Top Belay Anchor

Hi there. I am new to top belay trad climbing. Is this anchor good? Furthermore, what kind of carabiner is superior for a trad belay. What kind of rope do i need to put into this anchor?

Its bomber dude, yer good to go.  

Well, with one hard point that anchor is not redundant. “Round stock” biners, or those that aren’t I or H beam construction provide an easier pull for belaying.

You need DMM Alpha Trad biners for everything. Also always carry eight ovals in case you drop your atc

What do you guys mean redundant, he's got two lockers, that's redundant

No!  You obviously have a lot to learn. That anchor is unsafe.  First of all it appears to be placed in granite.  Granite is very hard and will likely hurt you if you fall. You should stick to softer rocks that give easily under pressure. 

Second, you can't see what is going on inside the bolt hole.  Based on the exterior, there might be rust.  Always rely on anchors that you can visually inspect, like this one:

Finally, by redundant they mean you should definitely have two.  You can tie them together with some string, like these:

Have fun and be safe!

This was a trick question.  Only thing he needs is a crowbar and some small cams. :)

You all have a lot to learn about anchors.  That thing is metal pounded into granite, unbreakable.

Needs a quad.

I hauled off that bolt in 1974. If it was good then I see no reason why it shouldn’t be good now. 

Eli Mitchell wrote:

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. First of all, having two lockers at your belay is not redundant, if the bolt were to pop, the entire system would fail. Secondly, only the locker attatched to the anchor will be weight bearing, the second beneath the belay divice, however should not as the belay loop should never be weighted. Place another peice of gear in the crack and use a proper anchor following the SERENE acronyn.

You must be fun at parties

p zoobswrote:

You must be fun at parties

Thank god for covid 

Eli Mitchell wrote:

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. First of all, having two lockers at your belay is not redundant, if the bolt were to pop, the entire system would fail. Secondly, only the locker attatched to the anchor will be weight bearing, the second beneath the belay divice, however should not as the belay loop should never be weighted. Place another peice of gear in the crack and use a proper anchor following the SERENE acronyn.

Dude, it’s metal into granite it’s gotta be strong.   

Philip Magistrowrote:

No!  You obviously have a lot to learn. That anchor is unsafe.  

i think he got you...

Eli Mitchell wrote:

Better off having two or more points of contact than one.

I've seen those videos.

Eli Mitchell wrote:

Better off having two or more points of contact than one.

It looks like the gate of the lower biner is wedged in a constriction of the crack.   That will help take some of the weight off the bolt if you are that concerned about it.   

p zoobswrote:

You must be fun at parties

Hahahahaha. I agree

Eli Mitchell wrote:

Better off having two or more points of contact than one.

Dude, when you  weight the bolt, it's placing force on the top of the bolt at the bottom of the hole and the bottom of the bolt at the beginning of the hole. There's two points! It couldn't be safer! 

That bolt is plenty strong. As you can see from the picture, it's only being used to hold his useless belay device while he gives his partner a hip belay.

Always sucks to be the one guy taking a thread seriously 

Eli Mitchell wrote:

This is a good example of redundancy. 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that anchor is using a single crack so it's definitely not redundant. If the crack was to disappear then the whole anchor would fail and the climbers who thinks this is a safe anchor would plummet to their death! 

And everyone knows (except the person who built this anchor) that you need two nonlocking biners together in opposition to equal a locking biner, so by my count, this anchor only has 1.5 locking biners for 3 placements!

Also, the leftmost piece has its wire loop loaded over the edge! That'll certainly reduce the strength of the cable by a non-zero% And the person who built this anchor obviously doesn't understand that tying knots in a sling reduces its strength as well. Multiply the strength reduction caused by the knot and the cable over the edge and I'm surprised  the whole anchor didn't fail while the photographer was taking this picture. (Probably was going to post the photo to jive-assanchors.com/ anyway) 

Also, the pieces aren't Totems so the whole anchor is suspect even without the single point crack mistake, lack of enough locking biners, and strength reducing choices made!