How Do I Get My Equipment Down?

by Jarrad
(Colorado)

How do I get all my anchors and biner's down when I am done climbing for the day if I cant walk up and retrieve it?

Answer

The last person to climb the route needs to change it over and rappel down. If you are not familiar on how to do this you should take a class as it will be very bad if you do it wrong. You could also see if there is someone at your gym that can teach you how.

Basically what you will do is clip into the anchors directly into two points. Than you will want to pull up some slack on your rope and tie it off with a clove hitch to a carabiner. Than you untie your figure 8 and feed the rope through the anchors. You need to feed the rope through enough so that both ends are on the ground. After that you will setup your ATC belay device to rappel down. After you double check your rappel you will take all your other gear off and rappel down. Once you get to the bottom you simply pull your rope and you have no gear left at the top.

Important I advise that no one try this without instruction on it in person. If you haven't had someone show you how to do this in real time you risk serious injury trying it on your own.

-the Climbing Expert