The French take on belay anchors and technique (ENSA video)

Interesting... So the general concensus is that belaying directly off the anchor is not only safer and easier for the belay, but also puts less force on that anchor than if the belayer were to belay from their belay loop while connected to the anchor.

So how would being on a multi-pitch climb where there are no fixed anchors affect this? You would have to build an anchor at every belay, and if you wanted to belay from the anchor, all your trad pieces would have to be able to be loaded the in the upward direction. But, I guess if the belayer is belaying from their belay loop, and the leader takes a fall, they're going to be pulled up anyways. So an anchor would need to be able to be loaded in the upward direction no matter what.

Thoughts?

Ryan Van Dyke wrote:

So how would being on a multi-pitch climb where there are no fixed anchors affect this? You would have to build an anchor at every belay, and if you wanted to belay from the anchor, all your trad pieces would have to be able to be loaded the in the upward direction. But, I guess if the belayer is belaying from their belay loop, and the leader takes a fall, they're going to be pulled up anyways. So an anchor would need to be able to be loaded in the upward direction no matter what.

Thoughts?

That's multi-pitch 101 and hasn't changed in a century. 

Europe is much further along the path of having fixed anchors (usually bolts) at every belay, even if the climb is an alpine "trad" climb, but this (I think really unfortunate) trend is accelerating in the US as well.  Given a solid modern two-bolt belay, It is looking more and more as if belaying off the anchor (with a method that will allow some rope to run through the belay) is the best approach.

In the case of trad gear, the situation is obviously complicated by the need for the anchor to be very strong for upward and possibly sideways loads.  Although directionals can sometimes be arranged, I think that, as a practical matter,  direct belays on gear anchors are mostly going to be restricted to anchors in horizontal cracks, and even then there are issues (like rigging with very little play) that make the direct belay choice tricky.

The drawing is from Paulcke's 1911 revision of Zsigmondy's, Gefahren der Alpen, and is reproduced in Alpinismo su Roccia, published by the Italian Alpine Club.

So (newish trad climber here) if I were to build a belay anchor using 3 pieces as per the "W" type, taking into consideration the above video, would it be prudent to also (if possible) put in a piece that would stop the master point pull "up". (a 4th piece slightly below the master point and connected to it?

Italian hitches roll and kink the rope terribly and do not feed well - I buy the data, what about normal ATC used on a fixed point rather than a belay loop? 

Some thoughts.

1. as they say, lead belaying off the anchor is a common technique in some countries. At a guess it predates the belay plate. It is covered in at least one English language textbook (mine and Andy K's). This was traditionally done with a Italian Hitch (Munter).

2. The video mentions using an Italian Hitch, however in the first section, the belayer has an orange Reverso on the anchor (2min 8sec). Strange?

3. The video says the direct belay places less force on the anchor that the indirect. This is hard to understand. Maybe it is covered in the linked pdf, but my French failed me. Things happen for a reason, and the only reason I can see for the forces being lower is there is more slippage, it which case this is a less like-for-like case than implied. I think you can see his hands being dragged a long way in the video. It would be interesting to know that would happen if the belayer's hands were right next to the carabiner.

4. You can see that the position taken by the belayer in both the indoor test and the one on the snowy route at the end of the section is less than normal, a squat. By using a direct belay one is always more at the mercy of the position of the anchor.

4. Offering a direct belay in the way filmed, with a Reverso (not in guide mode), I would suggest is untested in the real world. The amount of friction provided would be very low (possibly zero) if the belayer's hand was to the same side of the anchor as the lead climber. Belays in corners, or low anchors, could easily get out of control. There have been various attempts to solve this with re-directs, but these are difficult to rig, can suffer from catastrophic failure if one anchor piece fails, and were not even discussed in the video.

5. Offering a direct lead belay with a Reverso in guide mode, solves these problems, but I suspect would create greater forces, not lower ones. It is also a right pain when giving slack. As Jim Titt has shown, under high forces the two strands in a Reverso-type device can flip and trap the rope completely or remove the braking force.

6. The belayer is shown wearing gloves - this is uncommon in the UK/USA.

7. This is all about fixed anchors, we rarely weight our anchors in an upward direction - as our bodies take the hit. The approach shown would weight the anchors in an upward direction every time someone fell. This would mean much more complex belays. For trad belays, I would suggest the key thing is to try and reduce the potential for upward loading. Belaying off the body does this most of the time.

8. You can't use a Munter in any practical way with double ropes, only singles and twins - we Brits love our tad belays and our double ropes.

can't believe this hasn't been brought up...

YER GONNA DIE!!

It's not surprising that a belay directly off the anchor generates smaller forces on the piece of pro that holds the fall.  And that's what we really care about, no?  

Smaller forces on the anchor are sort of like... eh... nice, but not the real issue.  

Any discussion of which method generates smaller forces is incomplete without considering the climber/belayer mass ratio.  For the top piece of pro, a catch by the belayer is normally softer.  But if the belayer is so light that the climber ends up getting caught by the anchor, then belaying off the anchor in the first place means a smaller effective fall factor.

Because different belay techniques are being used, the results may not be valid.  Although it would have increased the impact force at the anchor, they should have tied the rope directly to the anchor or the belay loop with the same knot.  Also, what are the forces at the lead climbers last piece of protection with both methods and the same belay technique?  

Serge Smirnov wrote:

Any discussion of which method generates smaller forces is incomplete without considering the climber/belayer mass ratio.  For the top piece of pro, a catch by the belayer is normally softer.  But if the belayer is so light that the climber ends up getting caught by the anchor, then belaying off the anchor in the first place means a smaller effective fall factor.

No, it isn't.  That's the point.  They're saying that the extra mass of the belayer on the top piece of pro consistently outweighs the dampening effect of a soft catch.  Therefore belaying from the harness generates higher impact forces on the piece of pro.  

If the human belayer's weight is sufficient to fully catch the fall (without involving the anchor), then, other things equal, I don't see how the anchor (effectively an inifinte-weight belayer) could possibly put less load on the top piece.  But maybe "other things" aren't equal.  I wonder if something makes the Munter hitch slip more when belaying directly off the anchor.

But anyway, I didn't see a claim in the video that their result is valid for all belayer masses.  Unless I missed it, they make no mention at all of belayer mass.

David Coley wrote:

8. You can't use a Munter in any practical way with double ropes, only singles and twins - we Brits love our tad belays and our double ropes.

Interesting. I've been caught twice by a competent lead belayer using double(half?) ropes belaying on a munter off an anchor. Was I just lucky?

It isn't the catch that David is referring to, it is the half-rope handling (eg taking in one strand while paying out the other).  I've heard people say you can use two munters on separate carabiners, but have never tried it and have my doubts....

Serge Smirnov wrote:

If the human belayer's weight is sufficient to fully catch the fall (without involving the anchor), then, other things equal, I don't see how the anchor (effectively an inifinte-weight belayer) could possibly put less load on the top piece.  But maybe "other things" aren't equal.  I wonder if something makes the Munter hitch slip more when belaying directly off the anchor.

But anyway, I didn't see a claim in the video that their result is valid for all belayer masses.  Unless I missed it, they make no mention at all of belayer mass.

The anchor is not an "infinite-weight belayer."  Imagine a climber hanging from a piece, and their belay rope is fixed to an anchor on the ground.  How much force is on the piece?  The weight of the climber.   Now imagine a climber hanging off the same piece, but this time at the bottom is their belayer.  When the belayer is standing on the ground, the force on the piece is still just the weight of the climber.  But if the belayer leaves the ground—now they're both hanging—now the piece is holding more force: the mass of both the climber and the belayer.  

No, they didn't mention belayer mass, and yes, it matters.  But the point remains that within the scope of their testing, they found that the additional force added by having a belayer in the system was more than the force removed by a soft catch.  Ergo, belaying directly off the anchor often creates less impact force on the protection catching the fall.  

David Coley wrote:

3. The video says the direct belay places less force on the anchor that the indirect. This is hard to understand. Maybe it is covered in the linked pdf, but my French failed me. Things happen for a reason, and the only reason I can see for the forces being lower is there is more slippage, it which case this is a less like-for-like case than implied. I think you can see his hands being dragged a long way in the video. It would be interesting to know that would happen if the belayer's hands were right next to the carabiner.

My reading of the report is that what causes the force on the anchor to be larger when belaying from the harness is similar to what happens with a funkness device.  The belayer in those tests is slowly (relatively speaking) accelerated by the stretchable climbing rope and suddenly decelerated by the stiff tether connecting him to the anchor.  That's why they recommend to use the rope instead of a dyneema sling to tie the belayer to the anchor.

Phil Lauffen wrote:

Interesting. I've been caught twice by a competent lead belayer using double(half?) ropes belaying on a munter off an anchor. Was I just lucky?

Hi Phil, as rgold points out, I was not questioning whether a fall could be held, but how one takes in and gives slack efficiently, and without letting go of either rope. Out of interest, when you have done it, did you have two lockers with a munter on each, or one big locker, with one munter adjacent to the other.

brenta wrote:

My reading of the report is that what causes the force on the anchor to be larger when belaying from the harness is similar to what happens with a funkness device.  The belayer in those tests is slowly (relatively speaking) accelerated by the stretchable climbing rope and suddenly decelerated by the stiff tether connecting him to the anchor.  That's why they recommend to use the rope instead of a dyneema sling to tie the belayer to the anchor.

I'm trying to get my head around that. I still can't see why this when give a greater peak force. I think one can see the answer in the video. Look at the massive amount of slip when belaying off the anchor in the first test. This would be very hard to achieve except, as he does, by squatting on the floor. Giving slack etc. on hard climbs with the munter high above one is quite difficult I find. Works perfectly though for long easy routes when people are not yanking the rope to make desperate clips.

David Coley wrote:

Some thoughts.

1. as they say, lead belaying off the anchor is a common technique in some countries. At a guess it predates the belay plate. It is covered in at least one English language textbook (mine and Andy K's). This was traditionally done with a Italian Hitch (Munter).

Can confirm, pretty standard in Europe.

2. The video mentions using an Italian Hitch, however in the first section, the belayer has an orange Reverso on the anchor (2min 8sec). Strange?

Belaying with a reverso from a anchor is also common, however a 'dummy runner' is required: a quickdraw/biner slightly higher to act like a redirect in case the climber falls off before clipping the first bolt. Other methode is to add a carabiner on the brake side of the rope, but that is a pain in the back side. 

4. Offering a direct belay in the way filmed, with a Reverso (not in guide mode), I would suggest is untested in the real world. The amount of friction provided would be very low (possibly zero) if the belayer's hand was to the same side of the anchor as the lead climber. Belays in corners, or low anchors, could easily get out of control. There have been various attempts to solve this with re-directs, but these are difficult to rig, can suffer from catastrophic failure if one anchor piece fails, and were not even discussed in the video.

As mentioned above

7. This is all about fixed anchors, we rarely weight our anchors in an upward direction - as our bodies take the hit. The approach shown would weight the anchors in an upward direction every time someone fell. This would mean much more complex belays. For trad belays, I would suggest the key thing is to try and reduce the potential for upward loading. Belaying off the body does this most of the time.

Trad and sport are considered different techniques and are tough differently. 

8. You can't use a Munter in any practical way with double ropes, only singles and twins - we Brits love our tad belays and our double ropes.

You can; you can actually put twins/doubles in the same munter and either move them together or just one of them (if both are unloaded).