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Thoughts on this Multi-Pitch Anchor Set-Up?
King Tut wrote: And if you lead in blocks? (assuming by tie in with the rope you mean use the rope to make the anchor) |
Parker Wrozek wrote: Leading in blocks on a Free Climb is a different scenario than traditional swapping of leads. In that case a slung together anchor can be more convenient. Good point and probably why guides are often advocates of such systems. But, an experienced party would have little delay using an ad hoc PAS to untie and swap ends of the rope, leaving the anchor stitched together with the rope. I personally would forgo the extra slings at the belay and and have the minimum needed for rope drag management rather than having 2 cordalette type slings along on a route unless you wanted the extra cord to have for leaving at rappel stations etc. I am not trying to write anything in stone other than advocate a concept of minimalism, mated with experience. Keep it simple, seriously. :) And don't get me wrong, I have thrown in an extra piece and used a sling to stitch together an anchor as the situation seemed to dictate at the time. But if anyone is belaying at anchors that need strict equalization they are doing it wrong. Any one piece/bolt should be capable of handling max expected loads. I'm saying people should learn to place/recognize "bomber" and use it to maximize their efficiency rather than stitching together something over thinking it. |
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That is true it doesn't take that long to swap it all out. I still think it is easier overall if you are going in blocks to use some cord though. |
King Tut wrote: Are you saying that one should count on a good gear placement to hold a factor 2 fall on its own? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for time efficiency and simplicity, but if I'm building a gear anchor, I think it would be wise to attempt to get some level of load distribution. If one practices this before hopping on their first multi then it shouldn't take more than 5min at the very most (excluding however long it takes to find your placements). On bolts, yeah I'll clove to both bolts and call it good, or a pre-tied anchor if I'm leading in blocks. After all, I'm much more likely to die from an afternoon thunderstorm or descending in the pouring rain or dark. Not from my anchor ripping out because it wasn't perfectly equalized. Although, at the same time, I'm still more likely to die in a car accident en route to/from the crag than either of these possibilities. |
eli poss wrote: I honestly don't know what the number is for the max forces for an 80kg climber are in a F2 fall on one piece of substantial (not micro) gear (many things to consider) but am quite sure one good sized cam in good rock can hold it and everything else in the safety chain can too as gear is designed to have a margin over and above these max forces...but that is not exactly what we are talking about here. We are talking about the other 99.99999% of falls the anchor has to hold. And just because you are cloved off to the anchor, doesn't mean that only one piece is going to take the whole load... One Camalot will hold ~16kn properly placed in sound rock. Anything much more than that and you are going to be breaking carabiners and bodies.... So what I am saying, fundamentally, is at the end of every pitch you should have an extremely good idea of the likelihood of a severe fall and the quality of your anchor placements. The vast majority of climbers never, ever do routes that have this potential for a factor 2 above a sketchy anchor that has to be equalized for them to survive. Most routes are well protected, not dead vertical for the 10-20 feet right off the belay etc. and the anchor is very sound either from fixed gear or available gear placements. On the greater majority of routes you simply need to apply your judgment to quickly and efficiently place a good anchor and get bomber pieces, clove off, and bring up the second. THIS is going to save your life before any equalization shenanigans will, imo. If you don't have the judgment to trust a bomber cam, you don't belong on such routes that have sketchy anchors. We are talking about gear anchors on common routes that have plenty of sound rock and placement options. In this case, there is ZERO need to be spending time perfectly equalizing the anchor. Clove hitch off to 2-3 bomber cams, with one additional directional restricting their upward rotation and you are gtg. Get moving. If you can see that the next pitch is sketchy or that you are getting placements that you do not have 100% confidence in, then any additional measures to increase safety are well worth doing. Get creative and make an utterly strong and equalized anchor to satisfy yourself. But, if you finish one well protected pitch, get a solid anchor, and the next pitch is more of the same well protected climbing then all this fretting over equalization is just clogging up trade routes increasing the danger to all parties present exposing them to all the things listed (nightfall/rockfall/storms/gumbies etc) that actually get people in trouble. Jim Titt, rgold or others can chime in if they have something to share, but this idea that someone is going to fall on 2-3 bomber cams and rip them out leading to the parties death has never happened in the history of climbing to my knowledge. Catastrophic anchor failure has only been old fixed mank of one kind of another and even that is exceedingly rare (probably due to the good judgment of the more expert climbers that find themselves in those situations who then take precautions). I may not be communicating the idea perfectly, consider it food for thought and think about how quickly Mark H. grasped what I am talking about in a general sense. It is a concept well worth grasping, from our experience, which is what we are trying to share. But certainly not a one size fits all solution. I think our Yosemite and elsewhere experience with dozens and dozens of gear anchors may have a lot to do with it. We certainly did not develop this trust in our judgment of our anchor placements overnight and when that little voice starts telling us something isn't quite ideal, we always equalize them as best we can. We just see so many people being slow over-thinking the equalization of their anchors, when it is the soundness of the placements that really matters. You always need to build the anchor you need for the actual demands of the route...but this also means not over building them when you don't have the need. |
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Belaying off your harness is fine until you are in a self-rescue scenario. Seek qualified instruction and be safe, folks. |
eli poss wrote: The thinking from the DAV is each of the pieces in an anchor should hold 6kN each which is the highest force you could reasonably expect (and normally three pieces), i think this is a little low but then I´m fat! The rule when I started climbing was the combined strength of the pieces should equal the strength of the rope which adds up to much the same thing as ropes back then had a breaking strength of 2.5 tons unlike the miserable thin things we have nowadays. The force on a belay in a FF2 is automatically limited by the belay device you use so around 4-5kN for almost anything normal + the weight of the belayer. If you are on a big route with more than two climbers you need to take a bit more care, three people on a belay + haul bags starts pushing things past normal. |
eli poss wrote: I posted a photo of a bolted anchor earlier which had me tied off with 2 cloves. I've never just cloved 3 pieces of a trad anchor in series before and won't. In this case a proper tied off anchor with master point is appropriate. |
eli poss wrote: That's really a myth with no data to back it up. I haven't seen any data on rock climbing, but here's some data on a whole bunch of other sports. If we make some assumptions, I would assume climbing is more risky than running a marathon. We should also assume that your typical commute to the crag is not 8 hours. Based on these assumptions, your chance of dying in a typical 1-hour drive should be less than climbing. |
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If I understand correctly, the UIAA tests are supposed to simulate the worst possible scenario and I think the highest impact force I've ever seen is like 13kn. Yes, we all know that real factor 2 falls aren't that severe, but at the same time we usually aren't using a brand new rope. I could be wrong, but I think it is reasonable to just use the 13kn figure since older ropes are less elastic and therefore dissipate less energy. IIRC, even my largest nuts are rated to 10kn or maybe even 12kn. That's still under the 13kn figure, but lets just pretend for a second that it's rated to 13kn. I mostly climb on Dakota sandstone and Junction Creek sandstone, which are both softer than wingate sandstone. I have a hard time believing that the rock isn't going to crumble or break if it's loaded that much. Perhaps in bomber granite it is perfectly fine to not have any load distribution but that is not the case for my local crags. I'm not saying spend 15min getting "perfect" distribution because we all know that isn't even possible to begin with. But for me it's worth a few min to achieve some level of load distribution, if only to make myself feel better. |
eli poss wrote: 1. You are absolutely right to equalize your anchors in Sandstone. That stuff (yes even wingate) is choss. People rip gear out of it all the time and extra precautions are needed. 2. read what Jim Titt posted above, max forces are in the 6kn range in real world F2 falls. If you are ever taking anything close to a F2 on Sandstone you are rolling the dice, imo. 3. Most people don't climb on Sandstone. What this really means is your own experience is informing your practice and that is a good thing. You recognize you are climbing on choss and appropriately equalizing your anchors. 4. People that have ready access to granite like Mark and I, have had that experience inform our own practice as well as accident reporting for the last 40 years. That is why we know that if you take the practices a good safe climber is using in sandstone and apply them in granite you are way overdoing it in all likelihood. My posts have been a plea to get people to focus on what is important and that is the quality of the gear/fixed anchor placement (and that sound rock quality was used to form your anchor as a given should go without saying). Quality placements in solid stone trump equalization. That is the vastly more important issue. You have properly assessed that your rock quality is poor and are taking good precautions. Remember, this is what I posted up thread: "You need to know how to equalize when it is strictly required. NOT when it is not remotely required." |
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In one of climbing's most horrific accidents, a person fell 260 feet on a static rope (he died of course) but the biners attaching him to the rope and the rope to the anchor did not break and the anchor did not rip out. The climbers were experienced wall climbers and I don't think they would have had their whole anchor equalized down to a single power point and everything clipped to that. People safety their docking cord using the haul line clipped to a piece at the anchor and if that was the case, one bolt and one biner held the full load. |
Mark Hudon wrote: Sounds like Bob Locke. :( |
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I mean absolutely no disrespect to Mason I'm just pointing to the accident to show some of our misconceptions about gear. The Locke accident was similar but his haul line was a dynamic cord and no where near 260 feet. |
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I'd argue his static line comment, but in another thread. |
aikibujin wrote: I'm gonna have to disagree. There is no data on rock climbing, so you make your point based on the assumption that rock climbing is statistically more dangerous than running a marathon. I would actually make the opposite assumption, that running a marathon is more likely to kill you than climbing. Running a marathon, it is quite easy to get severe dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. Of the ways to die rock climbing, I can think of head injury leading to increased ICP or other death, severe bleeding leading to either volume shock or hypothermia, and various deaths from trauma if the climber falls more than, say, 50 feet to a bad landing. How often do those kinds of things happen in rock climbing (excluding high altitude and alpine climbing)? I would venture to guess that the human body is a lot more forgiving (except for maybe the brain) with an impact at high velocity as opposed to human body's tolerance of environmental factors, over which we have less control. I've heard a lot of stories of people taking long falls and getting away with as little as bad road rash or a couple broken bones. Any of y'all heard the story of the guy who fell over 200 feet to the deck at the gunks and walked away with just road rash? |
uld actually make the opposite assumption, that running a marathon is more likely to kill you than climbing. You're right, since we don't have hard data, we're both just making shit up. But haha, that's a good one there! |
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Getting back to the scenario proposed in the original question.... OK, so we have more or less concluded that those bolts aren't going anywhere, and this is especially fine for top-roping a second. However, think about when your second begins to lead. With a regular anchor setup (sling/cord plus clove off masterpoint), you have at least a few feet and some dynamic aspect to the system if your new leader whips and you get lifted. With the scenario proposed, one of your points is tied in with a sling/PAS that you have set up with a minimal amount of slack. If your guy whips, doesn't that shock have the potential to injure the belayer much more than in a more conventional setup? |
