Pulling Climbing Ropes While Rappelling

Rappelling is one thing that a lot of climbers dread. Often it comes at the end of a long day when you are tired and just want to get home and if things go wrong you may take a long time getting home. One of the major things that go wrong with rappelling is that you and your partner both rappel the ropes, then go to pull them down for the next rappel and they are stuck. The solution is to ascend back up the ropes, free whatever is stuck, then try it all over again (if you're lucky and it's an easy stick).

To give you an idea of how much climbers dread stuck ropes, a friend of mine makes Christmas cards with a knot coming into the view on a successful rope pull.

I picked up this little nugget from Extreme Alpinism by Mark Twight. It's not the most profound thing that I picked up from the book, but I use it pretty much every time I rappel and always thank Dr. Doom for it when I do.

1. Set up your rappel as usual and send the first person down.


2. Once the first climber down the ropes is secured to the lower anchor, have them pull the rope(s) back and forth a bit so that the both climbers can find points where the rope or knot will get stuck


3. Free the rope or knot from any sticky points and repeat until satisfied


4. The second climber rappels.


5. Pull the ropes and pray for no stuck ropes.