Rope Solo Skills (Advanced Climbing)

OVERVIEW

Rope soloing is a wonderful sub-discipline in the climbing world that allows one to climb on a rope alone. There are many ways to rope solo (some safer than others, some smoother than others), but the two broad categories are top rope soloing and lead rope soloing. On this trip, we’ll head up to Great Falls and start by learning top rope soloing. If people are feeling comfy with that, we’ll also tackle lead rope soloing. We will have a mock solo setup until people are proficient enough to remove the mock setup, which just means that the climber will be traditionally belayed while they’re learning the rope solo bits.

I’m keeping this trip suuuper small so I can supervise well, so if you need to drop the trip, please do so far enough in advance that I can bring someone else off the waitlist.

To get the most out of this day, you’ll ideally already have the following skillset. If you have the top rope skills and not the lead skills, you can stick with top rope soloing.
– use a grigri (for top rope soloing)
– tie the following knots: overhand on a bight, slipknot, clove hitch (for top rope soloing)
– rappel (for top rope soloing)
– climb trad/clean aid (for lead rope soloing)
– build a multi-point trad anchor (for lead rope soloing)
– rappel rescue (for lead rope soloing)

We’ll plan to head out around 7am, get to Great Falls around 9:30am, then learn, workshop, and climb from about 10am to dark (5pm ish). We’ll be back in Charlottesville around 8pm or so.

Feel free to text, call, or email me with any questions.