Extending Top Rope anchors

A single static rope/cordelette and a few carabiners will get the job done. I personally use a 9mm x whatever length will get me there (Mammut 30m x 9mm static rope comes in very handy for extended top rope anchor building). Extend it to where you need it. Pad the edges of where the rope/cordelette will be running, if needed, and/or possible. Double and triple check everything!

BFK Advantages: Fat knot helps keep the carabiners off the rock, and you have two independent/redundant loops at the master point.
Something more simple...

Figure eight
As was stated earlier, you should read up on the subject and become more knowledgeable - finding a mentor would be a good idea. Practice what you have learned before you put someone's life in your hands. They may trust in your knowledge more than you do.

eli poss wrote:Get one big loop of webbing or cord and loop it through the original master point. Pull both loops until they are even and tie an overhand/fig 8 to create a new master point. Edit: Here are some pictures Step 1 Step 2

Put a locking biner in that system between the two peices of webbing. No manufacturer recommends material on material contact. And there will be some movement and friction. All it takes is a biner to make it safe. All it takes is no biner for a very dumb, very needless accident to happen because someone says "oh, it will be fine".

Personally, I'm not a fan of any kind of webbing hanging over a lip and loaded unless the edge is very rounded, and especially if the climbing route moves from side to side and so might produce pendulum falls. Over the years I've seen some surprising dings in webbing in those situations, and the fact that the anchor strands are typically going to be out of sight suggests an abundance of caution.

So I'd nix Eli's rig (unless the top of the cliff is a nice bed as in the illustration) because of the materials used rather than their configuration. Cord is more robust, and the ideal rigging for situations that need extension is with a dedicated length of static cord and not various cobbled-together pieces all of which are too short by themselves. Static cord is better than dynamic cord over an edge because the stretching and relaxing in the dynamic cord produces its own abrading action.

As for the rope-on-rope motions at the power point, I think folks who say they can't happen are mistaken; a pendulum fall to the side will pivot at the power point and there will be some rubbing. However, I think it is equally mistaken to object on those grounds. The very small amount of rubbing can't possibly amount to anything worth worrying about. I'd actually be more worried about things that can go wrong if a single locking carabiner were used there; I'd at least use two.

Although not always possible, and dependent on skills a top-roper may not have, the best solution to the need for an over-the-lip power point is to create that point by placing gear in position over the lip and then linking that gear to the anchor at the top in a way that doesn't load the top rigging at all unless the over-the-lip gear fails. One case in which this can be quite easy to do occurs if the pitch is lead and then subsequently top-roped. The leader can set up the top-roping power point on the way up and then link it to the top anchor.

BigFeet wrote:Practice what you have learned before you put someone's life in your hands. They may trust in your knowledge more than you do.

This can't be emphasized too much. Top-rope setups are often rigged for people with no ability to judge them, people who are obliged to blindly trust the rigger. We had a terrible tragedy in the Gunks a few years ago in which a young woman on her first time out was killed when the entire top-rope rigging failed, so do not take these warnings as hypothetical.

extend the pieces not the master point
and dont forget to K.I.S.S.

It's amazing how complicated the simplest things are on MP. Had I read about the risk of death by Gris Gris and toproping before I started climbing, I probably would have taken up bowling.

frank minunni wrote:...I probably would have taken up bowling.

I don't know about that Frank.....

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Stamp Collecting?

Given the kind of crowding we are experiencing at climbing locales across the country, I'd say that anything the convinces potential climbers to take up bowling instead is an unmitigated good thing!

More seriously, I think the problem is that the "simple things" really are not simple, but simple solutions work in a vast majority of cases, and internet discussions going all the way back to rec.climbing tend towards preventing unlikely worst-case scenarios. The Gunks tragedy sadly reinforces the fact that sometimes those unlikely things happen.

It is possible to become so encumbered by concerns about remote possibilities that one's climbing is slowed to a crawl if not a complete halt as the climber obsessively tries to avoid every possible remote failure potential. At some point, depending on the activity, one has to say what one is doing is "good enough" and get on with the process of getting to the top, and "good enough" in one context could be "pretty damn sketchy" in another---this is part of the diversity of climbing genres.

If there is any place where an abundance of caution makes sense, it is in top-roping, because there are little or no environmental imperatives for speed or efficiency and because so many of the participants may be unable to judge for themselves whether their system is safe to use.

rgold wrote: If there is any place where an abundance of caution makes sense, it is in top-roping, because there are little or no environmental imperatives for speed or efficiency and because so many of the participants may be unable to judge for themselves whether their system is safe to use.

It just goes to show that God loves a fool because I didn't have a clue what I was doing when I started. Didn't have a mentor either. Set up a TR, looked at it and said, "That looks good." and went about climbing. But then again 1 or 2 inch webbing always looked so bomber. I don't recall abrading really. Maybe a little once or twice over the years. But then I have gotten to the top of something, looked at someone's anchor and said, "what the F%$& is going on here?"

My beginnings were the same Frank. Like you, I got away with the simple, if not always ideal, solutions, as do almost all people almost all of the time.

I did try to learn some things from books, but what was available sometimes had incredibly bad information, things even a total noob as I was could tell did not make sense. I must say this left me with a lifelong skepticism about "expert opinion" in our sport, especially "expert opinion" based on "experience," and consequently with the need to think things through for oneself and, if possible, find out about any test results that might bear on the issues at hand.

One of the things that keeps younger climbers from taking up bowling is a the confidence in one's ability to control oneself and the environment. If you hang around in the game long enough as I have, it becomes harder and harder to cling to this very useful fantasy, as the evidence piles up of highly experienced and competent contemporaries blowing it in ways that were never supposed to happen. (I could, but won't, append a fairly long list of serious or fatal "misses" and potentially just as bad "near-misses.") From such realizations comes a tendency to look, perhaps for the first time after many years, at the "simple" things one does to see if some lurking complication makes them less mundane then they have seemed to be.

Just an observation over the years: Blue collar type people seem to get it more quickly and efficiently than white collar. I think folks who work with their hands and put things together more readily see the solutions and pitfalls. Nothing definitive, just an observation. Give me two relatively inexperienced people, one a carpenter and the other an office worker and I'll pick the carpenter to set up my toprope. I'm sure I'll get slammed for this one!

Maybe. The same thing might be said for people with a background in engineering or physics. I definitely think some folks have substantially more aptitude for rigging issues than others, although actual experience tends to level out the differences.

In my era, you were barely thought to be a climber if you didn't do at least some big-wall climbing, and that at a time before every belay stance was bolted. Coping with the rigging logistics of big-wall ascents provides a crash course in how to rig well and efficiently, and I think nowadays it is no longer typical for almost every climber to at least pass through such a stage.

I can relate. I have to admit that my first visit to Cannon made for some pretty interesting belays. We just didn't have enough gear or smarts. I should be dead! Learned a lot though.

Huh. I'm thinking maybe it's a plus to be an old noob. Quite a lot of "respect" for the likelihood my own and other's potential stupidity!

I'm also fortunate for my climbing partner, who came to this from SAR rigging. Our earliest trips usually involved BIG rigging on the flats above a cliff to top rope or rappel off of, working with sagebrush much of the time.

I know I know enough to be dangerous, which won't change even with time, because of complacency creeping in. What I am getting comfortable with, and what gives me confidence, is knowing the basic concepts, and that you can get something accomplished many different ways. Time spent working out bomber anchors horizontally, with all sorts of different rigging, knots, and parts was time really well spent, as is any practice.

Eli, you are really doing great! You clearly are super interested on all the nuts and bolts of this and your posts almost always forward these discussions in good ways. Thanks to you, and all the rest of you, too. Best, H.

whatever you do make sure its REDUNDANT .....

for TR it absolutely and utterly stupid not to use a redundant anchor rigging especially when there are lives of newbs on the line ... this is different from multi where you can get away with it because its SUPERVISED (im sure someone will ask that question anyways)


n December 3 I left the Alpental parking lot around 10 a.m. with a good friend to find some ice to top-rope. This trip was training for bigger alpine ice objectives to follow in 2015. After about two hours of hiking and hunting, we found a gully with a frozen creek and decided to rope up and ascend it. We simul-climbed through easy 20°–30° ice with occasional steps about eight feet high, placing ice screws along the way.

After a couple of hundred feet we encountered an ice flow that was about 40 feet high with a towering cedar directly above it, and decided it was the perfect location for a top-rope. My partner ascended the gully to the right of the ice and traversed through low-angle terrain covered in shrubs. For an anchor, he tied a 30-foot length of retired climbing rope around the tree with a bowline and attached a locking carabiner to the end of the rope using a figure 8 on a bight. He then rappelled to the base of the ice.

We climbed the ice for the next three hours, each taking at least four laps on different parts of the formation. After my last lap, my partner suggested I climb back up to the anchor to clean it. I agreed and enjoyed a final lap.

At the top, the ice ended at a ledge with three feet of vertical dirt terminating in a 30° slope at about my hip level. The copious shrubbery and thin, powdery snow covering the ground left no purchase for hands or tools to mantel onto the slope. I decided instead to clip my tools to my harness, grasp the end of the rope going down to my partner, and haul myself up the short distance to the anchor. I took a couple steps to my left to get directly in line of pull with the anchor and hauled in about a foot of rope. My belayer took the slack, and I pulled a second time. As I slid my hand up the rope a third time, I felt slack, noticed the bushes above me shaking, and immediately began falling through the air.

I do not remember hitting the ground. I slid down the gully 35 feet until the rope came tight against my belayer, who arrested my fall. I was unconscious for about a minute and came to in a panic, repeatedly asking my belayer, “Did I fall? Where are we?” As I began to grasp the situation, I told him I could not feel my legs.

I was wearing softshell pants, a base layer, thin puffy coat, and hard shell. My partner pulled the bivy pad out of his pack and placed it under me, along with the pack. He carried two puffy coats and placed both around me. Then he said, “I am going for help,” and he was gone. It was 4:30 in the afternoon, and the sun was starting to set.

As I lay on the ice I fought to bring my breathing under control. Under my head there was a depression in the ice so I could not rest my head without tilting it back. Considering that I had a badly broken back, this was very uncomfortable. I pulled down the length of rope attached to me and stuffed it behind my head. This improved things somewhat, but I was unable to shift my body and I had to hold my head up with my neck and abdominal muscles. A short while later, I noticed that one of the jackets had blown off me, and I began to feel cold. I knew I had a spinal cord injury and should not move, but I decided that I was more afraid of the cold, and I pushed myself upright until I could grab the jacket and wrap myself in it again.

I watched the colors of the sky change and the stars come out. I began to shake with the cold. Every few minutes, I would call for help. About three hours after my fall, I heard a helicopter in the distance and hoped that it was here for me. I continued to yell for help. Another hour passed, and I began to hear voices far away. A group from the Seattle Mountain Rescue Team soon arrived, climbed up above me, and began to rig some ropes. Soon one of them rappelled down and put me in a cervical collar. I was able to rest my head for the first time in four hours.

The helicopter returned and lowered a paramedic. The team moved me onto a back board, and I was hauled away from the scene and flown straight to the hospital. My injuries included a mild concussion, six broken ribs, and five broken vertebrae, including the displacement of my lower spine, resulting in a severed spinal cord.

ANALYSIS

After hours of discussion with my climbing partner, I believe there are two possibilities to explain the anchor failure. The first was that the screw gate on the single locking carabiner attaching the climbing ropes to the anchor somehow opened as we moved the ropes back and forth, and then my rope popped out of the carabiner as I tried to pull onto the slope below the anchor. The other possibility is that the section of climbing rope used for the anchor either broke or the knot (a bowline) tying this rope around the tree came undone. The anchor was not examined during the night of the accident, and when friends returned several days later the anchor rope was gone, either picked up as trash by the SAR team or by other climbers.

Whichever theory explains the failure of this anchor, there are two primary takeaways: 1) top-rope anchors should have redundancy throughout the system; and 2) anchors should be checked regularly when they are weighted and unweighted during a day of climbing.

I suffered a potentially fatal fall due to an unusual anchor failure. I will likely never walk again, but otherwise I am in good health. I’m lucky that my back broke near the bottom of my spine and not in my neck, so I can still move my fingers and do my job. I’m lucky that I did not suffer a traumatic brain injury, and that I can still recognize my mother and tell her how much I love her. My helmet is missing a chunk of hard plastic, and the inner shock-absorbing material was broken at every intersection. It saved my life. (Source: Josh Hancock.)

publications.americanalpine…

frank minunni wrote:Just an observation over the years: Blue collar type people seem to get it more quickly and efficiently than white collar. I think folks who work with their hands and put things together more readily see the solutions and pitfalls. Nothing definitive, just an observation. Give me two relatively inexperienced people, one a carpenter and the other an office worker and I'll pick the carpenter to set up my toprope. I'm sure I'll get slammed for this one!

no slam here, of course the average carpenter isnt afraid to use an extension cord or an air hose belay on a steep roof occasionally

rgold wrote:Maybe. The same thing might be said for people with a background in engineering or physics.

yeah they might make a bomber anchor but it usually takes an hour or so

T Roper wrote: no slam here, of course the average carpenter isnt afraid to use an extension cord or an air hose belay on a steep roof occasionally

You'd be surprised how much an extension cord or air hose can hold. I only buy extension cords rated to 2kn

can we do any more to scare this poor fellow? two pieces of advice:

1 Know many different methods and options of rigging and the pros/cons of each. Using common sense and good judgement, determine the best method to fit the current situation

2 K.I.S.S.
Keep it simple, stupid! Stay as safe as you desire and have fun. Climbing is the most fun you'll have with your pants on.

Haha its all good. I went out with an AMGA certified guide the other day and we went over extensions. Basically what was said at the beginning of this thread is what the guide explained to me. I will now use two independent pieces of material to make the extension.