This is a very thorough explanation of escaping the belay, but what I've never learned is what to do afterwards. I'm stuck on a ledge with no rope, now what? I guess I can eat a sandwich.
You would abseil down to the climber and perform first aid if required. Obviously on multi pitch this becomes more of a difficult task and then you have to think how you want to retrieve the rope.
Great job, Rob! Totally charming. Great analogies and phrases- air-lock doors, and the climber may lower a little. Loved the climber fall, and the bloopers at the end. Good stuff!
Excellent video. Although your technique is by no means slow, you've nevertheless taken the time to demonstrate and sufficiently explain each step. Some information is absent (e.g. why you are using Munter-mules), but clearly this is not meant for a new climber (and hopefully not attempted by one), and any experienced climber should already know this. I was taught this by very skilled and experienced professionals, and your presentation was no less excellent. Well done, and thank you for posting!
Great video very informative but it would be nice to see you do this again with an actual 200 lb load hanging. Just to see exactly how the process works in real life
Very nice video. I liked how you explained how to escape the belay using a prussik loop or what you call a hero loop. Another video I saw used a cordalette to make the friction knot. Chances are if you are on a multi pitch climb both you and your partner will have a cordalette or something similar to make an equalized anchor but if your belaying and not on the ground your cordalette will already be in use on the anchor and your partner would have the other cordalette.
Friend unconscious/unknown/dead?!!?? Dangling HELPLESSLY??!?!!......YOU have all the great majority of the rope at YOUR END??!!?! The only real true and EFFICIENT way to deal with this situation is to cut that fucker loose and belay yourself down nice and relaxed. Tell everyone he cut himself free to give you a chance to make it otherwise you both would have perished! Drink to the new hero back in town!!! In all seriousness though this video was awesome and really informative. I like your videos as they show all the little details quite well and you explain why not just show what to do but teach why you do what you should do. Thanks
17:45 Interesting difference of style, in the UK we put at least another half hitch in place (often 2) instead of a single half hitch as they can slip, with your method there is an element of slip due to the overhand not being up against the half hitch. Also you have yourself between the anchor and the load line which risks you being pinned against the rock in a loaded situation ;)
Hi rob, thanks for the excellent content. Do you always back up the clove when tying into the anchor? Is it because the clove inherently needs to be backed up or because it helps with escaping the belay? I’ve never even considered backing up my cloves! Thanks again :)
Hey Luca! It’s important to back up the clove to be redundantly attached to the anchor. If the line between you and your clove is compromised, or you accidentally tied a munter, you’ll have a backup! Also if you need room to walk around the ledge later, you can untie from your clove and still be connected via your backed up figure 8 on a bight
All of this mess presumes that you don't just always & simply belay your partner directly off an anchor, which is always my simpler & safer preference.
Was wondering is it safe to use a PA like what he used in 14:30? are there negative effects of tying multiple knots on a single nylon sling? will this reduce the load tolerance of the sling?
To break this down a bit, there are two separate interesting questions here: First, does tying a knot in a sling reduce its breaking strength? The answer is yes. DMM made an excellent video & page about some drop tests they performed here: dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/how-to-break-nylon-dyneema-slings/ Second, is there a difference between the strength reduction in a sling with a single knot, versus a sling with multiple separate knots arranged in series? The most correct answer to this is that I do not know, because I cannot reference real-world drop tests of this setup. But although I don't have hard data, I am pretty comfortable making the assumption here that multiple knots is not much different than a single knot. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. To use some made up numbers, I am assuming that an overhand knot reduces a 22kN nylon sling by 40% to 13kN at the location of the knot. Three knots in series means there are three locations in series that are each 13kN weak-links. Therefore, the overall strength of the sling whole sling with three knots is still 13kN. Just to be complete while we're talking about Personal Anchors, I'll state the obvious two critical rules for using *any* PA, whether it's my setup or something else: (These rules are also the key take-aways from that DMM video.) Rule #1: No slack. When you’re attached to an anchor, it’s important that there’s no drooping slack in your connection anytime a fall is even remotely possible. Rule #2: Whenever possible, use the climbing rope itself as your attachment to the anchor. It’s better than any PA in every possible way. The PA is *only* for use when you cannot be tied into the rope for some reason. (i.e. usually rappelling, but in some rescue situations as well.) How I connect myself with the rope: ruclips.net/video/3SkCojauHto/видео.htmlh1m58s
I'm curious as to what you would do differently while using a mega jul over an atc. Can you elaborate? I love my mega jul but still practice belay escapes with an atc
Since the megajul "locks" it becomes easier to tie the first mule+overhand on the belay device and build the load transfer arrangement without needing to keep constant tension on the brake strand of the rope (obviously you should still keep a hand on the brake strand at all times but the device is providing almost all of the brake force).
you could do it exactly like this with a mega jul also. but if you have some kind of assisted braking device, you could also just back up the belay device with an overhand on a bight instead of doing the wrap around mule method.
Great video Rob! I would just like to offer a few house cleaning thoughts; Your anchor tied with a cordallette in the manner you have it allows you to have 4 strands of rope in the master point, you could consider clipping just 2 strands and using the other 2 as a second master point for better organization. Have you heard of the quad anchor? In my opinion it is a much better form of a two bolt anchor. Why back up a clove hitch? considering the working load limit of a clove hitch is conservatively 1000lbs and it will break the rope before it slips any further. You are already in some serious shit if you are putting that kind of load on a clove hitch and you save a locking carabiner! Thanks for your insights, keep working and learning!
Thank you! Sure, the quad is good option in certain situations (and less ideal in certain other situations,) but this is not a video about the pros/cons of different anchor alternatives. If I had discussed that here, it probably would have added, oh about 1 hour 7 minute and 10 seconds to the length of this video ;) The reason for backing up the clove hitch is simply to protect against human-error. I agree, a properly tied & dressed clove hitch is not going to fail under any load we can conceivably generate in recreational climbing. But I have on a few occasions seen "clove hitches" that were really münter hitches, or simple carabiner-wraps, or weren't fully clipped to the biner, etc. To varying degrees, I've seen this happens to both students and "experts" alike, especially during some long and taxing days in the alpine where the fatigue or other distractions are present. By adding a backup every time, even when it's supposedly "not necessary," it becomes a habit that is fast, automatic, and efficient for me; I do it without thinking.
Thanks. I wonder if we can't come up with a quicker system, because an unconscious climber hanging in his harness could well be dead in 15 minutes, because the body shuts down.
Hello, nice video but I have the next doubts: 1) Why do you prefer cordelette instead of the sling-runner to build the anchor?. 2) How long is the cordelette you used to build the anchor? and what is the cordelette diameter?. 3) What is the meaning of PA?, the yellow sling-runner to attach your harness to the anchor. Thank you in advance.
1) you can untie cord and have a single strand 2) a "Cordelette" is typically a 7mm, 18-20ft piece of cord that is tied together 3) PA = Personal anchor
The cordalette is dynamic, and will take any knot in round rope. Slings require a tape knot only, and are pretty much static (slightly less so in 1" nylon). This is enough to sway some people. 3) Metolius has a nice product called a PAS for a personal anchor system.
interesting to see as you have tied into your harness with the rope to make a dynamic belay. then for some strange reason you clip your belay device into the abseil/belay point of your harness. thus when the climber falls all the energy created is directed into yiu directly and the anchors secondary. so what is my point? well if you tie in using the rope the idea is you clip your belay device into the loop of rope tied into your harness. this the makes yiur belay dynamic and all the energy is directed into the anchors and belay first and not you. forces generated in a lead climber fall is fairly high and the energy created can cause you the second or be layer a lot of unnecessary injury. so if you tie into the rope loop you created by tying into the harness you lessen the direct forces on you.
Its replicating as if he is on a multiple climb and belaying the leader up on the next pitch. Imagine he is on a pitch after the first one, he'd be attached to the anchor with the rope on a clove hitch.
Actually, I believe Andy Jones is suggesting we use the 'double figure 8 rope loop' as a belay loop. Similar to an alpine bod harness. Above, Andy claims it absorbs more energy from the leader fall. Interesting idea. Andy, is this common practice where you climb? It would be strange here in the USA and not acceptable. A few inches of dynamic single rope will not provide much stretch or absorb much energy. It impedes the belayer from untying himself from the system while maintaining the belay. A leader fall could make the belayer's knot harder or impossible to untie, impeding the belayer from a future escape.
What Andy is saying is that if you clip the belay device locker into the belay loop AND the rope, the anchor will absorb the fall force instead of the belayer. The rope would also take the force of a fall instead of the harness which would be pulled in two directions (rope pulling tie-in points in one direction and belay loop pulling tie-in points in the opposite direction).
You are inconsistent and you want to face into the wall not put yourself between the rope and the wall. You demonstrated why and did not even mentioned it.
I love this guy. Unpolished and genuine. What a gem.
Why is this the last video this guy made? I can listen to him all day.
So you've only made 2 instructional climbing videos? I could watch these all day, make more!
Your videos are so well done, highly informative, and entertaining. Thank you!
This is a very thorough explanation of escaping the belay, but what I've never learned is what to do afterwards. I'm stuck on a ledge with no rope, now what? I guess I can eat a sandwich.
You would abseil down to the climber and perform first aid if required. Obviously on multi pitch this becomes more of a difficult task and then you have to think how you want to retrieve the rope.
with a 3:1 system you get the climber down
Rob, the best rock climbing teacher I've found so far. So LUCKY to have found this channel
Well done. Love the outtakes. Fact is, in tricky situations (not just videos), we all may make mistakes. The key is to identify and remedy them.
Great job, Rob! Totally charming. Great analogies and phrases- air-lock doors, and the climber may lower a little. Loved the climber fall, and the bloopers at the end. Good stuff!
Great explanation of a complex process. I liked the humour at the end!
another excellent instruction video...much better than any diagrammitic version I have seen in a book
Excellent video. Although your technique is by no means slow, you've nevertheless taken the time to demonstrate and sufficiently explain each step. Some information is absent (e.g. why you are using Munter-mules), but clearly this is not meant for a new climber (and hopefully not attempted by one), and any experienced climber should already know this. I was taught this by very skilled and experienced professionals, and your presentation was no less excellent. Well done, and thank you for posting!
rob, come back, teach us more! :D
Great video Rob! Clear and concise.
Just moved to Oregon from Miami. You do explain things clear slow and easy to understand.
Great video very informative but it would be nice to see you do this again with an actual 200 lb load hanging. Just to see exactly how the process works in real life
Very nice video. I liked how you explained how to escape the belay using a prussik loop or what you call a hero loop. Another video I saw used a cordalette to make the friction knot. Chances are if you are on a multi pitch climb both you and your partner will have a cordalette or something similar to make an equalized anchor but if your belaying and not on the ground your cordalette will already be in use on the anchor and your partner would have the other cordalette.
Miss you, Rob! What the heck are you up to these days? Who are you climbing with?
Very nice! I suppose you could’ve took the prusik at the end and slid it down and clipped it to the shelf of the anchor for quick backup
Awesome videos. Very educational. Been watching during all this virus 🦠 garbage. Keep up the great work. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Very good; many thanks Rob :-)
Do more videos, they are great. Please, thank you
Friend unconscious/unknown/dead?!!?? Dangling HELPLESSLY??!?!!......YOU have all the great majority of the rope at YOUR END??!!?! The only real true and EFFICIENT way to deal with this situation is to cut that fucker loose and belay yourself down nice and relaxed. Tell everyone he cut himself free to give you a chance to make it otherwise you both would have perished! Drink to the new hero back in town!!!
In all seriousness though this video was awesome and really informative. I like your videos as they show all the little details quite well and you explain why not just show what to do but teach why you do what you should do. Thanks
17:45
Interesting difference of style, in the UK we put at least another half hitch in place (often 2) instead of a single half hitch as they can slip, with your method there is an element of slip due to the overhand not being up against the half hitch.
Also you have yourself between the anchor and the load line which risks you being pinned against the rock in a loaded situation ;)
I think that was just to be facing camera otherwise he'd be looking at the wall and we his backside.
Hi rob, thanks for the excellent content. Do you always back up the clove when tying into the anchor? Is it because the clove inherently needs to be backed up or because it helps with escaping the belay? I’ve never even considered backing up my cloves!
Thanks again :)
He backs up the muenter the same way. It is not a bad habit.
He backs up the muenter the same way. It is not a bad habit.
I don't back up my cloves either, and the DAV (German Alpine Club) does not prescribe it.
Hey Luca! It’s important to back up the clove to be redundantly attached to the anchor. If the line between you and your clove is compromised, or you accidentally tied a munter, you’ll have a backup! Also if you need room to walk around the ledge later, you can untie from your clove and still be connected via your backed up figure 8 on a bight
I never understood free soloing until now.
All of this mess presumes that you don't just always & simply belay your partner directly off an anchor, which is always my simpler & safer preference.
belaying a leader off the anchor?
Was wondering is it safe to use a PA like what he used in 14:30? are there negative effects of tying multiple knots on a single nylon sling? will this reduce the load tolerance of the sling?
To break this down a bit, there are two separate interesting questions here:
First, does tying a knot in a sling reduce its breaking strength? The answer is yes. DMM made an excellent video & page about some drop tests they performed here: dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/how-to-break-nylon-dyneema-slings/
Second, is there a difference between the strength reduction in a sling with a single knot, versus a sling with multiple separate knots arranged in series? The most correct answer to this is that I do not know, because I cannot reference real-world drop tests of this setup. But although I don't have hard data, I am pretty comfortable making the assumption here that multiple knots is not much different than a single knot. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. To use some made up numbers, I am assuming that an overhand knot reduces a 22kN nylon sling by 40% to 13kN at the location of the knot. Three knots in series means there are three locations in series that are each 13kN weak-links. Therefore, the overall strength of the sling whole sling with three knots is still 13kN.
Just to be complete while we're talking about Personal Anchors, I'll state the obvious two critical rules for using *any* PA, whether it's my setup or something else: (These rules are also the key take-aways from that DMM video.)
Rule #1: No slack. When you’re attached to an anchor, it’s important that there’s no drooping slack in your connection anytime a fall is even remotely possible.
Rule #2: Whenever possible, use the climbing rope itself as your attachment to the anchor. It’s better than any PA in every possible way. The PA is *only* for use when you cannot be tied into the rope for some reason. (i.e. usually rappelling, but in some rescue situations as well.)
How I connect myself with the rope: ruclips.net/video/3SkCojauHto/видео.htmlh1m58s
@@RobBusack It's also worth noting, you're pretty much dead every time at 12Kn. You'll likely break before the sling.
You anchor is not redundant in your setup with the sling, if one fails you'll fall.
Nice Video Demonstration!
Come back Rob! your videos are amazing!!!!!!
Rob my guy are you good cause your vids are dope and if your thinking of making more vids you should.
really good content!
I'm curious as to what you would do differently while using a mega jul over an atc. Can you elaborate? I love my mega jul but still practice belay escapes with an atc
Hey Travis, it should still be the same with a mega jul.
Since the megajul "locks" it becomes easier to tie the first mule+overhand on the belay device and build the load transfer arrangement without needing to keep constant tension on the brake strand of the rope (obviously you should still keep a hand on the brake strand at all times but the device is providing almost all of the brake force).
you could do it exactly like this with a mega jul also. but if you have some kind of assisted braking device, you could also just back up the belay device with an overhand on a bight instead of doing the wrap around mule method.
Fantastic, Thanks
Well done, thanks!
I always thought the loop was to attach the system :-))
One munter away from a good time ;)
Very informative, thanks Rob :)
Great video Rob! I would just like to offer a few house cleaning thoughts;
Your anchor tied with a cordallette in the manner you have it allows you to have 4 strands of rope in the master point, you could consider clipping just 2 strands and using the other 2 as a second master point for better organization. Have you heard of the quad anchor? In my opinion it is a much better form of a two bolt anchor.
Why back up a clove hitch? considering the working load limit of a clove hitch is conservatively 1000lbs and it will break the rope before it slips any further. You are already in some serious shit if you are putting that kind of load on a clove hitch and you save a locking carabiner!
Thanks for your insights, keep working and learning!
Thank you!
Sure, the quad is good option in certain situations (and less ideal in certain other situations,) but this is not a video about the pros/cons of different anchor alternatives. If I had discussed that here, it probably would have added, oh about 1 hour 7 minute and 10 seconds to the length of this video ;)
The reason for backing up the clove hitch is simply to protect against human-error. I agree, a properly tied & dressed clove hitch is not going to fail under any load we can conceivably generate in recreational climbing. But I have on a few occasions seen "clove hitches" that were really münter hitches, or simple carabiner-wraps, or weren't fully clipped to the biner, etc. To varying degrees, I've seen this happens to both students and "experts" alike, especially during some long and taxing days in the alpine where the fatigue or other distractions are present. By adding a backup every time, even when it's supposedly "not necessary," it becomes a habit that is fast, automatic, and efficient for me; I do it without thinking.
Very well explained!
Thanks for posting this! :)
Thanks. I wonder if we can't come up with a quicker system, because an unconscious climber hanging in his harness could well be dead in 15 minutes, because the body shuts down.
you forgot catastrohpy knot
Hello, nice video but I have the next doubts:
1) Why do you prefer cordelette instead of the sling-runner to build the anchor?.
2) How long is the cordelette you used to build the anchor? and what is the cordelette diameter?.
3) What is the meaning of PA?, the yellow sling-runner to attach your harness to the anchor.
Thank you in advance.
1. not sure2. no more than 20 ft3. personal anchor
1) you can untie cord and have a single strand 2) a "Cordelette" is typically a 7mm, 18-20ft piece of cord that is tied together 3) PA = Personal anchor
The cordalette is dynamic, and will take any knot in round rope. Slings require a tape knot only, and are pretty much static (slightly less so in 1" nylon). This is enough to sway some people. 3) Metolius has a nice product called a PAS for a personal anchor system.
Cheers Mate!
interesting to see as you have tied into your harness with the rope to make a dynamic belay.
then for some strange reason you clip your belay device into the abseil/belay point of your harness.
thus when the climber falls all the energy created is directed into yiu directly and the anchors secondary.
so what is my point? well if you tie in using the rope the idea is you clip your belay device into the loop of rope tied into your harness.
this the makes yiur belay dynamic and all the energy is directed into the anchors and belay first and not you.
forces generated in a lead climber fall is fairly high and the energy created can cause you the second or be layer a lot of unnecessary injury.
so if you tie into the rope loop you created by tying into the harness you lessen the direct forces on you.
Its replicating as if he is on a multiple climb and belaying the leader up on the next pitch. Imagine he is on a pitch after the first one, he'd be attached to the anchor with the rope on a clove hitch.
Actually, I believe Andy Jones is suggesting we use the 'double figure 8 rope loop' as a belay loop. Similar to an alpine bod harness. Above, Andy claims it absorbs more energy from the leader fall. Interesting idea.
Andy, is this common practice where you climb? It would be strange here in the USA and not acceptable.
A few inches of dynamic single rope will not provide much stretch or absorb much energy. It impedes the belayer from untying himself from the system while maintaining the belay. A leader fall could make the belayer's knot harder or impossible to untie, impeding the belayer from a future escape.
Multipitch
What Andy is saying is that if you clip the belay device locker into the belay loop AND the rope, the anchor will absorb the fall force instead of the belayer. The rope would also take the force of a fall instead of the harness which would be pulled in two directions (rope pulling tie-in points in one direction and belay loop pulling tie-in points in the opposite direction).
fully agree with Andy
what's a hero loop?
Basically just a short accessory cord tied into a loop with a double fisherman's knot, like a prusik loop used for backing up a rappel.
6:11 jesus !!! my ears
I can’t watch your videos without getting turned on and forgetting I was trying to learn how to make an anchor.
The amount of eye contact in this video is oddly unsettling.
That said, it's a very good demo video. Well done
I blacked out what did you say?
You are inconsistent and you want to face into the wall not put yourself between the rope and the wall. You demonstrated why and did not even mentioned it.
He needs to be facing away from the wall so you can see his face