Autoblock tip: make a twist to fine-tune friction
Sometimes your auto block / rappel backup is either too tight on the rope, or too loose and doesn't grab. Here's a quick trick to fine-tune that adjustment so you get a nice smooth rappel.
When you tie an autoblock / thirdhand rappel back up, sometimes you may find that your hitch has either too much or not enough friction. Here's a trick that can help with that.
Remove one of the wraps, and then twist one strand of your friction hitch several times. This makes the remaining wraps constrict a bit around the rope. You can think of this is the equivalent of a half of a wrap, which can give you just the right amount of friction.
Here's a short video from IFMGA guide Ian Nicholson showing how it's done. Check out Ian's books, highly recommended!
Why is a Petzl PURline 65 meters?
Most climbing ropes come in lengths that are a multiple of 10, typically 60 or 70 meters. The Petzl PURline comes in a rather odd length of 65 meters. Why is this? I asked Petzl; here's the answer.
The Petzl PURline, made for light hauling and as a rappel pull cord, comes in a rather odd length of 65 meters. Why is that, you might wonder?
I was curious about this, so I asked Petzl directly.
When you rappel on your 60 meter climbing rope on the other side of a rope block, you’re using the PURline as a pull cord.
Your dynamic rappel rope will stretch about 5 meters, which takes you conveniently to the end of the 65 meter static PURline. Yes, those Petzl product designers are quite clever!
In case you're wondering, the Alpinesavvy graphic design department is hiring. I obviously need some help. =^)
What’s the “Low Impact Style” of ice climbing?
While ice climbing might feel more secure when you bury your pick halfway with every swing, doing this has a lot of drawbacks. Edelrid introduces what they call the “Low Impact Style”, a more refined technique. Their real world testing shows that delicate pick placements are stronger than you might think.
Check out this great video (link at bottom of page) from the always useful “Edelrid Knowledge Base” series on YouTube (a very underrated place to learn tech tips, in my opinion.)
While most beginners might think otherwise, ice climbing doesn’t have to be a battle of big swings and exploding ice.
This video from the (always useful!) Edelrid Knowledge Base introduces what they call the low-impact style of ice climbing, a technique that lets you climb harder routes with reduced risk, more refined movements, and with much less energy.
Beginners often hack away with full-body tool swings from hip, shoulder, elbow, and wrist. (I know I sure did when I started, because I was kinda scared!) Instead, the low impact style calls for reading the ice more like rock.
The core ideas are simple:
Look for natural features that accept the pick with minimal force.
If you don't have a natural feature, repeatedly tap lightly and precisely to make a pick placement instead of strenuous bashing.
Place the pick only 2–4 cm into good ice.
Primarily swing / tap with your wrist, rather than the whole body.
This reduces shattered ice, falling debris on you and your belayer, and preserves delicate features.
It wouldn’t be an Edelrid video without some creative experiments, would it?
They ran a series of tests on different pick placements in real ice, using a load cell and pulley system to measure how much force different placements can hold.
A “standard” deep, half-pick placement in good ice easily withstands forces above 3 kN, far more than the ~0.7 kN typically generated when the climber loads a tool with body weight during normal movement.
Shallower placements of around 3 cm still hold roughly 1.7 kN.
Even a seemingly sketchy 1 cm placement in good ice can sustain 0.5–0.7 kN—enough for controlled climbing when you’re not shock-loading the tool.
The same mindset applies to footwork. Look for precise front-pointing on features instead of hacking deep steps, which preserves ice integrity and gives more options as the route steepens.
This is more of an intermediate to advanced technique, because if your pick is just barely in the ice, and you shift the pick angle as you move up on it (a common beginner mistake) it's likely to pop out. However, if you're practicing this on top rope, which you should be, it can certainly reinforce good technique.
The takeaway:
Be a woodpecker, not a wood chopper.
Refined tapping can give you shallow but solid placements.
These shallow placements are usually strong enough and significantly more efficient.
The “low impact style” saves a lot of energy, preserves delicate features, and reduces dangerous falling ice for you and your partner.
Check out the whole video below.
Tame that long tether with a slipknot
Good rule in climbing: avoid having anything hanging below your knees, because it'll trip you up. Here's a simple way to shorten up your personal tether, such as a Petzl Connect Adjust - tie a slipknot.
A good climbing guideline: avoid having anything on your harness dangling below your knees. If you do, it's probably gonna trip you.
That can be a problem with some of the longer tethers, like the Petzl Connect Adjust.
Here’s a solution: tie a slipknot in the tether.
That takes up enough of the slack so it stays out of your way. When you want to deploy, it comes undone with a quick tug.
If you want to shorten it up even more, clip the slipknot loop to the tether carabiner.
3:1 haul with no friction hitches
Standard 3:1 hauling rigging calls for some sort of a rope grab (like a friction hitch) on the load strand. Guess what: you actually don't need one! Here's how to rig it.
Here’s the typical method for rigging a 3:1 “Z pull”:
Put a friction hitch or rope grab of some kind (like a Petzl Tibloc) onto the load strand.
Clip your pulling strand to that to make the “Z”.
Start hauling.
Okay, pretty standard stuff.
But, what if you need to rig a 3:1 and you don't have a friction hitch or a rope grab?
Guess what? You can clip that hauling strand directly to the load.
Exact same mechanical advantage, but without any friction hitches or rope grabs. Pretty cool!
Some of you might be thinking, “Well duh, of course that's how it works.” But when I recently saw this demonstrated it was kind of an eye-opener, so I thought it might be something new for you as well.
Finally, to be sure this is a 3:1, let's do a quick run through with the “T method” (or counting tensions) to check the mechanical advantage. Check out my detailed article on the T method.
What's the max load you can put on a rappel anchor?
How strong does a rappel anchor really need to be? Good news, not very strong! Here are some real world testing numbers with climbers of different weights, static and dynamic ropes, and various degrees of jumping around.
Do you ever wonder how strong your rappel anchor needs to be?
Answer, not very strong. Even if you bounce around like a special forces cowboy and weigh almost 100 kg / 200 pounds, turns out that anchor is not gonna see more than about 3 kN, tops.
If you rappel fairly normally on a dynamic rope, the anchor shouldn’t see much more than your body weight.
The chart below comes from a nice article from Black Diamond with a collaboration from IFMGA Guide Mark Smiley. It's a good read, here's a link.
Also, in the article is an interesting test of different sorts of buried deadman snow anchors. (Hint, you want to bring a 2 x 4.)
Revive the waterproofing on your shell layers
Is your shell jacket starting to wet through? Might be time to give it a special wash with some Nikwax (or similar) products. Here's how to do that, step-by-step.
Is it soggy season? Maintain your shell layers so they (hopefully) bead water like a new Ferrari.
There may be other products that do the same thing, but I'm gonna tell you ones that I'm familiar with: Nikwax Tech Wash and TX Direct.
First off, manage your expectations. Products like these are never going to get you back to “brand new” water beading, but they can usually stretch a few more years out of your favorite shell.
Don't go cheap and try to use just one; the Tech Wash and the TX Direct really do work better together. (These are packaged as a pair, that's a hint.) You can wash a lot of clothes with a couple of these bottles.
Frequency of using them mostly depends on how often you're out. If you're skiing 50+ days a year, you might want to do a wash cycle with this every two or three weeks during the season. If you're not out so much, maybe twice a winter should be fine.
Nikwax says the TX Direct is more for hard shell clothing. However, I've used it fairly successfully on soft shell pants and jackets. Your mileage may vary.
If you have other outerwear that you want to protect from the weather, like down jackets, gloves, fleece, etc., NikWax has a product for it. I haven't used these other ones so I won't comment on them, but they have a waterproofing product for just about everything you could imagine.
If you're wondering about nasty chemicals, Nikwax is water based and PFC-free.
This procedure is gonna last longer on newer garments rather than older ones, but it's still a good one to do at the start of every soggy season with most of your outer layers.
How to use NikWax on your shells, step-by-step . . .
Clean the detergent tray on your washing machine. Take it (carefully) completely out of the machine if you can, remove any excess regular laundry soap that might be in there. Put it carefully back in.
Empty out all pockets and close all zippers. Wash two garments at a time.
Start with the Nikwax cleaning solution. Give the bottle a good shake, and pour about 150 mL (for two garments) into the detergent tray.
Run the wash cycle. Nikwax suggests warm or cold water, slow spin, and extra rinse if possible.
Leave your clothes in the washing machine, and then run another cycle with the TX Direct. For this, use about 200 mL. Give that bottle a good shake as well.
If your washer has a lame spin cycle, let your clothes drip dry for a bit outside or over the tub, but don't let them get completely dry.
Put clothes in a dryer on low heat.
A more secure anchor with no locking carabiners
Need to build an anchor on cam placements, want the security of locking carabiners, but you don't have any? Not a problem if you know this anchor trick.
You’re alpine climbing. You finish your pitch, and see a nice crack which perfectly takes a couple of cams for your anchor.
(Yes, a three-piece anchor is a general standard, but in many alpine situations, two good pieces are acceptable, and you need to use what you’ve got at the end of a pitch.)
You could clip both of the racking carabiners with a 120 cm sling, tie off a figure 8 master point, and call it good. Standard textbook anchor, no problem with that.
But . . . what if you want to add a little extra security to this anchor, so you're positive the sling won't unclip?
Maybe one of the carabiners is being loaded in a funky way over an edge, and you're not happy with it. Or maybe you're a little sketched out on your two-piece anchor, and having a little extra security gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.
The main problem: you don't have any extra locking carabiners. What can you do?
Here’s one solution.
Evaluate your cam placements. In this case we’ll say the purple cam on the right is a better placement.
Step 1 - Take the racking carabiner from the better placement, and clip it opposite and opposed on the other (yellow) cam. Now you have the functional equivalent of a locker.
Step 2 - Clip your 120 cm sling to these two opposite and opposed carabiners.
Take the other end of the sling and pass it through the sewn loop on the other cam, making a basket hitch. (Don't worry about the basket hitch damaging the cam loop, it's plenty strong.)
Step 3 - Make a girth hitch master point on a large HMS carabiner. Done!
Schweeeeet! Now there's zero chance that sling will ever come undone from the cam placements. Take a deep breath and enjoy your well-earned warm fuzzy feeling. =^)
Because there are four strands going to the cam on the right, assuming ideal load distribution, that cam will see slightly more force than the one on the left. That's why we checked the placement quality when we started.
If both cams are pretty much equal quality/strength, then it doesn't really matter which cam gets the basket hitch.