worst anchors ever....

Here is an anchor I came across last weekend.

a couple of stories from ice climbing long ago:

#1 was coming up a New England slab on our first real ice climb.
My partner had tied to a rotten 3" tree. I came up, pulled it out
of the ground and said "off belay"

#2 I'm responsible for. Was topping out a steep slabby gully (maybe a
WI2 pitch on a longer WI4). Hadn't gotten a frigging thing in the whole pitch
because a) rocks on side were covered with snow and couldn't find
anything that would take nuts, and b) the ice was shattering every
time I hit it and was hollow with running water back behind. At the
end of the rope, with maybe 50' to go to the proper top (and it was
dark and wind gusts to 100), all I could do was punch a big hole in
the ice, wedge one leg in the watery gap back behind, and put my
partner "on belay". The rope was frozen (crappy early "dry" coatings),
so I think it was a hip belay.

Good times!

Those are great stories Allan!!! Hilarious actually.

In '94 I was in Hueco Tanks and saw a group TR a route I wanted to try. I asked them for a ride,and when I reached the top I saw that they had run webbing through the two bolts and had the rope running THROUGH THE WEBBING WITH NO BINERS!! I had seen about six or eight people climb the (80') route before I got on it. I freaked out. I had a couple of BINERS on my belt and redid their anchor, pulled the whole rope, and rapped off both strands. When I reached the ground I was screaming at these idiots about how dangerous that crap was. They didn't understand why I was so mad. They climb in the gym all the time...

Rap anchor we found during a rebolting project.  Unclear where the rope had been, but it kinda looks like just looped over the webbing.

^ ^ ^ ^Hey Ney you don't No me granite?

Ya' Think?

Link to that thread:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/112880235/common-placement-mistakes-made-by-even-experienced-trad-leaders?page=11#ForumMessage-113233224

B Stone wrote:

Maybe not as structurally sketchy as some of the other anchors on this thread, but certainly one of the gumbier things I’ve come across

I mean apart from the funky loading of the biners, it's arguably a better anchor than two draws. Realistically worst case scenario a bolt fails and half a meter of slack is introduced into 20m of rope. 

B Stone wrote:

the angle is textbook American death triangle

You might want to look at that textbook again.

Twisting the shit out of your rope isn't really "worst anchor ever" material.

B Stone wrote:

Id love to hear you argue why it’s better than two draws…the angle is textbook American death triangle, exacerbating cyclic loading of flailing on TR. 

So first, how not to has shown the American death triangle load multiplying effect to be untrue, its still a bad anchor, but no worse than a sliding x. I don't think you understand the effect of top roping and "cyclic loading". The absolute gentlest falls in climbing even with a force multiplying American death triangle you are looking at far lower forces than a small fall. 

I want to add that this was the party’s first time outdoors, and they were TRing with a full rack of brand spanking new c4s from rei picked up that morning…

Good for them.

My first multi pitch ice lead Chapple pond slab I ran out of rope before I got to ice thick enough to take a screw. my partner was more noob than even myself so i didn't dare simo climb. I stopped in a slight dish and body belayed with no anchor..   two anchors stand out from my first real western climbing trip in 86.  Zion there was a death triangle of slung drilled pitons . the pitons were loose enough in the holes that you could slide out and plop em back in the holes......  we had to rappel from them... higher up on the route we belayed and rappelled from a single 1/4" button head in sandstone...   the worst station on that trip was the anchors at the top of triasic sands...  1/4" split shaft threadded studs. no nuts on the threads just sport tape wrapped around the threads to keep the hangers on the tiny studs.... 

from /r/climbing on Reddit

Internet classic

Another guy on Reddit claimed this one piece anchor was "bomber" and there was no other gear nearby during a hasty retreat from a wind slab.

Call me... slightly skeptical. (Thread here)

Guy H. wrote: I think this one must make the the list.

Lol I saw this thread and my mind immediately went to this anchor on Road Warrior.  I think they replaced it with a proper 2 bolt though (never been on the route but it's on my short list once I can climb 5.10 in the alpine comfortably).

B Stone wrote:

Id love to hear you argue why it’s better than two draws…the angle is textbook American death triangle,

No, it's not an American death triangle. As far as recognizing the ADT, the ADT involves a triangle. There is no triangle in that photo. The ADT has two bad properties, neither of which is shared by this anchor.

(1) An ADT fails completely if there's a failure of the single strand of cord. This anchor doesn't have that problem because there is no cord. Yes, it fails if the climbing rope breaks, but that's always the case.

(2) The ADT can massively amplify the force on the cord and anchors if the cord is short, making the vertex angle very large. That isn't the case here. The climbing rope has the same tension in it that would exist in any toproping situation, and the anchors are subjected to a force of sqrt(2)T, where T is the tension in the rope. The factor of sqrt(2) is undesirable, but it's not great enough to make a two-bolt anchor fail when you're toproping, unless the bolts are unbelievably bad.

that guy named seb wrote:

    > So first, how not to has shown the American death triangle load multiplying effect to be untrue

I assume you're talking about this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sQNpjnJe40

I don't see anything in that video that demonstrates anything like what you're claiming. They do observe a load multiplying effect, which is inevitable because of freshman physics.

Some of the more fun bolts I’ve replaced over the years.
Kong aluminum hanger and an aging mid route lowering point. 

Chris Fedorczak wrote:

Internet classic

wow, there's a lot going on here...

Suburban Roadside wrote:

^ ^ ^ ^Hey Ney you don't No me granite?

Yosemite tree hitch? Photo: courtesy of "Backstep" From -"Common placement mistakes made by even experienced trad leaders".  .   .  

Ya' Think?

Link to that thread:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/112880235/common-placement-mistakes-made-by-even-experienced-trad-leaders?page=11#ForumMessage-113233224

Connecticut hitch. It’s legit. Accepted practice within the Acmg for certain situations.

nic houser wrote:

Connecticut hitch. It’s legit. Accepted practice within the Acmg for certain situations.

which situations?