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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Great points as usual RGold & Ed. Having both dabbled with Simon rapping I can see how u guys formed your opinions & they bring some good thoughts to consider. The one point I don't entirely agree upon is the speed argument. It is close to twice as fast if done efficiently by a competent party who is confident with the technique & has done it before(remember we'd be silly to pop the simul rap cherry in a storm or epic situation). Another factor to consider is that when simul rapping, if u are competent, there is 2 people & 2 sets of eyes to dbl check the system, mistakes should be easily noticed, especially if dbl checks are done (read: competent). I think many who do not approve of this technique have never used it, that seems pretty obvious from the replies by many here so I can't really accept your opinions as being anything close to valuable on the topic. I can attest to the efficiency & time savings having rapped a route one at a time & having simul rapped the same route on a different occasion. It is faster, quite a bit faster. I'm not saying that we should all sumo rap on every single rap we do but I'm glad I have the confidence to use this technique in the right situation.
Next time your at the crag or gym build an anchor 6' off the ground & try for yourself.
Edit- Ed in places like Potrero sometimes 20 single rope raps off bolted stations is the only way! I'll usually takes the walk offs any chance I can since I think any type of rappel is best avoided if possible:-)
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Craig Leubben, in his book on rappelling, calls simul-rapping "super-dangerous."
An experienced voice on simul-rapping is that of Will Gadd, who had a long post about rappelling on his blog with a lot of comments (full disclosure---I was one of the responders). A relevant quote is
Don’t simul-rap and otherwise get tricky on your raps until you’ve really, really figured your systems out, and even then simul-rapping doesn’t generally speed things up much...I did a lot of simul-rapping over the years but have pretty much given up on it in the last decade, it’s open to problems unless so many control measures are put in that it becomes very slow. Very, very rarely is simul-rapping justified by expediency...
Here is an interesting comment about speed from a Time Wave Zero climber http://www.summitpost.org/time-wave-zero/591986:
We do not simultaneously rappel anymore . Since this climb we have compared the time it takes us to rappel one at a time verses simultaneous rappelling. We actually rappel significantly faster rappelling one at a time than we do simu rapping and it is a hell of a lot safer.
The reason simul-rapping doesn't speed things up as much as people think is that the actual descending from one anchor to the next is a relatively small part of the rappelling process. Most of the time is spent at the anchors, in untanging snarls, and in freeing hangups, and these time elements are the same regardless of the rappel method. Even halving the actual descending times won't make that much difference in the total descent time, because you are halving a relatively small fraction of the total time expenditure. My guesstimates earlier suggest this as do the quotes above.
Of course, if a simul-rapping party gets down fifteen minutes ahead of a conventional party, they think they've gone a lot faster, but the time savings are really pretty minimal.
On the other side or the coin, here is one of the better arguments for simul-rapping I've seen, but note that the claims are for communication, not speed. http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1503728#1503728
IMO, in less than optimal conditions -- windy, rainy, cold, dehydrated, injured-but-conscious partner -- or any other time when communication is imperative and yet not a foregone conclusion, keeping the partners together has substantial value...I think simulrapping may actually be safer than solo.
I can think one time in which my wife and I were rapping from Chrimson Chrysalis in RR, a notorious rope eater. I won't get into the details how, unless you really want me to, but I managed to get the rope stuck about thirty feet under me. I was at the anchor below, she was at the one above and I was unable to give her slack to hook up her device. I was also unable to communicate with her due to high winds and drizzle. And we couldn't see each other. The weather was obviously in a downward spiral and it took me some time to get down to free the rope. The whole time I had trouble concentrating -- all I could think of was my wife alone and confused, not knowing what was happening and unable to get down to me to find out. It was one of the most terrifying moments in my climbing life. Had we been simulrapping to eliminate the communication problem from the get go, we would have avoided a lot of terror. Luckily, neither us compunded the situation by committing further errors.
And here's a previous Supertopo thread on simul-rapping in which the OP claims a 45% time reduction (which I don't believe, but I could be wrong too). http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1505190/Simul-Rap.
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orangesporanges
Social climber
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There may well be
Other techniques/skills to become more proficient and efficient with
Thus negating
The 'need' to simul-rap
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Is there a thread about ropes getting stuck? That's always a good rock climbing story.
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jstan
climber
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Oh GOD no!
I feel a Locker graphic coming on.
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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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"IMO, in less than optimal conditions -- windy, rainy, cold, dehydrated, injured-but-conscious partner"
These may be the times simul-rapping is most dangerous. When you're cold, injured, rushed, panicked, and not thinking too clearly.
"I managed to get the rope stuck about thirty feet under me. I was at the anchor below, she was at the one above and I was unable to give her slack to hook up her device. I was also unable to communicate with her due to high winds and drizzle."
Simul-rapping isn't the solution to this problem. In very windy conditions the rope ends should be clipped to the harness. Additionly the rope may be belayed out by the partner above or you can just take all the rope with you. This would prevent getting the rope stuck, esp. on a "a notorious rope eater".
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Believe it or not, I know something about rope systems, and such, and can think for myself having taken in input from others. Thus I have always done. Appreciate your advice.
Actually, it was a joke. Obviously not a very effective one.
I don't have any strong opinions on simos one way or the other.
Aside from my commitment to phonetic spelling. heh
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crasic
climber
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Is it really that much faster than a single rope rappel? Maybe what, like a minute or two a rappel if you are efficient
I usually use the time while my partner is rapping to set up my third hand, speeds things up and gives them an emergency belay if the ends aren't even.
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