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Fail safe for tether/ rappel combo line...

As in a sling

As in a sling

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2017
Messages
90
So I’m interested to hear about how I could back up my prusik bridge attachment now that my tether doesn’t terminate in a knot on my belay loop ( my saddle is homemade so it’s bones are a commercial lightweight rock harness). I was thinking stop knot above the bridge with another hitch to come down to the belay loop. But that doesn’t give me as
much flexibility in tree size, theoretically. Any thoughts I appreciate.
 
mattsteg said:
Why not just tie/clip the tether tag end to your belay loop?
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That’s what I used to do, but now I’ve got 30+ feet of rope as the tag end of the tether. Unless we’re talking like an alpine butterfly in the slack side clipped over to the belay loop. Maybe I just answered my own question ? I guess I have another question there lol
 
I'm in the same boat. I run diy and just switched to rappelling. I tied in my lineman on one side to keep things minimal and consistent. If it wasn't tied in, I'd use it as second tether to belay. Red beard ties an oops loop in his tether slack and clips that back into bridge/tether biner as a safeguard backup.
 
I hang from my schwebash (that eventually gets tended down and clipped into my LB loop). Then I take the running end of my tether and tie an overhand making a loop and clip I into my bridge carabiner. It just runs parallel to my bridge and is out of the way. Of my friction hitch failed I’d fall to the knot. I do the same thing with my bridge since it is adjustable.


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As in a sling said:
That’s what I used to do, but now I’ve got 30+ feet of rope as the tag end of the tether. Unless we’re talking like an alpine butterfly in the slack side clipped over to the belay loop. Maybe I just answered my own question ? I guess I have another question there lol
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clove hitch with carabiner. Works great when you use your climbing line as your Tether (SRT).

 
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JoyRyd said:
clove hitch with carabiner. Works great when you use your climbing line as your Tether (SRT).
Click to expand...

But the clove hitch slides, if I remember correctly. Useful for an improvised rappel.

EDIT: I was thinking of the Munter hitch. That’s the one you can rappel off of.

I think OP has the right idea of tying an alpine butterfly at the appropriate spot on the line. An overhand or a fig8 can be tied mid line as well, but the AB actually is pretty easy to fine tune if you need to move up or down a little bit. AB is my go to whether on a 8ft or 30ft tether.
 
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I use a Beal jammy on my tether and hook it to my linemans loop as a backup. Any reason why this is a bad idea? I’ve done the alpine butterfly, too, I just ended up getting tired of trying to get it right where I wanted each time I was in a new tree.
 
arm breaker said:
I use a Beal jammy on my tether and hook it to my linemans loop as a backup. Any reason why this is a bad idea? I’ve done the alpine butterfly, too, I just ended up getting tired of trying to get it right where I wanted each time I was in a new tree.
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Not a bad idea. I don’t like going to my LM loop because I imagine if I ended up dangling from the back up I would not want to be sideways. I hook my back up to my belt which should hold me if I fall.

In reality my primary purpose in tying the alpine butterfly is so I don’t have the tag end of the tether dangling around my feet. Might as well serve as a backup in case of bridge failure.
 
Thanks everyone, the comments have been tremendous. So here’s how I think I’m gonna roll. Gonna test this setup and get comfortable with it standing on a couple phone books or so on the ground: Tether/ rappel line will have in this order from top to bottom, prusik to tether with carabiner holding bridge. Slack ( minimal)below bridge prusik then down to auto block and line to saddle harness with stop knot below auto block. There’s the hunting configuration. Climbing will be the same with linesman belt added. For the rappel, I will leave the auto block in place, thread the ATC and line to harness. Open stop knot on the slack side, then disconnect bridge and ease onto the auto block. Then rappel.
 
arm breaker said:
I use a Beal jammy on my tether and hook it to my linemans loop as a backup. Any reason why this is a bad idea? I’ve done the alpine butterfly, too, I just ended up getting tired of trying to get it right where I wanted each time I was in a new tree.
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I use the Beal Jammy in a 4 wrap prussic as my tether backup loop. The main advantage that I see to the Jammy is that it is also a 22kN sling and sewn vs. knotted, not just a standard prussic with a MBS. I have currently switched all my prussics over.
 
bowhunthard88 said:
I use the Beal Jammy in a 4 wrap prussic as my tether backup loop. The main advantage that I see to the Jammy is that it is also a 22kN sling and sewn vs. knotted, not just a standard prussic with a MBS. I have currently switched all my prussics over.
Click to expand...

Same here.
 
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