Chest or Feet First?

[Getwet]

In during a recent post caving pint, I moaned to the rigger that he was leaving too short loops on re belays to allow easy passing  I do have a bad shoulder so am particularly sensitive to such things) He retorted saying that no one else moaned about them, which was true! A quick pole revealed that I was the only one out of a group of six who would choose to transfer their chest jammer first on the ascent, I was surprised. It is true that transferring the foot jammer first allowes another few inches of climbing, hence the loop is not as short. However I have always found it easier to transfer the chest jammer first, especially if there is a slight angle to the rope above the re belay.

Whats the view of the learned people here? Am I the odd one out or am I caving with odd people??

 

[paul]

It's normal procedure to transfer your Croll (chest jammer) first on a rebelay.

It's often only possible to transfer your Croll first on a rebelay if the rope above is quite long. If you transfer the upper jammer first you usually find that due to the rope stretch, it will make it tricky to stand in your footloop and then transfer your Croll.

There are no "rules" and no SRT Police, just recommendations from those who have tried different methods and found what is usually best. Do whatever you find is easiest for you as long as it is safe. If the rigger is causing you problems with his rigging, tell them.

Petzl do some useful stuff on techniques. Have a look at http://www.petzl.com/files/all/en/activities/sport/tech-tips-caving.pdf. Maybe print off the page showing passing rebelays and show your friend? 

 

[cap n chris]

Personally I'm not a fan of the "stand up in your footloop and transfer anything" brigade, instead far preferring the Marbach/Tourte method (Alpine Caving Techniques) whereupon you arrive at the rebelay, clip your cowstail into the anchor and then remove your croll and transfer your weight onto the cowstail, allowing you to complete the croll changeover manoeuvre without any dynamic muscular stresses whatsoever. With this technique you can also choose whichever changeover you wish to do first, as the situation determines, be it footloop first or croll first.

Given the ease of this method I'm surprised anyone who has read ACT still utilises the 40+ year old "UK" technique as it seems such an energy-sapper. I guess it's an old-dog-and-new-trick situation and/or the version which gets passed on "cos that's the way me grandad did it".

Thanks, Paul, for the link; the diagram shows the rebelay passing technique as described above.

 

[paul]

Totally agree Cap'n. I've been clipping my cowstail into the anchor and then hanging from that for what seems like ages (now that I think about it, it is ages since I started SRT in the early 80's - bloody hell!) as per ACT, as you say.
However, you still need to unweight your Croll in order to transfer it and it is usually easy to just stand up using your footloop to do that (again as per the Petzl diagram I referred to above  ) and then sit down again hanging from the cowstail and then transfer your Croll to the upper rope.
If your footloop jammer is on the rope above the rebelay, because you transferred it first, and there is a lot of rope stretch, then standing on your footloop to release your Croll achieves nothing due to the rope stretch...

 

[Brains]

Croll first, footloop second, cow tails to take the strain.
Footloop first= stretching the rope and going nowhere really

 

[dunc]

Croll off first for me, whilst standing in the footloop, straight onto other rope, usually done in one swift move.

Hardly ever do footloop first, although it does occur once every blue moon, depending on circumstances, which I can't really describe, it's just how I feel at the rebelay. But as I say most of the time (probably  about 99%) Croll first which as has been said above, is easier.

 

[SamT]

9 times out of ten, it'll be croll first. Not just because thats what I fancy, or because that's what me grandad did. It because 9 times out of ten, it takes less effort than hand jammer first.

As paul says, there are no hard and fast rules, and no police. However, there have been rescues in the past caused by people getting hung up on re-belays. The following recent post outlines a situation that was caused by moving hand jammer across first...

http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=10160.msg136258#msg136258

This situation could have been much worse under different circumstances - such as being on a very wet pitch.

I'm intrigued by chris's post, nowt wrong with what he's saying, but surely there is a little effort involved in getting your weight back down onto the cows tail, by, erm, standing up in your foot loop to get  your croll off the rope (first), surely, whilst your on with that, you may as well just slip the upper rope into your croll. 

Anyhows, each to their own. Every re-belay is different and each will have its own set of circumstances, however, IMHO most will be easier to pass if you move your croll first.

 

[Stu]

Whats the view of the learned people here? Am I the odd one out or am I caving with odd people??

Croll first because if you can do that manoeuvre i.e balance in your footloop - especially free-hanging - you can perform any variation of aerial acrobatics you like (some of which are fundamental to SRT IMHO).  Question for you: what do your friends do at pitch heads? Hand jammer first? It's only my experience; I do find the Croll last types are usually the ones who will clip everything into anything for security; though in fairness it is definitely a nervy technique to get the hang of but I do stress it when teaching people SRT (see above). Skilled SRT should be about economy of effort, fluid movement getting on and off the rope and a safe but not overly cautious approach.

The answer I suppose is to rig yourself  .

 

[cap n chris]

I moaned to the rigger that he was leaving too short loops on re belays to allow easy passing  I do have a bad shoulder so am particularly sensitive to such things)

Perhaps considered by some to be useful feedback, but wait....

He retorted saying that no one else moaned about them

Logically a load of old tosh, viz: just because "no-one's ever complained" it doesn't stand to reason that there's nothing to complain about!

IMO every rigger should aim for "user-friendliness" in their tapestry of perfection.

 

[Getwet]

As usual, some great feed back and comments, cheers.

I have been of the "one swift fluid move" school, I would clip my cows tails in as a precaution but never hang on them on the way up. However, I had never thought of the ACT method, it sounds so much easier, particularly as I only have one and a half good arms due to a knackered shoulder and am wary of any ariel acrobatics, though I always manage OK. I'm off to try the ATC in in my garage!

The "moaning" at the rigger was in fact just good banter, but with a more serious underlying point to make, equally his retorts were banter, however the more I moan the tighter he seems to rig them. Yes I do rig myself, and always leave the loops long enough  unless the rope is on the short side of coarse, which is his reason for leaving short loops, just in case!

 

[cap n chris]

FWIW, a commonplace (European) rigging technique for long(er) pitches is to rig a static footloop as part of the rebelay, by simply creating a "stepping sling" from the main rope (a sling + krab will do the same job but requires additional kit). Obviously there is a commensurate increase in the rope required and the topo will (probably) not take account of this but it serves as a useful aid on:

* Long pitches where rope stretch makes the standard rebelay loop useless as a foot-step and...
* For SRT novices who might overlook other (less obvious) methods of achieving the same goal.

S'all about friendly rigging.

Apologies to anyone to whom I'm suggesting re-learning egg-sucking.

NEXT WEEK: Left- and right-handed rebelays - pros and cons.

 

[SamT]

Personally - I've seen folk end up in even more of a clusterfuck when 'handy' etriers have been left on free hanging belays. I reckon folks should be taught/made aware of the 'less obvious' methods e.g. standing up in your footloop and moving the croll across first.   : at every opportunity.

when I say every opportunity, perhaps like the first time they are taught S.R. bloody T

I'm not saying I'm the worlds leading expert like, or qualified or owt, but isn't this pretty basic stuff.

[/red wine]

 

[cap n chris]

Indeed. And very fair comment.

Equally fair comment, and a general reiteration of SamT's bon mot, might be something like:

Try and learn wtf you're doing before embarking on a real-life caving epic.

[/handy hint] ;-)

Generally, though, I find that when someone's genuinely *gripped* on rope, even if you shout they're still probably not hearing you. Adrenaline really fcuks some people up. Prior training is worth the effort twenty times over.


[/red wine]?.... [/what vintage?]

 

[cavegirl99]

I was taught the basics of SRT by Nigel Atkins years and years ago at a cavers fair.  He used to recite "Cows tails, Croll, Hand Jammerrrrrrrr", to drum into us the correct order for passing a rebelay.  I still think of this every single time I am SRTing!

 

[spikey]

Having tried to prussik up my cows tail on more than one occasion at an "up" changever (it was muddy.......), now I put in long cowstail for protection, transfer hand jammer to "non-live" part of loop (no stretch probs), stand up in foot loop, transfer croll to "live", transfer hand to "live", remove cowstail, struggle on up.
Another technique I've seen, is krab on hand jammer, and clip directly to bolt, although safety would suggest also clipping with cowstail.
(also make sure cows tails are VERY different colour to rope)

 

[jarvist]

...the rigger... was leaving too short loops on re belays to allow easy passing ... I was the only one out of a group of six who would choose to transfer their chest jammer first on the ascent...

I don't really understand - if the rigging has enough slack to derig the descender + braking krab when dangling from a short cows tail on the way down, there should be more than enough slack to pass croll first (or any other way) on the way up. Unless your footloop is overly long?

Or was the rigger was doing something a bit naughty, such as tying the knots behind him/herself while dangling from the rebelay bolt?

Or do you mean you were ending up with a croll double (sideways) loaded due to rope stretch / a sideways swing out to the next belay? If so, your weight should be split between the 'up' rope to your croll and a cowstail to the bolt you're passing, so that you don't load your croll in this way + potentially rip the front off it / damage the sheath with the sharp edge on the first few steps of prussicing.

Of course, if the rigging was too tight, then the rigging was too damn tight, and apologies for calling your technique into question!
+ of course if your shoulder injury makes it difficult, the rigger should compensate (especially if you're on bomb proof belays + on type A rope, where the increase in potential fall factor on bolts popping doesn't matter so much + they're very unlikely to fail anyway)...

It's certainly true that you can pass overly-tight rigging hand-jammer first, assuming the hang above is not so long that you get trapped with a partially loaded croll even when you're standing in the footloop (like SamT's warning above), but you should be able to do this croll-first by shortening your footloop a bit to give yourself a height advantage.

My #1 all time most unpleasant SRT manoeuvre was when I had to change over + down prussic (i.e. treat as a knot pass) to get passed the single rebelay on an alpine 105m pitch where the in-situ rope had shrunk over the preceding year since discovery. Should have realised something was amiss when I had to stretch the rope up to rig my descender at the top!

 

[potholer]

I don't really understand - if the rigging has enough slack to derig the descender + braking krab when dangling from a short cows tail on the way down, there should be more than enough slack to pass croll first (or any other way) on the way up. Unless your footloop is overly long?

That's roughly what I was thinking - having done a fair amount of stuff where rigging was tight, or fixed rigging had tightened over time, generally if it's possible to properly attach and remove a descender on the way down, given an SRT rig where Croll+hand jammer are suitably close together on standing, passing Croll-first on the way up should be possible.

Even though there may be times when I might go hand-jammer-first, if I didn't have the few inches of slack needed to pass Croll-first at a rebelay, I'd be thinking that there was something wrong with the rigging.

 

[Andy Sparrow]

I was taught the basics of SRT by Nigel Atkins years and years ago at a cavers fair.  He used to recite "Cows tails, Croll, Hand Jammerrrrrrrr", to drum into us the correct order for passing a rebelay.  I still think of this every single time I am SRTing!

I would add 'hold away clear' to the end of the list.  In other words - take your foot out of the footloop and hold the whole thing out away from the rigging before clipping back on to the next upward section.  Saves getting tangled up with the rebelay loop.

 

[potholer]

While I'm definitely a fan of being 'hygenic' and clearing space at manouvres to avoid tangles, what does taking the foot out of the footloop add?

If I had my footloop attached to my foot with a chicken loop, the only ways I could get tangled up by placing my hand jammer incorrectly at a rebelay seem to be ways that would result in a tangle even if my foot was out of the footloop (assuming I wasn't approaching a pitch-head already tangled, by having the rope I'm climbing enclosed in the ring made by body, safety cord and footloop, which in itself would require some effort of feeding the rope end through that ring at the pitch bottom).

I'd have thought that for a beginner there would be advantages and disadvantages to both foot-in and foot-out.

 

[Andy Sparrow]

While I'm definitely a fan of being 'hygenic' and clearing space at manouvres to avoid tangles, what does taking the foot out of the footloop add?

If I had my footloop attached to my foot with a chicken loop, the only ways I could get tangled up by placing my hand jammer incorrectly at a rebelay seem to be ways that would result in a tangle even if my foot was out of the footloop (assuming I wasn't approaching a pitch-head already tangled, by having the rope I'm climbing enclosed in the ring made by body, safety cord and footloop, which in itself would require some effort of feeding the rope end through that ring at the pitch bottom).

I'd have thought that for a beginner there would be advantages and disadvantages to both foot-in and foot-out.

It's just a tip for the less experienced which I have found reduces the possibility of entanglement.  It's not a technique that I recommend as a standard procedure.