What are the wall-cleaners in climbing called? What equipment/gear do they use?
I have been watching this climbing video of Alex Honnold.
In this video his friend goes ahead of him and cleans the wall of any debris or slippery rocks.
What are these people who clean the walls for the climbers called? Or is it just the only one instance where a person actually cleaned a wall for the climber?
What is the equipment used by these people?
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Thanks to the help from this amazing guy at Reddit, I have got an answer for the question:
Usually when you prepare a route for a first ascent you clean it, if it gets a decent amount of traffic then no further cleaning should be needed later on. But on alpine routes, long multi-pitches or big walls you should always be careful of loose rock: too many meters to clean for a first ascent party, and weathering produces new loose rock every season. Water gets into cracks, freezes in winter and expands, and boom, another piece of rock that just waits for you to rip it out or fall on your head.
So, who are these people who clean the walls for the climbers called? Or is it just the only one instance where a person actually cleaned a wall for the climber?
This is probably a rare occurrence where Cedar Wright put more attention into it because Alex Honnold was about to free solo the route. If you're on a rope then loose rock sucks and you might fall because of it, but then the rope catches you.
When you're free soloing you really dont want to grab any loose rock because falling means you'll very likely die or be physically disabled.
What are the equipment used by these people?
It's been a while since i watched that video, but generally to get around big walls you use fixed static lines and ascenders to get up/down.
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We used to call them 'wall sweepers'
This is a wall that isn't climbed much. You can see in the video there are some fresh bolts that have been put in and few old ones. They are just using 'slings and carabiners' on their harnesses. They might have some cams or some nuts. I did not see any on them though. Only the slings and biners getting clipped into pre-placed bolts.
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