Gri Gri Backups?

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JohnBiehn

Trad climber
Madison CT - Burlington VT
Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 8, 2003 - 10:08pm PT
Do any of you use your gri gri to back up your ascenders while jugging?

what do you think about it? do you still tie in short? sounds like it would work pretty well...

what do you guys do?


thanks,

John
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Apr 9, 2003 - 03:44am PT
I use the Gri-gri to back up my jugs and I think it rules.

It's particularly great for fixed lines where the bottom end of the rope is fixed to anchors. (then tying a knot will just hang you up short)

The cam of the dang thing could alway get jammed open but if both your jugs fail and then your gri-gri fails, god is gonna get you one way or another. (you can always tie-in to the end of the rope)

Peace

Karl
David

Trad climber
San Rafael
Apr 9, 2003 - 10:16am PT
Some people on this forum use a Gri-Gri in place of the lower ascender. In this case it's not really a back-up so to speak but potentially a bit safer than just two ascenders. I've only tried this once. It seems to work well on certain terrain. If you're aleady using Gri-Gri as a back-up it would be even easier to switch to this mode.
BrentA

Gym climber
estes park
Apr 9, 2003 - 11:02am PT
i love using the gri gri to back up jugging. Maybe everybody does this next bit of beta, but i sure do find it handy. As soon as my partner reaches the anchor, and is "safe", not "off belay" I whistle out a bit of slack to let him tie in long, if we are short fixing I pull all of the slack through. Then as soon as he says "off belay", which with my partners also means "rope fixed" I pull back all the remaining slack and tension the grigri. Then you are instantly on the fixed line and able to disconnect from the anchor facilitating cleaning up the rat nest a bit easier. then throw your jugs on, lower the bag...whatever but hoping on the fixed line quickly usually helps things out.

Sometimes it is handy to help with lowering out too, but then you lose time having to undo it and pull the end of the rope through, then rerig.

Anybody out there taken a big whipper rope soloing with a grigri? I have had it catch falls before, but never a gear ripping swan dive or anything exciting.

cheers,
Brent
Dragon with Matches

climber
Bamboo Grove
Apr 9, 2003 - 11:35am PT
I think Dan Osman verified the reliability of Gri-Gri fall-holding power with some moderately huge drops. See Masters of Stone V, etc. for more details.
Melissa

Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
Apr 9, 2003 - 12:53pm PT
Check this out:

http://www.rockclimbing.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17407&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Scroll down to the story by mrhardgrit. In short...the gri-gri held, but the biner blew.
Lambone

Ice climber
Seattle
Apr 9, 2003 - 09:02pm PT
Yeah, but that guy took a factor two fall onto the anchor while leading. That is a totaly different circumstance, and he did some other stuff wrong as well...

Last summer my partner took a factor 2 fall onto the belay while cleaning! The gri-gri caught him, but it inverted the cam of the gri-gri and ruined the rope.

Extra points if you can figure out how that happened, and on which route...the story is on this web site in another place.
Lambone

Ice climber
Seattle
Apr 11, 2003 - 03:53pm PT
Damn, nobody wants to try and guess...ok I'll tell the story anyway.

The 4th Pitch of Tangerine...thye classic downward traverse. My bro was cleaning by headlamp after a day that took much too long, doing the lower-outs like a champ newbie.

When on the last fixed pin before (above) the anchor, I told him he should take his jugs off the rope and just lower to the anchor. I had skipped the last few moves and just pendulumed to the anchor, so it was the last piece. Just as he started to lower with the gri-gri the fixed pin blew. I had him fixed to the anchor, and he took a 30fter straight on to it.

We both sh#t our pants and thought he was going to the deck. But he stopped falling and started laughing. He said "Hey dude, why don't you just lower me from here?"

"...uuuhhhh (looking at a clusterf*#ked wall anchor)...bro i don't think thats a good idea, maybe yopu should just come up here so we can figure sh#t out."

Turns out we had to cut the rope because the knot was sooo welded. In the end it was pretty funny, I swear his scream stopped time in the valley for a second.

Starting to get spring fever! :)
JohnBiehn

Trad climber
Madison CT - Burlington VT
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2003 - 12:14am PT
Hey thanks for everyones input, sounds like a grigri is gonna a wise investment.

take care,

John
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