Finally! Round 2 of The Big Wall Series. I understand that this second one has been a long time coming, but with the wall season fast approaching I’m putting my best efforts into getting as many up in the next month as I can! Further updates will make this article more readable and add some photo examples but I wanted to share the basic text. I’ev left teh comments open for now too.
Hauling is still tough, even if you’ve followed all the tips in the previous article you still have to work pretty hard. The good news about these articles though is that you never have to work harder than you need to and that dear listener is the best you can hope for.
Well orchestrated hauling begins at the start of the pitch with the simple step of not forgetting anything! This means that the haul line is attached to your haul loop using an overhand on a bight and a tiny screwgate, that you have the pro-traxion with you as well as something to grip the rope with (e.g.: gri-gri) and that you and your partner know the plan.
So now all you have to do is lead the pitch; easy. When you arrive at the belay and have got over the relief of getting on a solid bit of gear finally there are a few things to consider. Try to build the belay to give a good amount of lateral space. The more you can spread out your two (or more) ropes, all the climbers and the bags the simpler all the operations will be making it all go quicker and safer. When you are safe and the lead line is fixed take your pulley from its gear loop very carefully and clip it to the anchor.
Choosing what to hang the pulley from is the first game. If you’re on El Cap and it a bomber bolt belay then clip the Pro-Traxion biner into the scerwgate which is hanging from the bolt. This orients the pulley in a nice way (yellow side facing out) allowing you to easily slot the rope in and control the catch. You should ideally do the hauling on the side of the anchor that is furthest from the previous pitch. That is, if it traversed from the left then put the pulley on the right. This means that the haul line is out of the way of the cleaner.
If the gear is less than bolt solid then you’ll have to equalise enough pieces to make you happy. On less than relaxing anchors this might require hauling from the power point which can make for quite the cluster. You may hear people talk of using two cordalettes to make the anchor more accommodating but this just means even more time wasted rigging the anchor and more gear to carry. Honestly if you are pimping enough to be hauling on even remotely questionable anchors then you should most certainly have the skills to not get in a faff clipping everything to the power point.
Once the pulley is on the anchor grab a bit of the haul line from behind you WITHOUT unclipping it from your harness and put it into the front of the Pro-Traxion. Shut the plate. Now perform the most important task of all, put a snapgate biner through the hole at the bottom of the closed pro-traxion. Never ever underestimate the value of this biner, it’ll save your life. Drop the catch on the pulley and check that the rope is through the right way. Now unclip the haul line from your back and clip the biner in a place where there will be space for the excess line to hang without being in the way. Occasionally the best place can be from a sling clipped in the anchor biner you are hauling from. Orient the haul line biner so that the basket is at the bottom and the gate faces out.
In all the previous 3 paragraphs will probably only take you a minute or less. Hopefully about the same time as it takes your cleaner to get their weight onto the fixed lead line. Yell down to them that you are “Ready to haul!” Now comes the cleaners first real task. They must decide how much rope they’ll need to lower the bag out without it swinging. Once this is judged a knot should be tied leaving this correct length as a tail and below the plastic bottle knot protector.
Opinions vary on the best knot to tie the bag in with. Unless you have a good reason though I’d stick with a well dressed figure of eight with a small bight; KISS! Clip this knot to the top of the swivel with a small screwgate which screws down and tell the leader to “Take up the haul line!” While he’s doing this unclip the clove-hitch backup in the haul line from the anchor.
The leader takes up the haul line pulling it through the Pro-Traxion. As the slack loops of rope get to about 5m long tie an overhand on a bight and clip it into a spare snap gate off to the side. Repeat this with all the haul line as it comes up thus preventing it getting hooked up on features on the wall.
When the rope goes tight to the bags the follower yells “That’s the bags!” which is normally followed by a confirming “Ready to haul!” from the leader. A team that is well in sync will be able to get the haul line tight before the bag is released thus saving a couple of metres extra hauling form the rope stretch. This takes nothing more than practice and communication, or the sixth sense you get from big walling with a good partner.
When the line is ready the follower can release the docking cord. If the lower out is the length of this cord or less then the bag is lowered by the Munter hitch on this cord. If the lower out is more serious then the spare haul line should be used by tying another Munter hitch. Holding this line release the docking cord so that the bag is held on the haul line tail then lower in the same manor. Once the bag is hanging plum be sure to throw the tail in a way that will hopefully prevent it snagging in a crack. A final call of “Bags are free!” or “Haul away!” will let the leader know its time to work.
More complicated hauls may require the follower to retain the end of the haul line in order to assist the bags round roofs etc. or may even require some hauling to be done while the bag is still being lowered to prevent it snagging up below. These operations and other more technical hauling can be done simply and effectively with proper, simple and direct communication.
Assuming the bags are clear of the anchor then the follower should work as hard as he can to clean the pitch and get up to the top to help. A healthy race now ensues to see if the bag or cleaner wins the pitch which ensures efficient progress! If the cleaner was prepared enough to be releasing the bags from his jugs on the lead line then he should have a good chance.
To haul the leader needs to find an efficient position. If you a toe stance or even, praise be, a ledge then stand under the pulley. Usually though you’ll stand in your aiders clipped right beneath the pulley. The aim is to have the pulley at around chest to shoulder height. When you fixed the lead line hopefully you left enough slack to move freely under the pulley. Have your adjustable daisy tight while you’re getting set up.
To grab the rope put your gri-gri on the loose end of the haul line and attach it to your belay loop. An aside now follows into device choice for this purpose; I think gri-gris are the best option, you’ll always have it on your harness, you can winch yourself back up when pulling the rope through and it won’t damage the line. Jumars are fine but you loose some height in the connection and they need the rope feeding through carefully if its not got any weight in. Some people (not cool people) use a mini-traxion but this is just extra stuff to climb with on your harness and serves very few other purposes.
To actually haul the bag loosen the adjustable daisy the full length then pull the gri-gri up as high as you can towards the pulley. Now squat. If the bags are light they’ll move up and you can repeat until they have arrived ensuring that you keep control of the slack line.
If they are heavier though, things become more involved. The next progression is to push down from the wall with your arms while squatting down. This is my favored technique and I can usually move about 10 man days worth of gear like this.
The progession after this is a touch more complicated. If you really can’t move it by squatting then there are three main options: turn upside down and run, use some pulleys or space haul.
If you are swinging leads then it’s your job to work as hard as you can and thus save your followers energy for the next pitch. You legs are your strongest muscles as you now so to recruit them you need a few adjustments, instead of you gri gri you’ll need a pair of jumars on the loose end of the haul line, and your aiders in your standard jugging set-up. You’ll also need at least a 5m long tie in from the anchor so hopefully you planned for this before fixing the haul line! Get your weight on the daisies on the jugs, take your feet out of the aiders, put them up high on the wall, about next to your jugs and push yourself away and down the face. It can also help to pull up on the tight side of the haul line. Although it feels horribly urn-nerving to begin with keep pushing until your tie in goes tight then simply jug back up the line and repeat. When you stack the haul line while using this technique make sure you don’t tie the knot too close to the jumars or you will end up with a few short strokes which wastes time.
Don’t fancy turning upside down? The only other solo option is to rig some kind of mechanical advantage. In over 300 big wall pitches I have used pulleys once and this could have been avoided in hindsight with better positioning of the pulley. Numerous systems abound and I won’t reiterate them here. A standard Z rig requires the least additional equipment and is easily rigged and removed as required. Check the back of the Petzl catalogue for some good diagrams.
No way you can budge it on your own? Are you sure you haven’t packed too much!? Then it’s time to experience the joys of the space haul, lucky you. This system is slower but fairly energy efficient. The leader should rig to haul with a jumar on the loose side of the haul line. Once the cleaner is about 5 metres below the anchor he should tie his final back-up knot in the lead line then transfer his jumars to the loose side of the haul line below the leader. He simply keeps jumping as if on a treadmill to make sure all his weight is on the haul line. With the extra weight on the line it should be relatively easy to get the bags moving. Communication and timing are crucial to getting the bags moving smoothly.
If that space hauling set up isn’t enough then you are obviously planning on being up there a while! The second should be about 10m below the belay and the leader tied in long. This way you can both pull up on the tight side as you push hard down with your feet. Needless to say this requires a truly bomber equalised anchor and is probably more suited to a rescue pulley and jumar as the forces are at the limit of what a Pro-Traxion can cope with.
Repeating one or a combination of the previous techniques should have the bags up to you in no time. Thrash metal on the headphones can also assist during this period as do Jolly Ranchers or chewing gum to prevent you getting a dry mouth and thus sucking own more water than you can afford! Always have a couple in your pocket for precisely this.
The final few strokes of the haul should bring the main suspension biner of the bags to a height a couple of inches below the biner you aim to dock the bags on. Usually this is the powerpoint biner but if you are hauling to a bivi you may well want the bag at the side of the anchor to give you the vital thing in a hanging bivi set-up; horizontal space. Once the bag gets here cinch up your daisy so that you don’t accidentally pull it any higher.
To attach the bags to the anchor take the docking cord which hangs from the main hauling biner and tie a munter-mule knot with an overhand backup. The key with this knot is to pull the cord as tight as you can before wrapping the munter. This is best done by threading the cord through a locked biner and pulling it tight at each stage of tying the hitch. This is key to keeping as much of the height that the bags have as possible meaning less hauling and easier access to the contents.
Once the docking cord is tied you have to lower the bags slightly to unweight the haul line. This takes a little practice to co-ordinate and is slightly more challenging when space hauling but entirely possible. Weight the haul line line till you see the pro-traxion cam move backward. If you are using a gri-gri to haul then lock the catch off the rope and lower the bags with the gri-gri. If you are on jumars you’ll have to keep dropping the catch and moving the jugs down before repeating a couple of times. Practice aids this operation.
Once the haul line is slack but before the pulley is removed take a metre or so of slack through and tie a clove hitch in the haul line and clip this loosely to the anchor to act as a backup to the docking tether. The rope from the bags to the clove hitch should be snug but not loaded.
With the bags hung all that is left is to remove yourself from the haul line, re-rack the pulley for the next pitch and ensure the top of the haul line is ready to go. The stacks of backup knots will feed out from the back of the biners they are clipped in so flip these round to ease this.
Repeating all this should make the movement of the bags as painless as possible. To ease passage on things like traversing hauls do keep an eye out for the possibility of linking some hauls. Despite someone probably having to rap back down to the bags it can save a lot of logistics and headaches for little extra effort.
When climbing in a three there are always two people to help haul. Rigging space hauls for a team of three can be complicated if you are only climbing on two ropes so it is usually best for the third to pull up on the tight side of the line and monitor the pulley while the leader hauls on the loose side.
I haven’t mentioned backing up the pulley for hauls which some people may find unnerving. Standard recommendations are along the lines of a quickdraw clipped parallel to the pulley in order to support the rope should the pulley explode. I think this is overkill for most situations but maybe a massive space haul on a pro-traxion can warrant it. Backing up the cam with a jumar or prussic on the tight line will usually just lead to complications releasing the bags onto the anchor and so should usually be avoided. If you are worried about the state of the haul line sheath at the end of a long wall then maybe it’ll help you relax!