How to Transition from Rappelling on Two Climbing Ropes to Ascending the Ropes
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As I mention in the video, “Don’t get stuck when relying upon the rope for progress.”
Progress doesn’t always mean going up. Sometimes we use the rope to get down with ‘getting down’ being the logical conclusion (we hope) of any climb. So, if we are using the rope to get to the next stage in our climb’s progression, even if that means heading downwards, we need to know how to handle the eventuality of having something go wrong.
Now we need to add in potential complications: maybe the terrain we are rappelling is too hard for us to rock climb back up. Or, maybe it’s fully overhanging, so we can’t even reach the face to climb if we wanted to. Basically, we need to know how to reverse any system because the unpredictability of climbing could bite us at any time.
So, as I mentioned, I’ve done a video about transitioning from ascending a rope to rappelling down it, but we also need to know how to switch from rappelling to ascending - and we need to know how to do it when we can unweight the rope by simply standing on a ledge or some such. Can we make the transition when the rope is the only thing keeping us from falling to injury or death?
Well, if you have a few pieces of equipment (these are what I use, but you can replace these items with other items of your choice):
Mammut Dyneema Contact sling 8mm (wide) 120cm (long)
Sterling 6.8mm (wide) Hallow Block 19in
Petzl William Locking Carabiner
… and if you have the knowhow from the video, you can.