Mussy Hook Unclipped While Lowering

Redacted Redactberg wrote:

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 Brown wrote: 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 Redactberg wrote:

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 Improved wrote:

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 Redactberg wrote:

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. 

Thread drift, but very related. I climb in an area where 'ram's horn' lowering systems are quite common. I'm not a big fan. While they are ( relatively ) easy to use, they seem equally easy to misuse and appear very susceptible to situations such as apparently occurred in the Sand Rock tragedy. However, I haven't heard, anecdotally or otherwise, of any incidents involving them ( maybe because their use is relatively rare). Has anyone on here heard of such incidents or has thoughts about these systems?
Another gripe I have with them, is that it is often difficult to set the anchors ( usually QDs) for anyone following or top-roping, since the 'horns' are usually placed directly on the bolt hangers/eyes. If the QDs are placed 'on top', the horns interfere with how the draw 'sits' and how the rope runs, but if they are placed underneath, they are often 'pinched' and hard to clean, especially on steep rock---which can contribute to possible misthreading by the last climber.

amarius wrote:

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

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

Frank Stein beat me to it. It's all about ease of use, not failure concerns.

During our 2015, Frankenjura trip, ram’s horns were pretty much the only anchors we encountered. For the first few days, I was not a fan. However, by the end of the trip, I was a steadfast convert. The typical set-up was a ram’s horn on a glue-in bolt, linked by a chain to a second bolt in an offset and vertical orientation. If we left a top rope up, we just put in a single draw in the higher bolt. Due to this design of the basket, it did not appear that the rope could travel up and out of the ram’s horn itself.

Frank Stein wrote:

During our 2015, Frankenjura trip, ram’s horns were pretty much the only anchors we encountered. For the first few days, I was not a fan. However, by the end of the trip, I was a steadfast convert. The typical set-up was a ram’s horn on a glue-in bolt, linked by a chain to a second bolt in an offset and vertical orientation. If we left a top rope up, we just put in a single draw in the higher bolt. Due to this design of the basket, it did not appear that the rope could travel up and out of the ram’s horn itself.

Frank, I am having trouble visualizing the set-up that you are describing. Is there only one 'horn'--that on the lower bolt--- in the system? Around here there are always 2 horns, each on separate  bolts and adjacent to each other for redundancy. Further, if I am understanding you correctly, when you were top-roping from the draw in the upper bolt, was your rope also threaded through the horn on the lower one? If so, that seems that it would create substantial rope drag and risk the rope coming out of the horn. I have had a rope 'release itself' from one threaded horn while I was working to remove the belay draw from below the other one--fortunately I saw it occurring and quickly rethreaded it---but, obviously, this didn't help with my 'ram's horn trust issues'.

Yes, a single horn, set up like this. Because of the vertical set-up, there was no weird rope drag.

I should also note that the Frankenjura horns had a much more complete curve to the basket than in the above photo, meaning that it was unlikely that the rope would be lifted out of it. The curve did make it a little more difficult to just drop in the rope without a little practice. 

Classic MP. OP’s question is answered within the first 5 posts (user error), and here we are 5 pages in….

Matt Z wrote:

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?

Maybe slow down the route development so quality routes are priority 

amarius wrote:

A take home here that wasn't emphasized nearly enough, imo, was that the student/the less experienced should NEVER be the ones to clean an anchor when done. 

They should only be instructed to never climb above the mussies and only be lowered off. Don't frickin' touch a thing!

In addition, there are certain rigid opinions about what climbers should or should not be expected to learn for themselves and we need to shut that shit down. Lives are at stake and flexing about noobs screwing up "basic stuff" is toxic bs. We need the most fool proof set up we can afford.

"Never top rope off the mussies" is one such opinion that is counterproductive. It was the addition of gear to the anchor to make it "safer/save wear" on the mussies that introduced complexity that likely contributed to the recent accident (not the OP).  We should only say something like "using your own gear to TR is a best practice ONLY if you are absolutely certain all in the group know how to use it and safely clean it". Do not haze newbies by chiding them to use their own gear. Encourage their safest practice commensurate with skill level.

1. Never let the inexperienced among the group clean the anchor if personal hardware was used. We have all seen the clusters that some have created trying to "spare the fixed hardware" and the less experienced should not be expected to figure out something they have never seen before. Emphasize that they should do what they feel is safest but should be open to safer suggestions if they are seen to be doing something unsafe.

2. Always use the mussies alone if there is any doubt as to the competency of those using the anchor. Instruct others to not manipulate the anchor in any way unless separately connected to the anchor via PAS and being properly trained.

3. NEVER climb above a TR anchor regardless of the method of connecting the rope. Bad and unexpected things can and have happened and there is nothing stopping you from a long fall to the deck (like a lower clipped in piece). 

4. Only use your own gear only if the entire group knows what they are doing. We cannot guarantee that the least experienced will not be asked to clean a complicated situation at the anchor. If you feel compelled to add that locker, you should be the one to clean it.

5. But, if manipulation is required to clean the anchor, then a PAS must be used to test the system first before lowering.

6. ??? Suggestions welcome. This is not a "do as I say" post but one trying to develop best language around this issue.

My 2 cents.

Max Tepfer wrote:

As this bolt orientation is becoming "standard" for a belay anchor then we have to consider this setup for a lower off station as well.

If the maillon is 3/8" then it breaks at 10k lbs and is safer by far than the rope itself in nearly every way. The gate is less likely to open than one is to become untied, imo.

The inconvenience of clipping due to this orientation is immaterial (it's probably no worse than a ram's horn). Clip in with a PAS first if you are that pumped. Sorry, marc801, don't mean to throw you under the bus.

As others have posted, safely using your own hardware to TR off this is not a problem at all.

If you independently connected the second mussy to the chain with a separate maillon it might tick all the redundancy boxes for those that require it and the chain should have enough play to prevent a binding that would contribute to unclipping. I more than get that cost is a factor but let's just have a reasonable "best practices" discussion. 2 maillons would be no worse and arguably better than current practice to allow opposition of the mussies. A little tedious to line things up just right when drilling maybe but it's just the cost of one more maillon potentially offset by being able to use 5/16 or smaller maillons.

This setup that fixes in place the opposite and opposed configuration does have its' own merit however, imo. I personally would prefer this to a Ram's horn as it would allow newbs/cheapos to TR off it (we know they will and might as well be safe about it).

Climbing got in the way of posting for me the past few days, but today's a rest day, so I'll step back in.  Hillbilly basically nailed it.  It's pretty easy to clip by flicking the mallions apart with your clipping hand mid-clip and dropping the rope in the nearest mussy.  

The problem with trying to make it redundant is that the eyes of the mussys aren't big enough to accommodate two mallions, so you have to put them on individual mallions to achieve that level of redundancy and in doing so, lose the rigidity that makes the system work well in all the other ways. At least there's more redundancy than the very common euro-system of one mallion, one lowering carabiner! (and more importantly as has been said, redundancy really isn't necessary in this case)

Anna, in reply to your comment about how this thread contributes to the confusion around installing and using lowering hooks, I assume that's mostly in reference to my broadcasting the method we've come up with.   As has been said, mussy hooks aren't meant for climbing and as a result, don't really have a dedicated SOP in terms of how to install them at anchors that's been researched or studied in any meaningful way.  Given that, we're all just trying our best to come up with safe, usable options. (Greggerman's is a slick solution too) There is some degree of guidance from the ASCA on the topic, but I'd be curious to hear from Greg what all went in to generating that information and where it came from.

Phylp, to reply to your post, (thanks for the feedback) we're not actually spending our own money nor are we on a mission to retrofit every anchor in this way. Tyler and I manage the High Desert Climbers Alliance rebolting program and each time our crews rebolt an anchor at Smith, we have the opportunity to spruce it up.  We used to get a lot of material from Greg and the ASCA, (which was incredible and for which we're eternally grateful) but lately have just been buying mussys and mallions by the hundreds from sportbolting as our fundraising has improved and our need for material has grown.

I'd be curious to hear specifically why you don't like the single link, rounded nose, and the gate of the mussy facing the rock? I assume with the gate facing the rock, it's for concern of it opening? If so, it's worth noting that the gate can't be opened easily when they're both under tension because the two mussys come together in such a way that the spine of the other mussy will contact the rock before the gate.  Additionally, the gate on the mussy is so deep in the basket that it'd have to be a fairly specific feature to get past the tip of the nose.  I suppose there could be 'just' the right feature out there to do this, but if that's the case, than the anchor installer needs to notice it and adjust things around it.


Max Tepfer wrote:

Phylp, to reply to your post, (thanks for the feedback) we're not actually spending our own money nor are we on a mission to retrofit every anchor in this way. Tyler and I manage the High Desert Climbers Alliance rebolting program and each time our crews rebolt an anchor at Smith, we have the opportunity to spruce it up.  We used to get a lot of material from Greg and the ASCA, (which was incredible and for which we're eternally grateful) but lately have just been buying mussys and mallions by the hundreds from sportbolting as our fundraising has improved and our need for material has grown.

I'd be curious to hear specifically why you don't like the single link, rounded nose, and the gate of the mussy facing the rock? I assume with the gate facing the rock, it's for concern of it opening? If so, it's worth noting that the gate can't be opened easily when they're both under tension because the two mussys come together in such a way that the spine of the other mussy will contact the rock before the gate.  Additionally, the gate on the mussy is so deep in the basket that it'd have to be a fairly specific feature to get past the tip of the nose.  I suppose there could be 'just' the right feature out there to do this, but if that's the case, than the anchor installer needs to notice it and adjust things around it.


Hi Max  I am travelling right now  if I was at home I’d set it up and make a little video of what I can imagine could happen. It’s not about the gate of the inward mussy opening,  or the one link itself.  It’s that I anticipate that opposed gates will lead to more people using the mussys for toproping. I’m imagining with toproping, and people moving around and falling and bouncing around on toprope, that the nose of the gate is going to repetitively bang against the rock. I’m imagining because of the restriction of movement with the single link, that the mussys are going to be banging against the screwlock of the link. The setup is perfectly OK for lowering. I’m not an engineer, so I have no idea if this kind of thing that I’m imagining would even happen, or would even be a problem if it did, but just intuitively, it makes me uneasy.  

I set up my toprope with alpine draws, so I could get that equalized with your two glueins without too much effort but I know a lot of people who only carry dogbone style quickdraws to use as top anchors. I wouldn’t know until I used it but just looking at the links and the angled, I think it will be harder to equalize with your setup.

I’m not strongly opposed to your design, I just feel like I don’t personally like it as well as what people mostly do. Time will tell.

Again thanks for what you do.  

Max, I’ve set up mussys in that orientation before on new routes. In my case, because the routes are overhanging, I used two chains to a single quick link to 2 mussys. The setups are free hanging and work as you’d expect. I’d say they’re a little harder to clip than the standard setup, but in these cases you’re at a no hands stance so it’s not a big deal. I always use loctite on the threads when I use a setup with only 1 link involved. Strength is not a problem as you can’t use anything smaller than a 3/8” link or the mussys won’t sit properly on the link.

phylp phylp wrote:

Why is being equalized on a bolted anchor important? I feel like two staggered draws with the anchor in your way from unclipping would be safer.

T Taylor wrote:

Why is being equalized on a bolted anchor important? I feel like two staggered draws with the anchor in your way from unclipping would be safer.

In trad terms, i’m gonna guess he meant controlling for extension? If one talks of redundancy, then one must consider failures. And if a failure happens on the top piece, then at least the other piece won’t get shockloaded, or it won’t be so dynamic and crazy that the rope has another opportunity to thwack out of another gate. In my case, my messed up “opposite and opposed” mussies were level, but if it was a top one that popped, it would be a bit freaky to be taking effectively a lead fall onto a mussy.

I hear ease of use as an argument against opposing mussys.

Just clip one, its easier.

We see pros in the videos clip only one draw at the anchor all the time (Though they are leading so they have a bolt clipped below if they don’t clean it when lowering, which you never see in the videos).

Oppose the mussys if possible.

Personally I don’t mind the difficulty of clipping opposed mussys verses the increased safety.