UKH

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone has any useful little tips for lapcoiling when you've got two seconds climbing at the same time. Obviously at the end of the pitch lapcoiling in the usual way you have uneven ropes ... and a clusterf*ck waiting to happen.

All my previous solutions haven't felt very efficient! Tips welcomed!

Thanks

Depending on the situation (i.e. hanging belay) i often coil across each foot/ankle with different ropes. This however isn't great if you need to move your feet around especially if they are taking their time. Again, if you're multipitching rather than single pitch climbing it can also cause problems. 

If you're doing all the leading you'd have to flip the coils anyway. I tend to tell each second to flake their own rope whilst I sort the gear out.

Thanks both.

I'll be climbing with two experienced seconds and we'll be switching leads. Have considered the ankle approach but didn't work overly well for me.

Current winner is to lapcoil slack then tie an overhand and clip to attachment. This marks the clean rope. Then use small coils on top at the back for the first second's rope until the second second starts climbing. Lap coil at the front as normal while they both climb (and try to maintain a similar pace), then small coil second seconds slack at the front once the first is at the belay. Once everyone's there then you can re lapcoil the rope from the overhand with help from your partners (holding their respective small coils) fairly easily. It's just a bit fiddly.

But if anyone has any less fiddly solutions I'm all ears!

'Lapcoiling with two seconds'. Sounds like it could get quite kinky?

I had success on a few pitches recently where I just aimed to have it look like a normal lapcoil at the end. One rope was ahead of the other, and so the loops were higher than the other, but I just made sure to match the 2nd rope to the same height as the first for each consecutive coil. I tried to have a big first coil, so each coil was very clearly a different length to match the 2nd rope up to.

I realise that might have made no sense

I usually just piled the ropes in a heap as they arrived, laziest approach possible. The clusterf**k only very rarely materialised and never actually proved hard to solve.

jk

You could lap one of the ropes into a (short) sling suspended from the belay instead of across your own tie-in.

This is what I normally do when hauling a bag on the second rope, and it's pretty easy to manage.

It's always easier if the seconds climb at a similar rate. Ignore any differential  anyway and just use your normal rope stacking method. If alternate or block leading with a 3 will need some retying or stacking at stances anyway.

Take advantage of there being 3 experienced climbers when on a stance together.  Have a chat about who will do what and when.  Redoing ropes and moving gear over to next leader won’t take long if you’ve got roles and a plan of action.  Just keep the rope reasonably neat when bringing seconds up. When you reach a stance have a think about who will stand / sit where etc plus presumably everyone will second on a half and lead on both. So there’ll need to be a tie in handover for one rope each stance.

I find it ok just with a few big long coils. Doesn’t matter they’re offset, especially if they’re big. Make each loop quit a bit shorter and you can just end up with the first loop a bit long on one rope. Gets sorted quick. If you’re block leading you’ve got to back coil it all anyway so not an issue really

You'll always have uneven coils with two seconds climbing staggered and at different speeds, it's unavoidable. After hundreds of guided pitches like this, I just accept the fact there might be a slight tangle to be dealt with when your back coil the ropes for your seconds to belay you on the next pitch. Keep making the coil loops shorter as you take rope in so at least the coils are as neat and tangle free as can be.

Just flipping the stack will result in a mess of rope, much better to back stack, or have each second lap coil their own colour rope so you can see you're tangle free before setting off. A quick untie and re-tie of one rope will easily sort any twists once you've separated the ropes. 

Just a few thoughts:

With two experienced seconds you have the person power to sort minor tangles either before the leader sets off, or on the fly. 

Not what you asked, but, lead in blocks? This solves the issues as there is no asymmetry at the leader's end, just re-lap coil. If you are swinging leads, you can either untie and swap rope ends in a circle (https://people.bath.ac.uk/dac33/high/8ClimbingInAThree.htm#swappingends), or first simply use the 2 seconds to pull through and restack the ropes into two separate piles (sets of loops) and then swap ends in a circle. 

Assuming you are using guidemode, it is possible to stack the ropes entirely separately. One around the anchor ropes, one around the neck; or, one around one anchor rope, the other around the other anchor rope; or via overhand/slip knots on a left and right krab on the anchor. However it seems to work well enough for me without this.

If tangles are an issue, all climbers clipping in via a PAS or equivalent makes a quick untie easy, and safer.

As it happens the SDMC are having a free workshop on this on Friday evening. Near Exeter. There will be a BBQ and a hot tub! Come along, all very welcome. 

Here's a solution that minimises fankles. In addition to the usual stuff you'll need an attachment lanyard each and a carrier bag with strong handles, Aldi or if you're feeling a bit special M&S. Either way they stuff into your pack pocket.

This is a slightly simplified version, it can be slicker but it's hard to convey in a page of text. 

!!!  It's absolutely imperative that climbers make sure they are attached to the anchor with a lanyard before untying from ropes !!!  An old rope access adage: always add before you subtract! I have a story about that but luckily I'm still here to tell the tale.

- Climber A has led the pitch, Climber B is seconding on Red, Climber C on Blue.

- Climber A belays the dead rope into the plastic bag as they ascend.

- Climber B is going to lead next. The Red rope is already stacked the right way, so all good.

- Climber B needs the top end of the Blue rope which Climber C has.

- Climber C unties and passes their end of the Blue rope to Climber A.

- Climber C doesn't have a rope to second on now, so Climber A needs to untie from the Blue and  give it to Climber C.

- Climber B is now tied in to the 'top' ends of both Blue and Red and Climbers A and C are tied to the 'bottom' ends of Red and Blue respectively.

This method means that the rope goes into a bag and doesn't have to be 'restacked' when swapping leads.

Hi all. 

We're back from our trip and happy to say we had absolutely no tangles. 

In the end we went for this approach:

1) Leader takes in slack to come tight on both seconds. Dead is lapcoiled. 

2) Second 1 starts climbing. Leader takes in slack in half length lap coils and puts them on top of existing coils (stack) at the back (close to stomach).

3) Second 2 starts climbing. Leader resumes normal lapcoils at front of stack. 

4) Second 1 arrives at belay and is clipped in. Second 2 slack is taken in in half length lap coils placed at the front of the stack.

5) Rope is untied from Second 2 and given (with consideration) to Second 1 to lead on through. The old leader gives one of their two rope ends to Second 2.

This worked really well. And wasn't barely any slower than climbing as a two. 

Thanks all for your suggestions!