How to Ascend a Climbing Rope: Rock Climbing and Alpine Climbing Gear and Techniques for Safety
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Self-sufficiency is a great thing. It opens up so much more and it can help keep others safe, too.
If you and your adventure partners have the knowhow, skills, and equipment to get yourself out of a scape, you are now fee to move to any location on this amazing planet and pursue your hobby/passion. (If you want to fast-forward to the gear, scroll to the bottom.) You don’t need to limit yourself to those locations where there is a mass of humanity there to help out if something goes wrong.
That means more time to connect with your group (climbing team, thru-hike group… family) and deepen those relationships without distraction. Solitude can be beautiful.
And by being self-reliant, you don’t potentially put others at risk who may feel compelled to enter a dangerous situation and - therefore - potentially compound the trouble if something should happen to them.
No don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being out with a larger community, and there is nothing wrong in asking for help. But isn’t it nice to be able to choose solitude, safely, when you want it? And isn’t it nice to limit the number of times someone has to stick their neck out for us to the critical few?
And this is why I learned to ascend the rope. Like we talked about in the video, ascending the rope is a component of a larger rescue routine should you have a climber get hurt to the point where they cannot otherwise come down and yet are above the belay. This can happen in any climbing situation: sport climbing, trad, alpine… even top rope.
The basic routine, like we described, is:
Escape the belay (get out of the belaying system without putting the injured climber above in any greater risk)
Ascend the rope
Transition to descending the rope (without putting the injured climber or you in any greater risk)
Get the injured climber on your descending system and take them down with you.
We’re going to be providing a video and blog on each step of this process, but we started with ascending because it has applications beyond rescue: ascending a fixed line, allowing a second climber to follow a lead climber when the terrain is beyond the second climber’s ability… and, like we’ve found, allowing me to move up and down a rock route beside my kids as they’ve learned to climb.
You’ve heard me say before, “knowledge is weightless.” So, ascending the rope is a skill that I first added to my pack for when I really needed it, but I have learned to pull it out when I just want it, too.
And finally, in the video we discuss a number of pieces of equipment including a few options and a little bit on pros and cons. Here’s much of that gear (all as links you can follow). And, again, these are all things that I actually use:
Petzl Grigri+ (new version)
Petzl Tibloc (new version)
Sterling Hollow Block (19 inches)
Mammut Dyneema Contact Sling (120 cm)
Mammut Togir 3 Slide Harness (new model)
Good tools and a skilled user can go a long way to opening up a world of choice for where and how you want to adventure.