mark wrote:
"David Martin" wrote ...


MatSav wrote:

Incidentally, you'll NEVER get your bike UP with absailing equipment -
that's designed for going DOWN ;-)

Is that a challenge? IIRC the main feature of such a piece of equipment
is to prevent the rope from slipping past too quickly.. And such an
arrangement can easily be modified to work for going up as well as
down.. (says the bloke who has absailed using almost everything from
'classic' to the latest and greatest fancy bits..) A prusik knot is a
pain in the **** for ascending, there are many better variants out
there.

..d

"Ab" is the German word for "down", "seil" is the German word for rope. To
abseil is to descend a rope using a braking device.
The abseiling equipment that I've used (everything from the Dulfersitz to a
Gri-Gri , which only works on a single strand) prevents the abseiler from
slipping down the rope too quickly by wrapping the rope around something,
usually a locking carabiner. Since the rope has to be held in tension in
order for the abseiling device to work, it's going to be rather difficult to
move the abseiling device up the rope, although the abseiling device and the
attached climber/abseiler can be allowed to slide down the rope pretty
easily by moderating tension on the unanchored end of the rope and letting
gravity do the work. I'm not sure what you classify as abseiling equipment,
but nothing that I've used to abseil with would be especialy suited for
ascending, except perhaps short distances on low angle slabs.

Obviously it isn't ideal for ascending, but that doesn't mean it can't
be done ;-)

I could probably do SRT with a petzl stop and a figure eight (or a
couple of spare karabiners and a cows tail, or a spare sling, or...

Adaptability is the name of the game. You can spot the serious climbers
cos they have 250kg breaking strain bootlaces..


...d