Does the "magic x" make a daisy chain safe?

I used to use a daisy as a PAS with the two locker method. I liked it. It was simple and effective. There are three reasons I leave it at home now. One using runners is simpler. Two, using runners requires no specialized equipment. Three I got tired of people saying it was dangerous/less safe. Especially bothersome were the people who didn't even know how to use one.

20 kN wrote: Nine times out of ten, when I see a climber with a daisy it's a sport climber who uses it to tie into the anchor after finishing a route. If someone is at a crag and they have a daisy, it's probably not being used for aid climbing.

Well, in that use-case the odds of them ever attempting to climb above the anchor for any reason is pretty much nil.

20 kN wrote: Nine times out of ten, when I see a climber with a daisy it's a sport climber who uses it to tie into the anchor after finishing a route. If someone is at a crag and they have a daisy, it's probably not being used for aid climbing.

Only times I see them being used is to hold up hammocks, make baby swings and tie the dog up. Guess I need to go to more hardcore areas:-)

that guy named seb wrote: No i just improvise, I only carry alpine draws so i all ways have slings.

Unless you place the slings on the way up. I do the same thing though.

Jeremy in Inyokern wrote: Unless you place the slings on the way up. I do the same thing though.

I think he was referring to anchoring yourself when doing multiple rappels, at which point you'd hopefully have your slings back. At the top of a pitch he would be using the rope to anchor in.

Shelton Hatfield wrote: I think he was referring to anchoring yourself when doing multiple rappels, at which point you'd hopefully have your slings back. At the top of a pitch he would be using the rope to anchor in.

I use the rope and sometimes one sling. I thought this was about general use not rappelling.

You have to girth hitch the carabiner on the end and girth hitch it to yourself. But like we have been saying over the years, retire these as personal anchors and stop recommending people buy them for that purpose.

Shit be for aid, yo. Peace out.

Healyje wrote: Well, in that use-case the odds of them ever attempting to climb above the anchor for any reason is pretty much nil.

Respectfully, there are plenty of times in my area when folks will routinely climb above an anchor (single pitch), as we have routes with anchors on the flat ledge above the climb, or just below, the inclination is to hop up past the anchor to sit a spell, and there is no weight at all on anything then (slack in the system in addition). I would guess there are also more than a few sketchy items being used as tethers while people set up top ropes on anchors below them. Plenty of ff2 opportunities, and plenty of otherwise reasonably good climbers who just don't know this stuff.

So thanks all for threads like these. You can never know too much, even if it's beyond your current "pay grade"!

Given people do seem to use daisys as a convenient way to connect to anchors, does anyone know of any accidents from it?
(We should differentiate between incorrectly clipping a daisy chain and relying purely on the pocket bar tack (or tacks) to hold, vs correctly clipping)

If people are using them at sports crags to connect to the top anchors, well...Far worse sins happen at those top anchors. Or am I the only one whose ever used just quickdraws, sometimes chained, to connect to the top anchors? :)
(With dyneema dogbones no less)

Old lady H wrote: Respectfully, there are plenty of times in my area when folks will routinely climb above an anchor (single pitch), as we have routes with anchors on the flat ledge above the climb, or just below, the inclination is to hop up past the anchor to sit a spell, and there is no weight at all on anything then (slack in the system in addition).

If that's the case and such a route is common, and you want to sit down, then you should just stay on the rope and on belay and not mess with a tether.

Old lady H wrote:I would guess there are also more than a few sketchy items being used as tethers while people set up top ropes on anchors below them. Plenty of ff2 opportunities, and plenty of otherwise reasonably good climbers who just don't know this stuff.

And setting up TRs on anchors over the edge, you should be anchored from above, again preferably with a rope, and not with a leash over the edge.

The whole leash business should be common sense - never be or get above a leash anchor, ever. Anyone who can't figure that out shouldn't be climbing.

Yep.

There are many of us who take to the technicalities of climbing like ducks to water. Engineers, mathematicians, yep there are a bunch of us who inhabit the cliffs and inhabit these forums...

For many of us this IS common sense. But common sense for those of us technically inclined isn't necessarily common sense for the laymen.

There will always be a large number of competent climbers who are fairly incompetent when it comes to gear and protection. They learn from others and they have little other intuition.

Dylan B. wrote:Fall factors are pretty counter-intuitive. Most people begin with the basic belief that the distance of the fall is the most crucial factor to consider. We have to learn that a three foot FF2 can be more dangerous than a 20 foot FF.5

I suppose it depends on your intuition. Some people (engineery types) have great intuition for this sort of stuff.

Other people I've met can't even accomplish wedge shaped metal goes into wedge shaped hole business. The smart ones of these realise their lack of aptitude and decide to focus on sport climbing over trad.

Almost everyone uses tethers, whether they're specialized sewn things carried installed or cobbled together from quickdraws or slings. I think the reality is that it is pretty hard to break a tether. We'll need bearbreeder's library of references to be sure, but I haven't heard of a tether breaking in the field. (The Grand Capucin accident seven years ago is as likely to be a case of a worn anchor sling as anything to do with tether loads.) And let's not forget that there have been a very large number of aid falls onto daisy's that form part of the background information.

However, the scarcity or outright absence of incidents might just be a reflection of the fact that circumstances that would break a tether are extremely rare. One doesn't want to be the first case...

Don't get me wrong---tethers break during testing and any climber with a functioning brain has got to factor that into their thinking. The testing may be overly severe, but given a choice between various options, some of which break and some of which don't, why wouldn't you chose an option that doesn't break? Basically, the question seems to be nylon vs. dyneema. Use nylon (not an aid daisy with 3kN rated pockets though) and you've basically eliminated even the severe testing results.

A hard-and-fast rule that makes total sense is that the belayer's connection to the belay anchor should be with the rope. As for tether use and where the climber positions themselves, hard-and-fast proclamations are never going to work in the field. The classic example is the last person on a rappel has to climb up above the rap anchor to remove a piece used to back up the rappel. They are tethered to the rap anchor and have to climb up above it, and there really isn't any way around this.

I think it is more productive to think in terms of risk zones. There's nothing in climbing with zero risk, but there is a range of risks, from gym top-roping to free-soloing, and many climbers traverse the entire spectrum during the course of their activities. The trick is to be fully aware of what risk zone you are in and tailor your behavior accordingly. You are in a low-risk zone when the tether is kept weighted. As tether slack increases, the risk level goes up. If your waist is level with the anchor and there is any slack at all, you are already in factor-1 land and are entering a much higher-risk zone, as in, say, R-rated leading. Anywhere above the anchor point, you may be in the free-solo zone.

One way that accidents happen is that people are operating in a high-risk zone but behaving as if they are in a low-risk zone. (For example, lowering someone with an guide belay plate without any kind of backup.) The real challenge is to achieve and maintain levels of awareness that are genuinely realistic.

patto wrote:Yep. There are many of us who take to the technicalities of climbing like ducks to water. Engineers, mathematicians, yep there are a bunch of us who inhabit the cliffs and inhabit these forums... For many of us this IS common sense. But common sense for those of us technically inclined isn't necessarily common sense for the laymen. There will always be a large number of competent climbers who are fairly incompetent when it comes to gear and protection. They learn from others and they have little other intuition. I suppose it depends on your intuition. Some people (engineery types) have great intuition for this sort of stuff. Other people I've met can't even accomplish wedge shaped metal goes into wedge shaped hole business. The smart ones of these realise their lack of aptitude and decide to focus on sport climbing over trad.

^ Behold the smugness of the engineer.

rgold wrote:One way that accidents happen is that people are operating in a high-risk zone but behaving as if they are in a low-risk zone.[...] The real challenge is to achieve and maintain levels of awareness that are genuinely realistic.

An additional human factor here is that most of us operate at the level of habit, most of the time. Analyzing every little factor all of the time is exhausting. You want to develop good safety habits that will serve you in 95% of the situations you encounter, and you want to quickly realize when you have crossed the boundary beyond your habituated situations (and have some clue what to do then). The critical moment is "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Stich wrote: Shit be for aid, yo. Peace out.

You seem to be also saying I should also stop using my fifi hook for building anchors?

heres one situation a PAS with fully rated loops is "safer" ... in this case yr tether would need to support the weight of 3 climbers =P

My friends were at the pitch two belay station of a three-pitch route at Red Rock. As they prepared to begin the last pitch, a guy arrived at the anchor from below. He said, "I just ran my gear out 60 feet. Mind if I clip into your PAS?" Without waiting for an answer, he clipped directly into my friend's PAS. Not the anchor. Not a bolt. Her PAS. She was too shocked to speak, but her partner quickly told him to get on the anchor instead. The guy didn't understand why she practically had smoke coming out of her ears as she said it. It made for an awkward belay, to say the least.

climbing.com/news/unbelayva…

thats one way to make sure that hawtay (guy or girl) doesnt run away from you !!!

ive said it before, PASes are being used as a substitute for basic skills or common sense

;)

Dylan B. wrote: With all due respect, the whole leash business should be common knowledge, but it is not common sense. There's nothing intuitive about the limits of different varieties of climbing equipment; that's learned information. Rather, intuition would suggest "eh, it's only a three foot fall. This cord/sling/draw should hold."

Again, anyone thinking that shouldn't be climbing. It doesn't take an engineer or big brains to intuitively figure out that a fall on a static leash is going to suck big time. Have never cared about or even considered the math of climbing and still could care less and all it took was a couple of short falls on routes to know falling on a leash is a seriously bad idea.

Healyje wrote: ... all it took was a couple of short falls on routes to know falling on a leash is a seriously bad idea.

What you are describing is the difference between "intuition" and "experimentation".

Healyje wrote: Again, anyone thinking that shouldn't be climbing. It doesn't take an engineer or big brains to intuitively figure out that a fall on a static leash is going to suck big time. Have never cared about or even considered the math of climbing and still could care less and all it took was a couple of short falls on routes to know falling on a leash is a seriously bad idea.

"intuitively"
I don't think that word means what you think it means. And by your logic, you never had any business climbing. Otherwise, you would never had put you self in the position of falling on a static leash. TWICE

One of the things I wrote above is

rgold wrote:The classic example is the last person on a rappel has to climb up above the rap anchor to remove a piece used to back up the rappel. They are tethered to the rap anchor and have to climb up above it, and there really isn't any way around this.

As usual, there really is a way around if you want to do it, which is to tie off the rappel rope and use a strand as your tether as you climb above to remove the back-up piece.

This doesn't change the fact that tethers are going to have slack in them some of the time no matter what.