Vertical caving terminology and methods > Prusiking systems, prusiking methods > Step or rope walking systems, sit on the heels systems
A variation of rope walking, originally intended for use with prusik loops instead of mechanical ascenders. However, it can also be used with mechanical ascenders. This takes away the hands-free benefit of rope walking, and moves the ascenders or prusik loops into a position where they can be reached. Despite being sometimes called the "prusik method" by some people in the USA, it was not developed or used by Karl Prusik, and when used with prusik loops, it should really be called the Gérard Alpine technique, since E. Gérard called it the "Alpine technique".
When used with mechanical ascenders, this system is fairly similar to rope walking, but with the disadvantage that it keeps both hands occupied, like the Mitchell system. This system is more inconvenient than the frog system for passing rebelays and deviations, but better than rope walking. It can be used for passing a knot while abseiling or prusiking, but the position of the lower of the two lower jammers makes this more awkward while abseiling. Reverse prusiking is relatively easy compared with some other techniques. This system is particularly awkward for bottom weighting, since the feet move separately and cannot trap the rope, and the hands are also occupied and cannot pull the rope through the lower jammer. The only remaining option is to push the cam open of the lower of the two lower jammers, but this really is very fiddly. Mid-rope changeovers are relatively easy. This system lies half way between rope walking and the frog system, in terms of energy transfer efficiency. It is very awkward for sloping pitches, both because of the angle that it pulls the caver compared with the rope, and because neither hand is free to push away from a wall. Taking a rest requires one leg to be bent, so that the upper of the two lower jammers can be lifted, but the foot can then be taken out of its footloop.
When using prusik loops, this system is slow, because it relies on moving three prusik loops instead of two, so every movement cycle takes additional time to perform than with a simpler system like the frog system. However, it can be safer as a result. All kinds of friction hitches, no matter which prusiking system is used, will be incredibly inconvenient for passing rebelays and deviations, and passing a knot. However, if the prusik loops are connected to their footloops and the chest harness via carabiners, then those manoeuvres can be done more easily. For every manoeuvre, there will always one extremely risky moment when the chest prusik loop is disconnected, since there is then nothing holding you to the rope. A safety cord to the other two prusik loops is highly recommended for this reason, and to provide redundancy in case the chest prusik loop fails. Reverse prusiking is actually a lot easier than with rope walking, since the prusik loops are all within reach. Bottom weighting is done by manually pulling the rope beneath the lowest prusik loop. Efficiency is terrible, simply because of how much effort is wasted with having to repeatedly reach down to move a prusik loop. An incapacitated caver will be left with potential blood flow issues due to the position of the chest harness.
When used with mechanical ascenders, this is called the pygmy system. It uses a shoulder jammer attached to the chest harness, whch must also be connected to the D-ring via a safety cord, or a load bearing chest harness, such as a Howie belt. This position is important to allow space for the other ascenders. It then uses two lower jammers, each connected to a footloop, one for each foot. The footloop lengths need to be carefully configured to allow a maximum range of motion, between the lowest point that can be reached for the lower of the two lower jammers, and the highest point just below the shoulder jammer (roughly over the abdomen when standing). Safety cords should be used to connect to both lower jammers. The sit harness plays a secondary role for safety, and as an attachment point for the chest harness. The chest harness is essential for supporting the shoulder jammer.
The prusik loop version uses a prusik loop connected directly to the chest harness, instead of the chest roller and top jammer that would have been used by rope walking. It then uses two more prusik loops, each connected to a footloop, one for each foot, essentially turning them into a pair of lower jammers. These replace the foot jammer and knee jammer that would have been used by rope walking. Because the prusik loops need to be moved by hand, the footloop lengths need to be carefully configured to allow a maximum range of motion, between the lowest point that can be reached for the lower of the two, and the highest point just below the chest prusik loop for the upper of the two (roughly over the abdomen when standing). Safety cords should be used to connect to both lower prusik loops. The sit harness plays a secondary role for safety only. The chest harness is essential for support and safety.
With prusik loops, some cavers preferred to treat this as a sit on the heels system, raising the chest prusik loop during the standing phase of the cycle. This avoids the point in the normal step sequence where the chest prusik loop is lower than the chest, and needs to be lifted above it again, which can be unnerving. When using this approach, the longer footloop only needs to be a few centimetres longer than the other one, and that will always be the foot that is lifted first, while the other provides support. The chest harness is relied upon much more heavily when using this approach, and it can be uncomfortable, as the chest harness needs to be load bearing, not just for support.
In the original design, the chest harness was made from a long prusik loop, that simply sat around the chest beneath the arms. There were no safety cords. As a two-knot variation, the prusik loop connected to the top harness could be omitted, and replaced with a carabiner connected to the chest harness, clipped around the rope. This carabiner could also be clipped to the belay belt instead. The two-knot variations are absolutely not recommended, as they remove something that is very important for balance, and they make it impossible to rest. The belt mounted carabiner is even worse! Because of the discomfort of hanging on a chest harness, some cavers preferred to use the three knot approach with the chest prusik loop connected to the sit harness, using a long tether to keep it high enough. This turns it into the Texas system with a completely pointless extra prusik loop to push up when the feet could have just shared one, and therefore this approach is not recommended. The standard Texas system is better.
French roofers and plumbers have been described using a knotted rope to climb buildings from as early as 1684, though the technique is almost certainly much older, as roofers had been described as "dancing on ropes" and "holding firm at places they pass" by René Le Pays in 1664. The technique was described rather poorly in 1723, and described and clearly depicted in two separate publications in 1762. They would stand in footloops which they attached using suspension hooks hooked above the knots of a knotted rope, alternating from one footloop to the other while moving the hooks to the next available knot, and holding on with their hands. This could be used to climb upwards or downwards. This method was described being used by French exterior decorators in the early 1800s, and continued to be described into the 1900s. It was known as "echelle de corde" (rope ladder), "echelle de couvreur" (roofer's ladder) or "corde nouée" (knotted rope), sometimes using the older spellings eschelle or echele. While this was not actually prusiking, it uses the same basic format as the two-knot variation of the Gérard Alpine technique, but without any safe attachment for the body.
In 1863, Scottish steeplejack and former sailor James Duncan Wright, better known as Steeple Jack, was described using this technique to climb a lightning conductor cable to the top of a church steeple (the newspaper got his middle name wrong, but his own autobiography confirmed it was him, without giving details of how he climbed it). However, since it was a relatively smooth cable, he will have needed to use a lark's foot or a noose as a friction hitch to grip it, as sailors would use it to connect things to the mast of a ship, and at that point, it could be considered prusiking. It was described as being done "by means of loops of spun yarn inserted around the conductor step by step up". This use of footloops could have been independently developed, but steeplejacks travelled extensively and worked in teams who also travelled, so it is very likely that the idea had come from France. Presumably he used the same approach again in 1869 to climb a flagpole, given that he was able to lean on top of it with one foot, suggesting that he had some kind of foot support for the other foot. This technique was referred to in the USA as flagpole stirrups when it was used there by the end of the 1800s, and it seems to have been learned from British steeplejacks, since many American steeplejacks were trained by British ones. This method was very clearly described and depicted in an illustration, being used in New York in 1901 to climb a flagpole. In that illustration, an additional loop of rope around the waist and the flagpole is shown, to make it harder to accidentally fall off backwards, which had happened enough times for the technique to be considered very risky. It was soon replaced by the Texas system.
This method was proposed in 1928 by French mountaineer E. Gérard, as a way to use the Gérard hitch, where he referred to it simply as the Alpine technique (in French). That was 7 years after rope walking had been demonstrated by Antoine Joseph Marius "Paul Cans" Barthelemy, but even though that was widely publicised in French media, E. Gérard's use of it seems to have been an independent invention, even though they are quite similar. It was intended to be used to escape from a crevasse after falling down it and being caught by a safety line, so the lack of safety cords was not seen to be a serious issue, and the concept was not widely known at the time anyway (though it did exist). Despite people largely forgetting that E. Gérard had created the Gérard Hitch and described prusiking long before the Prusik knot, the Gérard Alpine technique managed to survive, and became a popular way for mountaineers to ascend ropes with Prusik knots. It became the most influential of all prusiking systems, and most other prusiking systems can trace their origins back to it.
This system was first used in a cave in 1938 by French caver Pierre Chevalier in the Dent de Crolles system, in the Grenoble region of France. The prusik loops were made from strands of the main hemp rope. The two-knot variation was created by cavers in the Grenoble region of France, described rather poorly by Henry P. Guérin in 1944, as a way to use prusik loops, with the carabiner attached to a belt ("ceinture" in French). However, it would make no sense attached to a waist belt, given that the footloop lengths he mentioned would then interfere with the carabiner and make it impossible to move, so any such belt would have to have been worn up around the chest, as a chest harness. The wording was not written well enough to tell for certain. He stated that the carabiner should be clipped around the "guide rope", a term that was not used anywhere else in his book, and probably referred to the up rope, since the rope would need to be under tension to provide any stability. (It does not refer to a separate lifeline, since he uses a different term for lifelines.)
The standard Gérard Alpine technique is likely to be the first system used for prusiking in American caves, by Bob Handley and Charlie Fort in 1952. It is the method first used by American caver William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington in the same year, who had found it in a mountaineering book, and it became known in North America as the three knot prusik or simply as the "prusik method", even though it had nothing to do with Austrian mountaineer Karl Prusik. It remained one of the most popular methods for prusiking in caves until the two knot Plummer system and Texas system took over. It is the first system used for prusiking by British cavers, in 1958. American mountaineer Harvey Manning described a low efficiency variation for prusik loops with the footloops running behind the legs then through the sit harness in 1960.
This system was reinvented as the pygmy system in 1974, described by American Vern Smith, for mechanical ascenders. It was supposed to be an adaptation of the Mitchell system, swapping the Mitchell system's chest roller for a shoulder jammer from the three Gibbs version of rope walking, intended for use on longer pitches where the arms can get tired from being raised too high, but the resulting system is identical to the original Gérard Alpine technique.
This history section only covers the Gérard Alpine technique. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
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