Do you have a better single pitch anchor than this?

Alpine Savvywrote:

Generally, I'm with you. Easily replaceable stainless steel carabiners would be great, as well as all of us taking greater personal responsibility to replace hardware.

There are some problems with the tiny Allen key wire keeper carabiners.

1. It's quite finicky to line those up, get out your tiny allen key and put it in the correct hole without dropping it down the cliff. Either the tiny threaded rod or your allen key.
2. After a year or two of being out in the elements, it's likely that the top of that Allen bolt/rod is gonna get all gunked up, be hard to get your key in, and easy to strip.
3. The only stainless steel versions of those I've been able to find are from Lappas, and they cost $25.70 each, ouch!

I think a captive eye carabiner ($4.25 each) and a quick link gives similar performance at a much lower cost, and are easily replaced when needed with some channel lock pliers.

i highly recommend doing this in the comfort of your home...

…and note that some of these pins are hammer in (not screw in) and not able to be unscrewed.

This Image is a screen grab from a helmet cam video that popped up my Instagram feed today (Oct 29), from @christianclimbsrocks

(Instagram links seemed to be broken these days, so I'm not gonna bother to paste one in here, but if you go to his account, you can find it.)

It looks like he sort of back clipped a pair of Mussies, started to lower off, the rope twisted, and came out of one of the hooks.

This is further evidence that anchor hooks have some inherent security issues, and there's definitely room for improvement.

Alpine Savvywrote:

This Image is a screen grab from a helmet cam video that popped up my Instagram feed today (Oct 29), from @christianclimbsrocks

(Instagram links seemed to be broken these days, so I'm not gonna bother to paste one in here, but if you go to his account, you can find it.)

It looks like he sort of back clipped a pair of Mussies, started to lower off, the rope twisted, and came out of one of the hooks.

This is further evidence that anchor hooks have some inherent security issues, and there's definitely room for improvement.

That’s like saying ATCS are dangerous because someone one time only loaded only one side of the device for a rappel.

Using mussys improperly is not an issue with the hardware but with the user.

It seems like more education is necessary on how to clip hooks. 

Everything is dangerous if you manage to do it wrong enough.

The climber worked hard to clip it the wrong way, after twice doing it the right way (once with a non-concerning twist) and “correcting” into an obviously poor orientation. I’m not convinced that a more complicated setup would do anything other than make it more confusing to a brand new person who has no idea what they’re doing.

Craziest thing to me is the person appears to have just led the route, yet doesn’t know how to clip an anchor?

People still insist on clipping the hanger on single ring anchors, that you can’t clip metal on metal, and on calling “in-direct” instead of “slack” when cleaning a sport route. Getting them to reliably use an “un-equalized” vertically offset anchor without doing something bizarre seems overly optimistic to me. 

As usual I'll counter with this one: Vertical off-set horns n biner.
Cost effective, Little gear needed to TR on your own shit, single wear point, easily serviced..... If you're in a SUPER high use area, Mussy up top might make the most sense.
Personally I think the Op Opposed captives are not necessary, and just ballon costs more with safety not increasing proportionally to the effort.

A thought: probably not hard to add a gate to a rams horn, but maybe make the cost effectiveness fly out the window.

Single 10mm 20cm glue in with a rap ring. Best single pitch anchor on the planet. Unquestionably bomber, will outlast you, your dumb honors student kid, and their dumb screw up kid thats not even a glimmer in their eye. 

Will it outlast the kids trying to oppose mussies? The Instagram video leads me to re post my meme on the subject 

Makes perfect sense to me. Smart and easy. Safe. Easy to replace the mussy once it wears.

Nicholas Budkawrote:

Single 10mm 20cm glue in with a rap ring. Best single pitch anchor on the planet. Unquestionably bomber, will outlast you, your dumb honors student kid, and their dumb screw up kid thats not even a glimmer in their eye. 

I'd say one single big glue in, sure, but you need the mussies and if you make them captive opposed gates I think it's idiot proof (almost).

We can't add a locker, but one open gate is bad juju and as the one mussy/ring wears it gets sketchy.

Nicholas Budkawrote:

Single 10mm 20cm glue in with a rap ring. Best single pitch anchor on the planet. Unquestionably bomber, will outlast you, your dumb honors student kid, and their dumb screw up kid thats not even a glimmer in their eye. 

Glue ins are a little silly for many rock types though and are a nightmare for future route maintainers to deal with. Will it outlive me? Oh for sure, but I like to imagine there will be climbers long after me, and I like to take steps to ensure future climbers and route maintainers are looked after as well. 

I'm not saying I would never put a glue in bolt in granite or similarly hard rock, but do I think that is a compelling reason not to. 

Ricky Harlinewrote:

Glue ins are a little silly for many rock types though and are a nightmare for future route maintainers to deal with. Will it outlive me? Oh for sure, but I like to imagine there will be climbers long after me, and I like to take steps to ensure future climbers and route maintainers are looked after as well. 

I'm not saying I would never put a glue in bolt in granite or similarly hard rock, but do I think that is a compelling reason not to. 

Check out a whole bunch of single pitch crags in poland or czechia. Single bolt anchors are common and pretty damn convenient in europe. I think more crags in the USA could benefit from using this practice here. 

Ricky Harlinewrote:

Glue ins are a little silly for many rock types though and are a nightmare for future route maintainers to deal with. Will it outlive me? Oh for sure, but I like to imagine there will be climbers long after me, and I like to take steps to ensure future climbers and route maintainers are looked after as well. 

I'm not saying I would never put a glue in bolt in granite or similarly hard rock, but do I think that is a compelling reason not to. 

Testing seems to indicate 100 years for Glue ins. 

I can live with that (other than the PITA in putting them in).

I think I just disagree with thinking of a 100 years as a long time. It seems very short sighted to me. 

I understand the argument for the convenience for this century though, they are rad. Ultimately I will personally develop with far future climbers and route maintainers in mind, but I understand many find that silly. To each their own I suppose. 

Ricky Harlinewrote:

I think I just disagree with thinking of a 100 years as a long time. It seems very short sighted to me. 

I understand the argument for the convenience for this century though, they are rad. Ultimately I will personally develop with far future climbers and route maintainers in mind, but I understand many find that silly. To each their own I suppose. 

You're falling into the same shortsightedness in thinking that maintenance methods and tools will remain the same for the next 100 years.

Marc801 Cwrote:

You're falling into the same shortsightedness in thinking that maintenance methods and tools will remain the same for the next 100 years.

Removing a glue in is always going to be more of a pain in the ass though. I've seen some cool innovation in removing glue ins and undoubtedly some guys can do it without TOO much hassle. But it's just physics that glue ins will always be a bigger challenge, is it not?

Ricky Harlinewrote:

Removing a glue in is always going to be more of a pain in the ass though. I've seen some cool innovation in removing glue ins and undoubtedly some guys can do it without TOO much hassle. But it's just physics that glue ins will always be a bigger challenge, is it not?

You don't know what's going to happen in the next 100 years.

Marc801 Cwrote:

You don't know what's going to happen in the next 100 years.

No, but hoping problems will solve themselves seems strange to me. There might be some cool innovation that removes rock quickly and easily and straight, but why count on that?

Ricky Harlinewrote:

Removing a glue in is always going to be more of a pain in the ass though. I've seen some cool innovation in removing glue ins and undoubtedly some guys can do it without TOO much hassle. But it's just physics that glue ins will always be a bigger challenge, is it not?

Removing a glue-in is almost certainly less pain and effort than removing 70% of the rusty bolts I've dealt with. Twist it with a crowbar to snap the head off and put a new one right on top of it, covering the old one. Pretty light duty, especially if the bolt you're replacing is one with just 6mm stock.

DrRockso RRGwrote:

Keep it clean and simple. Your setup seems unnecessarily complicated. People will inevitably lower off just the hook or just the 2 steel snapgates. You'll inevitebly have problems with installers not loctiting or tightening the nut on the shackle enough. Shackle cotter pins can rust or wear out, we once had a hardware store mussy rocket down 80' from an anchor and hit nearby when the cotter pin securing it failed.  Some won't like that it's not "equalized" between the bolts, which no amount of education is going to solve.

Mussys work great on sport routes for the majority of routes and areas, whether on single quicklinks or on the end of chains. they're cost effective and hold up to tons of wear. Most climbers are familiar with them at this point. Developers using them should keep the anchor high and avoid using them on routes where folks are likely to top out above them. If the fixe draco switched to a wiregate it would be better in most ways sans cost compared to the sport bolting mussys, I'd suspect at somepoint someone will come out with a cost effective hook with a shape that is less prone to double clipping. 

For lower traffic routes, it's hard to beat chains with a captive pin steel carabiners on the end. They can be clipped opposite and opposed, share the wear, etc. It's such a good setup that people don't like using them on high traffic routes because it's already a perfect top rope anchor. In a perfect world every anchor would be this, people could TR off them, lower, etc, and everyone would just carry an allen key and a couple extra steelies with them and replace as needed. The overall cost to the average climber would be less than wearing out their own aluminum quickdraws. It's a setup that's simple, easy to use, and fairly cost effective.

I agree with this. Mussies will probably remain the go to due to cost. But if money is no object then it would be nice to have captive in steel carabiners on everything and just TR off of them and replace when needed.