Passive-Only Trad Anchor

Nathanael wrote:You're dumb for not using cams. Not because it's unsafe or impossible, but because it's pointless idealism and you have no real experience or knowledge to back it up.

Nice. People call me an asshole.

Kyle, you should buy some tricams, you can placed them limestone pockets. They might come handy on all the 4 or 5 bolt, limestone stone sport climbs on your to do list ;-)

My advice would be to build a bunch of TR anchors using only passive pro before you do any multipitch. I learned how to place trad gear building trad anchors with only passive pro, because we were cheap college students with no cams. Make them SEReNE and sling a few boulders for good measure. Once you get comfortable with your TR anchors and get a good feel for how to place non-directional gear, you'll probably have saved enough money to buy a single rack for easily setting non-directional anchors for your multipitch adventures.

Yes, lots of people climbed lots of MP using only passive pro and lived to tell about it, but read some of their stories. Lots of what they did back in the day was super sketchy and shouldn't be repeated just because they lived.

Haha. True.

ckersch wrote:Yes, lots of people climbed lots of MP using only passive pro and lived to tell about it, but read some of their stories. Lots of what they did back in the day was super sketchy and shouldn't be repeated just because they lived.

Nor should passive-only anchors be avoided simply because people who used them back in the day also happened to do sketchy stuff that they were lucky to survive.

Solid pro is solid pro. Passive pro doesn't make an anchor sketchy. Sketchy pro makes an anchor sketchy.

King Tut wrote: Stacked nuts are nothing to trust unless you are well and truly desperate. Honestly, its a relic of the days before cams and dirtbag climbing on the ultimate budget. Not something anyone used regularly, but they were happy to tell the epic tale. More something of campfire legend. Of course, they were the precursors to sliding nuts (Ball Nuts, Sliders etc) which I have used commonly in thin parallel cracks for free and aid climbing. But I never recall building an anchor with any, unless they were used in a more traditional constricting placement.

John Stannard's stopper stack was used rather frequently in the Gunks and was on a lot of climber's racks. They also came in handy at Seneca. The little pot holes/pockets on Whitehorse Ledge protected rather easily with a hex in a vertical orientation with a stopper wedged behind it and one side of the pocket. I've used that as part of a belay anchor.

So no, in some areas of the country they were used regularly as another tool in the protection quiver.

Marc801 wrote: John Stannard's stopper stack was used rather frequently in the Gunks and was on a lot of climber's racks. They also came in handy at Seneca. The little pot holes/pockets on Whitehorse Ledge protected rather easily with a hex in a vertical orientation with a stopper wedged behind it and one side of the pocket. I've used that as part of a belay anchor.

I've used stacked nuts periodically BITD, mostly for belay anchors since the placement requires both hands to get everything properly in place and snug against rotational loads, and had occasion to do it a few years ago when I had used the only cam that would have fit. And BITD I always had one or two of Stannard's slung stacked nuts on my rack.

Marc801 wrote: So no, in some areas of the country they were used regularly as another tool in the protection quiver.

Some day take a census of how many guys were climbing in your locale in those days. I was shocked when I realized damn near "everyone" climbing in Yosemite when I started was actually a handful of core guys that all knew each other within a few degrees of separation (70's).

And you are referring (if I am not mistaken) to two stoppers on the same sling....~30-40 years ago?

Not something *remotely* in common use today, right? Pretty sure Tri-Cams (or SLCDs) have that niche now for pockets and horizontals and have for 30+ years. I think is more useful to direct people just starting to what is common today, and get to the more advanced/rare stuff later.

Fireside legend in Yosemite, thanks for sharing!

ps certainly a worthy (advanced) skill for any tradster. just not exactly common. And I am not trying to demean your experience! I have just come to realize that what seems like yesterday (to us) has become fireside legend today.

Dan.G. yorlig wrote:Has anyone ever stacked nuts for use in a masterpoint set up?

Hi Dan: If you don't already have it, you might want to pick up a copy of Advanced Rockcraft by Royal Robbins (1970). He goes into great detail about stacking all manner of passive pro safely, and the techniques still apply today 47 yrs later.

It's hard to imagine, however, a placement that couldn't be more safely protected with modern gear vs. stacked nuts. But of course you can drop your rack or use up your gear or have to fall back on passive pro techniques at any time.

Classic mountain project thread, totally derailed and didn't even answer the OP's question.

Kyle, build your anchor, then place a fourth piece below the master point that can hold an upward pull. Clove hitch that piece to the master point, remove slack. Done.

rgold wrote:The "idealistic" perspective, which is to say the voluntary restriction of means, lies at the very heart of climbing, which loses all meaning and content if absolutely anything goes. Climbers who don't get this actually don't get something essential about climbing itself. But if your only reason for eschewing cams is that you are cheap, that's dumb. (Sorry.) You don't need anywhere near sixty nuts---you just wasted a lot money on duplication when you could have bought some cams. And although I would imagine you could find others willing to engage in the extra adventure of all-passive protection on "idealistic" grounds, expecting anyone to accompany you on outings that are more intricate and demanding because you're a cheapskate is expecting a whole hell of a lot. As for going without cams, for fifteen years, I and everyone from my fading generation climbed multipitch routes up to 5.11 (with a touch of 5.12) with only passive protection, mostly because cams hadn't arrived, but for a while because some of us regarded them with suspicion. Reading this thread, you could get the impression that climbing only with nuts is something radical and unsafe. Although it is true that you can get cam placements where nuts won't go, most areas (not including desert splitters) have enough variation to allow for substantial passive protection placements, but you will have to work harder than your cam-equipped friends and may have to master now-vanishing arts like stacking nuts and opposing nuts in horizontal cracks. As nuts are more fiddly and so more tiring to place from trying stances, it makes sense even if you are carrying cams to use primarily nuts for your belay anchors if this is possible. You asked about anchors. The standard multipitch anchor begins with two or three excellent downward-pull pieces (three for sure if you are new at the game). If the downward-pull pieces are in vertical cracks, are not key-holed and so able to withstand upward loads, and are subject to lifting by a hard catch, then you'll want an upward-directional piece to hold everything down. I think trusting a cam in a vertical crack to rotate 180 degrees from downward to upward orientation and not blow in the process is rolling the safety dice in a fairly serious way---once a cam is in motion its behavior is pretty unpredictable. So if you truly can't find any way to place an upward directional, then cams at least might resist upward loads, but counting on that as a substitute for real upward directionals is putting more faith in cams than they deserve. Once you've got the pieces in, rigging them is no different if they are nuts or cams. If there is nothing like a ceiling immediately above that the belayer might hit, I prefer to rig the upward directional so that it holds down the anchor rather than directly holding down the belayer. This still allows for some belayer lift for a hard catch. To do this, use either the rope or a cordelette to rig the downward pull pieces, anchor to the powerpoint, and then run the rope from the power point down to the upward-directional and tighten the clove hitch so that the upward-directional is under tension and won't fall out. Don't forget that you can use boulders and flakes and wedged chockstones for upward-directionals---it isn't always going to be a nut slotted upwards. Sometimes you wrap the rope around something, sling something, or thread something. And if you are having trouble, don't forget to look over the edge at the ground just below the belay stance, where further upward-direction possibilities may be lurking. If you can't get an upward directional and you anchor possibilities are all in vertical cracks with no key-holing, then try to get an anchor as high as possible and sit rather than stand beneath it so that you will have to be pulled really high to pull up on your anchors. Also, a sideways-directional placement, though not ideal in theory, may be (a lot) better than nothing.

climbing friend,

omg, omg, wow, you are stacking your nuts and running it out on 5.12! How may you even be leaving off the ground with such big balls?

Travis Provin wrote:Classic mountain project thread, totally derailed and didn't even answer the OP's question. Kyle, build your anchor, then place a fourth piece below the master point that can hold an upward pull. Clove hitch that piece to the master point, remove slack. Done.

Actually, that was addressed. In actual classic MP fashion, one person addressed the question while everyone else belittled, argued, and trolled the TS.

Aleks Zebastian wrote: climbing friend, omg, omg, wow, you are stacking your nuts and running it out on 5.12! How may you even be leaving off the ground with such big balls?

I keep my neck meat weight low so no problem.

That's what she said.

Anyways, I was actually trying to defend the forum by pointing out that the TS's question was, in fact, answered...it's just that it was buried by a deluge of, honestly mostly warranted, criticism about the TS's choice to only use passive pro.

Ted Pinson wrote:That's what she said. Anyways, I was actually trying to defend the forum by pointing out that the TS's question was, in fact, answered...it's just that it was buried by a deluge of, honestly mostly warranted, criticism about the TS's choice to only use passive pro.

Honestly the fact the question was asked to begin with shows the TS needs some guidance about climbing trad. Everyone I know who climbs trad would go for a passive anchor if possible any chance they could over active. So the fact they asked if you could make an all passive anchor shows the inexperience that they probably shouldn't be trying to place only passive gear on lead.

ViperScale wrote: Honestly the fact the question was asked to begin with shows the TS needs some guidance about climbing trad.

Seeing that the OP wrote in the very first sentence:
"I am a fledging [sic] trad climber."

Oh, "...the TS..."??????

ViperScale wrote: Honestly the fact the question was asked to begin with shows the TS needs some guidance about climbing trad. Everyone I know who climbs trad would go for a passive anchor if possible any chance they could over active. So the fact they asked if you could make an all passive anchor shows the inexperience that they probably shouldn't be trying to place only passive gear on lead.

No, it doesn't. It shows that he wants to confirm a suspicion about having to protect against an upward pull on an all passive anchor. Maybe you could offer lessons though. Or someone you know that climbs trad.

don'tchuffonme wrote: No, it doesn't. It shows that he wants to confirm a suspicion about having to protect against an upward pull on an all passive anchor. Maybe you could offer lessons though. Or someone you know that climbs trad.

This is kinda like day 1 training if you go climb with someone who does trad to learn from them. My advice for him and anyone else wanting to learn to climb trad is find someone to you can climb with and learn from.

Even on non-anchor things you always have to be aware of the direction of pull on your gear. Although I wouldn't say I use it commonly but sometimes you place more than 1 piece of gear to counter pull in the opposite direction to keep gear in place.

ViperScale wrote: This is kinda like day 1 training if you go climb with someone who does trad to learn from them. My advice for him and anyone else wanting to learn to climb trad is find someone to you can climb with and learn from.

Quote the part of the OP that led you to believe that he doesn't know how to place passive gear.

don'tchuffonme wrote: Quote the part of the OP that led you to believe that he doesn't know how to place passive gear.

Kyle Drott wrote:Can anyone tell me how to safely build a trad anchor out of only passive pro? I am assuming that only placing the nuts downward would be awful during a hard catch.

Sounds to me like he has never built a single trad anchor based on that. I don't know maybe he has been using other people's gear and has done it without all passive and just doesn't understand how passive works but than that leads me to the same thought of inexperience.

He knows enough to know that they get placed in constrictions and that getting pulled past it could pull the pieces out, and that should probably be protected against.