The Meadows 

Please toprope off your own gear. See what it looks like if you TR off the quick clips:

Please TR off you own gear I beleieve the claim was these were about a year old. (This isn't my photo, but I imagine whoever it was wanted the word to spread) Submitted By: Brian Adzima on Apr 24, 2007

Wow, great (and disturbing) photo. Where did those anchors come from?

Jay,
The picture is someone else's. However, I think it is important to show people these sorts of pictures to raise awareness on gear (especially fixed gear) abuse.
That picture shows how many of the Quickclips in the New River Gorge look. There are just too many anchors to replace them before people Toproping there wear them out, especially on the classics at Bridge Buttress, and Junkyard.
I politely educate everyone I see Toproping off fixed pro to not do so, be it Rumney or the NRG. Once I even gave some folks two quick draws in the NRG so they would stop TRing directly off the anchors.
I posted this photo because I see people using the Quickclips at Rumney way to frequently for TRing. There is nowhere near the number of routes at Rumney that there is in the NRG. Therefore, the fixed gear can be replaced somewhat frequently but that is no reason to abuse the gear.

I agree about not TRing off fixed anchors. Biners seem even worse. On climbs with fixed biners on the chains, it's rare to see a biner that is not at least somewhat worn through.

I have heard people, however, saying that you must rap off fixed anchors because the simple motion of lowering wears the anchors. While this may be true, I think that rapping off quick-clips might be a bit much.

Lowering off anchors produces wear, there is no distpute there. I don't rap off anchors unless it is multi-pitch, or the area has strict ethics. Rumney is not an area with super strict ethics and ultimately it has no problems with replcement of gear and making yet another hole in the rock. Rappeling off fixed pro is a much longer setup and can be dangerous for beginners to attempt, and therefore I don't think Rappeling off anchors should become the standard of practice.

At least biners are cheaper to replace and (hopefully) if a biner was too worn down the person who climbed the climb would sacrifice one of their biners and change out the bad one on the chains.

Jay, If you want to continue this discussion, perhaps we should take it to the forums.

So how exactly does toproping wear out anchors but not lowering?

I can guarantee that the majority of wear on anchors is from lowering, not toproping. When you top rope, only the weight of the rope is moving over the anchors as the climber climbs. If the climber hangs, the rope will not be moving much at all. Lowering, however, puts all of the climber's weight on the anchor while the rope is sawing across the anchor -- this is far more damaging.

I'm not advocating people TR through fixed gear (if you got the rope up there there's no reason you can't clip a pair of draws into the anchor). But it's silly to pretend it is anything but repeated lowering that does that sort of damage to an anchor.

Well, if you TR something off the Quick clips, that means you will be lowering from them as many times as you climb the route.... If you TR on your draws then lower to clean the draws, you only lower from the quickies once, there for there is less wear on them....

I don't think anyone is under the impression that the climbing is what is causing the wear but rather the repeated lowering....

On the same note... even if you're leading, but you know your buddy is going to lead the route after you, lower off your own draws. Believe it or not, I've actually seen people do otherwise.

Haha I just noticed that the quick clip in the picture is only rated at 11 kN. I guess the number decreases as the clip gets worn. Fixe has some pretty impressive technology these days!