Tired of not having anyone to climb with over the last day, I finally bit the bullet and went to King Climbing and signed up for a1:1 course on multi-pitch. I was lucky enough to get an excellent and very thorough and patient teacher in the form of Cope (or at least that's how you pronounce his name).
Leaning how to multi pitch has always been a desire of mine so -why not just get on and do it.
It really us one of those disciplines where you can see the value of checklists. There's a bit to do and a certain sequence to do it in. Unfortunately when you are on a climb you can't really consult your checklist - so it needs to be clear in your head and practiced so many times that it is second nature (so I have a way to go yet). We worked with one rope rather than two - that will come later.
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| see- easy!(?) -Cope demonstrates the rig for a multi pitch |
So (as an aide memoir), the sequence is:
SAFETY WARNING: this is designed as a "note to self" for my own future reference. I am not an expert, in fact, I am a learner at multi-pitch climbing so please DO NOT use this as your reference. Any reference to this is at your own risk.
First ALWAYS put a knot in the other end of the rope. Saves you from rapping straight off the end of your rope and plunging from a very great height.
1./ lead climb up the first pitch. At the end of the climb put clip your safety sling into the anchor
2./ you need to have 2 points of safety before considering yourself safe. Clip a quickdraw (qd) into the left hand of your current anchor point (under the rope/chain)
3./ measure a length of rope from where you are tied into your harness that is as long as your safety sling (this is usually the safety sling length + around 6 inches to reach the qd you have just placed.
Take this length of rope (i.e. from harness to qd setup in step (2) above and fasten this rope into that qd with a cove hitch. Take up the weight on the anchor and make sure the safety sling and the rope to the qd are of equal lengths. You are now safe. Tell your belayer "safe, belay off".
4./ Put a snapgate biner on the front loop of your harness. Take a length of rope from step (3) and makea relatively slack loop back to the biner on your harness and fasten this with a clove hitch. This effectively creates a cradle for your to coil the rope over as you belay.
5./ Place another up on the rh side anchor point.
6./ clip the rope that is heading down to the ground into the qd placed in step (5)
7./ Taking the rope that is from your harness up to point created in (6), pull the rope up, laying it over the cradle created in step (4). Pull the rope through until it takes up all the slack for the climber below. The climber should prepare by tying into their harness and getting ready to climb.
8./ Attach your belay device onto your harness and the length of rope created in step (7).
9./ On belay. Climb when ready. {response from partner below "climbing") "Climb On. Belay as per usual but laying the slack rope over the cradle from step (4) as your take up the slack as your partner ascends.
10./ When your climbing partner reaches your belay point, they will typically clip into the safety and take a bit of a bread. It doesn't make sense to swap over at this anchor point as it is a lot of mucking around and potential safety risk so your partner, once rested, climbs up to then next belay station and sets up the belay station at that point. Effectively each climber is climbing 2 pitches in a row.
When at the top you can lower or rappel off (preference is the latter. Pull the rope through the anchor until it is even (i.e. double up the rope) and put a knot in the end before lowering it. REMEMBER THE KNOT it will save your life.
variations on the theme
2 ropes
I did not practice this, however, for big wall climbs there is the variant where the seconder clips a second rope into their harness and brings it up (trailing behind them then attaches that to the belayer so you always have 2 ropes.
belay device as part of third anchor point
[use this when the climber you are belaying is heavier than you. It will save you being dragged into the rock face in front of you!]
this variant kicks in at step (8) in the instructions above. Rather than attaching the delay device to your own harness, you can attach the belay device to the third anchor point (i.e. the anchor point referred to in step (5)). Make sure this is attached with a locking biner. NB This requires a special design of ATC device that has a point for an anchor at the end of it (I always wondered what they were for!).
....
Happy after mastering the multi-pitch
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