Today my buddy and I climbed a pitch that traverses significantly. Routes like this create a problem when you try to clean them; if you were just lowered, you wouldn’t be able to reach the draws to clean them. The solution? Trollying! It’s when you clip one end of a quickdraw to your belay loop and the other to the rope. As you get lowered down, you slide along the rope. Like this!
(click for a larger version)
Because of all the tension on the rope, it might be hard to unclip the rope from the draws. If that happens, you can clip the quickdraw from your harness onto the quickdraw on the bolt. This unweights the rope, and then you can easily unclip the rope and clip your harness quickdraw back into the rope. Whew! Does that make sense?
Yeah, it’s pretty basic stuff, but essential sport climbing knowledge!
