Non-Hitch Progress Capture

I'm new to rope climbing. Have done so much research that I'm all tangled-up in the noggin. Sure are lots of creative and complicated ways to climb. my confusion comes with how gear is paired. If I'm climbing with a walking technique, using a foot ascender and the SAKA, is a device like the ISC D4 or Petzl i'D locked on my harness enough for progress capture, positioning, fall protection and descent? Seems like the most commonly used method is a hitch climber set-up with the Rope Wrench. I like the simplicity and compactness of the single mechanical device, less to deal with or get tangled. Am I thinking in the wrong direction?

With a D4 or I'D a Yo-Yo/RADS is a strong SRT option. I don' think a SAKA would be useful in a RADS, it's really optimized for rope walking on devices like the the Rope Wrench, Rope Runner, Hitchhiker etc.

RADS is an excellent SRT technique to get started on but it is not a rope walker. Pulling on the tail of the rope in a RADS is a 3:1 mechanical advantage, a foot ascender or SAKA is way overdoing it pulling 3:1 MA, it would be like riding on the flats or downhill on a bike in first gear.

I might have already posted this, a friend trying out a RADS for the second time, he liked it:



You can't rope walk on a D4 or I'D, rope walking depends on a straight rope path through whatever devices are in use, the rope needs to drop through easily as you ascend.
-AJ

Ronop wrote: I'm new to rope climbing. Have done so much research that I'm all tangled-up in the noggin. Sure are lots of creative and complicated ways to climb. my confusion comes with how gear is paired. If I'm climbing with a walking technique, using a foot ascender and the SAKA, is a device like the ISC D4 or Petzl i'D locked on my harness enough for progress capture, positioning, fall protection and descent? Seems like the most commonly used method is a hitch climber set-up with the Rope Wrench. I like the simplicity and compactness of the single mechanical device, less to deal with or get tangled. Am I thinking in the wrong direction?

Here's a more clear answer to your question....

A D4 or I'D is a perfectly good progress capture but doesn't function well in a rope walker system.
-AJ

I climb often with a Petzl RIG. Since the RIG doesn't have the anti-panic feature, I recommend the i'D, but the concept is the same and the size similar.

I do most of my climbing SRT, and one of my climbing setups is RADS with a Petzl RIG as the progress capture/descent device. The rope comes down through a handled ascender, through the RIG on my harness, and back up to a Petzl Rollclip on the ascender as a redirect, and down. My left foot is in a footloop attached to the handled ascender, but I do often wear a right foot ascender as well. I don't need the 3:1 mechanical advantage, but it lets me pull rope through the RIG without using a hand, and the free hand can be quite helpful when I'm trying to get around an inconveniently placed limb or the ever present epicormic branches on our water oaks.

(When I'm up in the canopy, I rarely engage the foot ascender, as having a free foot is too useful.)

The RIG also works reasonably well for me in place of a hitch on doubled rope technique climbing. I don't use it that way too often, but when you're just hopping up to deal with someone's rope swing or something and you already have it on your harness...

As moss says, for a ropewalker type setup, the rope path through a RIG, i'D, etc. means they don't work there. I have other setups I use for those ascents. For RADS, the RIG and part-time use of a right-foot ascender makes me happy. (The RIG for progress capture and the ascender redirect for 3:1 MA on return from limbwalks works nicely, as well.)