Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Rope Soloing instruction of the week: Screamers

Belaying in roped solo climbing is very static. Wether you are using clove hitches or a Silent Partner the stop is very sudden. Many people use load limiting runners at the belay stations so that if they take a fall the force on the anchor will be reduced. For multipitch climbing It is very convenient to have two of them so that there is one at the lower belay and one at the higher belay. That way when you are setting up the anchor you can clip the Screamer (Yates brand load limiting runner) into the anchor and rappel directly off of that. A typical rappel will not generate enough force to tear a Screamer (unless you are using Scream Aids). The only disadvantage is that a screamer with a carabiner on each end is fairly long on the harness. I clip one of the carabiners directly to my harness to save the extra three inches.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.