
If voice communication is difficult, agree on some sort of rope signal I use three sharp tugs on the line to indicate I’m ready to pull up the bag. (If you’re lucky enough to have a nice ledge, you can skip stacking the rope in a sling and flake the haul line onto the ledge, separate from your lead line.)Īt this point, yell, “Ready to haul!” to your second. She will wait until she’s hauled to stack the rest of the rope into the tag-line sling.

At this point, she will tie off the rope again with a figure eight on a bight on the anchor, and prepare to haul up the bag. After she sets up the next belay, she’ll clip the haul line somewhere out of the way, and then pull up the free line and stack that into a sling that will eventually hold the entire haul line. The leader carries the tag line as she normally would, clipped to the dedicated haul loop on the back of her harness. You may be a little slower car-to-car, but you’ll have much more fun. If the climb is longer than 10 pitches, hauling might be too slow, but if the route is steep, with hard free climbing, hauling could be a huge benefit. Carrying the big cams, approach shoes, water, and storm gear in a small haul pack frees the leader-and follower-to send as much as a number grade harder. Plus, hauling allows you to climb harder. You can be better prepared for bad weather, descents, or forced bivies. Not having to carry a pack on your back also means it’s easy to throw in a few cushy extras such as a warm hat and gloves, space blanket, and maybe even an icy beverage. It’s more efficient and less strenuous to tie all your gear to the end of that line, instead of lugging it on your person. Unless you’re climbing with a double-rope system-which most American climbers don’t-you usually drag up a tag line.

On long free climbs, you can’t often retreat with one rope, so it’s customary to bring two.
#HAULING GEAR BIG WEATHER HOW TO#
If this sounds like you, strip down and haul! Here are a few reasons to haul, tips on how to do it, and some cautions gleaned from years of experience.

Water bottles, approach shoes, bullet packs-you name it-jangling o gear loops, wrapped around waists, getting in the way. To avoid the stigma of hauling a bag, many climbers feel the need to have everything clipped right on their harnesses. Simple truth: Attempting to go “light and fast” often means heavy and lame.
#HAULING GEAR BIG WEATHER FULL#
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