How to Pass a Knot Through a Lowering System When Lowing a Climber More than a Rope Length
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In the video, I provide two tutorials on passing the knot through a lowering system using two different methods. I also begin the video by offering a few reasons why lowering a climber on a single strand made of two ropes that are tied together could be a tactic we choose to employ.
The reality is that this will still be a rare occurrence. Nonetheless, if we are employing this tactic, it is likely because something else has gone wrong or we, at the very least, are feeling the push to get down the mountain fast.
But a standard lower, using a single rope and lowering a first climber something less than or up to half-way, then having the second climber use the two stands for a standard rappel, is a tactic I employ somewhat frequently. The most common reason is when I am unsure of the location of the next stance for where we will build our next lowering/rappel anchor. When there are unknowns below the climbing team, having the first climber on lower, rather than rappel, makes it much easier to explore the mountain’s face in search for the next best place to form an anchor.
Here are a couple of reasons:
By having the climber on lower, we have the luxury of passing by a marginal stance for the next anchor in order to find a better one. Should we eventually decide that no better stance exists within the rope length we want to use, it is far easier to convert the lowering setup to a climbing setup than it is to convert a rappel to a rope ascension. This provides freedom for out lowering “explorer” to take risks like bypassing a marginal stance without burning through a lot of time and going through more complex system conversions.
And because the second climber, the one managing the lowering system, is minding the rope, we can really extend our exploration to the true halfway point of the rope, or even just beyond. That halfway point is important; it lets us have the second climber come down on a standard rappel. Well, we can go just a bit past halfway because the climber managing the system can see how much past halfway the team can go. We can have one strand be longer than the other, add a carabiner block to the rope, and use the long end as a single strand rappel for the second climber. That climber will need to add a sling or cord or something to the carabiner blocked end, as they go past, to extend that end and turn it into a pull strand. So, we can extend a decent past half the rope with still a reasonable safety margin.
So, having some lowering setups are good tools to have in our metaphorical toolboxes. It’s not just a rope trick.