Would you...

[markpot]

I'd look up the defanition of standard practice

 

[mikem]

I said on multipitch, where you have to abandon some of your equipment to create the belays...

 

[markpot]

If it was standard practice to abandon equipment on multipitch climbs, no one one would climb the routes and near all climbers would be bancrupt given the price of kit nowadays. I climb single and multi pitch routes on a weekly basis in multipul locations around the uk with abseil decent.cant remember the last time i left some kit behind.genrally speaking the climbing community, as said above look after there own anchors,and if anchors are in question are replaced before or during an ascent ,at cost to the ascentionist, so kit doesnt have to be abandonded.

 

[mikem]

Andy Kirkpatrick on FB:

While searching through my photos, looking for abseiling images, it struck me that four Winter trips to Patagonia was where I?d really learnt how to get down of mountains in one piece (often when I had no pieces left once I was down). This image is of Ian Parnell on the way back down from the first winter ascent of the Parkin route on the East Face of Mermoz, showing the rappel anchor (10mm Troll rappel tape), and the back-up anchor (2 cams) that the last person down would clean. We both used abseil lanyards (daisy chains) and Prusik loops, and although I?d not slept for two days (I thought I was going to die of hypothermia the night before, and had spent the night crouched in a ball), we took most of the night to get down to the glacier, and cross it safely back to our snow hole.

I think I once calculated I?d rappelled about 4 kilometres in Patagonia, and so it?s no surprise I really got into SOPs and protocols, understanding that cutting corners, or rolling the dice ?just this once?, was eventually going to get me and my partners killed (you need to save those dice for when you?ve only got those dice to roll).

 

[andrewmcleod]

I think if you have had to go to some hard alpinism by Andy Kirkpatrick to find an example of 'standard practice' then you have lost the argument by default!

 

[mikem]

Didn't go searching for it, just appeared on FB today. Apparently he is writing a book on abseiling that should be available in January.

The only place you would normally abandon kit to allow abseils is extreme alpine routes - otherwise you'd be able to get the stuff back, or avoid using it in the first place!