Any Rope Wrench or Hitch Hiker users here?

Well, the HH was the ONLY way to do my cliff clearing job efficiently without having to buy more expensive gear.

The friction and chafe of the rope across the rocks would have cut through my rope in about 5 mins or less if I had to do it DdRT there was no way to protect the whole length of the rope from the rocks, as it was I used a conduit friction saver on the worst initial sharp edge, but not having the ropes sliding back and forth in other spots was huge, once it was in place and protected on the worst areas, just slide down the rope no drama.

Ok, so I didn't have any second tie-in or second system, ropes access would have been horrified, but I felt very secure on the HH on a cliff.
I only had to use the basic and revolver twice to get back up, a vertical face with crumbly footholds, otherwise the one handed tending was smooth and easy going back up the areas that had more secure footing.
 
..just ordered HH ...lucky enough to try one out first ! Thanks to Riskybiz Joel ! A couple few days till I have my own...retire the Grigri asap
 
What a difference a HH makes! I climbing on a GriGri when I first started climbing trees, transferring in from rocks. Then RW. Do you have a rope walker?
 
I bought 4-5' of most of the tech cords Treestuff carries to have on hand to try with varying ropes and devices. That's why the tails on the OP are so long in the photos.

As for color scheme...I was disappointed to receive the plain anodized version of the HH instead of the pretty orange one in everyone's photos. That was a couple of months ago and is all I know about it.

GemCutter, I have a new HH in the gold color scheme as a spare in case I ever dropped and lost the dog bone etc.. (My gold one doesn't look beat up to me by the way even though used daily or at least with me 100% of the time for 10 months or so.)

At any rate if you wanted a gold one bad I would trade for a new copy of the plain alum and USPS shipping cost to you.
 
No, I had no backup...probably breaking all the rules I admit...would have been a splashdown at the bottom...

A couple times the rope bumped across the face below the chafe guard as I moved a bit sideways...it picked a few strands immediately, talk about abrasive, that was my main concern.

With the proximity to the rock face I think the RW would have got knocked about...but easy to say never having owned one, sorry Kevin!
 
Yup...aeolian limestone, basically solidified sand dunes on top of marine limestone originating from ground up coral, shells, calcareous algae etc...pure calcium carbonate.
 
Bermy, get another HH and try DRT. Meaning climbing with with two lines. For occassions where you are worried about getting a rope cut or interfered with, or lanyards are too restricting, DRT is actually an excellent option. I have found it is not very difficult at all to manage two ropes in a situation like that. What is also good is that if you can set redirects and set your two lines with some distance between each other and you can have killer work positioning as well as more horizontal movement across the cliff face. People are unnecessarily afraid of DRT and they think that it will tangle them up. With proper house keeping you can run two lines just as easily as operating one, with better positioning as well as added safety margin. It does add an expense but I have found it to be quite worth it. It adds a lot of options when you bring two ropes to play with. SRT can be somewhat one dimensional in certain situations.

here are the gear requirements that I have found so far. Two ropes, two devices of the same kind(rw, hh,rr uni... etc), two bridges, two swivels, two pantins.

sounds like a lot of extra shit and it is but handling both is not twice as hard as handiling one. and the options that it can give are pretty great sometimes. And its very often not necessary, but sometimes it can be very helpful.

I think the industrial work access guys have the right philosophy but not the right tools. We have the right tools so it works out.
 
the industrial rope access guys also make excellent options for rope protection that would be worth it working on cliffs
 
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