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In August, there are a lot of thunderstorms in the Sierra Nevadas. If there's a chance of rain, what type of gear do you bring along?

I have various slings, webbing, nuts, short ropes, etc, but I'm not sure what to bring. My 8-mm rope, which is 80 feet long, weighs 3 pounds. I also have a 6-mm rope which is 50 feet long.

Well, you know what I carry for class 4 downclimbs!


15mm webbing is about half as heavy per foot as 8 mm rope. It's totally static, about the same elongation as canyoneering rap rope. I have rapped on it via munter hitch (!!!). It's fairly kind on the hands, but not abrasion resistant at all.

I thing the bigger problem is: anchors on class 4 routes in the Sierra.

Harlan, I went to Red Rock Canyon on Sunday and practiced a few things, including use of a Munter hitch with webbing. That worked pretty well. I also tried out a diaper sling made out of one-inch webbing, and used a cordelette over a large boulder as an anchor.

As you mentioned, deciding on an anchor might be the hard part. One of my friends had an interesting idea, which was to jam a rock into a crack to create a chockstone, and then attaching a sling with a girth hitch.

I did find a similar discussion on www.backpackinglight.com:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=5550

The answer is "it depends." Assuming you're talking about getting down a single section, I'd go with your 80' rope and maybe 30' of webbing. From the webbing you make your harness unless you want to bring a regular seat harness. Rest of the webbing is anchor material. I'd throw in a rap ring so you don't have rope against webbing in your rigging. Your descending device is locking 'biner attached to your rope with a munter hitch.

If you rig double strand, you have to make sure your rap is less than 40'. If it's 40' or longer, you'll have to rig single strand and will need a pull cord to retrieve your rope. I'd also carry enough cord for a couple of prusiks (or something light like a Tibloc [I'm partial to the Ropeman II for an ascender] just in case you need to ascend.

Like someone said, the big issue may be finding a suitable natural anchor (of course if you want to carry pro you have the option of an artificial anchor but again you have to find a suitable place and then of course you'll be leaving your gear).

Canyoneers are perhaps the most ingenious folks for anchors; I find their stuff up above Lost Creek. Sometimes they just jam a big webbing knot in a tapering crack; sometimes they tie to a branch (broken off elsewhere), and bury the branch with rocks. I bet Lori and Mike C have seen some interesting tricks. Scott from SP has a few pages on other interesting ideas.

I don't get to practice this stuff, so I try never to use it!

I remember reading about an accident in the Palisades from 2004. As I recall, some guys were trying to find their way down to the fourth class descent of Mt. Sill towards the Palisade glacier and got lost. They rigged a rap anchor, which failed (I think a block pulled) and resulted in the first guy's death.

On that route there are existing rap anchors -- you just have to find them (a little devious if you haven't been that way before).

If you rig a new rap anchor off a block, it might be a good plan to back it up with something else (like a cam or nut) while the first person goes down. Then when you are satisfied that the anchor is solid the last person can pull the backup.

Robert
The anchors (if any) coming down from the middle (flat) section of the ridge to the glacier must be incredibly hard to locate. I downclimbed that section at least 6 times in the last ten years and found zero anchors. Are the anchors new? Post 2006? Where are they located on the ridge between V Notch and top of Sill ?
BTW.The guy who got killed on the 2004 descent from Sill, Dan Kipper, was a good friend of mine.

asmrz wrote:Robert
The anchors (if any) coming down from the middle (flat) section of the ridge to the glacier must be incredibly hard to locate. I downclimbed that section at least 6 times in the last ten years and found zero anchors. Are the anchors new? Post 2006? Where are they located on the ridge between V Notch and top of Sill ?
BTW.The guy who got killed on the 2004 descent from Sill, Dan Kipper, was a good friend of mine.

Hey Alois -- I remember seeing rap anchors in July 2005 when I attempted that section from the L-shaped couloir (I turned back because there was a lot of hard snow). Here's a picture of my climbing partner downclimbing just below one of the more convenient anchors earlier this month.



The webbing is hard to see in the above pic, but you can see the prominent 'horn' in the upper right. There was another anchor off to the left, as I recall. There is some discussion of this on the Swiss Arete route page. Hope this helps.

My condolences on your loss -- while I was there in 2005 the report haunted my thoughts.

Thanks for the info. I just looked at the SA page and the rap description. Seems like it would be easy to locate knowing what (the big flake/rock) one is looking for.
Dan was a good people and one hell of an alpine climber. One mistake is all it took. Miss his laughter and love of life.

Mountain Impulse wrote:The answer is "it depends." Assuming you're talking about getting down a single section, I'd go with your 80' rope and maybe 30' of webbing. From the webbing you make your harness unless you want to bring a regular seat harness. Rest of the webbing is anchor material. I'd throw in a rap ring so you don't have rope against webbing in your rigging. Your descending device is locking 'biner attached to your rope with a munter hitch.

Like someone said, the big issue may be finding a suitable natural anchor (of course if you want to carry pro you have the option of an artificial anchor but again you have to find a suitable place and then of course you'll be leaving your gear).

Thanks for the advice. In addition to the gear you suggested, I was also thinking about bringing a 15-ft cordelette and a partial set of nuts (7). Above 12000 feet in the Sierras, would the most common natural anchors be large boulders and rock horns?

I would say if one feels comfortable downclimbing, one should just do that- while every climber should know how to rap' to get out of a dicey situation, there are always numerous variables that can easily make it a dangerous endeavor (far more so than if you feel confident downclimbing a certain section). The weathers in the Sierras is typically pretty stable from this time of the season through fall anyway. Placing a chockstone to rappel from sounds quite sketch to me personally- how do you know that it's going to stay in place?? For rappeling in alpine terrain in general, the rappels frequently don't have to be as long as, say, somewhere in Yosemite, so you can get away with a shorter cord. Keeping an eye out for solid blocks that you can just sling & rap' from is an art in & of itself. Also important to make sure there isn't loose stuff adjacent to/under your rope that you could dislodge when abseiling.