Descent Options in Alpine, Third, & Fourth Class Climbing Terrain

Hi, in this video we'll be showing a progression of descent options in third and fourth class terrain. We hope that you enjoy it. Here we're showing short roping for a party with two varying degrees of skill levels. The climber in the back will hold the climber in the front with the rope preventing a slip from becoming a fall. If this terrain is easy both climbers will unrope and solo in this terrain. In this segment we want to convey the concept of creating and maintaining high anchors. The first person down will either place their rope over natural protections such as horns or place cams in the rock. This will create anchor points. The second person then removes those anchor points to go to the next high anchor. When descending an exposed third and fourth class terrain such as this where likelihood of a fall is high, we'll use features to belay down climb our first person on the rope team. So as they down climb this section we just feed rope out. We'll ask our partner to pull the rope down as we descend as well. Sometimes you'll arrive in terrain where your exposure doesn't warrant down climbing for either yourself or your partner. This is a fairly advanced skill but we'd still like to show it. I've belayed down climbed my second to provide security off this strong horn and now to provide security for myself I'll put myself on belay on the other side of the horn lock it up and use my partner as a counterbalance propel to secure myself and my partner from an exposed situation down below. At the next stance we will place a cam in the rock securing our partner and ourselves to the mountain. We'll then retrieve the rope by flicking it off the horn and pulling it down towards the party. At that point we'll organize the ropes and move to the next descent. We'll continue the conversation with descending in third and fourth class terrain by introducing the equivocation hitch. This is generally considered a temporary anchoring system where we can build a repel or a lower off of it so that we don't have to down climb in exposed terrain. The first thing that we want to think about is how do we get our second team member down. In order to do that I'll flake my ropes out into a nice pile and build a temporary anchor using my own cordelette. Then I'll get my partner onto a lower. This could also be a repel but let's just use a lower to demonstrate a new technique. From Meg I'll set her up just like I would if she were on belay. Then I'll pass her into our carabiner on the anchor. Now here comes the redirect. I'll redirect the brake into that same carabiner and lock it up. Make sure that everything's tight and now I'll set up my lowering security for Meg which is going to be an auto block. Test to make sure it holds and then we can start our lower. I'm just being aware of where she's placing her feet making sure not to go at an unreasonable speed either too fast or too slow. Now that our partner is safe and on the ground I'll start to break down our lower and our temporary anchor. Remember that this hitch is a removable hitch which requires some practice to get right. We highly recommend doing this under the supervision of an instructor or guide or more experienced person that knows this system and also doing it in non-consequential terrain. Starting closest to the rope going towards our second team member we will build the hitch by placing a bite of rope around our anchor. Now we have two options. We have the strands coming to me and the strands going to our second team member. We'll pass one bite through our initial bite that went around the tree. When we pass that bite we'll pull the other opposite strand that I just talked about. Now using the opposite strand I just talked about we'll create another bite through our new bite and we'll repeat this process. So every time that I tension and pull the hitch that strand goes through the new loop and we pull the older strand to tighten. Now I pass through again and I alternate about six or seven times until I'm confident that we have enough daisies to support our weight. Now I'll make that last loop fairly long and tension everything up. This will be my rappel line and then my excess rope coming to me will be my pull line. I want to make sure that I have enough rope coming from my coils to the anchor that it doesn't weight my lowering system. I'll then place myself on rappel and test my system one more time. Now I'm ready to rappel on the equivocation hitch. Once you arrive at the bottom you'll alternate pulling strands to pop the daisies off the equivocation hitch. When they're all finished they'll release and you get your rope back. This terrain is how we get down when there are permanent anchors. So it could be just as easy as letting the rope through and then both rappelling pulling the rope and continuing. However we'll show another technique because it's fun to learn and it will build your toolkit. So here we'll show the redirected plate lower. So the first thing that I'll do is secure myself to the anchor and set myself up for rappel by extending my rappel setup and then clip into the system. Now what I'll do is thread my partner's rope through the ring and then ask them to tie back in. Once my partner is tied back in I'll secure them to our anchoring system by placing an auto block on the back side of this ring making sure that it's tight and then placing an overhand on a bite as a stopper knot. This will temporarily secure my partner while I set them up for the lower. The redirected plate is going to be exactly the same as what we just demonstrated for the equivocation hitch section. I'll put my partner through a belay device and clip them into the anchor and lock everything up. Ready to lower? We'll make sure that the system is weighted and then we will start the lower. My partner is down on a safe ledge. We'll break the system down and then I'll show my setup for rappel. Remove my auto block. Keep that on there because we'll need it in a second. Pop out the belay device. Use that same locker to put myself on rappel. Put my auto block back on. On both ropes. Make sure that it grabs. Weight the system. Take myself off of the anchor and then I'll continue to rappel.