Big Wall Episode #14 - Full Example Big Wall Bible Big Wall Full Example The lightest but most useful thing you can take up a big wall is knowledge. Welcome to a resource that will help you be successful in getting up big rocks. Big walling is a big topic so we broke it into bite-size "pitches" with a video to START each one. The aim is to have lots of videos, photos, and written content in each section, not just of our stuff but your stuff as well. See HowNOT2 contribute your beta below. Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an overarching blog we call a textbook. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. As helpful as it is to talk about each part in detail, it is probably more helpful just to watch us do start to finish on a real rock. The climbers in us wish we got to do the entire course on real rock but that wasn't possible for us, however, we did make it a priority for the last video. We shot top down of Jeremiah leading and explaining what and WHY he was doing each movement. Then he filmed me cleaning the pitch. Practice You are probably tired of hearing this but you don't know what you don't know. You could be a crusher leader, but you've never hauled before. You may have done each component in isolation from other sports or working in rope access, but if you glue it all together for a 1 pitch start to finish yourself, you will be at least twice as efficient on your first wall than if you show up cold turkey. Possibly even 5x more efficient. It's shocking how many perfectly good climbers are all thumbs once they get on a wall. If you do climb a thin 5.13 crack, be mindful not to damage the route because every microscopic flake and nub is what those free climbing demi-gods hang onto. Just try to stay out of people's way if it is an extremely popular 5.10 route because it would be rude to hog it for 3 hours while you drag up a bag confusing everyone with what your plans are! I'll write more soon!!! Moving my lab is consuming my big wall bible writing time. See what I'm up too in this VIDEO. Sign up for our emails on our HOME PAGE and I'll let you know when I make progress on this. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Get 90% of your big walling gear here. This leads you to a detailed buying guide. HowNOT2 Contribute Please send video, image, or words, that is respectful to other view points and helpful to Big Wall education. Please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. We'd also like to link to anything you found helpful online. Maintaining the quality of this resource is important so please submit something worthy of 100,000 people seeing it. We reserve the right to not post what you send us. ryan@slackline.com The End BigWalls.com leads to our textbook and was donated by John Middendorf who runs BigWalls.net. This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.

If the rope breaks before the ice, it's super good enough. At 10+ kN with 21cm long ice screws in glacier ice, you are almost a 10:1 safety ratio for a rappel since the average rappel is only 1kN. If you are going to rig a highline with ice anchors, drilling some deep v threads with 9mm or 10mm rope is going to give you 20+ kn. The 10mm rope in a loop form like we installed in the ice breaks in the slacksnap machine around 28kn. Equalize two or three of those and you have a bomber anchor. Note: this is in glacier ice which has a mixed grain and water fall ice may react differently since it forms differently. LineScale 3's are finally in stock. I don't recommend using them to break stuff but they are great for live loads on your projects. You can get our discount code and the link HERE You can do epic Iceland adventures by contacting: https://icepicjourneys.is/https://www.stepman.is A great guest house (bed & breakfast) in Hofn is http://www.dynjandi.com/en Our team: https://www.instagram.com/andrea.nicole.photography/ https://www.instagram.com/betweencontinents/ https://www.instagram.com/icepicjourneys/ https://www.instagram.com/whyistheiceblue/ https://www.instagram.com/acdcrokkarinn/ https://www.instagram.com/asgeirmar/ https://www.instagram.com/stepman/ https://www.instagram.com/prin.skia/ Buying Ice Screws From ExtremeGear Supports Us 10% Behind the Scenes We planned an ice screw break test video but for all the work it takes to get to Iceland, get the team together, and to get the break test gear out to the ice, we figured we should test V threads since we knew it would be requested as soon as we put out the ice screw video. And it was. Many comments asked for V threads and I assume there will be many requests for these tests to be done in waterfall ice which we plan on doing soon-ish. Watch this one next

Big Wall Roofs Big Wall Bible Big Wall Roofs The lightest but most useful thing you can take up a big wall is knowledge. Welcome to a resource that will help you be successful in getting up big rocks. Big walling is a big topic so we broke it into bite-size "pitches" with a video to START each one. The aim is to have lots of videos, photos, and written content in each section, not just of our stuff but your stuff as well. See HowNOT2 contribute your beta below. Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an overarching blog we call a textbook. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. write here Title Write I'll write more soon!!! Moving my lab is consuming my big wall bible writing time. See what I'm up too in this VIDEO. Sign up for our emails on our HOME PAGE and I'll let you know when I make progress on this. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Get 90% of your big walling gear here. This leads you to a detailed buying guide. HowNOT2 Contribute Please send video, image, or words, that is respectful to other view points and helpful to Big Wall education. Please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. We'd also like to link to anything you found helpful online. Maintaining the quality of this resource is important so please submit something worthy of 100,000 people seeing it. We reserve the right to not post what you send us. ryan@slackline.com What's Next? BigWalls.com leads to our textbook and was donated by John Middendorf who runs BigWalls.net. This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.

Rappelling Big Wall Bible Rapelling The lightest but most useful thing you can take up a big wall is knowledge. Welcome to a resource that will help you be successful in getting up big rocks. Big walling is a big topic so we broke it into bite-size "pitches" with a video to START each one. The aim is to have lots of videos, photos, and written content in each section, not just of our stuff but your stuff as well. See HowNOT2 contribute your beta below. Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an overarching blog we call a textbook. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. Leading may appear to be the riskiest part of climbing and give you the most adrenaline but rappelling potentially causes many more deaths. In mountaineering, how many times have you heard of people summiting only to die on the way down. When you get to the top, you are only half done. Also, if you don't practice after watching this big wall series, then you need the tools to bail off your route. You can't just rappel like normal climbing, you have a giant bag or two to get off the rock as well. WHEN to Bail While your brain still works, not after it fully shuts down. Rappelling Fixed Lines They can be thick and have knots isolating core shots you may have to pass. Knots and Third Hands Prusiks and stopper knots make rappelling safer-ish. Crazy article http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201214349/Dropped-Haul-Bag-Breaks-Climbers-Arm I'll write more later!!!!! I got some GREAT photos and POV videos of rappelling with a bag and two people on two bolt anchors a few months ago. I can add a ton of value to this chapter and I plan on making this way more thorough but GGBY festival took more rigging days than planned and I ran out of time to write this up before the deadline. Sign up for our emails on our HOME PAGE and I'll let you know when I make progress on this. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Get 90% of your big walling gear here. This leads you to a detailed buying guide. HowNOT2 Contribute Please send video, image, or words, that is respectful to other view points and helpful to Big Wall education. Please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. We'd also like to link to anything you found helpful online. Maintaining the quality of this resource is important so please submit something worthy of 100,000 people seeing it. We reserve the right to not post what you send us. ryan@slackline.com What's Next? This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.

Following Big Wall Bible Following The lightest but most useful thing you can take up a big wall is knowledge. Welcome to a resource that will help you be successful in getting up big rocks. Big walling is a big topic so we broke it into bite-size "pitches" with a video to START each one. The aim is to have lots of videos, photos, and written content in each section, not just of our stuff but your stuff as well. See HowNOT2 contribute your beta below. Our courses are A-Z content in blog format, glued together with an overarching blog we call a textbook. A blog format is easy to read, easy to update, and easy to translate. Be sure to begin at the TEXTBOOK and at the end of each episode we'll point you to the next. "Following" up after our leading episode, we show you from your partner yelling "off belay", releasing the bag, cleaning up the anchor and ascending the rope with a few easy lower out examples when the gear isn't plumb below the anchor. You get two demonstrations to see what's different but also what's similar between the two. Off Belay When you hear off belay, it's time to get back to work. If someone is crawling up a lead, you can be done eating, peeing and watching your favorite movie (half joking). Just make sure you don't do "house keeping" that could have been done already when they are ready for you. If you have a good partner at a good anchor, your line is fixed within 60 seconds and it's game on. Pre-Gaming It takes a minute, or five, before the leader has pulled up the haul line, attached the protraxion, positioned themselves and started to take the weight of the bag. Use this time to take off the "Jesus Draw", put on your ascenders on your fixed line, put at least one personal anchor on it, manage whatever lead line they didn't pull up and be ready to go up that rope the moment the bag is free and on them. Hell, you can start jugging to pull the stretch out, just leave one personal anchor attached to the bolts so you don't swing away. When Pigs Fly The leader is going to start hauling and you need to release the pig. This is why having it on a MMO releasable knot is so awesome, even if the bag isn't going straight up, and there is still weight on the bolt, you can release the bag. Have all the backups removed and the lid closed and be ready. Nothing worse than having to wait the the follower to do something when they have been sitting there for 45 minutes. I don't feel like I should say this, but CYA: don't release the bag unless you absolutely are certain the leader is hauling and it's going well and they don't try to change anything, or worse yet, it's not in the protraxion and they only pulled up the slack. Clean up the anchor bits that couldn't be removed until the bag is off and start to blast up the rope. Upsey Daisy There are 2 main ways of ascending: sitting in an ascender and raising up the other that has an aider to stand up and lift up your ascender you sit on, OR have your daisies loose and have a ladder in both ascenders and just lift one foot as you raise one hand and walk up the rope. If it is low angle or vertical terrain and you are a 20 something year old stud muffin, you can just walk up the rope without ever sitting on the daisy attached to your top ascender. Once it starts getting over hanging, then you have to sit every single time. Big wallers typically have two ascenders with a ladder on each on and a daisy attached to each one. This allows for the top one to be taken off, placed above a piece of gear so you can get plumb under the next piece and get all the weight off the bottom piece you are trying to remove. Ascenders don't just magically pop off ropes, but you are moving around a bunch and especially if the rope is going to not always be vertical in the device, you need to clip a carabiner in the eye at the top to keep the ascender on the rope in case it pops off, therefore keeping you attached to the rope. Lets stop for just a moment and emphasize that you need to be connected to a rope two different ways at all times. If you have to take off an ascender, you don't want the other one to be your only way of being attached. You either slide up a grigri, micro traxion or tie yourself into the rope. If you don't have to ever remove an ascender, it is somewhat common for the two ascenders to be your only two attachment points. A trick from cavers is the frog system, where you have a croll (handle-less ascender) right at the two hard points on your harness (next to your belay loop) and you sit in that lower ascender while you raise your top ascender which has your ladders. This gives you a better center of gravity and is a LOT less energy spent ascending up OVERHANGING ropes. This is best used for fixed ropes and where you don't have to clean gear FYI. Going down to go up Lower outs is when the rope doesn't go straight up and gravity wants to keep you directly below the next pro, plumb to the earth. Lets break this into 3 categories: Super Close Enough You have to get under the next pro and if it isn't too far away, you just put your ascender above it, tighten up that daisy or just push it high enough to sit on it and try not to let the bottom ascender get sucked up into the pro. Grab the rope below it so you can remove the teeth and open the ascender to lower yourself until you are plumb again. Reach back and remove the pro and slide your ascender up. Kinda Not But Sorta Close If the pro is further away after lowering out, you can move the lower ascender above the pro and ascend a few feet and then reach back to get the gear. Far Out Dude If your partner back cleaned a bunch of gear or did a penji to get way over to the side, you have to abandon the pro and rappel off it to the next plumb line. Typically this can be a dedicated bolt for it, or just fixed gear with a "wtf is that" sling with the saddest leaver biner the last 30 parties felt was worth abandoning. Either way you have to get your weight onto a temporary rappel system and lower yourself off and it is a good idea to push your ascenders up when it isn't too difficult so you travel sideways more than you go down. This isn't rocket science but you can practice this between two trees if you can get an anchor 10 feet up in one tree and then 20 feet up in the next tree... or ideally a rock. Just don't practice this on El Cap and for the love of god, don't do this for the first, second or the freaking third time ever in your life on The Nose. Overly Attached You remove the gear the leader installed more or less by reversing what they did to put it in. If it rocked back and forth from the rope moving through it, or they bounce tested a nut a lot, or even took a whipper on it, it can be tricky. Often times, leaders over cam and make gear too tight because they placed it scared. Sometimes, YOU ascending the rope is forcing the gear in a different direction than it was placed making it stuck-ish. A nut tool is important, not just for nuts but also to pick at cam lobes. And if the route is a hammer-less or clean route, it can be nice to have a tiny 6oz kitchen drawer hammer with a hole drilled in the handle for a keeper sling to lightly tap a nut out. Using a hammer to REMOVE gear is still considered clean climbing. Do you leave the gear attached to the rope while trying to remove it? Well, that depends. If you aren't butter fingers and you don't have to wack anything, sometimes it is easier to just let the cam chill in the crack free solo style, sit on your top ascender daisy, and remove it. Sometimes, trying to leave it attached to the rope can be more clunky that it is worth, but sometimes it is valuable to do so. If you drop the cam you could be screwed later if it is an essential piece or you could kill someone hiking the base of El Cap without a helmet. Just don't fuck up and you can do it however you please. Just Hanging Out Don't get to an anchor and sit on your ascenders to catch your breath. Get off the rope as fast as you can so it can be flaked into the rope bag and keeps progress going. Not much else to say about that! Rack-Ology Don't just randomly put the gear you are removing on your harness. Are you the next leader, can you rack the gear where it will go? If you are going to pass it the gear to your partner so they can lead the next pitch, can you rack it in an order that helps them? If you put it on a shoulder length sling that can be taken off of you and clipped next to them so they can remove each piece without you handing them one at a time, you could be flaking the rope. Have a reason for everything you do, including removing the gear out of the rock. I'll write more later!!!!! I plan on making this chapter way more thorough but this covers the concept super good enough until the fun fall shenanigans are over. Come to GGBY.org and play with us. Sign up for our emails on our HOME PAGE and I'll let you know when I make progress on this. 10% Supports HowNOT2 Get 90% of your big walling gear here. This leads you to a detailed buying guide. HowNOT2 Contribute Please send video, image, or words, that is respectful to other view points and helpful to Big Wall education. Please be kind by delivering something ready to add and tell us where you think it best fits. We'd also like to link to anything you found helpful online. Maintaining the quality of this resource is important so please submit something worthy of 100,000 people seeing it. We reserve the right to not post what you send us. ryan@slackline.com What's Next? Episode 12 will be live 11/23/2022. Patrons have early access This course is free but not free to make. If it really helped you, please consider SUPPORTING US.