How much redundancy is too much?

Been top rope soloing for about a year now and absolutely love it. I tend to be able to get way out there and away from people and crowded spots but also means that i've gotta accept that higher risk of being out alone. Becuse of that I have always gone pretty far with redundancy; uaually a quad-anchor or similar so I can have full redundancy up top with 2 carabiners off of the anchor to the rope, a double figure 8 up top w/ bunny ears (seperate ears into each of the carabiners), and i end up climbing with both strands of the rope with a capture device on each. This usually means a lot more gear and a lot more rope but better safe than sorry when I'm alone.

How much is too much? Anyone think its worth it to switch to like a girth-hitch / sliding-x anchor with a single carabiner up top and use the single strand of rope?

Some people say one #3 is enough. 

It sounds like you’re soloing off bolted anchors? I don’t see that one extra locker and a little anchor material weighs that much. I’d stick with two progress capture devices as well. I don’t get how you’re needing a lot of extra rope as well. You only bring one rope, right? If you’re bringing two, yeah, that’s probably overkill.

You’re the one who knows the requirements of the crag though. At short crags I’ve used gym length ropes but it all depends on the conditions. Carrying a little training weight is good for you and it’s hard from what you related to determine what you could leave behind and would make a big difference in weight.

Colonel Mustardwrote:

Some people say one #3 is enough. 

It sounds like you’re soloing off bolted anchors? I don’t see that one extra locker and a little anchor material weighs that much. I’d stick with two progress capture devices as well. I don’t get how you’re needing a lot of extra rope as well. You only bring one rope, right? If you’re bringing two, yeah, that’s probably overkill.

You’re the one who knows the requirements of the crag though. At short crags I’ve used gym length ropes but it all depends on the conditions. Carrying a little training weight is good for you and it’s hard from what you related to determine what you could leave behind and would make a big difference in weight.

Yeah for the majority of the time it is bolted anchors. Only a couple spots i've needed to build my own. In the grand scheme of things yeah its really not that much extra gear / weight, just looking to see thoughts on if others think its overkill and what other people do regularly. Yeah 2 capture devices won't go away, it would be more climbing with one strand to a "smaller" anchor setup. I usually bring a 70m rope so I can have enough to run both strands. I know it all comes down to each person's own risk acceptance, but just curious.

One of the things I love about TRS model is for exploring unknown rocks and crags on top rope. I get to jettison the idea that the anchor needs to be right at the top of the line I want to explore, or very near it. Instead the anchor could be a massive fir tree 50 feet back from the top, and even off to the side. Just tie rope to tree, rap down, place a directional somewhere near top of line, and viola, rap to bottom and start climbing. Get to top, remove directional, pick another adjacent line, re-place directional, and wash rinse repeat.

I use a single rope for this. I may or may not place a directional, depending on the angles involved and cut potential. Its not like a traditional top rope where we're effectively sawing away by pulling the rope over the rock as we belay. The rope is stationary and the greatest strain is our weight when rappelling, again not dragging or sawing the rope over stone. Why two lines, I've never understood this?

I always use two devices on the rope.

All I'm saying is, thinking outside the box, your box, when it comes to TRS anchors, can be (might be) liberating.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

 Why two lines, I've never understood this?

1) When TRS using a dynamic rope, if the rope is running over any edge, then every time you weight the rope, it will saw over that same edge in the same spot on the rope. I've seen posts on the TRS facebook group of people's ropes almost cut through becuase of this. 

2) This can be even more obvious and worse if the fall is at all swinging and causes the rope to move sideways over an edge.

If you use a static rope and there's no swinging, it might not be an issue. Personally I don't TRS enough to justify the purchase of a static rope. 

3) When TRS on ice (common at ice parks) obviously there are rope cut risks inherent in ice climbing and dependent on whether anyone could be above you (ideally not but shit happens..) or if the rope could get wrapped around an ice feature and shear it off. As well as the usual risk of nabbing your own rope with your own tool.

4) Finally if a rope has an iced-up spot, then no PCD will grab in that spot! And it's dangerous to fall even a short distance on ice. 

That being said, setting up two strands is such an enormous pain in the ass that i've always just used one. I'm aware of the risks I'm taking when doing so though, and if I observed a particularly bad swinging/sawing fall potential, I'd switch to 2 strands for that.

So that was you Cherokee…… 

Was climbing in Santa Barbara- San Ysidro to be exact, a fantastic old school crag down in the “cold - close to sea level”  anyway friends and I had the place to ourselves then this person walks up and needs directions on how to get to “the top” and announced that “im a top rope soloist”….. we offer to give him a belay on our ropes- set up on 2 good climbs, Oranghang and one to the right. He declines and sets off.
30 minutes later, a huge shower of small rocks and little branches comes off the top landing off to our right…???!! Then the dude appears, rappelling and shows great form because he has the rope in his pack “rope bucket style” …. As he rapped he picks a up hi bolt and uses it to diagonal over towards us, picks another bolt diagonals closer to us and finally when he is directly above us - emptying his rope bucket on us!!!????!!?!?!? All without a warning.
So he is finally on the ground right where we were hanging. We were getting ready to move over left and climb Applied Magnets- my favorite climb at the place - FA: Christian Bonnington and Evon Chounard … 1967 or so.
The dude never said I’m sorry or anything….

So Cherokee was that you? 

Ellen Swrote:

1) When TRS using a dynamic rope, if the rope is running over any edge, then every time you weight the rope, it will saw over that same edge in the same spot on the rope. I've seen posts on the TRS facebook group of people's ropes almost cut through becuase of this. 

That being said, setting up two strands is such an enormous pain in the ass that i've always just used one. I'm aware of the risks I'm taking when doing so though, and if I observed a particularly bad swinging/sawing fall potential, I'd switch to 2 strands for that.

Probably the biggest reason I have been using both strands. Yeah i haven't gotten a static rope yet and usually carry some old firehose with me as a protector for any rope hanging over a ledge. Usually only use that close to the anchor though. Also seen some interesting techniques with a quickdraw and slipknot that can be used if there are bolts on the route to remove load off of a particular section that has wear potential. One you climb up to it, you can remove the knot and draw and climb on past the spot.

Agree though that setting up 2 stands can be a bit of a pain and the ass.

Guy Keeseewrote:

So that was you Cherokee…… 

Was climbing in Santa Barbara- San Ysidro to be exact, a fantastic old school crag down in the “cold - close to sea level”  anyway friends and I had the place to ourselves then this person walks up and needs directions on how to get to “the top” and announced that “im a top rope soloist”….. we offer to give him a belay on our ropes- set up on 2 good climbs, Oranghang and one to the right. He declines and sets off.
30 minutes later, a huge shower of small rocks and little branches comes off the top landing off to our right…???!! Then the dude appears, rappelling and shows great form because he has the rope in his pack “rope bucket style” …. As he rapped he picks a up hi bolt and uses it to diagonal over towards us, picks another bolt diagonals closer to us and finally when he is directly above us - emptying his rope bucket on us!!!????!!?!?!? All without a warning.
So he is finally on the ground right where we were hanging. We were getting ready to move over left and climb Applied Magnets- my favorite climb at the place - FA: Christian Bonnington and Evon Chounard … 1967 or so.
The dude never said I’m sorry or anything….

So Cherokee was that you? 

This thread just grew legs.

So Cherokee was that you?

I can't believe I missed you! Well, there's always next time.

1) When TRS using a dynamic rope, if the rope is running over any edge, then every time you weight the rope, it will saw over that same edge in the same spot on the rope. I've seen posts on the TRS facebook group of people's ropes almost cut through becuase of this. 

2) This can be even more obvious and worse if the fall is at all swinging and causes the rope to move sideways over an edge.

Redirect. Come on, you're just fucking with me.

You might be able to get away without the quad and just use the rope if edge abrasion isn't an issue. Your amount of redundancy is in no way excessive.

another way of dealing with edges is to re-anchor as soon as you can below it with just a bit of slack above.  i usually just use a single piece and a clove hitch for this.

I’ve been TRSing for a long time and I do think your level of redundancy is too much. Like all things, you generally start off overly-safe and then realize the risk is not what you thought it was over time, and change from there. I started with a similar system to you.

I now use a single static line, I use a master point on whatever anchor you want, a figure 8 on a bight on one biner and then clove hitch another biner. This makes it very easy to untie the 8, which essentially acts as a back up for the clove hitch. Use rope protectors on edges, and you’re good to go.

I also only use a single device but I wouldn’t recommend that to anybody, though personally I don’t find anything unsafe about it.

When leading, you use a single rope and a single device. When TRing, you use a single rope and a single device. When TRSing you use double ropes and two devices in case of catastrophic device or rope failure(?). The logic doesn’t make sense to me since catastrophic failures could occur at any time in any form of climbing, and TRs specific failures can be mitigated(protecting edges).

Eric, its insane to me that you use a single device. Everyone I personally know who does TRS regularly has had a device or human failure before.

“Like all things, you generally start off overly-safe and then realize the risk is not what you thought it was over time, and change from there.”

There’s some truth to this, though I’ve equally found that as I entered into a new activity, the level of actual risk was considerably higher than I’d anticipated. I just plain didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Desert Rock Sportswrote:

Eric, its insane to me that you use a single device. Everyone I personally know who does TRS regularly has had a device or human failure before.

That’s why I don’t recommend it to anybody. Human failure is entirely on you, but I haven’t had any device failure in 10+ years. I actually switched from two micros to a single shunt(!!!!!!) to work cruxes easier. Never had any device failure with the two micros, and none with the shunt, I also use a bungee to keep the shunt upright and prevent the “flip” failure. 

I’m surprised to hear everybody you know who TRS has had device failure. Do you know which devices? Like another poster mentioned, that’s like saying every one I know has had a regular TR device failure.

Again, nobody use my system I don’t recommend it at all.

Edit:thinking again, I did have a handful of times where I forgot to engage the teeth on one of my micros, I think the device itself makes that type of human error more likely to occur, so perhaps two micros is a safer system to guard against forgetting to engage the teeth.

Slings, branches, shirts, rocks, etc... getting caught in devices between rope and teeth, devices getting locked open. Mostly microtrax style.

Desert Rock Sportswrote:

Eric, its insane to me that you use a single device. Everyone I personally know who does TRS regularly has had a device or human failure before.

I'm in this camp as well; that's why I've never really liked the Shunt because it's single device, although many people have used it for a long time w/o issue. 

Re: redundancy, I use two micro Ts in tandem on a single fixed line. I've never tried the double figure 8 method giving you two separate fixed lines because it never really seemed necessary where I typically climb. This is one of the many parts of climbing where it comes down to situational understanding of risk vs any specific system, although you will likely end up using the same approach more often than not. 

https://youtu.be/DHgozZxLbyo?si=sH7hChscqe5KQdLd

They touch on the two rope thing here pretty eloquently. 

For two devices:

You only need one device when belaying a climber because the device is made for that. You can keep an eye on it all the time and make sure the biner doesn’t get cross loaded. And you’re not moving around much.

For TRS you’re often using a device not made for it, you’re constantly moving and jostling the device around, you’re not always keeping an eye on it to make sure it’s setup correctly and the biner isn’t cross loaded. A shoulder sling / bungee helps keep it in the correct position. So if I only used one device I’d usually do that  

I’ve done TRS with a single grigri when developing. It’s made for belaying so I trust it to take a fall on more than say a microtrax but I always tie a backup knot because I don’t have a shoulder sling keeping it in position (I never drilled a hole for that) so theoretically the biner could get cross loaded and break in a fall and then I’d fall to my back up knot.

For other things :

As mentioned if you know how to setup the rope so it won’t saw thru you only need one rope. I definitely want two biners at the top, again you can’t keep an eye on it so you may not know if one gets cross loaded, I want two reversed and opposed biners (don’t need to be lockers) connecting the rope to the anchor. I often use a quad at the top because I’m often climbing more than one line and the quad is great for allowing the rope to slide from side to side. 

Gloweringwrote:

I’ve done TRS with a single grigri when developing. It’s made for belaying so I trust it to take a fall on more than say a microtrax but I always tie a backup knot because I don’t have a shoulder sling keeping it in position (I never drilled a hole for that) so theoretically the biner could get cross loaded and break in a fall and then I’d fall to my back up knot.

If your biner breaks and you're not longer connected to your single grigri, I'm not sure what backup knots are doing for ya here.