'Neat' Way of Building Anchors 'On the Rocks' (The Scottish Belay)

Yeah...thanks for going over it again, guys. It's a shame that they don't have a 'sticky' function for thread topics that pop up frequently.

RGold, have you considered writing an anchors book?

Not really. I think almost everything there is to say by now has been said multiple times in multiple places, and an excellent compendium by David Coley, which doesn't suffer from a US-centric perspective, is at multipitchclimbing.com.

rgold wrote:We've been around the block on this a million times!

Hang on! Back in July 4th 2012 your count was at a "bazillion" :p

(I stumbled on that when I was google searching for the image I wanted to post.)

rgold wrote:Using the climbing rope is arguably the best method for parties swinging leads. It is as fast or faster than a cordelette, more versatile, more robust, and provides better shock absorbtion.

Exactly.

rgold wrote:we've known how to do this for decades. I've posted a possible way of doing it many times, starting twelve years ago.

What is old it new again...

For what it is worth, this is pretty much how I build my anchors. (everything from the carabiner and up) I use overhand/fig-8s at the powerpoint. I use it regardless of whether I'm belaying off my harness or off the powerpoint via a munter/guide plate. Unless I have a bad stance I won't clipmyself into the powerpoint, I'm leashed up with my first gear placement. (3 cloves, 2 overhands) Or with 2 pieces (2 cloves, 1 overhand)


So I can be safe and ready to belay with just three knots with the rope that is in front of me. And it works with dispersed protection something that slings and cordalettes have difficulty with.

rgold wrote:Not really. I think almost everything there is to say by now has been said multiple times in multiple places, and an excellent compendium by David Coley, which doesn't suffer from a US-centric perspective, is at multipitchclimbing.com.

Thanks for that link. The rope belays in that are exactly how I do it. Furthermore it is an excellent resource to point others to.

So I played around with RGold's method a bit. My main concern/question is: what happens if that first piece were to blow? It seemed like I kept getting extension, as both my connection to the anchor and the PowerPoint fell until the slack between the first two pieces was removed. Obviously, this is less of a concern on dynamic rope than it would be on an anchor built with static cord, but it was definitely jarring. Am I missing something?

If everything is tensioned you shouldn't extend much, if at all. You may swing some since there may be a new equilibrium point based on where you are relative to your gear, but that's about it. (if that happens you'd also be unloading a piece, and care should be taken to avoid that when setting the anchor)

It sounds like your clove hitches at the pieces are slipping, allowing the slack to extend. Make sure they are tied tightly, and cinched down.

Ted Pinson wrote:So I played around with RGold's method a bit. My main concern/question is: what happens if that first piece were to blow? It seemed like I kept getting extension, as both my connection to the anchor and the PowerPoint fell until the slack between the first two pieces was removed. Obviously, this is less of a concern on dynamic rope than it would be on an anchor built with static cord, but it was definitely jarring. Am I missing something?

You are doing something wrong. Each piece is connected back to the power point by an independent strand. If any piece or pieces blow, the load is applied to whatever strands remain with no extension.

What about cloves in a series? Is that bad now? :-)

Rick Blair wrote:What about cloves in a series? Is that bad now? :-)

I use cloves in a series when the pieces are vertically oriented, as the multiple-arm rigging is at its worst in that configuration. I do something I've never seen anyone else do to help distribute the load. After rigging the first two in series (from the bottom up), I clove the top piece and shorten so the bottom two carabiners are horizontal. When this setup is loaded, the bottom two carabiners move down, stretching the intervening strands and so distributing the load.

This hasn't been tested. I have no idea what the load distribution is or whether it is significant. Use at your own risk.

RGold - that is an interesting approach - effectively shortening the furthest arm of the anchor to shift more of the load onto that arm.

FYI - there was an interesting article written by Mike Gibbs of Rigging for Rescue, "Tying it all together - considerations for equalizing in multipoint anchor systems". In this article he also shortened the arms of anchor legs and made some measurements of changes in anchor arm loads.

I tried linking the article, but the link "denied access". However, you can read the article on their website - riggingforrescue.com

rgold wrote: I have no idea what the load distribution is or whether it is significant. Use at your own risk.

Good stuff, thanks.

I also like your pre-equalized rig. I have seen that same set up before with the 3rd strand going back to a locker on the belay loop. I like your butterfly power point way better. A small change but a big difference. I will have to try that out.

Rick Blair wrote: Good stuff, thanks. I also like your pre-equalized rig. I have seen that same set up before with the 3rd strand going back to a locker on the belay loop. I like your butterfly power point way better. A small change but a big difference. I will have to try that out.

The butterfly power point has a few advantages. One is that the belay is fully escapable. Another is that if the stance permits, the power point can be tied at a level appropriate for guide plate use.

Perhaps I should add that the arms can radiate in any direction, and in particular can accommodate both upward and sideways directional pieces if the anchors require them.

So I played around with it a bit and figured out what I did wrong - think I missed one of the cloves altogether. After practicing it, I'm definitely digging it. It's fast, efficient, and requires minimal gear...plus you get the extra shock absorption from the rope. Nice! The one thing that took some getting used to for me was adjusting your tie in to the system, as I'm used to just cloving directly into the masterpoint. How would you rig it if you needed a particularly long tether? (Say: anchors on opposite side of a big ledge?)

Ted - if you wanted some flexibility on the "tie in" length, you could tie the Alpine Butterfly/masterpoint knot much further away from you. Use this long length to allow you to extend belay away from anchor set up.

When you reach your optimal belay stance, tie another alpine/masterpoint and take up any additional rope slack by clove hitching it at your belay loop.

For your other scenario where the anchor pro is very widely spaced (i.e. opposite sides of large ledge), you are probably going to be using using large amount of rope (but it will still work - see earlier on this thread BB's pictures)

ted ... marty is correct

the difference between rgolds setup, and the one i posted, is not just a matter of length of rope ...

but that in rgolds setup youll need to get the distance correct for all the pieces ... or to shorten up youll need to make the butterly bigger or some other knot if you cant adjust the cloves (not within reach)

in the modified "brit" with the munter you basically places the pieces, clip the rope and then self lower yourself and everything equalizes ... there is no guesswork involved

ill do a test with the various setups to measure the needed lengths for the various rope anchors

i suspect that the modified brit may not take as much rope as some folks believe for various reasons

;)

Ted Pinson wrote:So I played around with it a bit and figured out what I did wrong - think I missed one of the cloves altogether. After practicing it, I'm definitely digging it. It's fast, efficient, and requires minimal gear...plus you get the extra shock absorption from the rope. Nice! The one thing that took some getting used to for me was adjusting your tie in to the system, as I'm used to just cloving directly into the masterpoint. How would you rig it if you needed a particularly long tether? (Say: anchors on opposite side of a big ledge?)

I think I did describe the process earlier. It is certainly more involved than the modified Brit system, no question about that, and you have to be competent at clove hitchology. It sounds a lot less efficient than it really is in the description, and if the anchor pieces are just a little out of reach it is no problem at all.

1. Decide on the location of the powerpoint butterfly and tie it.

2. Clip the rope to the first piece, return to the belay position, and adjust the tie-in length as you want it. (You can protect the return with a Munter on the first piece or a Munter at you harness if the exposure warrents it---I've literally never felt the need to do this.)

3. Go hand-over-hand back up the rope to the clipped anchor and throw on a clove hitch. By hand-over-hand I mean keep the rope position through the anchor carabiner in exactly the same place as it was when correctly adjusted for the stance.

4. Clove the rope to the second piece with a little bit of slack between the first and second pieces.

5. Return to the stance and clove the rope from the second piece to the power point. You now have two strands rigged and correctly tensioned.

6. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to get the third strand clipped and tensioned.

As for rope usage, the break-even comparison point is that the slack rope between anchor one and anchor two is twice the anchor-arm length. If the slack is less than that then the Brit method uses more rope, the amount of extra being double the arm length minus the slack length. (I'm thinking here of equal arm lengths...)

I'm sure you did, but thanks for elaborating anyways. Marty - so your suggestion is basically 2 power points, 1 for the anchors to equalize off of and the second to hang the belay device? RGold, yours would still just have the 1 PowerPoint, but you'd just have super long arms for each piece, right? Either way seems like it would work...

Yes, one power point and long rope-arms. But frankly, if the anchors are really distant, I'll usually rig something with slings or a cordelette if I have one, and just have a long tie-in cloved back to the tie-in loop or a butterfly power point.

Remote anchors like that happen mostly at the top or sometimes on big ledges with anchors at the back of the ledge. In either case, you don't care about burning up rope for the next pitch, either because there is no next pitch or because the belay is going to be relocated next to the anchor before the leader sets off on the next pitch. For those anchors, the modified Brit method would be my next choice if the anchor points were individually far apart from each other and a long way from the belay stance.

I still find the method I posted to be the best most of the time, but you don't want to be doctrinaire about any one system.

Fair enough. I'm bummed out nobody acknowledged my Scotch puns. :(

one note ... is once one is versed in the basic systems ... you can easily build a hybrid setup that takes care of quite a few issues

for example say you have 2 decently close pieces up higher and a third one quite a bit below it

you can simply built a standard knotted 2 piece anchor with a long sling on the top close 2 pieces ... and then munter it with the rope, lowering yourself down to the 3rd piece and then using the "modified brit" system on 2 anchor points ... yet uses up much less rope

the "modified brit" system is very useful on ledges or top outs as rgold said ...

in fact its probably more useful as a 2 piece anchor ... especially as youre protected by the munter as you near the edge

for simple anchors (3 close and straightforward pieces) i dont fine the rope much faster than a 240 cm dyneema sling ... and as noted the "cordelette" anchor is more adjustable through its clove masterpoint ...

its only when you get to the funkay stuff or more than 3+ pieces that the rope really comes into its own

nor does the rope really save much weight over a dyneema sling ... take a 2 piece anchor, a 120 cm dyneema sling weights like 40g ... with cloving thicker ~10mm ropes one really should use full sized biners, perhaps even lockers, negating the weight savings

;)