- Introduction
- Core Belaying Skills
- Rappelling
- Belaying a Follower (From Above, Plaquette-Mode)
- Advanced Skills
Introduction
Why use an assisted-braking device?
With any belay device, you should never let go of the brake strand. But if someone fucks up, or the belayer is injured, then belay devices with assisted-braking provide an additional layer of safety towards not-dropping the climber.
The moment that really convinced me personally was long ago in my climbing career, when I was climbing at the gym with a relatively-new belayer who was notably lighter than me. I took a fall, and that particular belayer was lifted of their feet, and slammed into the wall, and in that split-second, reflexively and without thinking, they put their hands up to take take the impact of hitting the wall. Both hands. Neither hand remaind on the brake strand. Fortunately, they were using a belay device that did have an assisted-braking feature, and it had happened to engage, catching me. Thank goodness the incident had no physical consequences, and it was thanks to slight extra margin of safety that assisted-braking layers on. The only consequences were emotional, the belayer was indeed mortified that they had let go of the brake strand–of course they knew not to do that, and they felt horrible that it had happened. But I also understand that it had all happened so fast & suddenly, that it had nothing to do with what the belayer knew, or thought, or chose; it happened fast enough that there was no knowing, no thinking, no choosing; just reflex. My takeaway is that humans should strive to do the best job they possibly can, but we should also acknoldge that humans inherently imperfect and that mistakes are inevitable, so it is better to engineer in systems that have at least some fault-tolerance. i.e. strongly prefer that what you get from your belayer is both excellent belay technique, and an assisted-braking belay device. One-in-a-million things do happen, all you can do is try to change the denominator.
I’m also going to go out on a limb and make a prediction for the future of climbing: Although belay devices that lack assisted-braking are common today (e.g. Black Diamond ATC, Petzl Reverso, etc.) I strongly suspect that in 50 years, climbers will look back at belay devices that lack assisted-braking the same way we currently look back at hip-belays in the 1960’s, thinking “Geez, that was so risky! I can’t imagine taking a risk like that!” That new realization hasn’t yet swept the climbing community, but I predict it’s coming, so why not get ahead of it and add that extra margin of safety? If you want to really geek-out on this, there’s a fantastic & very long article from the AAC on this topic. Also, some gyms have already taken this step!
Why specifically the MegaJul?
I care more that you use some belay device with assisted-braking, any device with assisted-braking. I don’t care so much which specific assisted-braking belay device you choose. For example, if you want to belay me with a Petzl GriGri, that’s fantastic, I will be perfectly happy!! Bring that GriGri to the gym, the crag, or the alpine, it’s great in all settings! I certainly do know a lot of fellow climbers who do indeed carry their GriGris into the alpine for any climbing they are doing. However, pretty much all climbers care about weight, and often ask the question: “But what is the lightest thing that can work?” The GriGri’s most notable downside is that it weighs 175 grams (or 6.17 ounces,) compared to a MegaJul, which weighs 75 grams (or 2.65 ounces.) If for some reason you carried two MegaJuls, together they would still be ligther than one GriGri. The GriGri’s second big downside is that it cannot do normal rappels, on two strands of rope. (Yes, you could do single-strand rappels with the GriGri, but the extra setup to make every rappel a safely a single-strand rappel means you’ll eventually lose on speed.) Everyone I know who brings a GriGri into the alpine, also chooses to bring a second belay device which for them is dedicated to rappelling. A Black Diamond ATC is great for rappelling, but carrying both a GriGri (at 175 grams) and a Black Diamond ATC (at 80 grams) is a lot of weight to achieve both assisted-braking belaying and normal rappelling; whereas a single MegaJul (at 75 grams) can do everything a Petzl GriGri and Black Diamond ATC combined can do, and is the lighest thing on the market that can do so.
The downside here
The biggest downside of specifically the MegaJul is that it does have a steeper learning-curve than most belay devices. Since it takes a while to learn the nuances of working with it smoothly, many people try one out for a short time, and during those early times they use it before they’ve learned the nuances, it feels a jerky & grabby & difficult. Many people aren’t willing to stick with it long enough to get through the learning curve, and they blame the device (“Oh the device is jerky!”, despite the fact that it’s not jerky in the hands of an experienced user) rather than take on a learning mindset (“How can I hone my skills so that I am able to utilize this device more smoothly?”) Anyway, I do sympathize, the learning curve for the MegaJul is indeed notably longer than most popular belay devices, and it does suck to be within the learning-curve rather than past it. You need to practice the parts of this article that are relevant to you and your type of climbing. If you’ve never used this style of belay device before, you are going to be awkward and clunky the first few times you try these skills, and that’s okay, that’s normal. But if you stick with it, keep practicing, build muscle memory, and notice the little details that make things smoother, the payoff is that you’ll have a tool that does everything an ATC does and everything a GriGri does, for only 75 grams. And your partners will appreciate knowing they’re belayed with an assisted-braking belay device, as long as you have developed your skills to operate it smoothly.
I have learned to operate the MegaJul very smoothly, and I’ve found it to be an ideal & effective device for me. I’ve gotten past it’s learning-curve, and I’ve clearly learned some nuances & tricks that make it work so well for me. I really wish I could communicate those nuances to you, to make the learning curve a little shorter for you. This article is my best attempt to capture some of those nuances.
What To Buy / Some Specific Gear Recommendations
TODO: Why specifically the MegaJul, and not he GigaJul or just the Jul.
TODO: talk about carabiner-choice
Core Belaying Skills
Notice the Gap!
The first thing you should learn about the MegaJul is how it’s accomplishing it’s assisted braking. It does so via the geometry of the device, with that notch in the bottom. When a carabiner gets sucked up into this notch, it pinches the rope. Therefore, the difference between rope moving freely through the device, vs being pinched, is based on whether there is a gap of open-space between the MegaJul and the carabiner or not.
Baseline
When belaying off of your harness, Edelrid advises that any time the rope isn’t moving but is unweighted, you should assume the “baseline” position, which is the ideal ready-stance for the belay motion that’s likely to happen when the rope does move. The baseline position involves a brake-hand with four fingers closed around the rope, and the thumb of that hand through the lime-green thumbloop. A slight forward tension from your thumb both holds the device up to create the gap between the device and the carabine, and pulls the MegaJul so it’s pitched 90-degrees forward, such that the mouth of the MegaJul pointing forward, away from your belly-button. This position both allows the rope to move freely when you choose to move it, and is also the position that’s most likely to cause the assisted-braking to engage quickly and closest-to-automatically if a fall from the climber jerks the rope upward.
I’ve noticed that I use two versions of the “baseline” position, depending on if it’s top-rope climbing (and the likely next movement is reeling rope in) or if it’s lead-climbing (and the next likely movement is paying out slack for a clip or upward movement.) The only difference between these two versions of baseline is where I put my secondary hand: when top-roping, I rest my hand high on the rope, so it’s ready to pull down. When lead-belaying, I rest my hand low, just barely above the MegaJul itself, so it’s ready to pull up.
Belaying for Top Rope
Belaying for top-rope with a MegaJul use the standard PBUS technique that’s taught for nearly all belay devices these days. I assume you already know PBUS, but jus tin case, here’s an excellent 4 minute video demonstrating it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCUJrXSKWrw Just do exactly that, but with a MegaJul.
Tips for smoothness:
- Note that the gap is maintained throughout, so the rope is free to move.
- Simultaneously pull rope the climber’s-side rope downward at the same time as the brake-hand is pulling rope through the device, so that the subsection of rope passing through the MegaJul is never in tension during this motion.
- If you feel the device “grab”, it’s because the gap got closed. A useful skill to practice is getting your thumb back in the thumbloop without having to look at it, so that you can pull up, re-create the gap, and get back to smooth rope movement quickly.
- If your climber pauses and you’re no longer pulling in rope, go back to baseline, with your thumb in the lime-green thumb loop. However, you don’t need to return to this baseline unless the rope stops moving. If your climber is climbing as fast as you can belay for the entire route, you may never put your thumb in the thumb-loop during that top-rope belay (until the moment the climber needs to lower.)
Lowering a Top-Rope Climber
The key to providing a smooth lower with the MegaJul belaying from your belay loop is to push forward with your hand that has a thumb through the thumbloop. Push forward (away from your belly-button,) and possibly even a little bit downward (angling the forward every-so-slightly towards the ground.)
Avoid lifting the device upward. Yes, lifting the device upward will re-open the gap, and allow the rope to run freely, and some other instructionals about the MegaJul will even tell you to do that. However, if you life the device upward and re-open the gap, the rope will run quickly for a split second thanks to the gap, in fact quickly enough that it’ll suddenly re-close the gap too, suddenly slowing the rope, at which point since your hand is still applying a lifting force the gap re-opens… you see how this leads to a bouncy & jerky lowering experience. So to lower, don’t lift the device upward, instead push it forward.
As you push the device forward, the MegaJul will pivot against the carabiner just enough to let the rope start to move a bit. Find that sweet spot, and try to hold you hands there. I try to half-control the lower with the angle of the device, and half-control the lower with the firmess/looseness of my grip on the rope.
For bonus points: you can guard the spot on your hand that would feel the most rope-friction (the spot at the base of your thumb that the rope would curve over just before it enters the mouth of the belay device) by carefully positioning the lime-green thumbloop plastic to sit right there, thus having the highest-pressure part of the rope run on top & parallel with the plastic, rather than on your skin at that point.
Belaying a Lead Climber
Belaying a lead climber uses all the skills you already know for belaying a top-rope climber, and then adds the need to pay out slack quickly at times (either for the climber moving upward, or going for a clip.)
As with all devices, when pulling slack, your brake-hand stays on the rope, but loosens it’s grip slightly, just enough that your brake hand acts as a tunnel for the rope to pass through. The key to paying out slack is to maintain the device’s gap the whole time by actively pulling up with your brake-hand’s thumb on the thumb-loop. As your secondary hand pulls slack through the device to give to your climber, that pull is creating tension in the subsection of rope within the device, and that tension will try to close the gap, which would pinch the rope.
Another thing I find key to lead-belaying with any belay device: always immediately reset your secondary hand to be just-above the device as quickly as possible. That reset of the hand puts you in the position where you’re ready to pull again, and give a second arm-load. If you don’t intentionally practice this and build a muscle-memory around doing this, the unfortunately-intuitive thing that people otherwise do after pulling an armload of slack is leave that secondary hand out there fully extended, where it’s not ready to pull again. Then, when the next armload of slack is needed, they’re behind, they have to move that secondary hand close again before they can start pulling another armload.
This, especially, takes deliberate practice to get smooth at doing reliably and quickly. Put some time into practicing it!
Tips for smoothness:
- To repeat the key point above: Maintain the gap! If the gap closes, assisted-braking will engage and stop you from paying out slack until you re-open the gap.
- Rope preparation is also key! Have a well-flaked rope, so that you do not end up with any unexpected tension coming from trying to pull a tangle out of the rope pile, as that tension will make it likely that the gap closes.
- Anytime I have a free moment while lead-belaying, I pull a few armloads of slack out from the pile of rope and drop them by my feet, just to make sure that the upcoming rope which I’ll need to pull does indeed pull freely. (Obviously: pull these armloads out with your secondary hand or something; you are not ever letting go of the brake-hand to do this.)
- Practice, practice, practice! You’re not going to be smooth at this at first, but smoothness will come in time, as long as you actually put the time in. At first, you could practice at home by flaking a rope in your living room, then imagine you’re giving someone a lead-belay, and practice paying-out slack through the MegaJul simply into a pile on the floor. Later, when you’re going to give a climber a lead-belay with the MegaJul for your first time, talk about it with them before they climb: it would make sense for them to lead something juggy & easy-for-them that they feel totally confident on while you’re still working on getting smooth with this device, where they’re comfortable pausing for a moment if you accidentally short-rope them. After you’ve gotten some deliberate practice in and become smooth, then the MegaJul is an excellent belay device for your partner to try leading that project of theirs at their limit, but you’ve gotta put in the practice before that.
Rappelling
First, a brief soapbox that’s not specific to the MegaJul: For any & every rappel in a climbing-context, with any device, I strongly advocate for always following Rob’s Three Rules for Rappelling:
- Always put knots in the ends of the ropes. (A triple-fisherman, or barrel-knot, in each rope-end is a great choice.)
- Always use a system that will stop if the rappeller lets go. (An auto-block is the most common answer. Receiving a firefighter’s-belay is another valid solution.)
- Always test before you trust. (Before unclipping your PA, make sure there is slack in your PA, and put your weight on your whole rappel setup, then unclip the PA.)
Standard Rappelling – with Assisted-Braking Disabled
With the MegaJul, the rappel setup that I both recommend & use the most is an extended-rappel, in a setup that results in the MegaJul’s assisted-braking-feature being disabled (so that it acts just like a Black Diamond ATC or Petzl Reverso would,) then adding an autoblock friction-hitch to satisfy Rob’s Rule #2. This is essentially a vanilla extended rappel setup, just like what’s shown in this video, except done with a MegaJul. Any time I’m doing multi-pitch rappelling, this is the setup I use.
The key to disabling the assisted-braking is positioning the lime-green-thump-loop Up and In. Notice how the device has been rotated 180° around the yaw-axis, so that the green thumb-loop points inward towards my own body, making the thumbloop opposite from the brake-hand-side of the rappel rope.
Here’s a slowed-down step-by-step on how I set up the MegaJul for rappelling with the assisted-braking disabled:
#1. Clip my Personal Anchor to the rappel anchor. (In this photo, the blue cord, and blue locking-carabiner, are my Personal Anchor.) Clipping the rappel-ring itself is ideal if there’s space. Clipping low on the anchor like that sets you up to have slack in your PA, and you’ll need slack in your PA in order to proceed with the setup, and the slack is also helpful later when you test that your final rappel setup holds weight. (Sorry, the slack isn’t shown well in this photo.) Having slack in your PA works best if the rappel anchor is somewhere you can stand comfortably, keeping your PA unweighted. If, however, you’re at an anchor where there’s a poor stance, and you must hang from the anchor, then you’ll need to use either a second PA, or a quickdraw or short sling, that’s clipped somewhere higher on the anchor that does hold your weight, so that your original rappel-extension PA remains slack. (And for those who are curious: what I’m using as a PA here is a “BlueWater Sewn Prusik Loop“, 6.5mm diameter, 44-inch loop length, which I’ve connected at my harness hard-points with a bowline-on-a-bight (a girth-hitch also works and is simpler, but I like that the bowline-on-a-bight doesn’t squeeze the hardpoints together), and then I’ve tied a series of overhand knots in the loop to create multiple length-options for clip in points. This just happens to be the PA I’m using in these photos, you can use any other PA or anything you’d like to create the rappel extension, there are a thousand different right-answers for creating rappel-extension out there, and I simply happened to pick this one to illustrate with here.)
#2. Attach a locking carabiner to your rappel extension. Put the MegaJul on that locking carabiner, so that it’s ready for later, but don’t necessarily do anything with the MegaJul yet. For neatness points: make sure the lime-green thumb loop is UP and IN when you clip it to that locker.
#3. Put an autoblock hitch on the rope, and clip it with a locking carabiner to your belay loop. By putting the autoblock-hitch on first, it can hold the weight of the rappel ropes for you, giving you unweighted slack to work with above the autoblock, which makes the upcoming steps easier. (If you’re curious: the green locking carabiner shown here is an Edelrid Pure Slider, a favorite of mine since it is a very lightweight auto-locking carabiner, very quick to open & close, which helps with efficiency. Also in this picture, the material I’m using for an autoblock happens to be a “Sterling Hollowblock”, the 13.5-inch one, but you could use any hero-loop / prusik-loop. I very frequently use simply some 6mm accessory cord, originally cut as a 4’3″ length of straight cord, then tied into a loop with a double-fishermans knot, which results in a loop that’s ~15″ end to end, which I find to be an ideal size.)
#4. Next, it’s time to push the pair of rope-strands into the MegaJul, and clip them with the locker. Pay careful attention to the positioning of the MegaJul’s thumb-loop here: the thumb-loop should be UP and IN, such that the brake-strands of your rappel-setup are on the opposite side of the device from the thumb-loop.
#5. Okay, you’ve built your complete rappel setup, but you still need to test it. The point of the test is to simply verify that the rappel setup holds your weight and stops automatically, before you unclip the safety of your PA. You need quite a bit of slack in your PA to be sure that you’ve actually tested that it is the rappel setup holding you, and not some tension in your PA. In order to create as much slack as possible in your PA, you’ll need to move your rappel device backwards up the rope, getting your rappel-device (the MegaJul) as close as possible to the anchor’s rappel ring. The first small-step to moving the MegaJul backward on the rope is to lift it, and re-create the gap, so that movement will be possible.
#6. Once you’ve created the gap, and movement is possible, then take one hand and grab the locking-carabiner, and pull down, and take the other hand and grab the brake-strands, and pull up. As long as the gap is open, this will smoothly pull rope backwards through the MegaJul, getting the MegaJul up as close as possible to the rappel-ring.
#7. Now actually test: Sit down and put your full body-weight on the rappel setup. Observe that the rappel setup holds you, and that the autoblock engages, so that you know you do indeed have a system that would stop if you were to let go.
#8. Finally, you can begin your rappel. Yell “<<your name>> is On Rappel!“, keep your brake-hand closed around the brake-strands, and unclip your PA from the anchor. A great place to clip the PA’s locker for storage is back to your belay-loop, a nice and convenient place to reach, so that it’s ready to use as soon as the next anchor is in reach.
A bit niche: Rappelling with Assisted-Braking Enabled
Above I talked a lot about rappelling with the assisted-braking function disabled, and surely some are wondering: what if you switched things and tried rappelling with the assisted-braking enabled? i.e., instead of the lime-green-thumb-loop being “up and in”, what if it was where you would regularly put it for a normal top-rope-belay or lead-belay? Well, then you would have to use muscle to constantly push forward on the lime-green-thumb-loop to overpower the assisted-braking in order to go anywhere. It does work, but it’s very tiring to maintain that forward push for the length of a rappel, so you’re probably not going to be happy about doing it on anything other than short single-pitch rappels.
No autoblock here: If you are going to rappel with the assisted-braking enabled, then you can skip the use of an autoblock. Remember Rob’s-Rule-of-Rappelling #2? “Always use a system that will stop if the rappeller lets go.” This rappel setup is still compliant with that rule, because it’s the assisted-braking should cause the system to stop if you let go. (But be careful, and don’t put too much trust in the “should” there. It can vary with rope-diameter, which is why: ahem, rule #3: you must always test before you trust!)
No extension: Since there’s no autoblock required, then you can and should also skip the rappel-extension. Instead just set up the rappel directly on your belay loop. This turns out to be necessary for ergonomics, for that constant-forward-push you’ll need to maintain on the thumb-loop in order to move at all. It’s much easier to apply that constant-forward-push to something located close to your waist, than it would be to apply a constant-forward-push to something at the height of your forehead.
The advantage of this setup is that it is very quick to set up and put away, there are a lot fewer extra items involved than the standard rappel setup. I do use this myself, but only occaisionally, in the niche scenario of only one rappel to do, and not that long of a rappel to do, so that it won’t be that tiring on my arm.
About gloves: Personally, I always prefer to rappel with gloves. I generally lightly-encourage others to wear rappel gloves too, but I don’t go so far as saying that they are “mandatory.” If someone I’m responsible for on a trip chooses not to wear rappel gloves, I generally let them make that choice for themselves. However, if you do use this setup, I would give a little extra-encouragement in favor of actually wearing the rappel gloves, I do find that there’s a little more rope-friction against the hands in this setup than there is with extended rappel.
Belaying a Follower (From Above, Plaquette-Mode)
Belaying a follower, belaying from above, belaying in guide-mode, belaying in plaquette-mode are all different ways of saying the exact same thing. There’s plenty of excellent videos out there about the correct setup for doing this with an ATC or Reverso:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saB1YMDfmAs
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3XzEfD6xuI
- https://vimeo.com/33940152
But before I show the MegaJul’s version of this setup, we have to talk about a potential problem with ALL of this style of belay device…
First, be aware of a danger that affects ALL guide-mode / plaquette-mode style devices
If skinny ropes are used, and only a single strand of rope passes through the plaquette-mode belay device, it is possible for the strands to squeeze-by eachother within the device’s aperature, as shown here:
☠️ This is a pretty scary problem: with enough of a pull-force downward on the climber’s strand (the direction it would indeed be pulled in a fall) along with a fairly-minor upward-pull on the brake-strand (easy to do, and it doesn’t even have to be an upward pull, just less of a pull than the pull-force on the fallen-climber side can cause this), the result is that the brake-side and climber’s-side of the ropes have passed eachother within the device’s aperature. This means that the built-in braking that any plaquette-mode setup is supposed to provide is no longer there, and without a firm grip on the brake-side, the rope could easily run freely, dropping the climber. ☠️ The above GIF shows this happening with a Black DIamond ATC, and the dark-blue rope is a 7.9mm climbing rope. That rope is rated as a half-rope/twin-rope, and so in theory it shouldn’t be used single-strand like this. However, the key unknown is: we don’t know what rope-diameter this can vs cannot happen with. Some ropes are thick enough that this problem can’t happen, and some ropes are skinny enough that it can happen. I do not know where the line is. And even if we did, it’s probably not a simple universal number, different rope-constructions may do this at different diameters.
So how do we prevent this? One option is to clip that locking carabiner fully around the device, like this:
With the carabiner clipped around the device, then the carabiner is unable to do that 180° flip that happened in the demonstration of the problem, making it much less likely for the two strand to be able to fully pass eachother. So that’s one way of preventing this. Edelrid does recommend this solution in the literature they provide. Black Diamond could be recommending this solution in the literature that comes with an ATC, and Petzl could be recommending this solution in the literature that comes with a Reverso. However, neither of them are recommending this. Why? Well, it is a really annoying solution: it’s kinda hard to clip the carabiner fully-around the device like that. And with the carabiner clipped that way, it’s no longer possible to use the “ratchet trick” to let out just a little bit of rope while under tension. Most of all: I think this “solution” might actually be unnecessary. There is some rope-diameter that’s wide enough that this isn’t a problem, I just don’t know exactly what diameter that is. But I’ve been belaying with single-rated ropes that are somewhere in the middle of the 9.0mm to 10.0mm range for years, and I haven’t had this problem. By far the most common diameter of rope I’ve used is 9.5mm. I’m inclined to think that this isn’t an issue with 9.5mm diameter ropes because (1) it hasn’t been an issue for me personally with ropes of that diameter, and more importantly: (2) if it was an issue with 9.5mm ropes, which is a very common size, other manufacturers would certainly be making changes or at least putting more mitigations in their literature! So, since Black Diamond is okay with me belaying with a single-rope without clipping the carabiner around the device, and Petzl is okay with me belaying without clipping the carabiner around the device, and Edelrid’s MegaJul works on the exact same physics as those two devices when setup for plaquette mode: I’ve decided to go back to simply clipping the locking carabiner behind the MegaJul, rather than around it.
The MegaJul-Specific Setup for Belaying From Above
#1. Hang the device from the anchor like this:
#2. Push the rope in up from the bottom. That “up from the bottom” part is the main weirdness about the MegaJul here if you’re used to using an ATC or Reverso in plaquette-mode.
#3. Now to clip that last locking carabiner…
This is when we need to think about that danger that affects any plaquette-style belay device described above, that danger of carabiner-flipping and rope-strands trading places. Do we clip the locking carabiner in the back so that it hangs freely? Or do we clip the locking carabiner fully around the MegaJul? I talked through my thought process on this above, with the ATC example, and personally, as long as my rope is about 9.5mm in diameter or thicker, I simply clip the locking carabiner in the back so that it hangs freely, like this:
And here’s the whole process:
#3-Alternate:
Alternatively, if you did want to clip the carabiner fully around the belay device, you can do so. (Note: if your rope is skinny enough to need this solution, then you would also need to do this solution if you were using a BD ATC or Petzl Reverso instead.) Folding a loop of rope over can make the clipping much easier, like this:
Rock n' Rope Northwest 