Q1. You are two pitches up. Each pitch is 40m with rap anchors at the top. You have a 60m rope and a knife but no pro. What's the best way to get down?

Q2. You are three pitches up. Each pitch is 40m with rap anchors at the top. You have a 60m rope and a knife but no pro. What's the best way to get down?

Huge respect to whoever can solve these climbing-themed puzzles

Q1 is quite easily done, but I can't yet see how you'd do 3 pitches.....

easy peasy if your name is George Thompson! For the rest of us, damn good question.

down climb

Edit:top out and walk down

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If you aren't willing to solve your own problems, how can you expect others to?

ok, I've got a way, but I'm sure it can't be the best way as it involves 2 40m + factor 2 falls. I also don't need the knife.

Basically you tie an end to the top anchors and rap down to the next anchors. Tie the other end to these anchors. Jug back up to the top anchors. Pull slack through anchors and untie top knot. Tie stopper knot on the long rope's side of the anchor. Rap down the short end. Before you run out of rope, tie into middle of long end of the rope and rap off the end of the short rope. Unfortunately you will now take a monster factor 2 fall, but you can jug up (20m) to the 2nd set of anchors and repeat the process. You still have a 60m rope and probably a few broken bones

@shorti

I was thinking along the same lines, but with a variation:

Tie a bowline knot with the rope onto itself at the 20m mark with the loop through the anchors.
Tie a double (or triple?) friction hitch at the point where the loop goes through the top anchors.
Abseil down the 20m to the bowline knot, pass the knot and carry on down to the rope end. Tie the rope
end to the next set of anchors. Now climb up to the bowline (prusik) and attach yourself with a double fig8 knot
to the 20m mark where the bowline is. Now untie the bowline and downclimb/take a BIG whipper to/past the next
anchor. (the double friction hitch at the top anchors could help to ease the descent [while/alternative to] downclimbing.
It will slip out of itself at the top anchors just as you reach the second anchors)

Repeat until on the ground

phone the rescue gurus - we love them and they love to help...

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LCD SCUM

For Q1:
Clip into anchor of pitch 2.
Use the knife to cut off 20 m from your rope, leaving you with a 20m and a 40m piece.
Tie one end of the 20m rope to the anchor.
Tie a double-backed figure-8 or equivalent knot to the other end of the 20m rope, producing a little closed/tied-off loop at the end.
Drop this end of the 20m rope down.
Thread the 40m rope through the anchors to its mid-point, allowing a 20 m rappel.
Rappel down the two ends of the 40 m, reaching the end of the 20m rope with its loop.
Clip into loop at the end of the 20m rope.
Pull your 40 m rope and thread this through the loop as well, up to its mid point again, allowing another 20m rappel.
Rappel down the two ends of the 40 m, now reaching the anchors of the first pitch.
Clip into anchor.
Pull 40 m rope and tie one end off to anchor.
Rappel down the single 40 m rope to reach the ground.

Haven't figured out Q2 yet.

Cheers
Jaco

@JdW

yeah, thats pretty much the same lines I was thinking along, but no need to thread the 40m section through the top anchors anchors, just rap the single 20m rope, and then do a knot pass with a difference onto the doubled over 40m section...

for Q2

what about tying the end of the rope to the top anchor of pitch 3, ab town to the anchors of pitch 2 and tie the end of the rope off. ascend back to the top of pitch 3 using some cool ascending trick that I am sure exists. untie the rope from pitch 3 anchors and pull up the slack form the anchors on pitch 2 and tie yourself in. yes you guessed it, jump off. ascend the rope to the top of pitch 2 and continue as for Q1

edit:
oh is see something similar has been suggested

Jimbo, if you have a rope with 34% dynamic elongation and you don't pull in the slack you will stretch the rope so much that you'll end up just above the ground. 58m (2m for the knots) * 1.34 = 77.72m. Now all you need to do is use the knife to cut the rope and drop the short distance to the ground

Clever JDW!

i'll be willing to donate a rather well used 60m x 8mm half rope to anyone willing to test out shorti's suggestion (by well used I mean as a washing line and to strap stuff to the roof of my car)

Thread the rope and tie a stopper knot 20m from the end. Use the knife to slice the sheath off the last 20m of rope (on the other side of the stopper knot). Tie the sheath onto the now-exposed core, giving the rope a 40m "tail". Rap off the good end of the rope against the stopper knot. Use the "tail" to pull the rope down. Repeat. This way you won't have Snort bitching at you for leaving unsightly rope draped all over his crag, and you still have 40m of rope you can use at strubens. I hope that knife is sharp.

flip Hector that's brilliant! You can even split the core itself if the sheath won't do the job.

Nice one Hector !

Huge respect to Jacofor solving Q1.

Huge respect to Hector for solving Q2.

Shorti, who is George Thompson?

Just from bits and pieces I remember: George Thompson was another total badass climber we should be proud of. He was one of the (if not indeed THE) most prolific peak climbers in the Berg. He often climbed solo and devised a plan to rap off an entire rope length. His solution was basically a knot that would undo itself when not weighted any more...

In 1945 Thompson made the first ascent of The Column in the 'berg. His climbing buddy/s bailed on him when he/they saw the peak up close. No worries, our hero just soloed the thing. He then downclimbed his route. The story goes that at a certain point he wasn't able to downclimb. So he jumped, grabbed a bush and used this to swing onto a lower ledge. The route gets a hefty grade F3.

In Reg Pearse’ book Barrier of Spears there is an account of George Thompson using the ‘trick-knot’ shorti talks about. He used it in an effort to recover the Body of Tom Pinkney from the ‘Berg Amphitheatre to abseil a pitch that is more than half a rope-length long. He just flicked the rope free after the abseil – no problem.

Funny that such an ingenious knot is not taught as a standard (especially since the anchor he used in the abseil was the dodgy part of the abseil after all).

If a sport route: simple. ask any grade pusher that's been above their level, needing to clean a route and refusing to leave behind a maillon. it basically involves down-climbing or down-falling.

But since were talking about pro, I assume we are on a trad route, in a ver un-envious situation I pray I never get myself into.

My solution:
i. check out the route guide or get beta (before you attempt the climb), and dont get yourself deliberately into difficult situations. Mountain rescue will thank you.
ii. use half ropes. singles are for sport. there is a good reason for climbing trad of half ropes.
so, since you got two 50m (or 60m) half ropes, the whole problem gets solved even before you start.

But since foresight and sanity checks is something that is oftentimes lacking in our south african climbing community, I guess we are left with sacrificing rope, using dodgy 'self release bear-grilles type suicide knots' & 'thompson trick knots' , or calling mountian rescue.

Q1: I would sacrifice rope to get down (and keep it quiet)
Q2: Personnally I would choose mountain rescue, suffer the humiliation, live to climb another day, and buy a learning curve when back on terra firma.

peace and love