PAS Advice

May anyone advise on PAS gear for Sport Climbing and other applications?

I'm starting to lead and clean routes and am not finding a best practice for anchoring in and setting up your repel. The "bros" just clip in using a quick draw or two(sometimes lacking redundancy) and say "for sure" a lot so I don't want to do any of that.
Metolius and Mammut make a strong PAS system that is rated to 22kN, but not dynamic. I may purchase and use one of those but am curious about alternatives.

May I please have some recommendations on a few ways to anchor in to bolts while setting up my rappel? Specifically recommendations on slings and PAS, and the strengths of each. Thanks so much for the helpful advice everyone. 

Nice bike bro.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/109117664/pas-recommendation#ForumMessage-109118110

choose one

-clove with the rope
or
-single length sling girth hitched to harness
or
buy a book "The mountain guides manual" by Marc Chauvin, and read and learn.

All 3 of those (combined!) will cost less than the majority of dedicated PAs. And you will learn more and be safer, and will eventually make your own decision on if a given PA is necessary and safe.

Sport climbing: clip 1 of the two draws to the rope, clip the other directly to your belay loop. Then unclip draw 1 from the rope and clip to belay loop. This is me telling you that the "bros" are correct and here is a more thorough and redundant means of accomplishing said task. 

Everything else: 2ft nylon sling. If you want to make it adjustable, throw a knot in the middle. This is resistant to dynamic force. Also, do you plan on dynamically loading anchors and do you know what that means? 

None of the PAS systems are dynamic, and they are not meant to be.  You do what is comfortable for you.  I have a PAS and use it, a buddy tied up a cordlette with a sliding knot so he can shorten it, and other folks I know use various draws if they need to clip into something.  If I am cliped into anchors with my PAS, I don't bother with a back-up if I have to untie in order to thread the rope for a rap.

Thanks Chris that is exactly what I needed. And thanks Emmett too for the link to the other discussion.

Cheers! 

Don't be scared by the boggy man of shock loading, you just have to be smart and avoid those situations.  

PAS's can be super useful, just buy one (they are like 20-30 bucks) use it for a while, try other things, and decide for yourself. 

My two cents I usually add to these threads:

Setup the works on a towel bar, tree, or whatever, and practice it yourself, unweighted. Make sure you know both cleaning with lowering in mind, and a rappel. Then, and only then, do that with the system weighted. Do it with one hand (that sounds fun, eh?). Do it with one hand while hanging. And yes, you should be able to be hands free, but what about that hornet sting you just got...?

Always test the next bit that will keep you alive before you undo the current bit that's keeping you alive. 

Know the "why" of what you are doing, so you can think it through and solve the problem some other way, if need be.

Be safe, and have fun! 

OLH

Strength isn't remotely a concern, PAS holds body weight. Hell you could make one out of 5mm cord if you really wanted to (I'm not advising you to).

Regular old slings, a 120cm nylon works fine. Dyneema is less bulky, but it wouldn't be pretty if you climb above the anchor. Easier to get knots out of nylon. 90% of the time I just use a sling if it's a multi-pitch route.

PAS of the loop variety work, but I find them cumbersome to adjust length. I would just use slings over them.

Petzl connect adjust is another option, it costs a tad more. Nice thing is that once your biner is clipped in you can change the length both directions in seconds. Actually faster than adjusting a clove hitch. I have one that I'll use when climbing in  party of 3 where you untie swapping leads (climbing normally I just clove in to the rope). 

Matt Himmelstein wrote:

Correction, the sewn loop PAS systems are not, nor meant to be.

Shane Gustman wrote:

May anyone advise on PAS gear for Sport Climbing and other applications?

I'm starting to lead and clean routes and am not finding a best practice for anchoring in and setting up your repel. The "bros" just clip in using a quick draw or two(sometimes lacking redundancy) and say "for sure" a lot so I don't want to do any of that.
Metolius and Mammut make a strong PAS system that is rated to 22kN, but not dynamic. I may purchase and use one of those but am curious about alternatives.

May I please have some recommendations on a few ways to anchor in to bolts while setting up my rappel? Specifically recommendations on slings and PAS, and the strengths of each. Thanks so much for the helpful advice everyone. 

Sport climbing-- yeah, "bros" are correct , for sure.   

A sling or a PAS would work, too, but if you are only doing single-pitch sport climbing, why spend money on something you don't need? Once you start doing trad, you will have plenty of slings on you.

if you want a dynamic adjustable anchor, and don't want to use the rope/hitch, Petzl sells an adjustable dynamic lanyard, called something like "Petzl Connect Adjust".

amarius wrote:

This is great, but, IMO, you still need to learn to clean with the idea of going to a rappel. Sorry, but if it's that dangerous, and it is, YOU are the one who needs to be sure you know what you are doing, and don't get complacent about it.

Best, OLH

John Wilder wrote:

Did you watch the whole video? It includes a section on how to clean and rappel. 

That said, I rarely, if ever, rappel off a single pitch climb unless there are Metolius rap hangers on the anchor or some other weird anchor setup that would require a rappel. Otherwise, I always lower.

For sport climbing, I always lower- no exceptions. 

Oops. No, I thought it was the same one that's been on here quite a few times already.

Glad that's the case that they include rappel!

Best, OLH

I've been checking out nylon PAS alternatives lately.  Sterling makes something called the chain reactor - haven't used it but it looks pretty sweet.  

PAS for sport climbing?

Buy nothing. This is everything you should buy.

Look I get it, you want fresh gear. Many people here can relate. I like the metolious PAS. Whatever you choose is fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Don't get a daisy chain. 

Two quickdraws on the anchor is all you need for lowering off a sport climb.  I've argued endlessly about the utility of a PAS for multipitch trad but you just plain don't need one for lowering off a sport climb.

If you have a PAS for its other uses and will be rapelling off a sport climb rather than lowering, then there is no good reason not to use the PAS for that purpose, but I wouldn't buy one (as opposed to just using a double-length sling) if single-pitch sport is the only application.

It really doesn't matter. The most important part of sport climbing anchor cleaning is that you NEVER GO OFF BELAY.