Equalette Not Redundant

Brian L. wrote: Yeah, but really you should just use the rope.

If you're not swapping leads, using the rope to build the anchor causes a lot of extra faffing.

Nick Sweeney wrote:Harnesses are not redundant, neither are ropes... unless you really want to carry an insane amount of equipment, you need to trust some of your gear.

^^^ +1
Risk is always present. Your style is in how you deal with it.

David Gibbs wrote: If you're not swapping leads, using the rope to build the anchor causes a lot of extra faffing.

I suppose I should have put a winky face or something after that. It was a tongue in cheek comment.

David Gibbs wrote: If you're not swapping leads, using the rope to build the anchor causes a lot of extra faffing.

Not if you're competent at anchor building and change-overs.

"We saved time by simplifying our anchors: Two lockers and a bunny ears figure eight make a much quicker anchor than a 12-foot cordelette." -David Allfrey commenting on tactics he and Alex Honnold used on their "7-in-7" (7 big walls in 7 days).

while im a fan of rope anchors ... beginners really should master cordelette style systems first ... which for 2/3 point anchors is the "standard"

and the basis for many more complex anchor setups

not to mention theres a good chance that many of em will be block leading when dragging up that screaming hawtay (guy or gurl) up some easy short multi

;)

As for bearbreeder's challenge to distribute the load to three pieces in a vertical line, I suspect that sequentially clove-hitching them with the rope may be nearly as good as any other method (and nothing is likely to come anywhere near actual equalization).

When I do this, I do something I've never noticed anyone else do that I think will improve load distribution (but I have no hard testing evidence whatsoever to back this up).

After cloving the bottom piece and the middle piece with no slack between them, I put the clove on the top piece in a way that lifts the two carabiners below until they are horizontal. What this does under load is to stretch the two intermediate segments, thereby applying some load to each of the three pieces. How much load and in what proportions I do not know, but traditional sequential cloving would simply provide for a cascade effect in which the higher pieces don't come into play until the lower piece has blown.

patto wrote: Meh. The realities of fast climbing. Clip into a couple solid pieces and get your partner on belay. Nothing wrong with fine tuning your anchor after you've started belaying. Ever done a meat belay? Zero pieces just a good stance. Perfectly equalised! :-p

Yes, this. Thanks for answering that one for me.

bearbreeder wrote: Please upload a photo of a PRETIED equalette with a 3 VERTICAL pieces each 12"apart ... Where the "equalizing" portion is in the centre pretied and ONLY one extra clove is needed ... The point is in real life anchors in VERTICAL cracks youll need additional work to make a PRETIED equalette work .... Or re/untie it And that with ODD number of anchor points youll never get an equal distribution between the pieces In a 3 piece anchor one piece will get roughly 50%+ of the load and in a VERTICAL crack she closest piece will see most of the load anyways just like a cordelette One can use an equalette if they want but the "load distribution" advantage on 3 piece anchors is marginal over other basic aetups ;)

Well I'm kind of agreeing with you for the most part. But the point is who cares if you have to tie one extra clove or even two. In a cordolette you have to tie at least one. So in an equallette if you have to tie two cloves that's only one more hitch. And if you have to tie Three again who cares. A clove takes about two seconds to set up and two more seconds to adjust.

And cloves have been clearly shown in drop test to absorb a fair amount of energy. Just another bonus. Don't use one if you don't like it. But there really isn't this complication issue. It's quite simple.

David Coley wrote: Hi, except when the pieces are bomber, I'd say 3 piece was the norm in the UK. But remember, it is still uncommon to use a cordelette in the UK, so even with two pieces there would be a nice load of rope involved. Direct belays are also not the norm, although increasingly fashionable.

I stand corrected!

My comments were influenced by the instructional videos on UKC, for example

ukclimbing.com/articles/pag…

ukclimbing.com/articles/pag…

most of ukclimbing.com/articles/pag… (until 1:58)

which illustrate climbing anchoring principles but only use two anchor points.

On the other hand, this one from the UKC site does use three anchor points.

ukclimbing.com/articles/pag…

Greg D wrote: Well I'm kind of agreeing with you for the most part. But the point is who cares if you have to tie one extra clove or even two. In a cordolette you have to tie at least one. So in an equallette if you have to tie two cloves that's only one more hitch. And if you have to tie Three again who cares. A clove takes about two seconds to set up and two more seconds to adjust. And cloves have been clearly shown in drop test to absorb a fair amount of energy. Just another bonus. Don't use one if you don't like it. But there really isn't this complication issue. It's quite simple.

ahh but then there isnt really any ease in setup compared to a cordelette anchor ...

and with a 3 piece setup there isnt really "equal" distribution of the load either ....

an equalette will work fine ... but theres no real advantage to it

and in a cordelette you have a big honking knot to also absorb the energy

;)

bearbreeder wrote:in a cordelette you have a big honking knot to also absorb the energy

well now that we're talking about small, insignificant ways of absorbing energy, the equallete will dissipate energy via heat from the friction of carabiners sliding across the masterpoint. So ha!

I think the equallete is good because it teaches one to use cloves for fine-tuning an anchor set-up but I can't think of any situation to use it. In my limited experience, anchors have either been 3+ piece gear anchors, a bomber tree, or bolts.

For bolts I'll use a quad because it's pre-tied, super bomber, and allows for two different masterpoints which is really nice for preventing clusters. For gear anchors it's usually easier to just build with the rope, and for trees I'll usually just loop my cordalette around it and finish with an overhand on a bight.

Brian L. wrote: I don't know about the general climbing community, but my own idea of equalization isn't one where the load is shared equally between all the pieces (meaning, in a three piece anchor each piece shares 1/3 of the total load). This is basically impossible to achieve because of how physics works. My idea of equalization is where each piece is loaded, and that load is according to the physics of the set up. Which depends on where the load is applied, what direction, and the angles of the legs of the anchor.

Would everyone agree that the less load we put on a piece the less likely it is to fail?

I think a portion of the climbing community is too obsessed with perfect equalization. If you agree with the sentence above then we should talk more about "load distribution". If I have a bomber #3 camalot in bomber rock I am not too concerned about it getting a larger share of the load. Even if it gets 75% of the load, it's still 25% less than it would have received otherwise. I think this is an advantage of a cordlette or equallette.

The other pieces I place are about backup if something unusual happens to that piece - such as a defective piece. If there is a 1 in 1000 chance of each piece failing then the chance of both pieces failing is 1 in a million (given assumptions of the pieces being independent).

Some posters discuss the time and complication of setting up certain kinds of anchors and how many knots etc. they take. I use situational awareness to decide what I am going to do.

In management, there is a concept called "situational leadership" where you change your management style depending on the situation - urgency, skill of employees, etc. Same thing applies to building anchors.

If two bomber anchors are available and the next pitch has good pro right away, I might connect them with a cordlette and call it good. If the next pitch doesn't have good pro for a while (or the whole pitch), I'll take the extra time to build a more robust anchor. If I'm climbing in the Wind Rivers and thunderstorms are rapidly approaching, I'm going to do quicker, simpler anchor systems. It's all about risk management and addressing what is the biggest risk.

Arlo F Niederer wrote: Would everyone agree that the less load we put on a piece the less likely it is to fail? I think a portion of the climbing community is too obsessed with perfect equalization. If you agree with the sentence above then we should talk more about "load distribution". If I have a bomber #3 camalot in bomber rock I am not too concerned about it getting a larger share of the load. Even if it gets 75% of the load, it's still 25% less than it would have received otherwise. I think this is an advantage of a cordlette or equallette. The other pieces I place are about backup if something unusual happens to that piece - such as a defective piece. If there is a 1 in 1000 chance of each piece failing then the chance of both pieces failing is 1 in a million (given assumptions of the pieces being independent).

Are you familiar with the details of the 2003 Tahquitz catastrophic anchor failure? I believe there's a link somewhere up-thread.

Marc801 wrote: Are you familiar with the details of the 2003 Tahquitz catastrophic anchor failure? I believe there's a link somewhere up-thread.

I'm not sure how this relates to Arlo's statement. Are you suggesting that an anchor system of something other than a cordalette would have had a different result?

Furthermore this is the rescue unit's report on the incident. Which calls into question the assumption it was a anchor failure.

webcache.googleusercontent.…

Other reports suggest that it wasn't a factor two as the belayer had all the protection on their rack.
rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/fo…

Marc801 wrote:Are you familiar with the details of the 2003 Tahquitz catastrophic anchor failure? I believe there's a link somewhere up-thread.

patto wrote: I'm not sure how this relates to Arlo's statement. Are you suggesting that an anchor system of something other than a cordalette would have had a different result?

No.....
Arlo F Niederer wrote:
...we should talk more about "load distribution". If I have a bomber #3 camalot in bomber rock I am not too concerned about it getting a larger share of the load. Even if it gets 75% of the load, it's still 25% less than it would have received otherwise. I think this is an advantage of a cordlette or equallette. The other pieces I place are about backup if something unusual happens to that piece - such as a defective piece. If there is a 1 in 1000 chance of each piece failing then the chance of both pieces failing is 1 in a million (given assumptions of the pieces being independent). /quote

I asked because I question the probability of failure part of the statement and don't understand how the pieces are independent yet part of a distributed load system. In particular, I'm trying to rationalize the assertion of back-up pieces with what rgold wrote on page 2 or 3 of this thread:

rgold wrote: This is a good point and refers to a property of the standard 3-point fixed-arm rigging that doesn't seem to be particularly well-known: if the three points are more or less horizontally aligned and either of the outer arms fails, then the entire load goes to the middle arm (with no contribution from the side arm that didn't fail) and if the middle arm fails, then the entire load goes to the remaining side arm. In other words, once an outer arm fails, there is no more load-sharing. The reports of three distinct "thunks" heard by some witnesses to the Tahquitz accident is consistent with this type of cascade failure. One possible take-away: two good pieces is arguably better than two good and one questionable piece if the questionable piece is rigged on an outer arm. But in this case using an equalette on the two good pieces with the third arm going to the questionable piece would mitigate the cascade potential. You could also tie your cordalette or arrange your rope-anchor rigging to share the load among the two good pieces and situate the third as a backup. As for choosing a poison, the cascade failure doesn't elevate the load to the remaining pieces, but the extension failure can, and depending on the length of the tie-in the elevation could be quite significant. So my choice is the cascade failure poison, informed by the consideration of not weakening a good two-piece anchor with a questionable third piece on an outer arm.

I was not familiar with the Tahquitz accident, but went back and read the links from patto (thanks!).

I served on a SAR team in Jackson Hole for 12 years and there is always much speculation after a fatal accident. I can also tell you the speculation is always wrong, and the worst speculation I've seen comes from the media (they often go to the most sensational possible explanation).

The best thing a SAR team can do is precisely and concisely state the FACTS of an accident. Since everyone wants an explanation of what happened, often a team will express what their opinion of what the most likely cause and events were. I think RMRU did a decent job of presenting facts and what their conclusion was.

An accident is a mystery to be solved, even if there are witnesses. My approach was to start with multiple working hypotheses and see which ones are ruled out by the facts and which ones are consistent with the facts. Often two or more hypotheses will be consistent with the facts, so the mystery still remains.

As an example, some "witnesses" heard three pops and concluded that it was the three anchor pieces popping - but unfortunately, it could also have been the climbers impacting the wall.

However, much can still be learned if there are multiple valid hypotheses, because you can still do a "how could this be prevented" for each hypothesis. It can also be used in the investigation - "If theory A is correct, we should find A,B,C, etc.," so can be useful in knowing what to look for. But you have to be careful this doesn't bias the investigation.

My prior post was about risk management. Climbing is a sport with risks, and we all do our best to manage those risks. We all hope we don't screw up our risk management, win the "wrong" lottery, or be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Marc801 wrote: No..... Arlo F Niederer wrote... If there is a 1 in 1000 chance of each piece failing then the chance of both pieces failing is 1 in a million (given assumptions of the pieces being independent). /quote I asked because I question the probability of failure part of the statement and don't understand how the pieces are independent yet part of a distributed load system. In particular, I'm trying to rationalize the assertion of back-up pieces with what rgold wrote on page 2 or 3 of this thread:

I'm not stating that the pieces are independent - just quoting the probability if they are - you multiply the probabilities. The point was that redundancy can reduce the risk.

Does the point that people make about a leg of an equalette failing causes shock loading indicates that they are dependent, and the failure of the first leg increases the probability that the second leg will fail? I think so...

But how dependent are the legs in a cordalette?

It seems to me impossible to claim that failure probabilities are independent as long as there is rigging distributing loads. Before the tensions in the arms reach the extraction level for a piece, loads will in most cases have been applied to the other pieces, conceivably moving them or weakening the placements structurally. The probabilities of failure are unknowable, but are surely not independent.

Still, the general idea is true, that the probability of failure of the whole system will almost always be less than the probability of failure of any one piece; there will still be a multiplication of conditional probabilities that reduces the final result. But the independence calculation may well be over-optimistic by a large margin.

rgold wrote:It seems to me impossible to claim that failure probabilities are independent as long as there is rigging distributing loads. ... Still, the general idea is true, that the probability of failure of the whole system will almost always be less than the probability of failure of any one piece;

As I stated above, not claiming independence just illustrating the point of redundancy.

We can get a sense of the probabilities, however. As you stated in one of your posts - you know of 6 in 60 years of climbing. That's a great deal of anchors, although we don't know how many were "tested" by a serious fall. So I would say anchor failures are rare.

There was one complete anchor failure on the Grand Teton (2007) during my 12 years living there. It was on the west side of the Grand in an area with poor rock, and both climbers died.

Arlo F Niederer wrote: As I stated above, not claiming independence just illustrating the point of redundancy. We can get a sense of the probabilities, however. As you stated in one of your posts - you know of 6 in 60 years of climbing. That's a great deal of anchors, although we don't know how many were "tested" by a serious fall. So I would say anchor failures are rare. There was one complete anchor failure on the Grand Teton (2007) during my 12 years living there. It was on the west side of the Grand in an area with poor rock, and both climbers died.

Ok, that makes 7.

Certainly the probability that a party will experience total anchor failure is very very small, but for all we know this could be entirely because factor 2 falls onto the anchor are exceptionally rare. We have absolutely no idea what the probability of total anchor failure is given a factor 2 fall, and we don't necessarily know that it is a very small probability, although we certainly like to think so when we build our anchors.

An anchor that made me very unhappy consisted of four finger-size cams in a sandstone horizontal with the belay stance a sloping slab with no bracing available and so the stance partially hanging. There was no protection on the pitch for twenty or thirty feet, and then some funky slung knobs, so the potential for a big factor 2 onto the belay was quite real. I told my partner that if he fell, which really was not an option, he was going to get a very dynamic belay (something I'd actually practiced over and over with weights way BITD) and would end up a long way down the slab, as I felt this might be the only way to insure that we didn't both end up dead at the base of the climb.

Of course he didn't fall. I'm not sure the anchor would have withstood it even with the dynamic belay, a technique no longer known and practiced, and renamed to a jumping thing of no relevance to the situation I'm describing. With a more conventional belay, the probability of total anchor failure would have gone up considerably.

I think most experienced climbers who understand the vagaries of cams would have been worried about this anchor, but I also know that there are others who would plug in a few small cams and think their set-up was bomber. I've seen it, and not with exceptional infrequency either. So I do wonder: how many anchors built by climbers would actually pass the factor-2 test?