Hi all,
I'll be following on trad for the first time this weekend, learning as much as I can. I've been reading a ton up to this point, and I have a couple questions in regards to my actions at the anchors.
I've read conflicting things regarding the clip-in of a second at a cordelette belay. Here's a picture:
I've read that I should clip in to the shelf of the knot (which I assume is where I drew the red arrow) -- in between the strands that run to each piece. I've also read that one can belay their second from here. This seems wrong to me due to the risk of a piece blowing, and no redundancy.
So, that leads me to believe that it's safer to clip in/belay
between an individual set of strands leading to a single piece (green arrow). But then that seems wrong because more weight is being placed on an individual piece. Then again, people belay off the anchor so my point may be moot.
The thing that makes the most sense would be the second clipping into the master point, but then that just seems like a crowding/clusterf*ck scenario.
I know I'm probably too much up in my head about this, and I know that I'll hear what to do this weekend. But I also want that prior knowledge heading into it, so my questions are:
With a Cordelette: -Where do you, as a leader belay from? Harness? Anchor? Secondary knot? Shelf of the knot?
- Where do you, as a second, clip in when you come to the anchor?
With a rope tie-in: -Odds are you're swinging leads, so the second is just clipping in to get the rest of the rack and keep climbing, yeah?
Thanks for the time, I'll take my lumps for noobism, too.