Redudancy of PAD while setting up a rappel

Wassup,

So here's my question explained with a little example : Let's say that I've just finished a sport climb and I'm facing a two bolts anchor without a chain and I now want to rappel down. First thing I do is clip a quickdraw to one of the bolt, clip the rope and ask for take. Then I use my PAD to tether myself to the other bolt. Problem is that eventually, to setup my rappel, I will have to untie from the rope and then if the bolt I'm tethered to breaks, I'm done. So the question is : How do I make my PAD redundant with the other bolt?

I currently clip a quickdraw between the anchor side's locking carabiner of my PAD and the other bolt, but the quickdraw is never exactly the good lenght and so it could be shock loaded if the bolt would to fail.

I also thought of simply using two PAD, one for each bolt, but with these two girt hitched to the tie-in point of my harness PLUS the rope I guess it would begin to be bulky.

Any ideas?

you could:
1: clip the quickdraw to a loop about halfway down your PAS, and then you have redundant bolts. This can still be done after you say take, just clip in your PAS, then ask for slack, unclip the rope from QD and fit it into a PAS loop then say off belay or whatever.

2: 2 'alpine' or regular quickdraws: clip them to your belay loop, then to the bolts. Many people don't use PAS because slings and quickdraws are lighter, cheaper, and are easy to equalize. Then you don't have to worry about clogging up your belay loop or figure what to do with all that slack when you climb.

If you can pass a bight of rope through the anchor, you can safely hang off one bolt by never going off belay. Call for slack, pass a bight through the anchor, tie an overhand on a bight on the bight you passed through the anchor, clip it to your harness with a locker, call for take, and untie your tie in knot. Lower.

Kori Simoneau wrote:it could be shock loaded if the bolt would to fail.

Assuming your Personal Anchor leash is made out of old-fashioned nylon (rather than some lighter less-stretchy material like Dyneema or Spectra), then I'd say you're getting too worried about shock-loading -- on a fall of only a few inches.

Your nylon PAS should be able to withstand the high Fall Factor without failing, and your spine and pelvis (with the help of a little bit of energy-absorption from the nylon) should be able to handle the shock of a drop of merely a few inches, without long-term injury.

Ken

Use 2 biners with your PAS. Clip one loop to one anchor point. Clip another loop to the other anchor point.

Here's the image on the back of the packaging of Metolius's PAS

It's not unheard of to carry 2 PASes for cleaning sport routes. One girth hitched to your belay loop, the other through your tie-in. As mentioned, passing a bight of rope through and lowering is easier, safer, and more efficient, but that's another topic.

Thanks a lot for all your answers!

Okay so first things first, I use a dynaconnexion and not a daisy chain or sling or anything made of static fabric like dyneema or nylon because of this. Otherwise the daisy chain would really have been the perfect solution considering it got a multitude of loops to clip to both anchors and setting up the ATC for the rappel.

Secondly, I forgot to tell you that I never lower off fixed gear. I understand many will disagree, but it is not accepted in my region.

Kyle Tarry wrote:http://www.climbing.com/skills/cleaning-sport-anchors/

I really liked the idea so I added a couple more steps for it to work for a rappel. When the rope is passed through both anchors and I've retied-in, I clove hitch to my last draw (making a second dynamic and ajustable link to the other anchor), rappel half my rope, install my ATC and prusik and rappel down. What do you guys think? I know it's a lot of steps and rope management, I'm still open to better ideas! youtube.com/watch?v=7Ny5yJk…

Mike Mellenthin wrote:Some questions: (1) Why do you want to rap? You are on your own gear -- just lower. (2) If there are no chains on top of a sport climb you can almost certainly walk off. Just walk off the sport climb.

(1) No I'm not on my gear, I'm on the anchors at the top of the route.
(2) It's long and a pain in the ass to walk off.

Do you realize how odd it is to go through all of this because you don't want to anchor into 2 bolts with dyneema? What are the chances you will shock load those when cleaning single pitch routes? I'd never take a PAS (are you calling it a PAD because it's dynamic or are you just trolling?) like that one up a sport route, although a normal PAS with loops, sure. It's good to be aware of static vs. dynamic and failure modes for different materials, but this seems silly. If you've got to rappel, it's as simple as clip clip, "off belay", knot so you don't drop the rope, untie, thread, knot/undo old knot, pull slack, drop rope, rappel (several, equally good variations exist). During the entire sequence you are weighting your tether so no real danger of shock loading even if a bolt breaks. Go climb, have fun.

Kyle Tarry wrote: You don't even need to be able to fit a bight through, if you pull slack first, tie in again with a locker, and then untie your main tie-in. climbing.com/skills/cleanin… Here are some other safe alternatives: americanalpineclub.org/reso… climbcore.wordpress.com/201…

looking at this diagram... Most places I go don't have rings... just simple chains. I don't use PAS, just draws/slings and biners. I usually clip into one of the middle links on the chain. Rope on a bite will still fit through the end link. Far more difficult with a biner clipped there.

Mike Mellenthin wrote:In your OP you specify "two bolts anchor without a chain". You certainly aren't rapping directly off the bolt, right?

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I meant two "glue in bolts"? Not sure of the term, english is not my first language. I'd never rappel off bolts I know that would cut my rope.

You're all probably right, maybe I'm overly cautious. I'll probably just stay with the PAS and quickdraw method, I agree my system is overly complicated and that it could lead to a error.

And nop I'm not trolling, PAD for personal anchor device.

I would like to 2nd the call for simplicity.

As a rule, I like to look for simple methods that use the gear I will absolutely have on hand, usually limited to biners, draws, and the rope. PAS is something I might forget, and so may I suggest you pick a simple limited process to learn as backup should you ever need it.

Equalization in an anchor is pretty much a myth, and non-achievable in many cases. Redundancy is something to definitely strive for. However, there are two ways to achieve redundancy - absolute trust in a single piece that you trust to hold to well above any reasonable loads (redundancy in strength, i.e. clipping in to a bomber piece that you trust to be good to, say, 40 kN), or multiple independent pieces (redundancy in numbers).

Good bolts don't randomly fail. Bolts fail when they are not good, i.e. rusting, placed in bad rock, get hit by rockfall, etc. If you're just sitting there, on a good bolt in good rock, for 2 minutes, with no probability of rockfall, there is nothing that will happen to that bolt. So failure of that bolt and the resulting shock load onto your other bolt is a non-issue. If you were going to hang there for an hour, and there was now a possibility of rockfall, then maybe worry about the bolt failing. If the bolt is bad, or the rock is bad, whether or not the system is redundant isn't the primary question, how solid is your bolt should be the primary worry.

I would clip one good bolt in good rock with a PAS, clip the other bolt with a draw/sling/something else for "backup" (if you care that much), untie, and rig the rap. If I'm on a ledge and doing this recreationally, I won't bother with the backup - I'm on a ledge, and my PAS is simply keeping me away from the edge. If I'm hanging, I'll probably put in a longer backup, esp. if it's very vertical. I'm still hanging on the PAS, but the backup really is there so that if I screw up switching to rappel, I don't die. When I'm working, I'll go with two Purcells - we're mandated by company policy to be on two points of connection at the anchors.

Again, it's all based on your risk tolerance and context. Remember that when you're climbing on singles, you're only on one rope. There's no redundancy there, is there? And we do this all the time.

Good idea, I'll learn it with slings as well, thanks!