The Two Person Continuous Loop System, aka The Infinite Loop Method

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to (and attempted to) climb The Diamond on Longs Peak in the winter. Each attempted has ended for one reason or another: pinned down by a blizzard at the base of the North Chimney, a partner with altitude sickness after a bivy on Broadway, ext.

The most memorable precursor to retreat was looking down at my partner after leading the first 100ft of D7, he was shivering more and more the longer he sat there. It was still early in the morning; the sun was still on the face, but it wouldn’t be there for long. In order to move fast, we planned on the conventional strategy of leading long, rope-stretcher pitches and leading in blocks. But obviously, there was no way he could stay warm while sitting stationary through a long belay. On the other hand, if we did shorter pitches, we most likely wouldn’t make it to the top before the end of the day.

A year or so later, I ran into Joe who had also attempted The Diamond in winter. He mentioned trying to use short fixing tactics as a means of both moving a bit faster, and staying warm. The idea was that if the leader placed an anchor before the end of the pitch, and continued upward while self-belaying, the second could start cleaning the pitch sooner, and both people would keep warm.

Traditional Short Fixing

Short fixing strategies have been developed and employed primarily in Yosemite, where bolted belays are often established about 150ft apart. The general idea is that the leader arrives at a bolted belay and sets up an anchor, but he still has maybe 40ft of rope left. Instead of sitting around waiting for his partner to arrive at the anchor, he starts rope soloing the next pitch. Because cleaning a pitch usually takes far less time, the second typically shows up at the belay when the leader is about twenty feet up the next pitch. It then takes the team a few minutes to pass gear up to the leader. The leader may still not be at the end of the rope, so the slack in the rope as to be carefully transferred back to the second in order to put the leader back on a traditional belay. This all takes a fair amount of time, but hey, the leader is twenty feet up the next pitch.

When you take these basic strategies and apply them to aid climbing on a cold alpine wall, there’s still a lot to be desired. Leading 150ft before setting an anchor still leaves the belayer courting hypothermia. The twenty or so feet the leader advances is nearly negated by the time it takes to shuffle the rope and put him back on belay. Finally, the rack needed to lead 170ft is a pain in ass to carry all the way in to mountains.

The Infinite Loop Method

The new Infinite Loop method builds upon the continuous loop method for aid soloing as discussed on www.rockclimbing.com. Keep in mind that this is a very complex system and as usual, messing it will likely result in a very bad day. Each person involved should have ample experience with rope soloing, and the climb should offer some good, solid pro at least every 20ft or so. This is not a good way to belay A4 terrain.

At the base of the route, the team flakes out the rope with the middle of the rope at the bottom of the pile, and ties the ends of the rope together with an in-line figure-8 knot. The leader then attaches a solo belay device to the rope, right next to the knot. A Grigri works best, but which ever device is use, the leader should load the rope into the device with the knot on the “climber” side of the device and clip it to his belay loop. The side of the rope coming out of the “climber” side of the Grigri will hereafter be referred to as the lead side of the rope, while the side of the rope coming out of the “hand” side of the Grigri will be referred to as the “tag” side of the rope. To double check the setup, the leader can give the knot a sharp tug. If the Grigri doesn’t lock up, something’s wrong.

Next the second attaches his belay device to the lead side of the rope, a few feet away from the leader, then the leader can start up the first pitch. At first it takes a bit of care to make sure that the leader clips the lead side, and not the tag side, of the rope through the protection as he goes. If the leader falls, the leaders and seconds belay devices will lock up, and the fall will be caught as normal.When the leader is about half a rope length up the first pitch, he places a reasonable belay anchor and fixes the lead side of the rope to the anchor. A butterfly knot, just beyond the in-line figure-8 works will for this purpose. Unlike a typical belay anchor, this anchor is never the only anchor holding the climbing team to the rock; two good equalized pieces may be all that are needed. We’ll call it a mini-belay.