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A tragic lesson: anchor shuts from above

Original Post
Brie Abram · · Celo, NC · Joined Oct 2007 · Points: 493

Seven years ago, a personal friend of mine died when rappelling. At the time, the way the accident happened never occurred to me as possible. It's been a while, so, for the sake of getting the word out there to a newer generation, here's the gist of the tragedy. I hope it might prevent it from happening in the future to someone else.

He and his partner had topped out their climb and were now standing on top of the cliff, basically safe. There is more or less a trail that follows close to the edge of the top of the cliff. They were walking along the top looking for descent anchors when he and his partner found a pair of anchors commonly referred to as "shuts" just below them on the vertical face. The edge is clean, and the anchors are easily touched by crouching down from above.

These shuts are the "clip" type commonly found on some sport routes. They are a loop of metal with a wire gate facing upwards. They can be clipped similarly to carabiners. They are designed to be clipped from below before being weighted.

not necessarily the style/brand referenced in the story

My friend and his partner clipped their rope into the anchors from above and threw down both ends of the rope. Now imagine, we have a fairly typical top-rope style setup on clippable shuts.

My friend reached down and pulled up a bight of rope on each strand going to the ground and set up his belay device properly for a rappel. But he is standing above the shuts. The rope is threaded through the shuts, but is now pulled upwards, toward the harness of the person about to rappel. Toward the gates at the top of the shuts.

After checking everything, my friend carefully lowered himself over the side. The rope is constantly pulled tight as he lowers himself. He was slightly to one side of the anchors as he went over, as is typical in order to keep tension in the rope.

As he did so, one strand of rope was now on top of the shuts, pressing into the gates. The rope unclipped itself. From both.

If you have a hard time visualizing what happened, take a carabiner. Hold it below you with the gate facing up. It doesn't move because it's bolted to the wall. Clip a rope into it from above. Pull both strands of the rope upwards toward you (and your harness) so the rope is pressing on the gate. Rotate your pull to the side and down and the rope will unclip. This was the same thing, but with two shuts threaded simultaneously. It's somewhat similar to backclipping, but not quite the same thing.

I still think about it every now and then: the complete lack of realization of what was happening that he must have had. It makes me think about what might be out there waiting to get me that I am completely oblivious to. Be careful out there. Never, ever climb above clippable shuts.

Folks who know nothing about climbing tend to think it's crazy or dangerous or something. Folks who know a little sometimes scoff at that and dismiss it as the view of people who don't know how "safe" climbing can be. Folks who know a little more start to realize that yeah, there are a crap ton of ways to get hurt or die out there.

Ryan Chelstowski · · Colorado Springs, CO · Joined Jan 2008 · Points: 155

Sorry to hear about your friends. This can be the end result also to back clipping. Thank you for the post and hope that people can take knowledge from it.

Gilles · · Arcata,CA · Joined May 2009 · Points: 60

thanks for the post, very informative and something I had not thought of. Sorry to hear about your friend.

FrankPS · · Atascadero, CA · Joined Nov 2009 · Points: 276

Brian, thanks for sharing that. 1000 ways to die out there. Good info on this one.

a d · · Los Angeles, CA · Joined Mar 2010 · Points: 5

Very good info, thank you for sharing. Condolences.

Royal · · Santa Rosa, CA · Joined Jun 2010 · Points: 410

Damn. I'm sorry man. Thanks for raising awareness as to what can happen. I really appreciate it.

Bapgar 1 · · Out of the Loop · Joined Oct 2007 · Points: 90

Bump, for just an all around good reminder that your brain is still your best piece of gear.
Thanks for posting.

Hiro Protagonist · · Colorado · Joined Apr 2012 · Points: 290

Very sorry about your friend. I'm a new climber, thanks for passing this along - I'll file it in my brain.

Mason G · · Anacortes, WA · Joined Feb 2012 · Points: 110
Hiro wrote:Very sorry about your friend. I'm a new climber, thanks for passing this along - I'll file it in my brain.
+1
Greg Barnes · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Apr 2006 · Points: 2,060

Thank you for posting. Sorry about your friend.

With cold shuts that look like the one above but without the gate (still around on a number of older sport climbs in various places), there is another accident that can easily happen:

- two people are climbing and the belayer ties into the rope to make sure they don't drop the leader when lowering
- the leader leads up and lowers off
- they pull slack through (if any), maybe noticing a bit of twisting in the rope, maybe not, and the follower climbs
- those twists in the rope bunch up toward the follower as the follower nears the top of the climb
- right near or at the anchor, the twists in the rope have built up enough that the rope simply jumps out of one or BOTH shuts, and suddenly the follower is at the anchor with nothing - and ready to be pulled off the climb by the belayer!

This happened years ago at Owens River Gorge to a well-known climber who luckily managed to grab a shut and pass the rope back through the shuts. This is one of the reasons that people abandoned "open cold shuts" in favor of ones with a gate, or chains, mussy hooks, etc.

If you are on a climb with open cold shuts, just making sure that twists are out of the rope will keep this from happening nearly every time. But there's only one way to completely avoid this potential problem (since you can get rope twisting just from belaying, a twisty rope, etc) - which is to girth hitch each open cold shut with a shoulder-length sling (so you are toproping through biners on those two slings), then have the last climber pass it through the cold shuts, tension from the belayer, and remove the slings (which are usually pinched under the rope so it can be a pain).

Matt Grinnan · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Aug 2021 · Points: 0
Greg Barnes wrote: Thank you for posting. Sorry about your friend. With cold shuts that look like the one above but without the gate (still around on a number of older sport climbs in various places), there is another accident that can easily happen: - two people are climbing and the belayer ties into the rope to make sure they don't drop the leader when lowering - the leader leads up and lowers off - they pull slack through (if any), maybe noticing a bit of twisting in the rope, maybe not, and the follower climbs - those twists in the rope bunch up toward the follower as the follower nears the top of the climb - right near or at the anchor, the twists in the rope have built up enough that the rope simply jumps out of one or BOTH shuts, and suddenly the follower is at the anchor with nothing - and ready to be pulled off the climb by the belayer! This happened years ago at Owens River Gorge to a well-known climber who luckily managed to grab a shut and pass the rope back through the shuts. This is one of the reasons that people abandoned "open cold shuts" in favor of ones with a gate, or chains, mussy hooks, etc. If you are on a climb with open cold shuts, just making sure that twists are out of the rope will keep this from happening nearly every time. But there's only one way to completely avoid this potential problem (since you can get rope twisting just from belaying, a twisty rope, etc) - which is to girth hitch each open cold shut with a shoulder-length sling (so you are toproping through biners on those two slings), then have the last climber pass it through the cold shuts, tension from the belayer, and remove the slings (which are usually pinched under the rope so it can be a pain).

Do you have any videos or pictures of what you are talking about with the girth hitch? Having trouble visualizing what you are saying.

phylp phylp · · Upland · Joined May 2015 · Points: 1,097
Matt Grinnan wrote:

Do you have any videos or pictures of what you are talking about with the girth hitch? Having trouble visualizing what you are saying.

For some reason you have resurrected a ten year old thread.  Did you do this because you have recently come across cold shuts on a route that you did?  

Whatever the reason, it's a good reminder for beginners that they should understand what they are looking at if they see this type of anchor.  And understand how dangerous they can be.  Even though, at this point, in the areas where I climb, they are very rare, I will still come across them now and then.  Most of them by now have lost their flimsy little "safety" latches and are now just open curves ("open shuts"), which can be even more dangerous than the cold shut in the first picture in the thread.  Of these anchors still out there, by now, many can be worn though to the point that they have sharp, rope cutting grooves on the bottoms.  

As to Greg's post, what is it about a girth hitch in a sling, tightened around a piece of metal at the bottom-most part of the curve that you cannot understand? Personally, I'd avoid setting up a top rope on an old cold-shut anchor anyway.  When you get to it, if it's not worn though and sharp, loop your rope through the anchor, and have your partner lower you.  But leave a bail draw or biner in the last bolt on the route with your rope through it, as a backup.  Clean the rest of the route on the way down and go find another route to do.  If you get to one where both sides are dangerously worn, and might saw through a rope or sling, it's better to leave some old biners in the anchor and lower off them. In this case I would also leave a safety backup in the last bolt.

Gunkiemike · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2009 · Points: 3,492

I remember hearing about that when it was first reported. it's chilling how many clever ways there are to get killed in our sport.

Glen Prior · · Truckee, Ca · Joined Jul 2015 · Points: 0

Thank you for pointing out this potentially fatal scenario. Gut wrenching to hear it happened to a friend of yours. Cold shuts and even Mussy hooks can unclip in a similar fashion if there is a lot of twist in the rope, and you introduce slack just below the shuts/hooks. A twisted loop of rope can unclip from the shut/hook by twisting up and over the gate, before tension is reapplied to the rope. It's happened to me.

I just read the rest of the comments. Greg Barnes scenario is exactly what happened to me, except it only popped out of one Mussy of the pair.

Doug Haller · · Boulder, CO · Joined Jun 2005 · Points: 596
Brie Abram wrote: Seven years ago, a personal friend of mine died when rappelling. At the time, the way the accident happened never occurred to me as possible. It's been a while, so, for the sake of getting the word out there to a newer generation, here's the gist of the tragedy. I hope it might prevent it from happening in the future to someone else. He and his partner had topped out their climb and were now standing on top of the cliff, basically safe. There is more or less a trail that follows close to the edge of the top of the cliff. They were walking along the top looking for descent anchors when he and his partner found a pair of anchors commonly referred to as "shuts" just below them on the vertical face. The edge is clean, and the anchors are easily touched by crouching down from above. These shuts are the "clip" type commonly found on some sport routes. They are a loop of metal with a wire gate facing upwards. They can be clipped similarly to carabiners. They are designed to be clipped from below before being weighted.  My friend and his partner clipped their rope into the anchors from above and threw down both ends of the rope. Now imagine, we have a fairly typical top-rope style setup on clippable shuts. My friend reached down and pulled up a bight of rope on each strand going to the ground and set up his belay device properly for a rappel. But he is standing above the shuts. The rope is threaded through the shuts, but is now pulled upwards, toward the harness of the person about to rappel. Toward the gates at the top of the shuts. After checking everything, my friend carefully lowered himself over the side. The rope is constantly pulled tight as he lowers himself. He was slightly to one side of the anchors as he went over, as is typical in order to keep tension in the rope. As he did so, one strand of rope was now on top of the shuts, pressing into the gates. The rope unclipped itself. From both. If you have a hard time visualizing what happened, take a carabiner. Hold it below you with the gate facing up. It doesn't move because it's bolted to the wall. Clip a rope into it from above. Pull both strands of the rope upwards toward you (and your harness) so the rope is pressing on the gate. Rotate your pull to the side and down and the rope will unclip. This was the same thing, but with two shuts threaded simultaneously. It's somewhat similar to backclipping, but not quite the same thing. I still think about it every now and then: the complete lack of realization of what was happening that he must have had. It makes me think about what might be out there waiting to get me that I am completely oblivious to. Be careful out there. Never, ever climb above clippable shuts. Folks who know nothing about climbing tend to think it's crazy or dangerous or something. Folks who know a little sometimes scoff at that and dismiss it as the view of people who don't know how "safe" climbing can be. Folks who know a little more start to realize that yeah, there are a crap ton of ways to get hurt or die out there.

From your description, it sounds like it would have been safer to clip into the anchor with a back-up and/or get below the anchor before weighting the rope. Often these steps are taken only when we anticipate multiple raps or have climbed up to the anchor from below. Sorry for your loss.

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Beginning Climbers
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