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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Climbing as a group of three ... how best to do it 21-Jul-2006 At 11:21:03 AM Fool in the Rain

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Climbing as a rope of three is definately better with two ropes, either leading on doubles, or using two singles with the middle person tied between the two ropes. If you can get hold of two single ropes I'd recommend the latter method if you have two confident leaders. First leader starts up, completes the pitch then brings up the second, who can also be loosely belayed by the third person. Second unclips the gear from the top rope and clips the gear into the bottom rope. This is good for inexperienced seconds as the are very well protected on traverses (e.g. The Bard) and don't have to struggle to get the gear out! The third follows the route, takes out the gear and leads through, followed by the middle person and then the original leader. All climbers are tied on with standard figure 8s. I've used this method on some long (approx 300m) routes and it works well provided the pitches are of a decent length. If the pitches are all less than half your rope length then you can do the same with the middle man tied in the middle of a single rope (using a figure 8 on bight, or alpine butterfly and two screw gate biners). However check the descent details for the intended climbs as quite a few do require two rope raps.