4 Essential Ways To Use Slings in Multi Pitch Climbing

Slings are in multi pitch climbing what quickdraws are in sport climbing. No doubt abut it.

Whether you're out for aid climbing or free climbing, a bunch of slings (various lengths) should be part of your gear just as the rope and harness are.

Here's why:

1. Equalizing the belay - It is advisable to equalize all the anchors in a belay as to distribute your weight evenly in all anchors. Should one anchor fail, the others will hold without taking the shock. Make sure each sling loop is independent after you equalize all the anchor points - this can be done with clove hitches or overhand knots.

Images from Escalada.Verticon.ro

2. Fluid running of the rope - The route rarely follows a straight line in alpine climbing. So two half ropes and long slings used as runners (quickdraws) are essential for reducing rope drag. Yes your falls will be longer (if you fall that is) but the rope will stretch on its entire length - this means a smaller shock both for you (lead climber) and the last anchor point.

3. A neat way of using poorly hammered pitons - On some older routes you will find pitons that are only hammered half way through. The pioneers used what they had - one size pegs made in the factories where they worked. If you clip your quickdraw into such a piton, it can pop out easily in case of a fall - the lever effect is so great that some may pop out just by hanging in. You can minimize the lever effect by making a simple prusik loop around the piton, close to the rock face - that's a neat usage of a sling.

4. Protection on sharp ridges - Don't you love rock spikes in a ridge? Those are your perfect anchors - hang slings with screw-gate carabiners around them and clip your rope in. Watch out for loose spikes though! Hit them with your fist as to asses whether they're strong or not before using them as anchor points.



Of course there are other ways you can use slings:

• improvising a harness
• using slings as foot loops in aid climbing 
• miscellaneous usage in survival situations, etc.

Read The International Handbook of Technical Mountaineering for free here. 

Happy climbing!

Funny Guy Climbing in El Capitan

It's all about attitude!

What's the point of being scared when you've already gone for it? This guy is doing some serious artificial big wall climbing (solo) and yet he speaks merrily and sings just like I would do when I'm out in the park (on the grass, on the ground...).

I, for one, am not a big fan of aid climbing but the way he copes with each passage makes me humble. I wish I had this spirit when I had to pass difficult unprotected cruxes on multi pitch routes... Usually I get scared shitless.

Respect for this dude!

Tough Enough - Climbing in Madagascar

Tough Enough, is the name of the 400 meter route in the Tsaranoro Valley in Madagascar first climbed by Arnaud Petit, Stéphanie Bodet, Sylvain Millet and Laurent Triay in 2008. Their only objective was to free the 10 pitches - many rated 8a and harder - on this African bigwall.

The climbing on the vertical granite wall was extremely difficult. The climbers gave it their all on the 380 meter route, with pitches rated between 7c and 8b+.
Tough Enough is an important milestone in contemporary free climbing. After a month on the route, the team was able to free all the pitches. It's up to the next generation of climbers to link all the pitches in a single push.

Source: Petzl

Tough Enough - climbing Madagascar
by Petzl-crew

Autumnal Multi Pitch Climb in Postavaru

A beautiful autumn day with lots of sun and plenty of wind. We climbed a south limestone face in Postavaru mountain. The route - EN: The Magpie, RO: Cotofana - is neither hard nor terribly easy and passes under a little roof keeping a constant medium difficulty.

Back in 2003 I was a mountain guide and climbing instructor here, leading a German lad and a Swedish young lady on a neighboring route in the same wall - EN: Animals' Wall, RO: Peretele Animalelor.

Castoru captured our outdoor adventure on his video camera and the footage will be aired on PRO-TV Brasov in the following days, perhaps Wednesday. I will get the video this time and I will post it on Highball Blog. Hopefully I can get our previous video from this tour.

Castoru leading on the roof traverseShooting our rappel descent

Cheers!

Climbing in Bucegi Mountains - Dealing with Small Misfortunes

Every year I manage to go through the summer without great realizations in my climbing performance. This year I was as lame as usual. There are plenty of reasons not to climb during summer and I always cling on each and every one of them - it's too hot, it's raining, the rock walls aren't dry yet (if it rained beforehand), the seaside is tempting, trekking is fun, it just doesn't fit as a relaxing activity for holidays, mountain biking cannot be postponed, etc.

As soon as the fall comes, however, I seem to turn my thoughts towards rock climbing again. I come to find that it's my favorite discipline amongst other outdoor activities that I like to perform. It's silly but it's true!

Every aspect of autumn encourages the climber to hit the rock faces - cooler temps and yet warm enough to be pleasant, better friction for both sole of climbing shoes and hands, great colors of the changing landscape, new crags to climb on, especially those which are facing South, a larger group of people in every tour (they're all back from their holidays and are eager to get together) and so on.

My desire for adventure is even higher in this season and this is also fueled by the ideas that spark within our group as we climb indoor and chat in the afternoon of every week day. We, climbers from Brasov, gather more often and in great numbers, now in the climbing gym, than we did all summer at the crags. It's pretty convenient for us - we're all so sporty and yet pathetically lazy.

Bucegi mountains are a great terrain for extreme adventures and I love to go there for both climbing and hard trekking or scrambling. My trip on Saturday had a little bit of everything.

I headed with Castoru for a seldom visited conglomerate climbing wall in order to climb a seven pitches route. There are several routes across the wall and there is also room for a few other lines. Castoru is already thinking to drag me here once more in the future so I can help him to bolt what is to become a fashionable route. :-)

As usual, we carried extra gear for protection (nuts, cams and pitons) and used two half ropes for the climb. I always advise adventure climbers to be equipped likewise when going multi pitch climbing.

I'm not sure whether it was bad fortune or luck but a small event deterred us from finishing the route - we accidentally dropped a climbing shoe... I mentioned luck coz once at the top of the route, a new saga is looming for the glorious climbers, that is descending safely - there is no path and the terrain is awfully treacherous. And now, with short daylight, it meant we should be as fast as possible. So, as we couldn't afford to loose time with one of us climbing either bare foot or with mountain boots, we decided to rappel and to look for the shoe at the base of the wall, between the fir trees.

We did so and found the shoe just a few meters away from the wall; its rolling was stopped by a fallen tree.

Even though our climbing tour was abruptly stopped by this incident, I am still satisfied for learning the way up to this wild and solitary wall. I like to think that small misfortunes, seemingly annoying, are the price one has to pay in order to escape greater calamities. Perhaps if we hadn't dropped that shoe we would have had trouble on the lengthy descent (like some friends of ours had this summer).

Photos taken with my phone camera.
By the way - can you recommend me a sturdy camera phone that takes high quality pictures? Carrying a digital camera is too much for me, that's why I prefer a phone which I can keep in my chest pocket and take out easily when needed.

Take care and be safe!

Me after the first pitch - I look sleepy and a little fat Castoru - leading on the second pitchThe approach wasn't quite a piece of cake

Multi Pitch Adventure Climbing in Malaiesti Tower (Bucegi Mountains)

"Castoru" (nickname for Dan Borcea) is a well known veteran climber and mountaineer who's always up for sporty challenges. For this weekend, 22-23 Aug, he invited me to Malaiesti Tower in order to check out the routes, which were first climbed some 30-40 years ago.

Being a rather remote climbing area, comparing it to Costila area, the routes haven't been maintained in terms of renewing the old pitons and dropping the loose rocks on the wall. For this reason, it is advisable for climbers to carry additional protection as friends/cams, nuts and extra pitons.

On our first day we climbed the central route (RO: "Traseul tavanelor din peretele central"), leading below and over the fairly visible overhangs in the middle of the wall and ending in a small window at the West side top of the tower.
On the second day, we engaged into the gully/canyon on the East side of the tower, being accompanied by Castoru's colleagues from PRO TV Brasov. The video footage is to be materialized into a short TV show called "Vremea distractiei" (EN: "Leisure time"), that will be aired on PRO TV Brasov.

We didn't take bulky (but proper) cameras on the wall so all our pictures were taken with phone camera - sorry for the questionable quality!

Malaiesti Tower and our routesTemporary headquartersMarching towards the towerWarmup bouldering before taking on serious wall climbingThe valley itself is an interesting bouldering spotSizing up the wall and choosing the routeLeading on the 3rd pitchThe windowCastoru, perhaps tired of my silly picture takingWe doubled our rappel protection East side gullyPacked snow