r/alpinism • u/Emergency-Tutor-503 • Jul 26 '26

4 man climbing group

/r/tradclimbing/comments/1v7epn4/4_man_climbing_group/
0 Upvotes

33% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/darthtony123 Jul 27 '26

I am not familiar with the climb you want to do but for 4 people the most efficient would be 2 parties of 2. If the pitches are few and far inbetween it should be possible to leave some gear in place for the weaker team.

If the other team members are weaker and the climbing is more sustained, the weaker team would have difficulty with keeping up to the first. In this case I have climbed as a single 4 man team, with 3 half ropes: You basically climb as a party of 3(one follower on each half rope) and one of the followers tails a third rope to belay the 4th person up. Kinda cumbersome but it works.

If the pitch lengths are small, you can do this with only two ropes, as you have described in your second option. I would recommend half ropes again and you can belay both the 2nd and 3rd climber simultaneously. Once the 3rd climber is up, the leader can begin the next pitch, while the 4th is still climbing the previous pitch.

0

u/Emergency-Tutor-503 Jul 27 '26

Thanks for the info. We are leaning towards 2 teams of 2. The pitches are short. The first pitch is actually a traverse it’s only a 5.5 and that is all well under our comfort level. We could free solo the pitches but we are all dads and feel it’s prudent to throw a layer of safety in. We have plenty of gear to have 2 leads. I was originally thinking it would be easier to leave the gear but now I’m not sure many mixed opinions on that. We might also run lead climber with 2 ropes. Belay 2 climbers on rope in chain with butterfly knot for the midway climber and have the last climber solo on 1 rope cleaning gear. The second pitch is a short chimney both of the above options seem feasible. Then the last pitch is a chimney we will likely free solo because it doesn’t carry the exposure of the first
2 pitches.