Blog

Mini Traxion Rope Solo Length?

• January 2016
• Hi Steph Climb Gear

Hi Steph, I have just started to get into top rope soloing, at the moment I am using a grigri on one strand and backing up on another with alpines clipped to my harness. I have looked at your system and would like to try it! The main question I have is; What is the maximum climb length that you would top rope solo?
Thanks very much 🙂
Gus

Hi Gus,
There really is not limit for how long you can go with the mini traxion set up. When I was training for El Cap in a day, I actually rapped down the wall to the alcove on Free Rider and climbed all the way out on mini traxions–probably more than half the route. That gets complicated and semi-epic since you have to keep bringing the rope up with you and end up hauling over 1000 feet of rope at the end, but you get the idea 🙂 As long as you have enough rope you can mini traxion all you want. Where length can become an issue is if the route is steep or traversing–in this case, ideally it’s nice to keep directionals clipped below you as you climb, so the weight of the free end of the rope isn’t dragging and pulling you off as you try to climb (obviously it doesn’t matter from a safety standpoint since you won’t go anywhere if you fall, but kind of defeats the purpose of what you’re up there trying to do).

Just a comment somewhat related: it’s always good to have redundancy in climbing systems anyway, but when you’re climbing on your own, go for as much redundancy and backup as possible. This is the one situation where I don’t subscribe to a relentless “light is right” policy in climbing 🙂 If you think you might drop your rappel device or one of your ascenders, climb with a spare on your gear loops. I use two daisies girthed directly through my harness for clipping in at anchors or dealing with stuff, and one of the daisies is backing up my belay loop on my backup mini traxion and also for rappelling. And triple check everything all the time. You have to be your own extra set of eyes when you’re climbing with yourself 🙂
Have fun!
Steph