One thing I left out of my TRS book (On the Line) was the niche technique of 'fix and follow', a boutique and non-traditional approach to leader and follower on long multi-pitch routes. The reason for leaving it out was OTL was written for the solo climber on single-pitch climbs, not two climbers on multi-pitch ones; plus, although fix and follow appears simple, once you try and cover all the angles, it grows and grows, and so was a distraction. It's full of 'what ifs?'. It's one of those subjects that, if given a one-line mention ("you can also use X to do Y"), can be dangerously vague and open to misinterpretation, like "you can rope solo big wall by tying knots in your rope"), but equally dangerous – easily misunderstood by the reader – if you don't cover it in enough depth, which could be a mini book in itself.
Fix and follow is also the technique that if you need to know it, you'd know it, and if you don't, you don't, and if you don't, maybe that's best.
But, seeing as it’s cropping up more and more, I thought I do a brief rundown of what it is and how you might do it safely or not at all.
What is fix and follow?
Rather than start on the ground floor of fix and follow, let's take it from the top:
In October 2023, Alan Rousseau, Matt Cornell and Jackson Marvell climbed a new route on the 2700-metre North Face of Jannu (7,710 m). Their route, 'Round Trip Ticket' (M7 AI5+ A0), must rank as one of the most remarkable feats of Alpinism of all time regarding difficulty and especially in style. The ascent required an Olympic level of technical mountain skill, general all-around badassery, and the application of cutting-edge climbing technology and technique.
The traditional way to climb a wall in three would be for climber A to lead a pitch on two ropes, and bring B and C up tied to the end of each rope and then swap. If the climb required the hauling of bags, then the climber could climb on one rope and use a haul line, with B and C climbing the rope using ascenders or mix and match depending on the ground. On Jannu, the team took another path.
One of the ways these guys climbed a 2700 metre (not feet!) big icy wall (they also rappelled the route) in a week was the use of the fix-and-follow method, which goes like this:
Climber A leads on a single climbing rope, which in this case was a 60-metre 9-mm rope, and trailed a 60-metre haul/rap line, which was 6 mm Dyneema (think Petzl Rad Line).
Climber A arrives at a belay stance, fixes the lead line to the master point, and inserts the haul line through a progress capture device or PCP (Petzl Micro or Nano Traxion, for example). They then signal that the ropes are fixed (this means the lead line is attached to the belay and ready to be ascended, and the haul line is in the PCP).
The belayer, climber B, and the third, climber C, hear the signal and respond (so A knows B and C understood).
B takes A off the belay, and C attaches himself to the fixed lead line with a PCP as he would when top rope soloing (safe working practice would demand two devices, but on a 2700-metre route, corners get cut). C now begins free climbing the pitch protected by the PCP.
Climber B clips A's rucksack into the haul line and allows A to haul it up (A could also haul all bags in a chain).
B ties into the end of the lead line attaches their PCP, disassembles the belay, and begins climbing on the same rope.
Climber A hauls up the bag(s) and can put on their belay jacket, gets a drink, and chills (literally) for a few minutes until C arrives.
As C climbs, they clip the lead line in and out of protection, leaving the protection for B to remove. This way, they can move faster than B, and the anchor points will take some of the load if B were to fall. Plus, it will stop big swings on anything but straight-up pitches.
When A fixed the rope, he left enough tail for C to tie into the rope, so C will now become the belayer for this pitch.
B arrives, takes the rack from A while C sorts the ropes, and then B climbs sets off up the next pitch.
The hazard-conscious reader will already realise that this non-traditional method comes with risks and requires the highest skill level and a limited imagination (or the ability to switch your brain off). Two climbers climbing on a single 9 mm rope, on a single micro ascender, fixed to an uncertain belay on which another climber is hanging, nearly three kilometres up, and on complex, near vertical alpine terrain, is not the stuff dreams are made of (unless that all sounds safe!).
What if one of the climbers falls off?
What if both climbers fall off?
What if the rope gets chopped?
What if one of the PCPs fails in a fall?
What if a failing PCP on climber C causes them to fall down the rope and strike climber B?
But was it safe?
The Bruce Maxim
My brother Rob was a loadmaster on a Hercules C-130 in the RAF. He has lots of great stories that relate to what I do, but one that always stuck was something an SAS soldier once said before jumping into a stormy South Atlantic from a C-130 during the Falklands War.
The plan had been to fly them and all their kit down to the task force sailing South and have them parachute with all their kit into the sea, hopefully to be picked up. The problem was, after flying for thousands of miles, such a jump that would be dangerous in perfect conditions now appeared to be a suicide mission that no one had trained for, with the wind too high and the sea too rough.
The water was so cold it could kill you in minutes, even with a dry suit, if your parachute didn't drag you to your doom first if you failed to escape it, either down into the depths or by being dragged across the water. Also, they had to jump at only 600 feet in order to hope to land near the pinprick boats waiting to haul them in (dead or alive). At such a low altitude, they'd never recover if they flipped upside down or had any problem with their chute.
Everyone looked at Nish Bruce, the youngest person on the jump but also the most experienced parachutist, with thousands of jumps under his belt, but nothing like this. "I don't believe in practising something you can only fuck up once," he said, and they went for it.
[They lost all their equipment, but they all survived, although many would later die in a birdstrike incident, causing their helicopter to crash into the same ocean, while Bruce would commit suicide by jumping from a plane in 2002].
I'd apply the Bruce Maxim to the Jannu ascent, a climb in which the climbers are well aware they are walking the line between life and death and that it’s an extremely thin line. The things you do on such a climb are things you should never become comfortable doing, as you might make a habit of it, or even practice doing it before it has to be done. Instead, it's something you can train for in parts, such as nailing how to TRS safely (knowing how you can get fucked up or fuck up), nailing technical alpine climbing (so you don't need a TRS system to save you), nailing climbing in a three (so you trust everyone else not to fuck up), and then knowing how to put it all together on the day.
It also needs to be stated that these three climbers were fully aware of the risks and knew that sometimes – especially when alpine climbing - the unsafe way is the safest of the unsafe ways to do it. They could have used 3000 metres of fixed ropes, portaledge camps, a platoon of climbers, something a health and safety person would sign off, but that would be as dangerous, only in other ways).
Amity Warme and Tyler Karow are making good use of fix and follow (not double TRS devices).
Regular Fix and Follow
Now that we've set the high mark for 'risky play' in the application of fix and follow let's take it down a notch to see how mortals might use it.
Standard fix and follow is a modification of the standard big wall technique, where the leader leads and the second uses ascenders. This technique is the only way to follow tough pitches swiftly, but it also saves the second a great deal of time and energy and frees up the leader to haul the bags or chill.
When speed climbing, this delegating of 'bringing up the second' to the second (they bring themselves up) allows 'short fixing' to take place, where the leader also becomes their own belayer, rope soloing (or free soloing on a rope), the next pitch (on a speed ascent, ideally you're halfway up the next pitch before the belayer arrives at the belay). With this method, someone is always moving; the train never stops.
The modification of this standard technique has no doubt come about because big wall climbing has evolved increasingly as a free climbing discipline (not just 'wack and dangle'). Free climbers want to avoid climbing the rope past some excellent free pitch but climb it themselves. It could also be said that many rock climbers have never taken the time to learn how to climb ropes well or understand the benefits (as could be seen by watching Adam Ondra trying to jumar up the Dawn Wall on a handled ascender and GriGri), and so sticking to what you know is more accessible, even if it's more complex.
As with Jannu, the basic approach is the same: climber A leads on one rope and fixes it, and climbers B and C climb the rope in TRS style, allowing A to rest, film a selfie, or roll a joint.
Failure points
This is in no way exhaustive, but here are a few things to consider:
The climber climbing the rope in TRS mode is exposed to a whole extra set of dangers and failure points compared to a climber being belayed up. TRS is simple, a no-brainer. Just clip in a PCP or micro ascender and climb… until something goes wrong (see this case of a sling being dragging into a Traxion and subsequent fall), and then you discover it's a highly complex game (parachuting's the same; jump out of a plane and pull your chute and land, innit?). So, if you want to fix and follow, you need to first be highly competent at it, which is the case at the moment, but the more people become aware of it, the less that will be.
When you fall off on a down-belay, the belayer can lower you a bit or even haul you up to some degree (before setting up a full-on rescue haul), but on a TRS system, you're fixed on the rope. Can you work out what to do if you swing out onto a slab and can't climb up or down? Did you bring the kit to climb the rope or escape the system?
When you bring up a second, you're connected to them, like a fisherman is to the trout on the hook. With fix and follow, you're not. Your second could be asleep on the rope, and you'd not know it. This relationship is significant when there is an imbalance between the climbers, with a reassuring 'tight rope' necessary to real in the cautious or less-than-confident second.
I also find climbing on one rope on complex terrain scary, but having had one rope of a two-rope system chopped by a rock; maybe it's just me.
A well-rigged TRS climbing line is set to mitigate any risk of rubbing or abrasion, using re-directs and re-anchors (re-belays), while a fix and follow is not, meaning if a climber keeps falling off the same move, they could be compromising the rope somewhere.
The second climber also has to decide if to tie into the end of the lead line as they climb, retying in as they create back-up loops at the risk of snags or letting the rope hang down. Letting the rope just hang means that if your PCP fails, you will just zip off the end, as you can't afford to tie a knot in the end, as it could jam.
If you're climbing as a three, if either simul climber falls off, will they drag off the other climber? This problem could be reduced by the first climber up the rope re-anchoring the rope as they pass solid gear, and the re-anchor will take any falls.
Safe fix and follow
As stated above, the primary way to fix and follow safe is to have TRS nailed. You need to know how to select the right tools for the job, understand how to set them up, and learn how they might fail. Anyone who has really studied this will probably use a two-device system, as the key to being safe is redundancy.
You also need to understand rigging dynamics and how to overcome problems that might crop up.
The leader must also be experienced enough to know how the second will 'follow' in a fix-and-follow pitch. This means knowing where to place protection to make it safe and when to switch to a standard belay-up method or use ascenders.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that fix and follow is far more dangerous than an up-belay, and so that extra risk has to pay off in some way, which in the Jannu case it did, but if you're climbing Snake Dyke, it isn't. If you're climbing in blocks, not having to belay might save you some small percentage of energy you might need later, but perhaps belaying with a PCP (another non-standard approach with risk, but less so) might also save some energy.
Lastly, there's something honest and shared about belay one and other. They belay you, you belay them. They sit and wait for you. You sit and wait for them. Being separate from each other is an odd relationship; it makes it all about you and what's best for you. Instead of the brotherhood (or sisterhood or others) of the rope, there's just the rope.
Nice review of F & F. I must say, my favorite part may have been your short but profound reflection at the end and how F & F may eliminate some (if not all) of the comradery involved in a team-ascent.
I wonder if there is some big table like this one https://ropeaccessandregulation.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/accident-analysis-rds-to-january-2015.pdf but for sport climbing - I'm mostly interested about technical description of the main fail point (like "sling caught in the micro traxion with no second device")