Which Way Wednesday - Map Scale

This week, learn navigation skills from the Wilderness Navigation Challenge - a series of about 80 questions and answers/explanations that cover beginner to intermediate wilderness navigation skills.

It's designed as a teaching tool and for self-evaluation. Every question is followed with an answer and explanation, so you can learn as you go along.

Below are a few sample questions and answers from the challenge. If testing your knowledge and learning more about navigation flips your switch, you can check out the entire navigation challenge here.

Note - at the bottom of the answer slides, you may see a reference for a “Lesson number”. That refers to a youtube video series that covers that topic in detail if you’d like to learn more.

Here’s the video that covers today’s topic.

This week - map scale. Understanding scale lets you calculate real world distances on a topo map.

• What’s considered a “small scale” and “large scale” map for backcountry use?

• You have a map with a ratio scale of 1:50:000. One cm on your map equals how many km in the real world?

• Would a 1:100,000 scale map be a good choice for a technical climbing trip?

• How can you use a twig to measure distance on your map?

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Break a twig to match a mile, kilometer, or multiple thereof on your scale bar. Then, leapfrog the twig along the map to measure real world distances.

A simple belay back up on multipitch

Scenario: You’re on a multi-pitch sport route with your partner, and it's right about the upper edge of your abilities. You arrive at the anchor bolts for pitch 1, build an anchor, connect to it, catch your breath, and look ahead to the next pitch.

You notice two important things: 1) the moves to the first bolt on pitch 2 look pretty hard, and 2) the first bolt is straight above the belay anchor.

You start running a little “what-if” scenario in your head:

• What if my partner starts to lead pitch 2 and falls before they clip the first bolt?

• What if they fall directly onto me?

• If this happens, can I keep control of the brake strand of the rope? (and no, you're not using a Grigri or other similar auto locking belay device, but you probably should be.) 

No, you’re not overthinking this. This exact tragic scenario happened at Smith Rock sometime around 2005. The leader fell onto the belayer, the belayer lost control of the brake strand, and the leader then fell to the ground and died.

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Here's a simple tip that can make the situation a lot safer.

After putting the leader for pitch 2 on belay, the belayer pulls up enough rope for the leader to reach the first bolt, ties a clove hitch, and clips the clove to the anchor as a backup “catastrophe knot.” If the second were to fall onto the belayer, and if the belayer were to lose control of the brake hand, the clove hitch would prevent the second from falling to the ground. 

(Now, this is still a factor 2 fall onto the anchor, which is never a good thing, but at least the leader will never be dropped and fall to the ground.)

As soon as the leader clips the first bolt, the belayer takes a moment with one hand to untie the clove hitch, and continues to belay normally.

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There’s another approach to lessen a potential harsh fall in this situation. The belayer could lower themselves a few meters below the anchor, the leader for pitch 2 could clip the anchor for their first piece, and then they head for the first bolt. Because of the belayer in the lower position means more rope out, and the leader already has a bolt clipped at the anchor, any fall before the first bolt will be less severe.

Keep your eyes open, look ahead, thanks, and have a few Crafty Rope Tricks.

Oh, and next time, please bring your Grigri.

Which Way Wednesday - Topo reading, Saddles, knolls, summits

“Which Way Wednesday” features a navigation or trip planning related post every Wednesday.

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This week, see some questions from the Wilderness Navigation Challenge - a series of about 80 questions and answers/explanations that cover beginner to intermediate wilderness navigation skills.

It's designed as a teaching tool and for self-evaluation. Every question is followed with an answer and explanation, so you can learn as you go along.

Below are a few sample questions and answers from the challenge. If testing your knowledge and learning more about navigation flips your switch, you can check out the entire navigation challenge here.

Note - at the bottom of the answer slides, you may see a reference for a “Lesson number”. That refers to a youtube video series that covers that topic in detail if you’d like to learn more.

Here’s the video that covers today’s topic.

This week - contours and terrain. Understanding these lets you “read” a topo map.

• What’s a saddle look like on a topo map, and why are they useful for climbers?

• The contour lines are bending. Does that show a ridgeline or a gully?

• I see a closed circle on a topo map. Is that a mountain top, or just a small knoll?

• How is the summit of a major mountain indicated on a topo map?

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Andy Kirkpatrick - Tips on staying alive on a big wall

British hardman Andy Kirkpatrick has not only climbed El Capitan more than 30 times, he’s also climbed remote big wall expedition routes in some extremely cold and harsh conditions all over the world. He knows a LOT about staying warm and coming back in one piece.

Most of the tips below are from his excellent big wall book, “Higher Education”, definitely recommended reading if you want to climb the big stuff.

image: “Higher Education” book cover, by Andy Kirkpatrick

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Some solid big wall / aid tips from Andy:

• This is hopefully painfully obvious, but always bring a rain fly for your portaledge, no matter how cheerful the forecast.

• Always try to stay dry, or at least as dry as you can. “You will always be wet in a storm, but there’s a difference between damp and warm, and soaking and shivering.”

• If you’re already warm and dry, do everything you can to stay that way. That means, don’t leave your nice dry portaledge to go out in the rain and fix a pitch. If you’re leading and starting to get wet, really think through whether you should be pushing on in the storm, or retreating back to your dry ledge.

• Even in summer conditions, bring clothing like you’re on a winter alpine route. When you’re hauling 100 kg of gear, and you’ve got a 170 liter haul bag, bringing some extra warm gear that you already own is really not that big a deal. 

• What kind of warm gear? Synthetic sleeping bag, (never down) with a minimum rating of 20 Fahrenheit. Long underwear, top and bottom, at least one pair of warm socks for sleeping, fleece top, Das Parka type synthetic belay jacket, balaclava, gloves. 

• Use a bivy sack over your sleeping bag, in addition to the fly on your ledge.

• Do everything you can to keep your sleeping bag dry. It's your largest piece of warm “clothing” and last line of defense. If all of your clothes are truly wet, consider wrapping the sleeping bag inside of a bivy sack over you like a blanket rather than you being inside the bag.

• Avoid getting into a dry sleeping bag with wet clothes. Change into dry clothes first, or take off all your clothes and get into your bag.

• Bring a small sponge to mop up water and condensation. 

• If you know a storm is coming in, make sure you have everything you need in or accessible to your ledge, so you don’t have to go out in the storm and burrow through your haul bag.  

How to descend with a damaged rope

Thanks to expert canyoneer Kevin Clark for technical advice on this post. Check out Kevin's book, “Canyoning in the Pacific Northwest”

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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 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.

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While out on a long multi pitch climb, your rope gets damaged by rock fall. What can you do to get down quickly and in relative safety?

Here are a few Crafty Rope Tricks (CRT) to help you do this. And no, you should never have to “pass the knot” on rappel!

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Ouch! How do you deal with this?!

If you doing a standard rappel on two strands of rope, and you have a knot in one strand, you should pretty much never need to do any shenanigans to get past the knot.

Having to rappel past a knot in the real world is exceptionally rare. About the only time you might need to do it is on a big wall climb, such as descending fixed single strand ropes that you might find on El Capitan.

Many people think you must rappel past a knot if you have a damaged rope and have to isolate the nicked part in a butterfly or similar knot. Well, that's not the case.

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First off, if you have to keep going up, cut the rope at the damaged part and continue climbing on the longest strand. (Hang onto that other part that you cut, you're probably going to need it on the way down.) Be ready to climb shorter pitches and look for alternative anchors.

This will require a careful reading of the route topo map, perhaps some alternative intermediate belay anchors, and maybe some simul-climbing, which is hopefully doable if you’re on a moderate alpine route.

However, if the damage is more in the middle part of the rope, it's quite likely you can’t continue upwards and need to start rappelling. Hopefully this is painfully obvious, but if you were to tie a knot to isolate the damaged part and try to keep going up, that knot will get stuck in the gear placed by the leader.

(Now, there’s an advanced way to bypass even this problem - The leader could continue by rope soloing, feeding the rope out through a clove hitch on their harness. Because they are not being belayed in the normal manner, the knot will not get stuck in the gear. But, this is an extremely advanced technique and you're not going to learn about it on this website. :-)

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First, assess the damage.

Is the core of the rope (white part) severely damaged? If yes, you may want to actually cut out the damaged part and retie the rope with a stout knot. (A Flemish bend is a good choice.) And you do have a knife with you, right?

If the rope has mild damage, mostly to the sheath, you can probably tie a butterfly knot to isolate the damaged part. The butterfly knot is a great choice for this, because it retains pretty much the full strength of the rope (minus a bit for the knot, of course) and can take a pull in any direction. Tie the knot so the damaged part is isolated in the loop.

Here’s a post with more uses of the butterfly knot, and a video on how to tie it.

Butterfly knot isolating the damaged part of the rope.

So, you've isolated the damaged part and now need to head down. What now?

The more traditional old-school approach is to start doing standard twin strand rappels with the knot in the rope, and have everyone “pass the knot”. This can be time-consuming, dangerous, and, if you have two strands of rope to work with, probably completely unnecessary.

There are actually very few situations in which you really need to pass a knot for real, but they pretty much all involve tying two ropes together for a long single strand rappel, and not when you're doing a normal double strand rappel. For example, cavers on a very long rappel, big wall climbers fixing a rope to the ground or rapping back to a high camp after fixing two pitches, or descending some fixed lines someone else left that turn out to be in lousy condition and have knots in them . . . basically, not situations most recreational climbers are ever going to face.

You can read more on those scenarios, and learn a great technique to do it, at this link.

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But, you may be thinking, what if you DO have two rope strands to rappel and there IS a knot in one of them? No problem, you should never need to deal with passing the knot. There are several ways to approach this problem.

One way to tackle this is to use a carabiner block or knot block (aka “Reepschnur”, Google it). This is common in the canyoneering world but not so much in rock climbing. This method essentially uses the damaged strand of the rope as a pull cord. You use a carabiner or knot tied near the anchor to “block” the damaged side of the rope from pulling through the anchor, and rappel on the “good” side of the rope.

This is definitely a valid technique if you’re experienced with it and absolutely know what you're doing. However, there are some downsides to consider:

• Most climbers have never done this. Trying it for the first time way off the deck with a damaged rope is Less Than Ideal.

• You need an anchor point with a very small diameter connection, such as a chain or quicklink. It probably won't work if you’re rappelling through a carabiner (as in the example below). With a small diameter rope, it may not work if you’re going through even a rappel ring. If you rig it wrong, the blocking knot could pull through your anchor and you could die. This has happened. Or, maybe you won't die, but the knot could pull through and your rope will be hopelessly stuck on your backup carabiner, which only sucks slightly less.

• You're introducing a second knot (and maybe a carabiner) into the pull strand in addition to the butterfly. Now there are two potential things that could snag when you're pulling the rope instead of one.

While certainly a valid technique, knot blocks fall into the category of Advanced Ninja Rope Tricks. Here's a detailed article about them. Practice it in a safe environment with a qualified instructor before you ever try it for real.

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Here's another method that, in my opinion, is preferable for most climbers: the “ground anchor”.

Here's a diagram of how the ground anchor works. Secure one strand of rope around something solid on the ground, and rappel on the other strand. In some circles, this is known as a “counterbalanced rappel”. In the diagram, the rope is tied around a tree. In the real world it could be an intermediate anchor, or even the harness of your partner.

It's simple, fairly intuitive, easy to check, and pretty hard to screw up. It also doesn’t rely on any advanced knot blocking techniques that you may not be familiar with, and that may not work depending on your rope diameter, anchor hardware, etc., and it doesn’t introduce an extra knot and carabiner into the system that could potentially get hung up when you pull your rope.

source: Bruce Wyse

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Step 1: Rig the rope through the anchor as for a normal rappel.

Note 1: The tape on the butterfly knot indicates the damaged part of the rope.

Note 2: A fine use of the “cheapskate locker”, a standard carabiner with the gate taped shut, equivalent to a normal locking carabiner and perfectly fine as a rappel anchor. (Yes, it's not redundant, and no, it's not going to break.)

Note 3: Because of the wide mouth carabiner, you can’t tie a standard knot block here, because it would pull through.

Note 4: For the purposes of these photos, the butterfly knot is very close to the anchor. In reality, the damaged part of the rope could be anywhere within a 30+ meter section, and is very unlikely to be next to the anchor. So, you can’t use that butterfly knot as a block.

Step 2: Fix the “good” side of the rope.

There are various ways to do this. Here, we choose simple: clip a locking carabiner to the two anchor slings and clove hitch the rope to it. (If you’re a crafty canyoneer and are very familiar with the Stone hitch, you could use that here as well.)

Because the damaged rope is on the right strand, everyone can rappel on the left strand. Sweet, no knot to pass!

Note: When you rappel on one strand, you'll have less friction, and the rappel will be faster. You may want to use some simple techniques to add more friction so you can rap in complete control. Wear gloves if you have them.

If you're doing more than one rappel to get to the ground, be sure and keep control of the strand with the knot in it, don't let it blow away from you. One way to do this is simply clip it through a quickdraw on your harness.

Step 3: Make a ground anchor for the damaged side of the rope.

OK, so what about the last person? No problem. Make what's called a “ground anchor” (aka counterbalanced rappel) to secure the right hand / damaged strand, and the last person raps on the left strand. When the last person is down, pull the right strand of rope and you're done. Never had to pass a knot, nice!

When the first person down arrives at the next anchor or the ground, they can tie off the damaged strand of the rope (right strand) onto an anchor, a tree if they're on the ground, or even themselves. Everyone else in the group continues rappelling on the left strand. Yes, the last person down is absolutely relying on the knot tying capabilities of their partner down below.

Note: Clearly communicating this plan, having everyone in solid agreement on how it's going to work, and confirming to the last person that the rope is properly fixed to the ground anchor is critical!

The last person removes the carabiner and clove hitch so the rope is running normally through the rappel anchor. Then, the last person raps on the left, undamaged strand of rope, and is counterbalanced by the ground anchor.

Note that this puts a load on the top anchor that’s about twice the weight of the last person, just like if you were toproping. So, the anchor needs to be reasonably strong. If the top anchor is less than perfect, ideally the last person is fairly lightweight, does not have a heavy pack or a lot of gear, and knows how to rappel slowly and smoothly, without a lot of bouncing.

If you have the misfortune to be doing this from an extremely marginal rappel anchor, it might be best for the last person down to avoid the ground anchor, and just deal with passing the knot. However, most of the time this should not be an issue, because the maximum force you can put on a rappel anchor is about 2 kN, or about 440 lbs, and that’s if you are really jumping and bouncing around.

When the last person is down, untie the ground anchor, pull the damaged (right) strand of the rope, and you're done. Repeat if necessary until you get to the ground.

Doing this avoids all of the mid-air shenanigans of having to pass a knot on rappel.

(And, the next time you’re at your local mountaineering club’s training to “rappel past a knot”, you can ask the instructor to tell you in what situations you might ever have to do this. Who knows, you might just teach them something. =^)

Carabiner inside the master point knot

Now, if you've been at the game for a while, you may know this Crafty Rope Trick (CRT). But it seems to be new to a lot of folks, so it's worth a mention.

When you're tying off a runner or a cordelette for a statically equalized anchor, that master point knot can be very difficult to untie, especially if you’re using skinny webbing, or it gets wet, or if it takes a big load, or all of the above.

To make untying it a lot easier, clip a carabiner in the master point knot after you tie it, and before it’s loaded.

Important: This carabiner is not load bearing at all, and you should not clip anything to it. It’s only purpose is to make untying the knot easier when you break down your anchor.

Try to use a notchless / keylock carabiner with a small nose on it so you can easily unclip it from the loaded knot. In the photo below the carabiner is a locker, but it doesn’t have to be.

The black locking carabiner inside the master point knot will make untying the sling a lot easier.

Try a “racking sling” for slings

Anytime if you want to carry slings longer than a quick draw, you need to choose how to carry them. The choice is pretty much boils down to on your harness, or over your shoulder somehow.

It’s very much a matter of personal preference, but many climbers like to have the gear they are actually using on the route over their shoulders, and not on the harness. This can be especially true when you’re alpine climbing and probably wearing a backpack, where the waistband can limit access to your harness gear loops.

Having your gear on a shoulder length sling can make it easier to rack when cleaning, slightly easier to place when leading, and easier to hand off gear to your partner when changing leads.

However, if you put the slings one by one over your head and a shoulder, odds are they’re going to become a tangled mess when you try to pull one off over your head, and even more so when you’re pumped and need to place gear fast.  

A better system is using a designated “racking sling” to carry your other slings.

The purple racking sling is just a length of about 4 feet of 9/16 inch tubular webbing, tied in a loop with a water knot. It could also be a distinctly colored sewn single length / 60 cm runner (ideally wider webbing so doesn't cut into your shoulder. )

Below we see several different styles of slings you might be carrying. From left to right:

1. The ”alpine quickdraw”, a 60 cm runner with one carabiner passed through another to shorten it up. A crafty alpine trick that every climber should know, read more about it here.

2. A standard sport climbing quickdraw. Not so common in the alpine, but hey, you might want to have a few if the route goes straight up.

3. A double length / 120 cm runner, twisted around itself a few times to form a nice bundle. Another good trick and you can read more about here.

4. FInally, this is a clever way to rack a single length / 60 cm runner. Pass one end through your racking sling, and re-clip it to a single carabiner. To deploy, unclip one strand and pull. It should extend to full length with one hand and no tangles. If you're on a route with lots of cam placements that wanders a bit from left to right, this can be a good racking strategy, because you can use the racking carabiner on your cam to clip to the sling.

You can keep a few spare carabiners on this racking sling as well, to clip gear like stoppers where you typically need two carabiners.

Use this same system when you’re cleaning gear. Have a designated racking sling on one shoulder for slings and spare carabiners, and another racking sling over the other shoulder for rock protection. When you get to the top of the pitch, changeover with your partner is fast and easy; just hand them the slings with the gear mostly sorted, and they should be pretty much ready to lead.

Which Way Wednesday - Topo reading, Gully or Spur?

“Which Way Wednesday” features a navigation or trip planning related post every Wednesday.

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This week - contours and terrain. Understanding these lets you “read” two key features of a topographic map.

• When contour lines cross a gulley or ridgeline, which way did they bend?

• Does a stream flow into or out of a lake?

• How can you tell higher vs. lower elevation areas just by looking at stream patterns?

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These questions are from the Wilderness Navigation Challenge - a series of about 80 questions and answers/explanations that cover beginner to intermediate wilderness navigation skills.

It's designed as a teaching tool and for self-evaluation. Every question is followed with an answer and explanation, so you can learn as you go along.

Below are a few sample questions and answers from the challenge. If testing your knowledge and learning more about navigation flips your switch, you can check out the entire navigation challenge here.

Note - at the bottom of the answer slides, you may see a reference for a “Lesson number”. That refers to a youtube video series that covers that topic in detail if you’d like to learn more.

Here’s a video that covers today’s topic.

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Back up that single point rappel anchor

Every climber will someday find themselves at a rappel anchor that's set with a single Less Than Ideal rappel point. Maybe it's a skinny rap ring, or maybe it's a small diameter hardware store quick link, like this example.

(Note: You can buy quick links properly rated for climbing that are fine to rappel from, such as these from CAMP. These are just $3, CE rated, and around 40 kN - a much better choice than one from the hardware store.)

You have a choice: Rappel on that one point, or back it up somehow.

Now, lots of people are going to be just fine rappelling from a single quicklink. For canyoneers it’s common, and it's probably going to work great 99.9% of the time. But, if you're a more conservative climber, for whom redundancy in anchors gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, especially when you are completely reliant on them when rappelling, you have a few options.

Note: It's best practice to close the sleeve of the quick link by screwing it down toward the ground. This means that gravity is helping keep the sleeve closed. A little pneumonic to help remember this is: “Screw down so you don't screw up.” If you have a link that you want to fix it more permanently, give it an extra turn with a pair of pliers; a multi-tool is your friend.

If you want to back up that one point, the easiest thing to do is sacrifice a carabiner off your rack and just leave it. Unless you’re a serious cheapskate, this is typically the best option.

Or, you could back it up with a carabiner for everyone who is rapelling except the last person, and then that last person removes the carabiner and raps on the single quick link. (The traditional rule of thumb for this is that the lightest person goes last. I have a feeling this rule was made up by heavy people.)

But, for the frugal climbers out there who can't even stand to part with a $5 carabiner, here's another option.

Cut about a bit under 2 feet of cordelette, sling, or whatever reasonably strong cord you have with you. (Yes, that looks like it's going to be too much, and no it won't be, ‘cuz water knots always take up more webbing than you think they will.) A rule of thumb in the field: measure about three hand spans, my hand span is about 7 inches. And yes, you do need to have a knife for this.

This is yet another reason to bring along an '“alpine runner,” a 9 foot length of 9/16” tubular webbing, tied in a double runner length loop. It's very inexpensive and easy to cut up and leave behind for little projects like this.

Tie it in a loop (here with a water knot) through the anchor point, and make the loop a little bit longer than the metal connection.

Now, thread your rappel rope. Because the backup webbing is slightly longer than the quicklink, when you weight the anchor and pull your rope, any friction is going to be on the quicklink, not the webbing backup. However, if the metal were to somehow fail, the webbing will catch the rope.

Doing this of course, takes a knife, and some sort of extra sling material, and the time to rig it. Like I said, faster and probably a bit safer is just to leave a carabiner. Don't be a cheapskate. :-) Or, if you want a little extra security even on top of that, put some tape on the carabiner gate to make a cheapskate locker.

Bring a few long tied runners for alpine routes

For alpine climbing, it’s often handy to have one or two double length / 120 cm tied runners. Why are these helpful?

• Inexpensive. 11/16” (or 5/8”) tubular webbing is about $0.30 per foot from the bulk spool at the climb shop. You need 9 feet for a tied double runner, so $2.70. A sewn double length / 120 cm Dyneema runner costs about $15. You can have five tied runners like this for the cost of one Dyneema runner. (Frugal climbers, unite!)

• Plenty strong. 11/16” tubular webbing is rated to about 13kN, plenty strong for just about any climbing application. More on the climbing gear strength ratings page.

• Easy to cut and leave behind for rappel anchors. Always get double duty out of your gear - don’t bring extra “just in case” webbing for raps. And, as mentioned, it's inexpensive. You're not going to think twice about leaving behind $3 worth of webbing at a rap anchor, But you may not be too thrilled about cutting up your $25 cordelette. (And you DO have a knife, right?)

• With a little work, you can untie it, thread it around a large tree / chockstone / icicle, and retie it. You can’t do this with a sewn sling. (And, it's difficult to tie a secure knot in Dyneema; that's why you can't buy it in bulk like you can tubular nylon webbing.) Yes, untying a knot in webbing after it's been loaded can be difficult. (Needle nose pliers on a multitool are your best friend.) If it's really welded shut, don’t fight it; just cut out the knot and use the rest of the webbing.

• Or, you can rig it “rabbit runner” style, with an overhand knot loop in both ends; see photo below. (If you rig it this way, buy 6 feet of webbing rather than 9, because you get about the same usable length with less material. Use 18 inches of each end to tie the overhand knots. Adjust shorter as needed by cutting off 1 inch at a time from one end and retying one overhand loop. It should be about 4 feet end to end when you’re done.) This lets you easily pass the whole loop around large trees or boulders, and also use it as a standard sling if you want to. Read more about the DIY rabbit runner here.

• Pro tip - Whenever you're buying bulk webbing, ask the shop to cut the webbing on their hot knife at a 45° angle. This makes it a bit easier to thread when tying a water knot or double fisherman’s.

If everyone on your team carries a tied double runner or two, you should be equipped to make safe raps off most any route.

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About 6 feet of webbing tied “rabbit runner” style.

Which Way Wednesday - Topo reading, Contours & Elevation

“Which Way Wednesday” features a navigation or trip planning related post every Wednesday.

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This week, see some questions from the Wilderness Navigation Challenge - a series of about 80 questions and answers/explanations that cover beginner to intermediate wilderness navigation skills.

It's designed as a teaching tool and for self-evaluation. Every question is followed with an answer and explanation, so you can learn as you go along.

Below are a few sample questions and answers from the challenge. If testing your knowledge and learning more about navigation flips your switch, you can check out the entire navigation challenge here.

Note - at the bottom of the answer slides, you may see a reference for a “Lesson number”. That refers to a youtube video series that covers that topic in detail if you’d like to learn more.

Here’s the video that covers today’s topic.

This week - contours and elevation.

• What’s an index contour?

• Are contour intervals the same on every map?

• How can you use them to determine elevation of a point on the map, or vertical distance between two points?

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Knife options for climbers

YUCK! A rat’s nest like this is confusing and dangerous. Cut out the old slings and pack them out, and maybe add a new one of your own to make it simpler and stronger.

image credit: Silas Rossi, @silasrossi

Carrying a blade of some sort can be a smart thing to have on alpine climbs. No, you’re probably not going to pull a Joe Simpson (see below) and have your partner slice the rope and drop you to free themselves; the normal cases for knife use aren’t nearly as exciting.

What are some uses for a knife when climbing?

• Cleaning up ancient, sun baked webbing from rappel anchors, and cutting some of your own new webbing or cord to enhance existing anchors

• Some sort of self rescue situation, when some piece of rope or webbing is loaded and it needs to get unloaded, and the only way to do that is to cut it loose

• Maybe your rope gets damaged and you want to cut away the bad part

• and, maybe prepare the occasional peanut butter sandwich

There are three general approaches to climbing knives: razor blade, tiny cheap lockblade, or nice designated climbing knife.

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Razor blade

If you want to carry a blade for strictly emergency use, it’s hard to get much more lightweight than a single edge razor. Put a few layers of athletic tape over the blade to cover it. I’ve heard of people taping a razor inside their helmet, or keeping a zipper pocket on the chalk bag, but to me that sounds a little sketchy in case of a fall. Keeping it inside a small first aid kit in your pack sounds like a much better idea. Are you in the fast’n’light camp and want something for emergencies only? This is a good choice.

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Cheap tiny lock blade

This is my personal pick. I got one for under $5 next to the hardware store cash register. It’s tiny, has a wicked sharp serrated edge, and it’s a lock blade. The serrated edge can be especially helpful for cutting webbing. Be sure there is a hole in one end of the knife so you can add a little keeper loop to clip to a carabiner. Make the loop with a bit of of bank line or 2 mm cord. If you find yourself doing more alpine routes, where your liable to find funky anchors, this could be a good call.

(I keep this knife on a small locking carabiner, along with a mini ascender, and call it my “Oh S**t Kit”.

Whatever knife you choose, it needs to be absolutely secure so the blade can never open accidentally, to cut you or your equipment. You can tape it securely closed with athletic tape, and or add a thick rubber band cut from a discarded bicycle inner tube, or both. Below, I’ve added a stout rubber band from an old bike tube to secure the blade.

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Carry a “real” knife

A definite step up in quality from the hardware store lockblade is this nice little knife, the Trango Pirana. It folds, and has a clever design that prevents it from opening if a carabiner is clipped through the large hole.

image: backcountry.com

If you think you’ll be using your knife for more day-to-day things, such as slicing bagels or making that peanut butter sandwich, you’ll want something with a longer blade. Petzl makes a popular model called the Spatha. Personally, I don’t feel the need to carry a blade this big for occasional use, so this is not my choice, but it could be an option for you. (Note the large hole that can take a carabiner.)

image: backcountry.com

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If you really have to cut the rope in an emergency situation with no knife, you can take cord and saw it rapidly back-and-forth with your hands through whatever needs to get cut, and the rope will eventually get cut by friction.

I've tried this and it works remarkably well. Here's of an article and video about it.

One of the most harrowing climbing epics of all time was endured by Joe Simpson in his classic book, “Touching the Void”. On a challenging climb in Peru, Simpson was being lowered by his partner down a steep face, was lowered into a crevasse, and his partner above was stuck. He made the agonizing choice to take out his knife, cut the rope, and drop Joe to what he thought was a sure death. A classic read it if you haven’t.

image: https://www.amazon.com/Touching-Void-Joe-Simpson/dp/0435017055/

Hitching a sling direct to a stopper wire - acceptable?

Let's make one thing clear right up front. Doing this is definitely not standard practice, it's best to use a carabiner between the sling and the stopper wire. However, there are a few unusual situations when it might be good to have some other option, such as:

• You’re leading a trad climb. You place a stopper, clip a sling to it . . . and notice that the carabiner that’s clipped to the stopper is going to be dangerously loaded over an edge if you fall onto it. No bueno.

• You’re on a long lead, you’ve run out of spare carabiners, and you only have stoppers and a few runners to protect the next few moves.

• You need to make some retreat anchors for many rappels, and don't want to leave any carabiners behind on the stoppers you’re placing for anchors.

Can you hitch a runner directly to a stopper, rappel or even take a whipper onto it, and live to tell the tale? Let’s find out!

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Two ways to attach a sling directly to a stopper wire: (top) girth hitch (aka lark’s foot); (bottom) basket hitch.

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Traditional conservative climbing pedagogy would probably say:

“Yer Gonna Die! (YGD)”

But is it really that bad? Climbers have been wondering about this for a long time, and the clever engineers at DMM in Wales actually did some pull tests on this. Any video that breaks both gear AND dogma is one I’m definitely interested in! As the clickbait web ads say, the results might surprise you.

from the DMM website and video:

“To answer this question we took a Wallnut 1 and 11 and tested them with a sling attached using a lark's foot and a basket hitch in combination with 8 mm Dyneema (Dynatec), 11 mm Dyneema and 16 mm Nylon slings. We also tested lark's footing a Wallnut 1 together with another Walnut 1.

The results (see table below) were conclusive in showing that basket hitching is the best way of extending a wire over an edge to protect your carabiner.

Using a basket hitch with the Wallnut 11 always failed above the nut's minimum strength rating of 12 kN. The same was true using a basket hitch with a Wallnut 1 having a minimum strength rating of 7 kN.”

Results from DMM pull testing

image: https://dmmclimbing.com/Knowledge/December-2011/Improvisation-Lark-s-Foot-or-Basket-Hitch

Short answer, yes, very acceptable!  =^)

Does the sling break? Yes. But, with a basket hitch, it breaks ABOVE the rating for the stopper it's attached to!

To summarize:

• 8mm Dyneema sling > girth hitch > tiny #1 stopper > breaks around 7 kN

• 8mm Dyneema sling > girth hitch > medium to large stopper = breaks around 8 kN

• 8mm Dyneema sling > basket hitch > medium to large stopper = breaks around 12 kN

Being that 9 kN is about the largest force you're ever going to have an a climbing fall even with the crazy factor 2 fall directly on the anchor, those results are highly encouraging, at least in my mind.

(See this link for a chart on climbing gear strength ratings)

So, the short answer is, no problem, you can hitch a sling straight through the wire of a stopper. Doing this with a basket hitch is clearly stronger, but you can even use a girth hitch and still probably get away with it.

Note 1: I don't know this for sure, but I’m guessing that DMM tested this with a slow pull to breakage, and not hitting it with a sudden force in a drop tower. I would be quite curious to see a comparison between the slow pull and a dynamic fall.

Note 2: If you’re near the end of a long pitch running out of carabiners, it might be best to do this technique when building your anchor, not placing gear on lead. This is because the force the anchor could take when belaying your second is probably less than what you could potentially put on it from a lead fall. (Of course, when the second arrives at your belay with all of the cleaned gear, you can add proper slings onto those stoppers.)

Should this be your go-to technique to clip a stopper? No, probably not. But, when you run out of carabiners or have something loaded over the edge, know that you can do this (fairly) safely. Plus, get ready to see an incredulous look on your second’s face when they arrive at the anchor and say, “DAMN, what’s up with that stopper and sling!?”

Which Way Wednesday - Navigation Challenge, Part 1

“Which Way Wednesday” will feature a navigation or trip planning related post every Wednesday.

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This week, we’ll share a few questions from the Wilderness Navigation Challenge - a series of about 80 questions and answers/explanations that cover beginner to intermediate wilderness navigation skills.

It's designed as a teaching tool and for self-evaluation. Every question is followed with an answer and explanation, so you can learn as you go along.

Below are a few sample questions and answers from the challenge. If testing your knowledge and learning more about navigation flips your switch, you can check out the entire navigation challenge here.

Here at AlpineSavvy, we are huge fans of the terrific mapping software CalTopo. You can print three topographic maps of anywhere in the world, on a variety of base layers, add any scale you want to, and various paper sizes. It's easy to make your own GPX files, with tracks and weight points, and export them to use on your phone or handheld device. It's amazing software, it's free, or you can pay a modest annual subscription of $20 and get even more features, which I recommend. Have a look at this YouTube tutorial to get started and using this amazing tool.

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Example - USGS standard topo map, Eagle Creek OR, no shaded relief. Unless you’re experienced in reading topographic maps, it’s difficult to see ridges, drainages, and where the high and low points are.

Example - USGS standard topo map, Eagle Creek OR, with about 25% shaded relief. Note that you can now easily see where the ridges and creek drainages are, no real knowledge of contour reading required. (Shaded relief is kind of magical!)

See more about shaded relief at this post.

Caltopo MapBuilder Topo layer, Eagle Creek OR, shaded relief. This is a custom map player in Caltopo that shows trails, drainages, vegetation, and nice shaded relief. And the best part, you can print maps like this for free at Caltopo.com.

Learn how to use Caltopo from this YouTube video.

The "open" cordelette

While a traditional cordelette is about 16 feet of 7mm cord tied into one big loop, many climbers (if they carry one at all) prefer to leave it untied, known in some circles as an “open” cordelette.

Why use an open cordelette? It’s more versatile.

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You can tie the ends together quickly in a big loop if you need it, with a simple flat overhand bend. (That’s right, no double fisherman’s knot required.) It’s fast to tie and easy to untie when you’re done compared to many other knots.

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You can tie small loops in either end to make a ”bunny ears” cordelette. This can be handy when the gear is far apart, or you need to sling a big tree or boulder. Just tie a small overhand loop near the ends.

“Bunny ears” used to clip gear that’s far apart.

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Ice climbing toprope

If you're setting up an ice climbing top rope anchor, you can make two V thread anchors and connect them both with a single cord, if you keep it untied.

Photo credit, Tim Banfield and Sean Isaac

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Thread the open cord through fixed protection

This example comes from a nice PDF file showing some European style anchor techniques, made by the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (“Verband Deutscher Berg und Skiführer” or “VDBS”). Here, using an open cordelette lets you thread one and through the fixed gear that can’t be clipped. Also, note the girth hitch at the master point.

image: Standplatzlogik VDBS 2019 - Ausbildungsstandard VDBS & Alternativen

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Crevasse rescue

After a crevasse fall is held by the team on top, the person closest to the crevasse can tie a prusik hitch with an open cordelette (about 5 meters of 6 mm cord) on the rope, tie an overhand to make a clipping point, and tie the ends through their belay loop.

The key here is that the ends can be passed through the belay loop and tied if needed in a rescue; the rest of the time it stays out of the way on your harness.

Image: https://www.ortovox.com/uk/safety-academy-lab-ice/chapter-3/rescuing-a-companion

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Alternative anchor rigging

You can make an multi point anchor by not really tying any knots at all at least until the master point. Here's one way to do it, shown by my pal Ryan Jenks at HowNot2.com. It's a little hard to explain in words, so check out the video below.

Spoiler alert: 28 kN strong anchor made with 6mm cord, impressive!

Start it at 7:00.

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Here's another way.

Place three pieces of gear, or in this case, three bolts. At least 1 foot from one end of the cord, tie a clove hitch and clip it to the left bolt. At least 1 foot from the other end of the cord, tie another clove hitch, and clip it to the right bolt. Then, take the approximate middle of the cord and clip it to the middle bolt.

Clip a locking carabiner through the two “U” shaped strands in the middle.

Tie an overhand knot (or figure 8) to make the master point. Done!

Note:

• There is no redundant shelf on this anchor. The loop that goes from the masterpoint knot to the middle bolt is probably okay for clipping a backpack, but not for belaying.

• This anchor is easily adjustable. If the pieces are far apart, or farther away from you, tie the clove hitch nearer to the end of the cord (while still leaving a foot or so of tail, and snugging down the knot.) If, like in this case, the pieces are very close together, you can tie a clove hitch with longer tails, making a more compact / higher master point.

• This anchor can be easily adjusted if the direction of pull changes. If the direction of pull changes to one side, say the left, then the strand of cord going to the left anchor is going to go slack, which means it's not taking any of the load. You can easily adjust this by shortening the clove hitch going to the left bolt, which can regain a nice three point load distribution.

• You only have about half rated strength of the cord going to the single arms. A 7 mm cord is rated about 13 kN, so half of that is around 6.5, which should be fine. However, a 6 mm cord is only rated 7.5 kN, so halving that brings it down to 4 kN, which is sort of in the danger range. So, if you're ever going to use this technique, please use a 7 mm cord.

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Hey, don't take my word for it. Here's a short (31 seconds!) video by expert climber Hans Florine (multiple speed climb record holder on The Nose on El Capitan, among other things) showing this technique.

“Sawanobori” - Climbing UP waterfalls in Japan

So, this is not exactly a climbing tip per se, more a notice of a beautiful, slightly scary, and possibly inspiring video.

The Japanese climbing genre of “Sawanobori” (sawa = stream; nobori = climb) is sort of the opposite of canyoneering. The idea is to ASCEND a stream in a canyon until you reach the source.

Personally, I think this looks like a pretty loco and dangerous thing to do, but you do have to admire the vision and courage of the people who try it. (Disclaimer, AlpineSavvy does not recommend that you go out and try this anytime soon, unless you have professional North Face climbers as your rope gun.)

Also, another comment. There are a few scenes in here of the climbers tossing off chunks of moss. Generally, in the canyoneering world, this is not considered good form, and “Leave No Trace” ethics are extremely important when traveling in narrow, environmentally sensitive canyon areas. )(Yes, I get it that the climber was doing this on a “route” that will probably never be repeated by anybody, but still, it's worth mentioning.)

Here is an excellent 12 minute video showing some world-class climbers attempting this on a beautiful waterfall in Japan. Produced by the North Face, it has great filming, camera angles, and is well worth your time to check out.

Using a rope to make a tensionless tree anchor

Need to secure the end of a rope around a stout tree? Provided the tree is not oozing with sap, and you have a bit of extra rope, here's a good way to do it.

This is known by some as a “tensionless” anchor, because there is no knot that's under load or tension. I prefer to call it the “tree wrap”, as it's more descriptive. This is one of the strongest anchors you can build, because you’re using the entire strength of your rope, with no loaded knots which weaken it. One main benefit, it's very easy to untie when you're done, even after a huge load.

First off, have a good look at the tree. The American Alpine Institute blog has a good memory jog for this, "Five-and-Alive." The tree should be at least 5 inches in diameter, 5 feet tall, and alive with a good root base. Be wary of trees that could have a shallow root-base, in dirt, sand and/or on top of a rock. Thanks AAI, good advice! (Personally, I’d consider a 5 inch diameter as the absolute minimum, larger is better!)

Starting with one end of the rope, take a few coils in your hand, and pass them around the tree trunk 4-5 times. This may well take more rope than you think, so start with a bit extra. Tie a figure 8 on a bight or overhand in the end of the rope, and clip this bight to the load strand with a carabiner to close the rope system.

If you tie this correctly, the friction alone from the rope on the tree bark will support the load, and the carabiner at the end should never see any force at all.

• Rigging this close to the base of the tree reduces leverage and increases strength. This is more important if the tree is at all marginal. (If the tree is unquestionably strong, it doesn't really matter.)

• Try four wraps as a minimum to start. Add more if needed.

• Try to keep the loops reasonably tidy, but if they get a bit crossed up it's still going to be fine.

• This should not damage the tree (especially if it's one part of a multi piece anchor) because the force is spread out over many rope strands, and not gouging into the bark. If you wanted to be extra nice to the tree, feel free to put in a backpack or something similar between your rope and the tree trunk.

• If you're doing this on a conifer tree, there's a good chance you're going to get sap onto your rope. YUCK! This is something you want to avoid if at all possible, so try not to use conifer trees.

• If you do get tree sap on your rope, hands or anywhere else, you can use mayonnaise, believe it or not, to clean it off quite effectively.

• Another good option to secure the end of a rope around the tree is a bowline, either one strand or two.

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If you REALLY want to go with elegant minimalism, you can skip the carabiner entirely, and tie a rewoven figure eight around the load strand. That's pretty cool, an anchor you can hang a truck from that doesn’t use a single piece of metal!

Cordelette on a tree: caution on the shelf

Say you have a standard cordelette tied in a big loop, and you want to use it to build an anchor on a stout tree or a rock pillar, aka a “monolith” (one piece) anchor. If you pass the cordelette around the tree and tie it off in an overhand knot, (or double it and loop it over the rock pillar) it might seem that you have a bomber shelf if you clip one strand on the left and one strand on the right, just like when you clip two separate pieces of gear.

But be careful, it’s not what it appears. If you clip the two strands like you would for a gear anchor, there is a 50% chance you're going to be on just ONE strand of the cord, and therefore not redundant.

See the photos below.

I have to say, I was scratching my head a bit when I first heard of this. I had to set it up on a tree in my yard to see for myself.

After you read this, you may think that any anchor failure like this in the real world is so extremely unlikely that you're not going to worry about it. Well, that may well be true. However, this is not a very intuitive thing to grasp for most people, and I want to illustrate best practice in all aspects of anchor building. So, absorb it if you want and toss it if you don't. :-)

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Here's an Instagram video I made that shows it pretty well, with one strand of the cordelette wrapped in blue tape, to hopefully make it a bit more clear.

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Long cordelette looped around a tree, tied off with an overhand knot and locking carabiner as the master point. Perfect.

Hmm, thinks the climber, I think I want to add a shelf. How about I clip another locker to the two strands coming out of the top of the master point? Well, doing this is not a lethal mistake, but if you think you’re getting redundancy on two rope strands, you only have a 50% chance of doing so.

As it's shown here, the top carabiner appears to be clipping two different strands, but it's actually clipping the same strand twice - not redundant, whoops! You can't see it in the photo without a video walk-around the tree, but you can easily set it up yourself to see what I mean.

Here, the black carabiner is clipped correctly to both strands coming out of one side of the masterpoint knot. It's clipped to both strands, giving redundancy. Yes, if you're a long time cordelette user and have always used it to clip single pieces of gear, this photo below is probably giving you a minor freakout. Trust me, it's right, and set it up for yourself to see how it works. You can do it inside around a chair or pretty much anything.

(Of course, there's no reason to really use the shelf at all. In most cases, it's an optional nice thing to have but certainly not a mandatory part of the anchor. So, if this post is making your eyes cross, you could go back to the photo at the top, with no mention of the shelf at all, build an anchor like that and be just fine.)

Video - the making of a Metolius cam

Check out this great video showing how Metolius cams are crafted. Made by hand in Bend, Oregon! Support your local NW economy and buy Metolius.

Descending with a Grigri

If you have a Grigri or similar auto locking belay device, you can still get down a route. But, you need a few alternative techniques, because your device only works on a single strand of rope. Knowing some of these techniques can be great for descending multi pitch routes where your partner has a standard tube device and you have a Grigri. Use one of these techniques, and have the Grigri person go first.

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What are some situations where you might want to rappel with a Grigri?

Reduced risk on multipitch - an increasingly popular option for multi pitch climbs is for one partner to carry a Grigri and the other to carry a plaquette device. The leader is always belayed on the Grigri, and the second is always belayed on the plaquette. The devices get treated off between partners depending on who is leading. This can reduce risk going up, because it's generally easier to catch a lead fall on a Grigri. When it's time to come down, you can use the techniques described below.

Exploratory rappels - If you're doing multi pitch rappels on an unfamiliar route, consider sending the first person down with a Grigri (or similar assisted braking device) on a single fixed rope strand. 

Because the Grigri lets you go hands-free at any time, you can more easily:

• Decluster rope tangles

• Pendulum if needed

• Place gear and clip the rope to it if overhanging and/or traversing

• Reascend the rope easily if needed

Yes, the Grigri is not technically completely hands-free. But if you need to stop, simply tie a bight knot in the rope below your GriGri as a fail safe / back up. 

If you have any question as to whether or not your rope is long enough to get to the next anchor, one option would be to rig a Munter Mule Overhand (MMO) on the anchor. This gives you an option to easily lower your first person a bit if it turns out they need to go farther. Of course that also means that your rope is going to be too short to do a standard rappel for the last person, but there's a solution to that as well - the extended rappel. (Yo, read the guidebook next time and bring a longer rope, OK?)

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Here are a few ways to rappel with a Grigri.

1. Fix one strand

2. Self lower

3. Knot or carabiner block

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1 - Fix one strand

This is typically done by putting a bight knot (overhand, figure 8, clove or butterfly) in one rope strand, clipping that knot to the anchor, attach your Grigri to the fixed strand, and rapping on that strand. This of course works for the first person down, but not the second. Typically in a two person team, you would have one person with a Grigri and one person with a tube style device. The person with the tube always goes second. See photos below for some setups.

There are lots of ways to rig this. If you have a single master point. 1) Rig the middle of the rope through the master point, as for a normal rappel. 2) Clip a locking carabiner to the master point. 3) Tie a butterfly (in either strand, here the left) and clip it to the carabiner. First person down can now rap on a Grigri on the strand that’s “fixed” with the butterfly. Last person to rappel removes the carabiner, unties the butterfly, and raps on two strands.

Here’s a similar technique, useful if you have twin chain anchors. 1) Rig the middle of the rope through the master point, as for a normal rappel. 2) Add a locking carabiner to the right bolt and clove hitch the rope to it. 3) First person down can now rap on a Grigri on the left strand that’s “fixed”. Last person removes carabiner and rappels on both strands with a tube device.

Note: 99.99% of the time it's also going to be fine to rappel on the right strand. However, in the extremely unlikely event that the right bolt failed, then there’s nothing holding the rope to anchor. So, while it might appear that you should descend on the right strand, because that's what goes to the blue carabiner, it's marginally safer to rappel on the left strand.

Here's another crafty way to secure the rope strands - a stacked rappel (aka pre-rigged) with an autoblock. The second person rigs an extended rappel with autoblock, and puts both rope strands through a standard tube device.

Now the first person can rappel with Grigri on a single strand. The rappel device and autoblock from their partner above fixes the rope.

Note, many people think that the rappel device alone is enough to secure the rope, but that's not necessarily true. If the rope is new, thin, slippery sheath, etc. the weight of the first person can creep the rope through the top device. The auto block is important, it prevents rope creep.

Finally, an elegant way to fix both rope strands is with a Stone hitch. This is common in canyoneering, but not so much in rock climbing. It's basically a double strand slipknot, with a carabiner that prevents it from coming undone. Fast to tie and very easy to break down when the second is ready to go. Here's a whole article on the Stone hitch if you want to learn more.

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2 - Self lower

With the rope through the anchor, tie in to one end of the rope, attach to the other side of the rope with your Grigri, and lower yourself. This technique is a bit less common, and it has a few pros and cons, see below. There may be times when going more slowly and having increased friction is a good thing.

• For a self lower, be absolutely 137% sure the rope is going through some kind of METAL connection (carabiner, quicklink, chain, rap ring, etc) at the anchor point, never webbing!

• This option might be better if you have a skinnier rope and/or a newer sheath, because the friction of the rope passing through the master point will slow you down a bit and possibly give you better control.

• You’re descending at half speed compared to a standard rappel, which can help with rope control, again good if you have a skinny rope. Or, it could be a bummer if you have a long way to go.

• Tie a knot in the end of the rope, or maybe better yet clip the other end of the rope to your belay loop with a locking carabiner to close the rope system, so there is no chance you can rap off of the end. Having both rope ends attached to you means you can’t rap off the rope end, and minimizes problems caused by difficult terrain.

• PRO - A self lower can be a good choice if you only have a short distance to descend, because you don't need to flake the entire rope, feed half of the rope through the anchor, etc.

• PRO - This could also be a good choice if the rappel has some challenges - blocky terrain, places for the rope to get hung up, high winds, etc. (If this is the case, storing the rope in a rope bag, backpack or saddlebags or something similar can help it feed out smoothly.)

• CON - This works best with a single master point; doing it with two anchors, especially if they’re separated, can twist your rope.

• CON - Doing this can put excessive wear on fixed hardware. Probably okay if it's an easily replaceable quick link in a popular area, maybe not okay if it's difficult-to-replace hardware in a more remote area.

• CON - If your rope is running over any sort of a sharp edge, this may not be a good method.

• CON - The rappeller must deal with all the extra rope, as opposed to your partner lowering you, where the extra rope stays at the upper anchor. If you can get a good rope toss to make sure it gets down the cliff without tangling, good for you. If not, having the rope in a bag or backpack can make life a lot easier.

See this diagram from Petzl. It pretty much sums up how to rig a self-lower.

image: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Self-lowering

and, you can self-lower with any kind of rappel device, not just a Grigri. (Diagram from Petzl)

Source: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Accessing-an-exposed-rappel-station?ActivityName=Canyoning

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3 - Rope block (knot or carabiner)

This lets you retrieve the rope. This an advanced technique! There are lots of ways you can screw this up and die! Practice with a qualified instructor before you try this in real life! See video at the bottom for an example. I'm not going to get into the details here, because there are many important factors to consider and it's beyond the scope of this article. Here's a much more detailed article about rope blocks.

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Adding more friction

In many situations, like heavy load, wet rope, new slick rope, whatever, you may want some additional friction in your rappel. Here are a couple of ways to do that. Examples here are for belaying, but they also work for rappelling.

Photos from IFMGA certified guide Karsten Delap.

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM.COM/KARSTENDELAP/

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM.COM/KARSTENDELAP/

Another option is the Petzl Freino carabiner. This is designed specifically to add additional friction if needed to a rappel or lower. You clip the tail of the rope through the little spur on the right hand side. (I do not yet own one of these so I don't have an action photo.)

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Finally here’s a nice short video from IFMGA Certified Guide Karsten Delap showing a self lower and a knot block.