I'm relatively new to climbing, having bouldered a bit in college but very little since I started a family. Now my two girls, ages 6 and 10, are into climbing, and we're rapidly building our skills towards more challenging bouldering.

The question... What gear do I need to be able to setup safe top roping climbs for them? We've got shoes, harnesses, and belay devices, and I know we'll need a rope, but I'm a bit lost as to what I should acquire.

I also know that setting up anchors really requires me to learn in the field. I can read all about it, but without actually seeing someone do it, I won't have the skills I need to climb safely with my little ladies.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for helping out an old father/new climber.

Darren B.

I agree with saxfiend almost to the letter. I want to point out the fact that neither of my two children would be anywhere near the edge of any crag at that age. Just me, but I never had kids and am always overly worried. Heck stay at the indoor gym if you have one near you, or continue to boulder because they will be on the rock more time anyway and learn more. Topropes take too long to set up most of the time.

Take a class/course from an AMGA certified/accredited guide or guide service. Appalachian Mountain Institute and Fox Mountain guides are both in Brevard and both would be able to teach you what you need to know to keep you and your daughters safe as you progress in the sport. There may be other sources of information out there but without the certification/accreditation there is no way to be assured of the accuracy of what you are getting. There is a lot of misinformation out there that passes for proper techniques and procedures. Good luck and have fun!

Darren
What you need to some extent depends on your location.
I climbed with my daughters before they were the age of ten in Jtree, Santee Boulders, Suicide, Yosemite, Devils Tower, South Platte, Slick Rock Idaho, Lumpy Ridge to name a few. We were rained out at the Gunks.

I do not want to scare you; I really think climbing is one of the sports that Girls level the playing field in. They just plain out rock!
I was belaying my youngest Top rope. My other daughter was sitting on lunch rock at Mission Gorge. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of purple. My mind exploded as I knew the flash was my other daughter falling from the east edge of lunch rock.
As miracles do happen the only damage was a very small nick in her new Gramicci pants.
She said she knew better than to reach for a flower growing in a crack in the rock. But she still did it.
That was nineteen or so years ago and it feels like yesterday.
The main lesson I learned was go with others so you can be attentive to who you need to be at all times.
In Colorado I see post from parents going out as groups. It was not an option for me as so few kids were climbing back then and no internet.
I will be climbing with my daughter tomorrow; I think few sports give dads an opportunity to form such a strong bond. It goes far to help get through the late teen years. With you lack of knowledge setting anchors plus lack of gear look for a climbing group or and informal group of climbing parents.
Be well rich

AMGA certified/accredited guide or guide service another invaluable source.
Guides were such an iffy thing back then. I knew really great ones and a few that had no business being a guide.

Bad things happen. The closest I ever came to dying was a fall in my back yard at 13 that resulted me being in a coma.

Darren, see if you can hook up with some other climbers with kids. Top rope rigging is not particularly hard, but not worth learning on the fly. ALWAYS test what you do with a heavy tarzan swing, bouncing as much as possible. Get the kids enrolled in whatever programs your local rock gym or climbing club might have for kids; and in short order they'll be the ones rope-gunning for you.

One piece of gear that is missing from your collection is Helmets. IMHO, these are non negotiable.

As far as what gear you need, it is a can-o-worms, like already stated. But, getting profficient at building TR's is not brain surgery, so don't be scared off. At the simplest, a TR setup can require only a rope, about 5 locking biners, and a piece of cord-a-lette.

My recommendation is to read the late, great Craig Luebben's book Rockclimbing: mastering basic skills. It is priceless.

Then, find a certified guide or knowledgeable and reliable partner to practice with. Note, even "guides" and "experienced climbers" do unsafe things and there are many acceptable ways to skin the proverbial cat. So, look to these people as great resources and learn as much as you can. Ask questions. However, if what they're doing seems to contradict safety logic or Luebben's books, ask questions and take their advice with a respectful grain of salt.

I'm not going to make specifc gear recommendations because that would be impossible and misleading.

Cheers and welcome back to the sport.
Evan

I've been climbing with my daughter since she was 4 (she's 8 now). A couple of things I've learned in climbing with her, and with friends with children who climb.

1. I whole-heartedly second the helmet comment. Protect those precious noggins!

2. Unless your kids are remarkably mature, it's always advisable to have a free adult who is not climbing or belaying to monitor the kids. This is a safety issue. The belayer does not need to divide attention between Sally's owiee and the person on the rock. Also, if the kiddo is in trouble and you're on belay, you cannot quickly and safely be two places at once.

3. Like someone else mentioned setting up top-ropes is not rocket science, but get training before going it alone.

Have fun and climb hard. Climbing outings are our favorite family outings now that my daughter is getting a little older. Awesome bonding time.

Hire a guide and minimize your learning curve. Here's a great company in Brevard, NC that can meet your needs
http://appalachianmountaininstitute.com/appalachian-guides/

Can I use my girls' bike helmets, or do I need to get one designed for rock climbing?

Darren

ps. Thanks for all the great info. I'm taking it all in and reevaluating where I stand in terms of what gear and training I need.

I know this may sound pretty obvious, but don't TR anything that requires you to solo to bolts to set up the anchor. I saw a father do this in front of his 6 or 7 year old son. Also, check out the article in Climbing 272, January 2009 for some tips for climbing with kids!

Bike helmets work fine.

Wow this all sounds very intimidating. Reading all of this is scaring me from building top-rope anchors. Some of these suggestions are confusing me. 5 locking biners??? Really?

My reccomendation is go to REI, buy a bunch of bulk webbing. At like $.17 cents a foot get 100 ft of 1in wide tubular.

Also get 10 regular biners or so. They are about 5 bucks each.

Finally get 1-2 locking biners.

Learn how to tie a sliding-x knot to equalize forces and a water knot for tying the ends of the webbing together. google these or get someone to show you.

Basically the easiest technique is to sling big rocks that won't move with webbing (3-4 rocks that are very sturdy) and then dynamically equalize the forces on them. This is where the sliding x comes in handy.

Equalize all the rocks, two at a time, into a locking biner. Run the top rope through here. Never run a rope through webbing. the friction will cut right through it.

Its always good to get some one experienced to show you how to set up an anchor but paying for a guide to learn to top rope sounds kinda extreme.

maybe i'm just young and irresponsible though... :-\

I'm gonna lean more towards John's side. Its not very hard or technical at all to set up top ropes BUT you will need to at least have some one show you how to do it properly first.
After some one shows you how to do it right you should be good to go.

Main things pointed out are don't run the rope through the webbing.
Equalize.
And have the anchor reach over the edge or the cliff so it is not running over any sharp corners, and also the anchor isn't running over any sharp objects.
Redundency is your friend, if one part of the anchor fails it should not make the whole anchor fail.

The misinformation contained in this thread is the best argument for not trying to learn what you want to know from the web or anywhere else than a qualified professional.

How about trees? Do you have trees that won't move?

Trees work awesome as well for anchors. Just tie the webbing around them with the water knot, equalize, bounce test, and climb.

edit: *I'm not trying to oversimplify, but telling someone to pay someone to take a course in how to set up a top rope is kinda ridiculous in my opinion... but like i said, maybe i'm just young and stupid, but i figured it out

I'm somewhere in the middle here. Sure, you shouldn't instinctually trust something some shmuck on the internet tells you. But pay hundreds of dollars to learn to set up a toprope....? Seems excessive. I would research this stuff intensively. Go to your local library and checkout freedom of the hills. Read the chapters on anchors a few times. Go check out climbing anchors by john long. Read it and take it to your crag. Set up a toprope. Then anchor yourself to an entirely separate system and weight your toprope and see how it responds. Jump on it. I think these two sources will lend credibility enough for a task such as that, without having to rely on some idiot named phil lauffen on the internet.

yeah... listen to john to learn top notch belay technique like this
http://mountainproject.com/v/john_maguire/106407756

really though I think I'm in his camp/

Either hire a legitimate guide, take a well known course, or go with someone competent you know and trust. It's not your buddy or even your wife... it's your kids. (and have fun)

I was in the OP's shoes a few years back - never worked with trad gear, had only climbed in a gym. I'd read "Freedom of the Hills" as well as "Rock Climbing Anchors", and a couple of others, but i wasn't willing to risk my kids lives on my understanding of all the forces at play that I'd gained from a BOOK.

I chose to hire a guide to spend half a day with us to show us (me and my kids) - my kids were pre-teen aged - how to set up a safe top rope. Probably the best $250 i'd ever spent. Learned a lot - had a lot of fun - and from then on felt pretty confident when we went out for a day of climbing.

holy crap batman! you are getting advice on how to protect your daughters lives from dirtbag 19 year old internet junkies? scary.

since you posted here it does not seem like you have a knowledgeable mentor so...TAKE A CLASS!!!!!

it might seem "simple" but people get seriously fu*ked all the time on TR's. Just ask anyone who has climbed at Great Falls, Virginia. all it takes is one mistake to ruin a life....seriously. take some classes, go with other adults who have climbed before, don't rush into it. after you are fully confident and have setup and climbed on A LOT of different TR setups - take them climbing and have fun.

there are a lot of little errors you can make that are only noticeable after a lot of experience out there. these errors can be fatal. buying some webbing and locking biners at REI and reading a few books doesn't cut it when it comes to your own kids safety.