What happens to the rope when you climb a cliff?
Ya know when a climber scales a cliff face by a rope? Well what happens to the rope when they get to the bottom? I’m not looking for dumb answers here people. I’m just saying that if a climber wanted to climb a huge ’shelf’ all by it’s self in the desert. He would scale up and then repel down. Then what?
July 20th, 2010 at 8:05 am
The rope is used to stop short a fall that the lead climber could have. This is easy to understand if the belayer holding the rope is at top and the lead climber is climbing down. It’s harder to understand how it works in reverse, where the belayer is on the ground and the lead climber is going up, but I will explain:
First, the belayer finds a secure place on the ground or on some ledge where he won’t fall or be pulled off. The lead climber ties himself to one end of the rope and climbs up. The belayer “feeds” the rope as the lead climber goes up higher. The belayer makes use of a belay device, such as ATC, that makes it easier to stop the rope if it were to suddenly pull out. But I’m getting ahead of myself. What the lead climber does as he progresses up, he carefully places “protection gear” every so often in the rock, the classic example being just a “nut” that has a steel cable loop, to which he snaps on a “quickdraw”, to which he then snaps his rope into. The nut is securely seated in some crack, so that it resists a pull-out. So, when he goes up higher, and should he suddenly fall, he will fall down past this nut, so that now there is an anchor above up in which the rope can prevent any further falling. It is the job of the belayer to “lock off the rope” when this happens, so that the rope holds the falling lead climber from falling much further. In fact, climbing ropes are especially designed to be “springy”, like a rubber band, which is why bungee jumping originated with the experience and use of rock climbing ropes.
The lead climber can only climb as far as the rope is long, so when he gets to a suitable belay point, he’ll become the belayer and his belayer becomes the follow-up climber. This is repeated as often as necessary until they reach whatever point or summit they wish to achieve. To get down, they most commonly rappel down (even though walk-offs and down climbs are often done as well). The rope is slung through anchors (everybody’s got their own technique, but the use of a sling is the most commonly used gear), and when they rappel down to the ground or to the next “ledge”, the rope is pulled down from the anchor, and this is repeated until they are on the ground or wherever they can to easily walk off.
“What happens to the rope when you climb a cliff?” I can tell you that the rope stays with the climbers at all times, going up or down. You’d be surprised how easily the rope can simply be dropped by inexperienced climbers while way up on a vertical face, and suddenly they are in deep, deep trouble. A lot of technical rope climbing includes making sure this never happens.
Finally, there’s the matter of solo climbers. Most solo climbers are either suicidal or are so proficient that they can climb without any gear at all. But it is possible (but very tricky) for a solo climber to “self belay”, using the rope in approximately the same way that a two-man climbing team would do it. This is recommended only for the most experienced climbers.
July 20th, 2010 at 8:10 am
well the last person to come down could be belayed down by someone on the ground and the rope retrieved.
July 20th, 2010 at 8:28 am
An anchor is used, in places with frequent climbers, permanent anchors have been installed.
A rope has a stopper knot tied into, a stopper knot is a not that is designed to stop the rope from passing through a small opening. This is the rope that will support your weight.
A second rope is tied to the free end of the first rope (the other side from where your weight is). Once your reach the end, you pull the second rope, which brings the first rope out the other side of the anchor.
This is common, because if you climb a tall mountain, you don’t bring enough rope for the whole mountain, just enough to get you through sections of it. Once you finish a section, you anchor the rope again and do the next part, both going up and down.