Best option for clipping into multi-pitch anchors/belay stations etc.

Can I add a related question here?

When I multipitch sport or trad with good bolt anchors I normally build an anchor with the rope. But that assumes you swap leads each time. If you don't want to swap leaders...is there an efficient way around this?

**Edit: Holy shit Andrew Schlinder that video is terrifying. Basically all PAS and dyneema lanyards fail in factor 1 falls...wtf.

rgold wrote:

I think I meet the criteria, with 60 years of rock and mountain climbing experience and familiarity with techniques and gear from Goldine ropes and hip belays to many of the latest gadgets.  I prefer the term "installled tether," or IT for short, to avoid the brand names and the distinctions between chain-type tethers, Purcell prusiks, and and now the recent crop of adjustable climbing rope tethers.

I've been using various types of IT's for years, mostly for multipitch trad, but one lives on my outdoor harness so is always available.  They are by no means necessary, but contribute to efficiency in various small ways that, taken together, add up to genuine usefulness for me.

Here are some of the ways I use an IT.  Items 1, 2, and 3 by themselves can save real time on longer multipitch routes.  The  remaining items from 5 on are occasional uses, but if conditions call for them, a lot of time can be saved if the party has IT's ready to go.

1. At the top of a lead with one good anchor piece placed, I'll clip in with the IT and call off belay, then finish setting up the anchor.   I could do this by cloving in directly with the climbing rope, but this system avoids having to drag the slack through the belayer's device and avoids having to unclip and redo things when the anchor is finished.  I don't use the IT as a tensioned part of the anchor though, I usually use the rope for that.

2. Part of the reason for (1) above comes to play in this item.  As the person belaying the leader, I have my IT clipped to a good piece from step 1.  When the leader goes off belay, I can dissasemble all the rope rigging and remove all but the one anchor piece the IT connects to, put on shoes and the pack if they've been removed, all while the leader is setting up their belay anchor and pulling up the rope.  When the leader goes on belay, the rope has already been taken up to my harness tie-in and I have just one piece to remove before starting up, which usually means I can start climbing almost as soon as the leader has called on belay.  Then, when I get up to the stance, I clip in with my IT and am instantly off belay without having to be tied off, and the gear can be exchanged and I can head up the next lead.

3. When following and removing gear, one sometimes needs both hands.  It is usually quite inconvenient and sometimes impossible to do this by hanging on rope tension from above. If I have already-removed gear I can place or if some gear is in place not too far above, then I can clip it with the IT and get to work on the stuck gear.  The ability to adjust the IT while it is weighted is critical here, and this eliminates Purcell prusiks, which also suffer from a relatively low range of adjustment.

4. Immediate and effective extending of a rappel is obvious, and the adjustability of the tether becomes increasingly handy when many rappels with different anchor configurations are involved.  It is true that one can just use a sling, but the knot used in the middle of the sling can be very hard to untie. Time spent trying to untie it is time wasted, and if the knot can't be untied then a special-purpose piece of equipment has been created---and that's what an IT is!

5. It is sometimes necessary to do some improvised aid climbing, either because the moves prove too hard to free or because bad conditions or bad weather increases the difficulty. With a little knowledge and an IT ready to go, this will go as quickly and smoothly as possible (and literally hours can be lost if this is done inefficiently).  For this purpose, nothing comes close to the effectiveness of the Petzl Connect Adjust, since you can winch yourself up on a piece, unclip, extend with one hand, and clip higher.  (The smooth one-handed extension is where the Petzl gadget surpasses some of the other cheaper devices.)

6. Occasionally there may be a reason for one or more party members to unrope and retie.  This can be unplanned and the result of a badly tangled rope, or it can be planned as for a party of three climbing with two seconds following simultaneously and also swapping leads.  Being able to instantly clip into the anchors with an IT is a big help in terms of efficiency and safety.

7. There are occasional situations in which the leader might want to hang from a piece, but not with tension from the belayer, typically because the belayer has to do something, but maybe on a casual outing just to pull out a camera and take a picture.  With an IT ready to go, this is fast and efficient.

8.  Some climbs involve starts or sections with class 3 or 4 or easy 5th which the party does carrying their ropes coiled.  If an anchor is needed, the IT is ready to be deployed even though the climber isn't roped and even if all the climber's slings are pinned under a pack and/or the rope coil.

9. A climber who falls and ends up hanging in space will have to prusik up the rope.  In order to get started, they will need a relatively long foot sling.  This may not be a problem for a leader, but might be a major issue for a second who is climbing with short prusik loops but no extra slings, at least if they don't know or can't execute the gymnastic trick of standing up on the rope at waist level.  The IT can be easily removed and used as a foot loop in this case.

10. After this come a number of self-rescue applications I'm not going to bother trying to list, as a self-rescue that is genuinely necessary and also feasible is a very rare occurrence.  And I haven't mentioned things like connecting to bolts while rethreading the lead rope for lowering, because this is so easily done with quickdraws that there is no point in carrying up an IT just for that.

It is true that there is a way to improvise everything mentioned runners.  The point is that the accumulated efficiencies can add up to genuine time-saving.  And for the inveitable criticism about bulk, gimme a break.  Most folks are loaded with so much gear that an installed tether is simply not any kind of additional encumbrance.

Yes, your last statement!  That's it!  A PAS or IT has no place in an efficient rack.  Why carry a double set of cams up a route that'll protect well with a handful of stoppers?

This is, perhaps, one of those subjects we could debate longer than the history of the sport as there isn't a right or wrong.

Wow, thats pretty much the end all video. Definitely makes me consider changing my setup. 

-Kyle. I run into that situation a lot as i also frequently make rope anchors. Quickly re-tieing is the only solution i know of. Which... if your cloved in, poses an issue. 

Kyle vH wrote:When I multipitch sport or trad with good bolt anchors I normally build an anchor with the rope. But that assumes you swap leads each time. If you don't want to swap leaders...is there an efficient way around this?

Some recommend having each person tie into each anchor point using their own independent series of clove hitches and carabiners.

If 3 clove hitches / carabiners per climber is too many, 2 of the anchor pieces can be combined into 1 using a 60cm sling (sliding x or inline overhand).  Then each climber has 2 clove hitches / carabiners.

See also https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/110198595/anchor-building-with-the-rope

chris magness wrote:

Yes, your last statement!  That's it!  A PAS or IT has no place in an efficient rack.  Why carry a double set of cams up a route that'll protect well with a handful of stoppers?

This is, perhaps, one of those subjects we could debate longer than the history of the sport as there isn't a right or wrong.

My last statement includes the claim that  "...the accumulated efficiencies can add up to genuine time-saving."  That makes the IT more efficient than continually improvising, not less.

You are right, the debate has been going on for a long time.  But you don't advance it much extracting only a part of my last statement and then asking a question I answered at length in the previous 10 points!  

Moreover, your analogy about cams is faulty.  One also carries a double set of cams on routes where one doesn't know what the protection will be like.  Your objection then becomes that we don't need an IT routes that are known not to require an IT, which is true but of no consequence.  Since quite a few of my points referred to situations that cannot be predicted ahead of time, the IT situation is never analogous to leaving the cams behind because it is known they aren't needed.

Of course, one can take the proclamation "A PAS or IT has no place in an efficient rack" to be the god-given definition of an "efficient rack," in which case there is no argument because the issues have been defined out of existence.  In this case, you could take my post as saying that there can be a host of efficiencies created by an inefficient rack, and if this terminology seems self-contradictory, you have only your choice of words to blame.

This is roughly the 10,000th instance of "How do I connect myself to a climbing anchor?" and the answer is still "use a clove hitch". A double length sling works fine for a personal tether/rappel extension but you can keep a PAS or Connect Adjust awkwardly clipped around your harness all day if you think it's worth it.

Kyle vH wrote:

Can I add a related question here?

When I multipitch sport or trad with good bolt anchors I normally build an anchor with the rope. But that assumes you swap leads each time. If you don't want to swap leaders...is there an efficient way around this?

When the anchor is two bolts, you just have the second carry two locking carabiners.  Clip 'em underneath the leader's anchor carabiners and have the second clove in as the leader had.  It's two clove hitches---done in a matter of seconds!

With trad routes involving more complex three-point anchors, if one person is doing all the leading or if the leading is in blocks, it will be more efficient to set up the anchor with a cordelette and master point.

Benjamin Mitchell wrote:

This is roughly the 10,000th instance of "How do I connect myself to a climbing anchor?" and the answer is still "use a clove hitch". A double length sling works fine for a personal tether/rappel extension but you can keep a PAS or Connect Adjust awkwardly clipped around your harness all day if you think it's worth it.

My post, however, is not about "connecting to a climbing anchor."  That perspective is the beginning of much of the fallacious reasoning about IT's.  I use clove hitches to connect to the anchor.  I tried to illustrate that the IT has a lot more uses and helps to create a lot more efficiencies than simple anchor-clipping, and that in response to a claim that no experienced climber ever uses them.

It is true that these points are off-topic as a response to the post subject heading, and I didn't say anything until it was implied that IT's have no uses whatsoever.

A double length sling is inferior for my items 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8.  Moreover, in many of those cases, the person needing the double-length sling won't have one.  Also, please explain exactly how having the IT "awkwardly clipped around your harness all day" affects or slows anything you do climbing, i.e. what makes carrying it "awkward" and what the effects of "awkwardness" are.

The only situation I know of is in offwidth climbing, when you want your cross-section to be as clean as possible.  I'd ditch the IT for those pitches.

Folks, I couldn't care less whether you use an IT or not.  Read the points I've made, think it through for yourselves, attend to criticisms with actual content, and do whatever you think will make you faster, more efficient, and better prepared for uncertainties.

ANCHOR IN WITH A FUCKING CLOVE HITCH.

rgold wrote:

When the anchor is two bolts, you just have the second carry two locking carabiners.  Clip 'em underneath the leader's anchor carabiners and have the second clove in as the leader had.  It's two clove hitches---done in a matter of seconds!

Nice that's easy to picture, thank you! 

That video deserves its own thread. That's some serious public service announcement shit right there. Someone should post links to (dynamic) products that do work.

rgold wrote:

My post, however, is not about "connecting to a climbing anchor."  That perspective is the beginning of much of the fallacious reasoning about IT's.  I use clove hitches to connect to the anchor.  I tried to illustrate that the IT has a lot more uses and helps to create a lot more efficiencies than simple anchor-clipping, and that in response to a claim that no experienced climber ever uses them.

It is true that these points are off-topic as a response to the post subject heading, and I didn't say anything until it was implied that IT's have no uses whatsoever.

A double length sling is inferior for my items 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8.  Moreover, in many of those cases, the person needing the double-length sling won't have one.  Also, please explain exactly how having the IT "awkwardly clipped around your harness all day" affects or slows anything you do climbing, i.e. what makes carrying it "awkward" and what the effects of "awkwardness" are.

The only situation I know of is in offwidth climbing, when you want your cross-section to be as clean as possible.  I'd ditch the IT for those pitches.

Folks, I couldn't care less whether you use an IT or not.  Read the points I've made, think it through for yourselves, attend to criticisms with actual content, and do whatever you think will make you faster, more efficient, and better prepared for uncertainties.

Hey I was responding to the original question so I only just read your posts. You've clearly found a bunch of good uses for an IT. I bought a PAS and took it climbing 2-3 times and felt like I barely used it and decided that the extra convenience factor wasn't worth the weight and harness clutter. I mainly climb at areas with walk offs, maybe I would have favored the PAS more if I was doing more rappels. 

Benjamin Mitchell wrote:

I mainly climb at areas with walk offs, maybe I would have favored the PAS more if I was doing more rappels. 

This rings true to me. My main reason for using a dual connect-adjust is that it allows me to easily set up an extended rappel and weight the rappel before unclipping from the anchor. I use it to rappel because accidents are so common there, so I wanted a system that's easy and resilient against my own mistakes. I use the connect-adjust for clipping in, but that's just because it's easily available--I'd use a simpler system if the connect-adjust weren't already on my harness for rappelling.

I've been around long enough to have tried almost all of the options.  Nothing for most of my climbing career, the double-length sling, the Purcell prusik, the Metoius PAS and Sterling Chain Reactor, and the Petzl Connect Adjust.

Being made of rope, the Petzl rig is a bit bulkier in place than the other options.  For improvised aid and two-handed cleaning of stuck gear, it is in a class by itself.  But I have also been surprised by how nice (if not essential) it is to be able to fine-tune an attachment after you've made it.  

1. The pain and awkwardness of a belay position don't always announce themselves immediately, and by the time they do you're tied in and belaying.  It turns out that in such situations, even a few inches of change can make a huge difference in comfort, and you can adjust the Petzl rig one-handed while still securing a belay.  

2. It sometimes turns out to be useful to be able to make rather large changes in the tie-in length.  For example, you stacked the rope behind your feet on a narrow ledge.  When you want to pick up the pile, your tie-in is too short for you to bend over and reach it.  With the Petzl rig, it's just zip!---longer tether, pick up the pile---zip! back in short and ready for the next action.  Same deal with shoes you loosened while belaying...

3. I've found the Petzl rig sometimes simplifies anchor directionals.  These are generally less problematic for those of us who use double ropes, but even so the Connect can be a time-saver. Need a directional piece to protect the belay from horizontal loads?  Put in a piece to the side, clip in with the Connect, and zip!---its adjusted to the perfect tension.

I leave the ground most of the time with a few cams and a handful of nuts.  I carry a double rack in the Valley, but this, as already mentioned, area specific.  East Coast irregular cracks eat stoppers.

Terrain too, is a considerstion.  Are you going you going to carry a PAS on a multi pitch alpine route with a 10 mile approach, where you're likely carrying the lightest load possible?  What about winter climbing when you're wearing more clothing and gloves?  Trinkets are nothing more than a cumbersnce.  

I scrutinize everything I carry, always, across disciplines and regions. 

A PAS is bulk.  The uses that you highlight are easily accomplshed with a sling or the rope and locking caribiners, stuff you already have.

My preference is, clearly, simplicity and utility.

I can't advance the conversation.  Nor can you.  We're not talking about safety protocol, we're talking about  preference. And as long time climbers, we're entrenched.

For me, something like a PAS is useful if I'm hanging for a long period of time, frequently adjusting my position.  Cleaning a single pitch route would be another consideration, but not if I had to walk 2 hours to get there.

-----

Concerning that video demonstrating PAS failure, didn't watch it.  It is important to understand that our gear has limits.  If a PAS were to fail because of load, I'd chalk it up to user error, not device failure.  If they weren't safe, a systems guru and and lifetime climber like Rgold  wouldn't be supporting their value.  I realize this is counter to my position, but again, this is a discussion of preference.

rgold wrote:

1. At the top of a lead with one good anchor piece placed, I'll clip in with the IT and call off belay, then finish setting up the anchor.   I could do this by cloving in directly with the climbing rope, but this system avoids having to drag the slack through the belayer's device and avoids having to unclip and redo things when the anchor is finished.  I don't use the IT as a tensioned part of the anchor though, I usually use the rope for that.

Rgold: Do you mind to explain this a little better? I don't really understand what you are trying to say here. Why would you have to drag slack through the device when you don't use a PAS? Or why would you have to unclip and redo things when not using a PAS?

And how do you carry the PAS? Around your waist? Over or under the rest of the gear?

Simplest belay I can think of is something like that Yosemite belay posted somewhere in this thread. Plug in a piece or use a bolt. Clovehitch that piece. Do the other pieces likewise. Then pull up the rest of the rope, Munter in a large carabiner in the lowest piece and start belaying. When we switch leads this setup works fine and it is very quick. Otherwise I would use a sling to connect the pieces. Maybe you can explain your point in contrast with this kind of belay?

chris magness wrote:

I leave the ground most of the time with a few cams and a handful of nuts.  I carry a double rack in the Valley, but this, as already mentioned, area specific.  East Coast irregular cracks eat stoppers.

Terrain too, is a considerstion.  Are you going you going to carry a PAS on a multi pitch alpine route with a 10 mile approach, where you're likely carrying the lightest load possible?  What about winter climbing when you're wearing more clothing and gloves?  Trinkets are nothing more than a cumbersnce.  

I scrutinize everything I carry, always, across disciplines and regions. 

A PAS is bulk.  The uses that you highlight are easily accomplshed with a sling or the rope and locking caribiners, stuff you already have.

My preference is, clearly, simplicity and utility.

I can't advance the conversation.  Nor can you.  We're not talking about safety protocol, we're talking about  preference. And as long time climbers, we're entrenched.

For me, something like a PAS is useful if I'm hanging for a long period of time, frequently adjusting my position.  Cleaning a single pitch route would be another consideration, but not if I had to walk 2 hours to get there.

Andrew Schindler wrote:

I looks like there were knots in the PAS during the FF 1 test and the PAS failed at the knot.  

Chris, if "advancing the conversation" means convincing each other or someone else, maybe we can't advance it.  As a mathematician, I retain a naive faith in the power of logic, but there is very little in our daily and political lives to suggest this is anything but a vain hope.

To clarify the logic anyway, you began with "efficiency," but have now changed to something more like minimality.  There are reasons to strive for minimality and efficiency, but they are not the same thing and might even conflict with each other.  Your own example of nuts and cams is a case in point.  Nuts can be very fiddly to place, especially in cracks that are relatively uniform.  Lots of time can be consumed arranging protection when the textbook constrictions aren't present.  So while carrying a set of nuts and leaving the cams behind is light and may be admirable from various perspectives, it may also turn out to be quite inefficient, because you could be plugging in cams rather than concocting opposed nuts and other such niceties.  It is possible to sympathize with both ideals, but one shouldn't view them as identical.

This highlights the fact that, in some cases, more or heavier gear might be more efficient than a minimal selection in terms of the time the party takes.  A trivial example is the use of longer and longer ropes, which provide (in some cases) extra speed but of course weigh more and typically require that more gear be carried.  An increase in weight is leveraged for purported better speed and efficiency.  This is true for a lot of what we carry, as we could certainly manage without any kind of harness, any kind of belay device, and any kind of cordelette (and I have done so for part of my climbing career).  Do we look askance at these items when packing for that multipitch alpine route with a 10 mile approach?  There is a whole lot of weight to be shed, but it won't make the party more efficient (and they'll be less comfortable and at more at risk as well).  This is exactly the situation with the IT's.  If you know what to do with them, and don't think they are merely for clipping to the anchor instead of cloving in, then they can speed things up, make them more comfortable, and increase safety.  Sometimes---I don't want to make extravagant claims, as the benefits are not huge.

Finally, I get that an UL toothbrush-driller might look at an installed tether and worry about the weight it is adding to their kit.  In the case you bring up, I have carried an IT on approaches of considerably more than 10 miles for back-country climbing, and am absolutely certain that if said tether were to fall out of my pack while hiking, I would never notice the change. Nobody else would either.  The weight is a non-issue for all but a fanatic few, who might get a psychological boost from eliminating an item, even though its presence or absence is essentially undetectable.  

There is of course the slippery slope fallacy, which argues that once you let the tether creep in to your gear, there will be no limit to the extras you'll feel compelled to embrace, with the result that your gear will double in weight.  The answer is simple: don't do that.

rgold wrote:

a psychological boost from eliminating an item

I think this is the root issue.  A culture of rationality forces us to express our preferences in terms of objective things like weight or speed, but in reality we are driven by psychological boosts.  By any objective measure - weight, safety, fuel - the optimal solution is to stay at home.  Or, if we want to burn calories, run a marathon or do a long hike.  But none of us here would be satisfied with that.

It may be possible to track the frequency of using IT, measure the time savings in seconds, and calculate how much its weight slows us down on approach, but I don't think any of us would change what we do as a result.  It would only force us to refine our explanations.

I almost always carry something that can be turned into IT, but I often avoid installing it on the harness (until it is time to rappel) because sometimes it gets tangled in gear.  I don't know if the frequency of such tangles multiplied by the time spent untangling outweighs the time savings, I just know that the tangles have a disproportionate negative psychological effect on me (as measured by my use of foul language), so I avoid them ;)