into two piles, then make a small butterfly coil with roughly 1/3 of the rope. This is the “weight”. Now, you can toss this with some force down the route, and with any luck this will carry down the remaining rope.
In my opinion, this is preferable almost all of the time! Instead of chucking off half of your rope in one big coil and hoping it's going to feed out smoothly, which it hardly ever does.
Image credit: Andy Kirkpatrick, from his great book “Down”, shared with permission
2 - Lower your partner
Everyone is fine with being lowered by their partner when top roping from the ground or in the gym. But for some reason, the technique is rarely used by recreational climbers when it comes to being lowered from above. (It's more common in a guided situation, especially with a partner who may not be comfortable rappelling on their own.)
However, with a little practice, it's perfectly safe to do, and can easily get the first person down along with both ends of the rope, no problem.
Attach the ends of both ropes to your belay loop, with either a tie in knot or locking carabiner, your choice. Your partner lowers you on one strand directly from the anchor.
To lower your partner, you can use one of several different methods: a redirected tube style belay device, a Grigri, or a Munter hitch.
Pros - pretty much guaranteed to get the rope down smoothly.
Cons - Potential communication issues if you can't see or hear each other. (Radios could be helpful.) Lowering someone past the anchor could cause some problems. Lowering from above is an unfamiliar technique for most folks and requires practice to do safely.
Here is a more detailed article I have on lowering your partner.
Here is one of several ways you can be lowered; with a Grigri. Note the redirected brake strand, this is important.
3 - Rope bag
Yes, my partner laughed at me, but I did bring a plastic grocery shopping bag on one climb where I knew we're gonna have some low angle rappels and it was pretty awesome. Trader Joe's shopping bags cost one dollar, are surprisingly sturdy, rolls up about the size of a burrito, weighs about 40 grams, and easily holds a 60 meter rope.
I never noticed it in my pack, but it made life a lot easier when we had to do multiple low angle raps. We flaked the rope into the bag (which took about two minutes) and then I hung it from my harness with a sling. The rope fed out beautifully.
Just because people don't do it very often doesn't mean it's a bad technique! (Personally, I found it easier than saddlebagging, which we’ll discuss next.)
Below, Trader Joe's ”improv rope bag”, easily holding a 60 meter rope.
Since I've been yapping about the book “Down” throughout this article, I thought I'd give it a more formal plug here. Andy Kirkpatrick's book is an outstanding deep dive into the topic that I think is helpful for most everybody who plays in the mountains.
Support your local independent bookstore and buy it there. Here's a photo of my well thumbed and bookmarked copy.
How can you rig a snag-free saddlebag?
Hav you tried the technique of tying both ends to your harness?
What conditions might be helpful to lower down both ends of the rope tied to something heavy?
