Prusiks & Panic Mitigation

 

Me Performing a pickoff rope rescue 

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to refresh my rope rescue skills by attending a training clinic with my coworkers at The Den. The clinic was led by our club sports coach, Dan Yates, who has years of experience in climbing and rope systems. Dan worked as an arborist for several years and has completed numerous outdoor rope climbs, so he brought a wealth of knowledge to the session.

The training was divided into four sections, which I’ll walk through below. We covered friction hitches, unweighted belay takeovers, weighted belay takeovers, and weighted belay takeovers with a pickoff. Don’t worry if that all sounds complicated—I’ll explain everything step by step!

Friction Hitch Examples

    We began by familiarizing ourselves with the gear, including something called a hollow block. It’s a short, 19.5-inch loop made of hollow-braid cord, which allows it to grip the rope more effectively than a standard nylon sling. The purpose of a friction hitch in a rescue scenario is to ascend the rope without sliding back down—essentially acting as a rope grab. We learned how to tie Prusik, Autobloc, and Klemheist friction hitches.

Me waiting to be rescued

Once we got comfortable tying friction hitches, we moved on to unweighted belay takeovers. This technique is used when the belayer is unable to continue and the climber is standing on a ledge, meaning they aren’t applying weight to the rope. To take over, you tie a catastrophe (or “cat”) knot below the belayer’s ATC, clip your own belay device between the belayer’s ATC and the cat knot, and then the original belayer can safely disconnect. Just remember to untie the cat knot before lowering!

Dan and Andrew watch as Christie "Jugs Up"

Next, we learned weighted belay takeovers. These are similar to the unweighted version but with an important extra step, since the climber is hanging and putting weight into the system. First, you tie a cat knot beneath the belayer, then a friction hitch above them. Attach a locking carabiner to a sling and secure it to your harness using a basket hitch. You then slowly shift the climber’s weight onto your setup, allowing the original belayer to remove slack from their device. You can now insert your belay device below, just like in the unweighted version. Finally, clean up the system by removing your friction hitch and cat knot.

Petzl I'D Auto-lock device

The final technique we learned was the weighted belay takeover with a pickoff, which combined all the previous skills and added some complexity. This is used when a climber is stuck—either physically wedged into a rock or injured and unable to descend without help.

You begin as with a standard weighted belay takeover, but instead of removing your friction hitch, you convert your basket hitch into a foot loop (an overhand knot can shorten it if needed). Then, you step into the loop and slowly stand up, taking in slack as you go. The goal is to ascend to the climber without them feeling a drop, which could be dangerous. It is also important to tie cat knots every few feet as you ascend for another added layer of safety. Then you can repeat this process—step, slack, move hitch—until you reach the climber. 

Once you're close, you remove your friction hitch and allow your Petzl I'D (a hands-free auto-locking device) to support your weight. Then, tie a new friction hitch on the climber’s side of the rope and clip it to your harness. From here, you’re safe to lower both of you down as normal.

This training session was incredibly valuable, and it was awesome to build on skills I had learned previously.