Mussy Hook Unclipped While Lowering

Also, the ASCA has raised $15,800 towards a goal of $30,000 goal for their 2025 Lower Off Initiative. 

All donations are being matched dollar for dollar right now. 

If you appreciate lowering hardware on anchors, get your wallet out.
https://safeclimbing.org/donate

phylp phylpwrote:

Max, I sincerely appreciate that you are using your own time and money to do something that you think will improve safety for climbers. But I do not particularly like this design. I really don’t like the single link, with two bulky things in it that reduce movement. I do not like the rounded nose and gate of the mussy facing the rock. I prefer the current installations.

If I came across this kind of anchor my first thought would be 'wow, whoever did this doesn't know what they're doing'.

Marc801 Cwrote:

If I came across this kind of anchor my first thought would be 'wow, whoever did this doesn't know what they're doing'.

That clean glue in job really screams gumby, doesn't it?

Camdon Kaywrote:

That clean glue in job really screams gumby, doesn't it?

No, it's the opposed Mussys and they're on the same quick link.

Marc801 Cwrote:

No, it's the opposed Mussys and they're on the same quick link.

OK, WHY is it wrong to put opposed Mussies on the same quick link?

Upthread there is a typical anchor of two opposed carabiners on a ring, Mussies on quick link look like a cheaper variant of that setup. Of course, when crabs wear out replacement is not an option since they are on welded steel ring.
Ring typically specs at 25-50KN match quicklinks depending on the size chosen, specs for carabiners and mussies match as well.

Have YOU done failure analysis that proves Mussies to be more likely to fail in this configuration? How about quicklink? 

J Lwrote:

phylp, my understanding was that at the time of the sand rock incident, common refrains were to use a biner or locker on a link above the mussies, so that wear was avoided on fixed hardware, and for ease of cleaning.

I’ll have to take your word for it that this was a common practice as I have personally never seen it or heard of it as a practice. That is not surprising - we only see what we and our partners do. When I heard about it it just struck me as inherently bad.  I find it hard to understand why using a single quick draw in a single bolt would be considered an adequately constructed anchor by anyone. That it is ‘backed up” by the unweighted mussys below it is nice and they would probably perform as a backup. But none of that is necessary.  

This is my last post in this thread. People understand each other’s opinions at this point, which have been clearly and politely expressed  for the most part. 

I second the request for a photo of this "opposite and opposed" Mussies.  We climb on them constantly in the ORG and have no problems.  The gates do get twisted sometimes, I think because of the rope smacking them as it's pulled through.  But for lowering, even without gates altogether, it's hard to imagine a problem if they are both facing out, i.e. NOT twisted. We do TR on our own draws, but occasionally we throw a lap on the Mussies. 

amariuswrote:

OK, WHY is it wrong to put opposed Mussies on the same quick link?

Upthread there is a typical anchor of two opposed carabiners on a ring, Mussies on quick link look like a cheaper variant of that setup. Of course, when crabs wear out replacement is not an option since they are on welded steel ring.
Ring typically specs at 25-50KN match quicklinks depending on the size chosen, specs for carabiners and mussies match as well.

Have YOU done failure analysis that proves Mussies to be more likely to fail in this configuration? How about quicklink? 

The mussies are a pain to clip in this orientation. Also, others have pointed out that due to the design of the baskets, this orientation tends to pinch the rope. 

BAdwrote:

I second the request for a photo of this "opposite and opposed" Mussies.

Um, there's one on this very page upthread. 3 on the previous page.

Uh, DOH!  Posted stupidly before reading further.  

That orientation looks like a bit of hassle to use, but I get the logic.  Use conventional Mussie orientation correctly, you'll be fine--as Phyl pointed out.  You gotta tie into your harness correctly each time, too.  Learn the game.  Teach the game.

OK, let's start educational PSAs -

Do not TR off fixed gear, even though your mom/dad/buddy told it was OK. Hang your own draws
Mussy gates away from the wall are totally super good enough, unless meteorite hits them. Then YGD!

Cleaning anchor with Mussies installed

And, here is "Sand Rock" accident analysis

FWIW: We rarely do it, and we are involved in anchor replacement from time to time.  No need to preach to the converted.  Also, we have some super grizzled veterans in the ORG who put up STACKS of routes sometimes TR'ing on the anchors THEY put in. LOL.  

Sure do love those new super beefy Mussies with the wire gates, tho.

Oh for fucks sake. Time to use anchors made for climbing, Not grandad’s tow hook gumbied up with wire. All the money spent in gas, grass, glue, time, drill bits, bolts, chain. Just come up with some way over built steel captive  locking biner. 

Ackley The Improvedwrote:

Oh for fucks sake. Time to use anchors made for climbing, Not grandad’s tow hook gumbied up with wire. All the money spent in gas, grass, glue, time, drill bits, bolts, chain. Just come up with some way over built steel captive  locking biner. 

It would actually be cool if there were a way to crimp a thick sacrificial rope-wearing surface over a portion of a carabiner basket - similar idea to the Edelrid Bulletproof, but different. Same concept as the Mammut plastic wear protector for the lower tie-in point. -Can't think of a way to make that work on stainless 10mm round stock, tho. 

The Mussy hooks do take a lot of abuse before they are used up- I don't think you can find a cost-effective climbing carabiner that would last as long. 

Edit to add: The Edelrid Topper Station does have just such a removable sacrificial two-piece plug of metal - maybe they could rework their design so that they could offer these cast iron bolt-on slugs to fit over existing lower-off carabiners...

https://edelrid.com/us-en/sport/climbing-wall-construction-shop/topper-station

Let’s not forget there is no maintenance company to call for climbing anchors. Organized maintenance of climbing hardware is not the norm in the US, it’s the exception.

With hardware provided by the awesome guys at the ASCA (shout out to Greg & Nate!), many many motivated volunteers have retrofit many thousands of routes with lowering hardware all working towards the goal of making sure everyone gets home safely at night.

To me, the more consistent the education and mentoring can be on the topic of using and cleaning anchors, the less likely accidents will happen.

I never considered someone might purposely turn a mussy hook around so this is something I will add when I work with newer climbers. 

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

the mussy hooks were installed both gates facing out of the wall, and I was finishing my lead coming up to the anchor, and I twisted both inward maybe 45 degrees so that I could clip them facing opposite directions.

Don't do that, now you know. Clearly you were setting things up differently then whoever installed the anchor intended. You're not the first person to have this happen to them when intentionally trying to opposite and oppose an anchor that was clearly not intended for it. 

Anna Brownwrote:To me, the more consistent the education and mentoring can be on the topic of using and cleaning anchors, the less likely accidents will happen.

I never considered someone might purposely turn a mussy hook around so this is something I will add when I work with newer climbers. 

It’s not just newer climbers. I have been climbing since 2018 (maybe that makes me new still for some of the older heads haha). I learned to sport climb in RRG and was taught to rap off everything. Then there was a switch some years ago to lowering, and so we put a byte through rings and tied a new knot. I started to encounter mussy hooks maybe in the early 2020’s? I just assumed they were beefy carabiners, as at that point I was “out of the nest,” so to speak. I think the lowering-rapping ethics switch happened right at that dunning kruger moment where you start to think you know. I think a certain humility is required, that every time you encounter some new equipment, you gotta figure out as much as you can about it. Had no idea that twisting mussies could make them pop. The articles upthread on hooks, and pictures/info on cold shuts make it super helpful to put it into perspective.

Looking back, I’ll say one thing that wasn’t emphasized in my “upbringing” is the future uncertainty aspect, that climbing is a continually developing sport, and you’re going to encounter new gear that might deceptively look like older stuff, but it could behave quite differently, and it’s going to be on you to be humble and learn it once you stop getting “mentored.” 

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

It’s not just newer climbers. I have been climbing since 2018 (maybe that makes me new still for some of the older heads haha). I learned to sport climb in RRG and was taught to rap off everything. Then there was a switch some years ago to lowering, and so we put a byte through rings and tied a new knot. I started to encounter mussy hooks maybe in the early 2020’s? I just assumed they were beefy carabiners, as at that point I was “out of the nest,” so to speak. I think the lowering-rapping ethics switch happened right at that dunning kruger moment where you start to think you know. I think a certain humility is required, that every time you encounter some new equipment, you gotta figure out as much as you can about it. Had no idea that twisting mussies could make them pop. The articles upthread on hooks, and pictures/info on cold shuts make it super helpful to put it into perspective.

Looking back, I’ll say one thing that wasn’t emphasized in my “upbringing” is the future uncertainty aspect, that climbing is a continually developing sport, and you’re going to encounter new gear that might deceptively look like older stuff, but it could behave quite differently, and it’s going to be on you to be humble and learn it once you stop getting “mentored.” 

Perhaps lowering v. rapping became predominant at the RRG in 2020, but it is not a new practice. Open shuts were becoming pretty common in the early 90s at many sport crags. 

Ackley The Improvedwrote:

Oh for fucks sake. Time to use anchors made for climbing, Not grandad’s tow hook gumbied up with wire. All the money spent in gas, grass, glue, time, drill bits, bolts, chain. Just come up with some way over built steel captive  locking biner. 

When you make this overbuilt steel captive locking carabiner that’s readily available at a similar price point and won’t rust shut let us know so we can all start using them.

You can get pretty much exactly what you’re describing but they’re about $30-$50 per carabiner vs less than $10 for a Mussy hook.

I think it’s also funny that part of your counter argument for Mussy hooks is because they’re a repurposed and modified tow-hook. Where exactly do you think the design for chain, bolts, epoxy, and heck, even stoppers came from?

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

It’s not just newer climbers. I have been climbing since 2018 (maybe that makes me new still for some of the older heads haha). I learned to sport climb in RRG and was taught to rap off everything. Then there was a switch some years ago to lowering, and so we put a byte through rings and tied a new knot. I started to encounter mussy hooks maybe in the early 2020’s? I just assumed they were beefy carabiners, as at that point I was “out of the nest,” so to speak. I think the lowering-rapping ethics switch happened right at that dunning kruger moment where you start to think you know. I think a certain humility is required, that every time you encounter some new equipment, you gotta figure out as much as you can about it. Had no idea that twisting mussies could make them pop. The articles upthread on hooks, and pictures/info on cold shuts make it super helpful to put it into perspective.

Looking back, I’ll say one thing that wasn’t emphasized in my “upbringing” is the future uncertainty aspect, that climbing is a continually developing sport, and you’re going to encounter new gear that might deceptively look like older stuff, but it could behave quite differently, and it’s going to be on you to be humble and learn it once you stop getting “mentored.” 

The RRG (and some Texas crags like Rheimer's) were probably the first crags to have widespread use of the Climb Tech mussy, in fact RRG folks asked Climb Tech specifically for it. They had asked us about ideas for a new or improved product that we would buy if they manufactured it and we responded "a mussy hook, but with a better gate." we've probably been their/sport bolting's biggest customer outside of the ASCA ever since. We had been using hardware style Mussy hooks sporadically in the Red for lower offs at different crags since the 1990's, but similar to many other areas, we had problems with the flimsy gate on the hardware store version getting broke off or sticky. We started adding the climb tech mussys to routes sometime around ~2015. 

The ethic at RRG has been to lower off since the dawn of sport climbing here. Anyone climbing anything substantially overhanging realized very quickly that's it's near impossible to rap clean a severely overhanging route. 

To confuse things, the area where most newer climbers start, Muir Valley, the owners advocated for only rappelling. Being a privately owned area, the owners made the rules and likely didn't want to take on the enormous burden of frequently replacing the hardware, which being primarily Metolius Rap Ring hangers on the sleeve/5 piece/hex head bolts that are common to the area, made it so the entire hanger assembly had to be replaced, not just the wear point. To complicate things, being sleeve bolts, changing the hanger assembly meant taking the whole bolt out, rather than just the removing the nut on a stud style bolt. This combined with the fact that these anchors were prone to twisting your rope terribly, led to the recommendation to rappel, despite that not being the norm. 

I took over the Route Maintenance volunteer position at Muir in 2016, with the goal of switching all the Muir anchors out to a more modular system where hardware could be easily replaced and didn't twist ropes on lowering. By 2018, when I took over as the Manager of Muir Valley, we changed the rules to specifically allow lowering, around that same time RRG FGI started advocating lowering on sport routes.