Went on a weekend SRT course in the Mendip with Andy Sparrow in the summer. I enjoyed the course and many thanks to Andy for his attention to detail and patience. What I struggled with was using the standard Petzl ascender/foot loop so Andy leant me his Petzl 'La Pompe' to try. The difference and improvement in ascending the rope was dramatic.
However, there doesn't appear to be any 'La Pompe' devices available now. Andy said Petzl have discontinued the product.
I came across the website for On Rope and they have the 'OR1 Double Bungie Ropewalker' - ''the best rope climbing system in the world''.
Anyone tried this kit? How did it perform?

All this kind of kit is great for huge free hanging pitches where not much caving is involved between them.

The problem with this kind of kit is when you arrive at re-belays etc they can be over complicated. Getting yourself past them swiftly and efficiently is (IMHO) about 75% of the battle in vertical caving.
The frog rig is the industry standard, preferred, de-riggure method of SRT. There is a reason for this and that is that most british caves involve pretty awkward caving, between pretty awkward small pitches with lots of awkward rigging (Im talking on an international scale here). The frog rig actually evolved and was developed because it it most suited for this kind of caving.

Unless you plan to do a lot of free hanging, long single pitches (of which there are very few in the UK) then I'd spend less time faffing around looking for alternative methods and concentrate on getting used to a frog rig.
(There was a reason Petzl discontinued the Pompe - because nobody used/bought them :wink: )

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First - SamT is right, frog is great - concentrate on getting used to it as it's extremely versatile and the standard in this country. However once you're totally happy with a frog rig there is an optional extra for going up big (>20m-ish), relatively open pitches.

A few guys I know use a standard frog rig, but with a third jammer tied onto the inside of the right boot. It's quite hard work keeping yourself upright but you can then effectively ropewalk, using the hand jammer for your left foot. Take the foot-jammer off and you're back to the normal setup for doing technical stuff.

I've never spent long enough to learn this effectively but those that have, love it.

I'm one of those who use a third jammer (on the right boot). I find it incredibly useful on tight pitches where you cannot get your knees up very high. The tightness actually helps your top half, by keeping you more upright, and it is as easy as climbing a rigid ladder - but as Sam points out passing a rebelay or diversion is not so simple (personally I just use the one foot loop until I'm well past the problem and can reattach the foot jammer)

On a large, open pitch you can get a good speed up, BUT you get very tired arms from holding yourself upright. Even being pretty practiced with the technique, I can't do more than a couple of hundred feet at a go before my arms are shot!

Apart from the extra foot jammer, my kit is standard Frog, but I do slide the foot-loops (both on the left leg normally) inside my knee pads, which helps them not to slide off my wellies when unloaded (but this can help create rope spaghetti at a pitch head, as you cannot get them off so easily). If I want to swap to Frog halfway up a pitch I just pull the extra foot loop from my left leg and put it on my right, whilst taking off the foot jammer.

I only really started to play with the foot jammer as I'm not very good at trapping an unwighted rope between my feet!

I would suggest that you stay with a standard Frog rig until you are proficient with that - spend the time getting the Frog rig set up most efficiently before playing with other things.

Yer i have to say i'm with Dave on this one.
The best pitch i've ever used my foot jammer on was Bitch Pitch in JH. You simply walk up the wall cause it's not quite vertical, with your back resting on the wall behind.
Any cave trip that has pitches less than 20m i'll use it. After that i'm just knackered! Tried it once up Titan; got about 10% of the way up before i gave up and swopped to frog!
Also i find at the top of pitches the're really good to get your chest jammer off with.

yup, petzl pantins are cool for awkward pitches like bitch pitch and very good for getting yourself off rebelays.

RE: Pantin.

Has anyone given any thought to mid rope rescue where the casualty is using a Pantin (and happens to be tall) and the rescuer is a short-arse doing a reverse prussik to get to them? Haven't tried experimenting with this in a training session yet but have only chatted about it over a pint in the pub once. Any feedback, anyone?

:roll: I have seen this mentioned on a web site discussion forum run by Adam Evans (Instructor). Again they have thought about the problems but not yet got round to practising a rescue. With the amount of people now using pantins we perhaps should be doing some practice in a nice save environment before we get a problem underground :!:

I guess you just down-prussik past them (a body-pass looking a lot like a knot pass)?

Or if they're leg isn't that heavy you may be able to lift it far enough to reach the foot jammer??

Mid-rope rescues are always grim so this probably wouldn't add too much to the difficulty.....

Steve900, what sort of trouble are you having while prussiking? It could just be that you are relying too much on your upper body strength and perhaps have not got your feet sufficiently underneath you; are you using a handled jammer (top) or a basic? (handled jammers can seduce you into a poor stance, creating a heavier burden on your arms, for instance).

Also, a good reason to persist with the UK established frog system is that it "standardises" your kit so anyone attempting to rescue you will find it that bit easier to unravel any "knitting" you've created!

P.S. to Ann & Mudmonkey - Thanks for the input re: Pantin rescue - I'll need to have a practice session and take it from there!