I'm familiar with the use of the rock exotica soloist as a self belay device on lead and top rope climbs, but have one question. If a given top rope climb is too difficult, or I just decide I want to bail, how exactly would I switch from climbing to descending while on rope? Somehow I'd need to unweight the "ascending" device and attach a descending or abseil device to the rope, such as a figure eight rappel device or similar. This is a key part of solo climbing that I just can't understand. What are your thoughts?
Best, rnrescue

I can describe just how to do so three different ways. But I will not post such a dangerous operation on the internet.

I suggest you seek out someone in your area that can physically demonstrate such an important operation in person. Not read one's description on the internet and then head out to the local crag and attempt such a dangerous change over. Ending up miss handling the procedure and cratering.

I do hope that there are more out there that agree than disagree with me on this particular thread as there indeed have been far too many incidents in the past three years throughout North America from folks attempting atypical operations and ending up killing themselves in the process.

Thanks. I have an idea of how to do it, and know the basics. I do understand this is a dangerous operation, completely. Everything we do on the rock and outdoors carries significant risk. I'm very safety oriented and will be working with some techniques on flat ground and other low risk scenarios.
Thanks,
RNrescue

can't you just attach two prusiks to take the weight off which is totally safe and switch to an italian hitch? been top roping a lot the last weeks alone and i just use a grigri and tie a not every five meters as a back up ... easy to bail out ...

sjarelkwint wrote:can't you just attach two prusiks to take the weight off which is totally safe and switch to an italian hitch? been top roping a lot the last weeks alone and i just use a grigri and tie a not every five meters as a back up ... easy to bail out ...

Thanks. So you use a grigri for TR soloing. I guess it'd be pretty easy to bail with that because it's a descending device as well. The downside is that you probably have to feed the rope through the device as you ascend? What are your experiences with this? The munter (Italian) hitch would work, although I wonder if I child get away with just weighting one foot prusik to unweight the device.

I don't know what you're using but you can take your total weight of with a prusik (go for two if you want to be sure) than climb up the rope. Unclip your device, attach a screwgate with an italian hitch to your belayloop and undo the prusiks ... Don't think it is that hard ...

I use a grigri but it can fail sometimes. So i make a not every five meters (15 feet?) in the rope to have some sort of back-up plan ...

You have to feed your rope yourself but you can also do this every two meters or so ... Fell a lot on my grigri so far and it is still taking it... I use it to work on routes so i don't need partners for getting myself in a higher grade and can train/work myself and alone

I would just train in the prusik - unattach - italian hitch way when you are 2 feet above the groud. You'll see it is pretty easy and fast ... Might be even faster with a belaydevice...

You can also attach the prusiks and italian hitch while you're hanging in your belayingdevice so exposure is even smaler ...

For top rope soloing, I use the Cinch with a mini-traxion backup. I actually set them up on seperate ropes. To rap off, I just raise the Cinch high enough that the min-traxion has no weight on it and from there you can figure things out.