Natural Belay Anchor

I built a natural belay anchor at the top of guzzler at Lost Wall in GA. Girthed 2 four inch trees at their bottoms with two cordelettes which ran over the lip of a slab and were equalized with a magic x. Trees were 6ft apart and cordelettes doubled up 20ft lengths. The trees were live and solid. Should those trees be bigger or does this sound like an ok setup? I read later on MP that some people just sling that slab of rock up there. Didn't see any gear placements, but I've only been climbing trad for less than a year.

Sounds fine to me. Sometimes you just have to deal with what you have and make the best of it. This was my only anchor the other day on a new multi pitch we did, I also wedged my body into a slot in the rock and it worked out fine even after the follower took a few good falls.

Natural anchor.

The OP's setup sounds way better than the slung chockstone above, which is hopefully a joke.
The only issue I caught with your rig, Adam, is that you may have only used a single sling for your sliding X. Use two to make it redundant.
A better rig would be to ditch the two cordelettes, and use some 10mm static line (100'+) to bring the two trees to a master point.

"Sometimes you just have to deal with what you have and make the best of it."
Your "best" includes belaying the second off of a single wiregate?

For the most part the OP's tree anchors as well as the rock chock sound and look fine to me. I have used far thinner materials for anchors and to rap from. Sometimes ya run out of gear and one needs to be creative when coming up with anchors. Recently, on a climb I used my ski poles as a picket. We did not test it but it was better than nothing.

The OP's question is specifically about TR anchors. He didn't ask us about the most minimal trad anchor we've ever used....

...and in no way does that chockstone "look fine" enough for a top rope anchor. It's a single, tiny chockstone with a wiregate at the masterpoint. For top rope rigging in a single pitch environment, this does not even come close to adequate.

That chock stone was not used for a top rope anchor it was used as a belay anchor 4 pitches up an alpine climb, my body wedged in a crack was the main anchor. Sometimes you don't have the gear. I only carry one locking biner for my ATC when alpine climbing. A single wire gate is very safe for an anchor, why would it not be safe? If I wanted to be fail safe I would use locking biners on all my gear but that's overkill and not practical. Newer trad climbers tend to over think systems, my point in posting this picture was to show that sometimes you just have to deal
With what you have available and using a little trickery you can usually find a semi suitable anchor.
There are many ways to skin a cat. I have been climbing for 35 years and I have a comfort level that I would not expect a 1-2 or 5 year climber to have. I'm not telling anyone to start slinging stones on climbs but just open your mind to further possibilities.

BTW
I thought the OP was talking about a belay anchor not a top rope anchor.

Again, the question is about TOP ROPING in a single pitch environment. Are you dense or just desperate to claim your 35+ years experience on the interwebs.

It's very important to address these beginner questions carefully. The OP asked about rigging an anchor at the top of the crag, not halfway. Based on the other two responses the OP got, he now thinks its ok to just sling a rock, clip a wiregate, and TR all day. Or else maybe use a ski pole and everyone can TR off that. LOL.

^^...this, and you couldn't even be bothered to add a 2nd wire gate as your "anchor"? If that was extremely low angle terrain where there was virtually no possibility of anyone falling, I might be ok with that as an anchor. But in any other situation, I would not be happy to find that as an anchor. Sometimes 35 years of "comfort" is really just 35 years of complacency.

Adam, Greg Barnes has a good book called "Toproping" that lays it all out pretty well. For real acceleration towards technical competence consider hiring an AMGA certified instructor. The confidence you will glean from a single day out with an instructor is well worth the dough.

Sorry I must be dense. I thought he was talking about setting up an anchor to belay off of not top rope off of.

Kevin Mokracek wrote:Sorry I must be dense. I thought he was talking about setting up an anchor to belay off of not top rope off of.

Kevin I'm sorry for calling names! I'm sure you aren't dense, I just like to see these types of questions get handled prudently.

To all who were taken aback by my response I am sorry. I wrongly assumed this original post was talking about setting up a belay anchor to bring up a second. The circumstances that led to me using the single chockstone as an anchor were many, new route, full length pitch with almost all my gear gone and was looking for anything and anywhere to set up a halfway decent belay. There have been many times in my climbing life that I have run out of gear, especially alpine climbing where you are going light and fast. In that case you need to make due with what is presented to you.
Setting up a top rope anchor is obviously a very different creature and lack of gear should not be an issue.
It's still a good idea to think about natural protection and maybe play around with slinging stones and using natural features at ground level while at the crag, it will increase your confidence and put more in your playbook to draw from when you start venturing farther off the ground.

Thanks for all the responses. Sorry if I wasn't clear in the beginning, but I built a belay anchor at the top of a single pitch climb and belayed my second directly off the power point with a grigri, so it definitely wasn't a toprope setup.

anchor atop guzzler

I agree that there should be redundancy with the magic x--it was doubled up 4ft sling though, not that that is redundancy. I took the picture before putting my second on belay, so the grigri isn't in the picture.

Less general. But looking at that picture I probably would have skipped the sliding x and just tied the ends of the two cordalettes together into a master point. Saves you the redundancy issue and a bunch of time and gear. If length becomes an issue, with cord that thick, you should have no problems untying the cordalettes and tying off the trees with a single stand each and then again, a single master point without sliding x/ slings.

^^^ Except IMHO I wouldn't bother tying the two cordelettes together to make a master point in that setup due to length of the cord. Just clip one locker to both strands. Each cordelette is independent and redundant by themselves.

adam cofield wrote:Sorry if I wasn't clear in the beginning, but I built a belay anchor at the top of a single pitch climb and belayed my second directly off the power point with a grigri, so it definitely wasn't a toprope setup.

Still a toprope, you are just using a direct belay at the top of the crag.

When I was setting up the anchor I originally wanted to tie the two cordalettes together, but I was a little worried about the force multiplication from increasing the angle between the two cordalettes to get enough slack to tie a master point knot. In retrospect I think it was just a noob worry and it would have been OK. Nate, what knot would you use to tie to the trees if you were to use single strands? Mark, wouldn't clipping a carabiner like that load it in a way that is not recommended by the manufacturer since the biner would be loaded in three directions rather than two opposing directions?

ukclimbing.com/articles/pag…

On this page you'll see a video of Tim Emmett demonstrating how to construct a toprope rig using static line.

• *Disclaimer: it is common practice to use two lockers at the masterpoint, not one**

Thanks for the link, Alex. Maybe I'm fuzzy on the complete definition of a top rope anchor. From what you've said, would you also consider the second half of every pitch in a multipitch climb toproping where the second is belayed from the top of the pitch, regardless of belay method, or is the term "toprope" solely reserved for single pitch climbing?

Alex, your link defines toproping with the caveat that the route was not led before the belay anchor was built. There seems to be a technicality in the definition. Take any route that can be led but also has back access to reach the top of the route without climbing it, and, for the sake of the argument, assume the route can be completed in one pitch or with the use of one typical rope. If you led it and then built a belay anchor, according to the article, this is not toproping to bring up your second. But, if you scrambled up the back of the route and built the same anchor as when you led the route, the fact that you scrambled up the back of the route and didn't lead it makes this a toprope setup, according to the article.

adam cofield wrote:Mark, wouldn't clipping a carabiner like that load it in a way that is not recommended by the manufacturer since the biner would be loaded in three directions rather than two opposing directions?

Cross loading the carabiner is a valid point. My thought based on the picture was that the two cordelettes would come close enough together such that the forces would generally only be in two directions (up/down), and that since the fall forces would be low in this situation, that this would be OK.

But you are right. A "by the book" set up could be what you originally had, but extend the doubled up runner and tie a master point in it. For a TR setup use lockers at both cordelettes and two lockers at the master point. For bringing up your second, one locker + grigri is fine.

I think Nate meant that you could untie the double fisherman on your cordelettes and then retie it once you looped a single strand around the tree. This would give you a some extra length over the girth hitch.