Sliding X Power Points-Block Leading

Yes, I guess what it comes down to is a very minor issue. Maybe I'm over paranoid about damaged gear that I might not know about. I wouldn't hesitate to climb on a system that comes down to 1 locker. But I'm saying given the oppurtunity, I like to throw an extra locker on my powerpoint because my favorite ideal anchors have me anchored in solely to the powerpoint. I like redundancy of every part of my anchor leading up to my powerpoint. I usually put 100% faith into my partners belay device, my belay device, the biners for those belay devices, my harness, my partner's harness, and my rope. I like everything else to be redundant. Like I said, doubles take the rope out of that redundancy problem. Using an equalette with two lockers may be the answer to all my problems.

I think one locker is good when you're right there with it... but there are times when you're safer (even if just mentally safer) with two. If you're setting up a TR or tying off way far away, say to some trees way back of the edge off the cliff but you'll belay right at the lip... then, i think, two biners is appropriate because you're not there to make sure they don't get gate loaded or rub across the rock/ground/whatever and get unlocked. Opposite and opposed of course. Just my opinion, your results may vary, void where prohibited.

JJ Brunner wrote:Yes, I guess what it comes down to is a very minor issue. Maybe I'm over paranoid about damaged gear that I might not know about. I wouldn't hesitate to climb on a system that comes down to 1 locker. But I'm saying given the oppurtunity, I like to throw an extra locker on my powerpoint because my favorite ideal anchors have me anchored in solely to the powerpoint. I like redundancy of every part of my anchor leading up to my powerpoint. I usually put 100% faith into my partners belay device, my belay device, the biners for those belay devices, my harness, my partner's harness, and my rope. I like everything else to be redundant. Like I said, doubles take the rope out of that redundancy problem. Using an equalette with two lockers may be the answer to all my problems.

If you are this over paranoid you should never use a sliding x then.

redlude97 wrote: If you are this over paranoid you should never use a sliding x then.

I never use a sliding X by itself. I always make sure there is something else there so I'm not trusting my anchor to 1 sling. But when climbing if I have a sketchy piece of pro, I dont hesitate to use two pieces with a sliding X and call it good. I'm suprised by the number of responses that are dissin' my redundancy.

Larry- I agree with you, my only addition to your statement would be if I had it come down to 1 carabiner and I had another carabiner to spare, I'd use 2.

saxfiend wrote: Really?? I've never heard of any accidents associated with lowering from an ATC guide in guide mode. Can you cite some examples? JL

In addition to the thread linked above, I've personally seen it happen in the Gunks in 2008. No thread was ever created to my knowledge. It was 2 Euro guys on the Dangler - the 2nd couldn't pull the roof, was hanging out in space, and eventually asked for a lower. Belayer lost control of the device and dropped him to the slab/ledge below. Resulted in a badly sprained, possibly broken ankle. We tossed him a rope, pulled him in and then he rapped our ropes off the chains just to the left (Three Pines?) and hobbled back to the car with his buddy.

I may be mistaken about the deaths, but I followed the above RC.com thread as it was happening and seem to recall someone else referencing a death. I'm not 100% about that - it was a while back. Regardless, I generally don't advise new leaders to use a plaquette in Guide mode, much like I don't advise new climbers to use a GriGri (which can be a real disaster).

You`re going to have a lot more to worry about before breaking a 24 or 22kN biner. It took only 3.9kN to fracture the spine of a test dummy on a 11mm dynamic rope....the study is focused on different harness systems for industrial uses but it does make a mention of the seated harness being used by climbers and mountaineers. The second set of graphs and charts are related to climbing like harnesses

fallpro.com/fall_protection…

Jesus Christ, man. Why don't you just open up a day-care center for priveleged children, buy a white pair of shoes, move to Miami Beach and get it over with!!!

Jon H wrote: In addition to the thread linked above, I've personally seen it happen in the Gunks in 2008. No thread was ever created to my knowledge. It was 2 Euro guys on the Dangler - the 2nd couldn't pull the roof, was hanging out in space, and eventually asked for a lower. Belayer lost control of the device and dropped him to the slab/ledge below. Resulted in a badly sprained, possibly broken ankle. We tossed him a rope, pulled him in and then he rapped our ropes off the chains just to the left (Three Pines?) and hobbled back to the car with his buddy. I may be mistaken about the deaths, but I followed the above RC.com thread as it was happening and seem to recall someone else referencing a death. I'm not 100% about that - it was a while back. Regardless, I generally don't advise new leaders to use a plaquette in Guide mode, much like I don't advise new climbers to use a GriGri (which can be a real disaster).

Hence the reason you back up a lower with a friction hitch.

A guy decked in the ice park this past winter being lowered in with a plaquette style device. something similar happened there a few years ago being lowered from the top directly off the belayer's harness. both cases were totally the fault of the person doing the lowering but possibly could have been avoided using different techniques. and if i was that worried about using one locker i would be terrified of a sliding x.

JJ Brunner wrote: But in response to Brett, I don't have anything against belaying directly off the anchor with an autolock, its just slightly more efficient in my opinion if I belay the second up on my harness, tie the brake strand off, get my partner ready to lead, then untie the brake strand and they're off!

The above might work better when swapping leads but not when leading in blocks.

I am not going to go into my thoughts on a 10 carabiner belay setup, suffice to say I trust carabiners more than slings and I like to keep things light.

Here are a few thoughts on being efficient on block leads:

First, assuming both of your pieces of gear are good and you are using an auto locking belay setup, is it really necessary to be anchored to your powerpoint in the first place? I always think about how to make the transition for my second as seamless as possible, often that means not hanging down right in the way of them when they get to the anchor and having a readily accessible clip in for them. If using a cordalette that often means I am belaying from the powerpoint and maybe clipping into the top shelf ( if at all).

I like to clip into a quickdraw on the anchor when I am starting off a pitch to keep from possibly falling onto my belayer's belay device. Often I will pre-rig this draw and tie into it with a clove when setting up the belay. Now all I have to do is break the clove and clip back in when I am on belay and I am ready to climb. If it is a bomber piece ( and I am using an autolocker belay device) sometimes this is my only anchor point on the belay.

When you are belaying your second up with an autolocker and they reach the anchor I have them take on the device. Then I have them hand me all the gear( hopefully organized on a couple slings) and their belay device as well. Now I can work on organizing the rack while they clip into the anchor with a daisy or sling then take themselves off the belay device and tie in direct to the powerpoint on the locker that the belay device was on. They put me on belay with that device and tie a backup. Next I flip the rope onto their harness and they untie the backup on the belay device and I'm on belay and ready to climb.

Using some of these tactics it is very possible to have belay changeovers take only a few minutes, involve no clusters and be low stress.

Kevin L- Please don't have me thinking that you guys think using more than one sling is unecessary and one sling is good enough! That's a statement I would say is unsafe.

Kevin S- Yes, I use that method for swapping leads only.

My setup would consist of 2 carabiners at the powerpoint! 3 carabiners if I'm in a party of 3! (2 for belayer, 1 for extra member) 2 carabiners for the belayer is nowhere near overkill IMO. 10 carabiners are...

Here's my take on block leads. I'm clipped into either two carabiners at the master point with the rope from my harness figure 8 on a bight style, or I'm figure eighted or cloved into one carabiner in the powerpoint using my autolock also from the powerpoint. When the second gets there, they can figure 8 clip into 2 of their own carabiners on the powerpoint. I then undo my autolock belay and my partner sets up their belay device. They clip all the gear on the rope between my harness and my anchor and while I put the gear on my harness, they get a quick snack and drink if need be.

Whatcha think?

I just finished reading the same book, Climbing Anchors by John Long, and I remember thinking to myself in the exact same spot, "what is the best way to clip into this power point?" If using an equalette or a quad, you can leave as many biners in there as you want. John long recommends leaving the two pear biners in the anchor system, and clipping those two biners as the power point, (biner to biner) or that the second uses his own two biners to clip into the equalette. You can belay off the anchor for your second in plaquette mode or do it off your harness. Just make sure that if you are in line with your anchor if you decide to do it off of your harness. Also if the climbs is approaching vertical, or beyond it would be safer for you as the belayer to belay off of the anchor. I wouldn't recommend biner to biner on the belay device however. If you have a nice roomy belay ledge then by all means belay off of your harness. Make sure you know how to escape your belay if you do have to do some rescuing. Also if you favor the sliding x, using two slings could create more of a problem with the clutch effect. My best advice is to get out and try it and see what you like best. The sliding x and other self equalizing systems will take some time getting used to but as John Long points out there are so many variables at each belay setup that you will have to use your judgment each time to figure out which setup and belay method works best.

Richard- I'll send you a PM, but I just read a post about how those might not be working so...

But my main arguement now is that yes, a second carabiner may not be necessary, but it isn't overkill.

Can someone tell me if there's a reason for the first anchor on this link to use one carabiner and the second two pictures of anchors use two carabiners?

alpineinstitute.blogspot.co…

Mike Minson wrote:I just finished reading the same book, Climbing Anchors by John Long, and I remember thinking to myself in the exact same spot, "what is the best way to clip into this power point?" If using an equalette or a quad, you can leave as many biners in there as you want. John long recommends leaving the two pear biners in the anchor system, and clipping those two biners as the power point, (biner to biner) or that the second uses his own two biners to clip into the equalette. You can belay off the anchor for your second in plaquette mode or do it off your harness. Just make sure that if you are in line with your anchor if you decide to do it off of your harness. Also if the climbs is approaching vertical, or beyond it would be safer for you as the belayer to belay off of the anchor. I wouldn't recommend biner to biner on the belay device however. If you have a nice roomy belay ledge then by all means belay off of your harness. Make sure you know how to escape your belay if you do have to do some rescuing. Also if you favor the sliding x, using two slings could create more of a problem with the clutch effect. My best advice is to get out and try it and see what you like best. The sliding x and other self equalizing systems will take some time getting used to but as John Long points out there are so many variables at each belay setup that you will have to use your judgment each time to figure out which setup and belay method works best.

2 things. The only time he recommends the biner-biner method is when you're swinging leads and the second just needs to anchor temporarily, I'm not sure if that's what you're saying. I just lock off my belay device if I belayed them up straight from my harness. Second, I wouldn't use two slings for one sliding x. I would back it up some other method. Probably by cloving to the powerpoint then also cloving to a higher piece. I liked that idea earlier in the thread.

In regards to the sliding x... the cordlette is almost always a better set up as it won't shock load the remaining piece if one of them were to fail. Potentially shock loading the remaining piece kinda defeats the purpose of building an "equalized" anchor, though there are a few exceptions to this point...

With 2 solid bolts it is foolish to "equalize" them with a single sling, or biner, both of which are most likely rated for less than said individual bolt in the first place. As I said before, kinda defeats the purpose... If you need to equalize them and don't have a cordlette handy, you can always tie a mini cordlette with the sling instead of the x.

For the standard 2 bolt anchor it is usually easiest to simply use 2 quickdraws to equalize the bolts. There are a couple of different configuraitions that will work, and they could be better explained with a picture (which I don't have, sorry). With this set up you don't cancel out the redundancy that you've just created by only using the one locking biner as you would with some of the previously mentioned methods. A modern high quality and well placed bolt is way stronger than most any aluminum carabiners are...

sliding Xs work perfectly fine on bolts ... theyre also one of the fastest ways to set up and anchor on bolts

and no you dont need to create massive "i dont trust a single sling or locker ... but wait isnt my belay biner, belay loop, rope, etc... a single unredundant piece of gear" .... lol

dont believe me ... just go read Mr. Long's book ... or go climb ;)

saxfiend wrote: Really?? I've never heard of any accidents associated with lowering from an ATC guide in guide mode. Can you cite some examples? JL

Has happened in Ouray multipul times. I was at the park this year when a guy using the guide setup to lower his buddy into the gorge at the upper bridge behind the hut dropped his partner into the bottom of the canyon. Broken back and leg from that accident. I know of acouple of other accidents in ouray alone where people have been dropped trying to use the guide as a lowering tool. My understanding is that the lowering loop is for emergency lowering not as a lowering tool in guide mode.
Dallen