Rumney Top Anchors

kemple sr. wrote:These are a few of the Fixe forged biners that have had gate spring failure. Kevin Daniels has twice promised to make good on some more of these, but has failed to do so. Tomorrow I will contact Trango and see what we can work out. They seem to be far more responsible as a company.

Personally I would always clip into the bolt and not the pigtail itself, lifting the pigtail and making sure to clip under it and not over it so that the draw is not loaded over the pigtail. 

In terms of going in direct, if you are cleaning  you shouldn't need to go in direct as the pigtails are there for that exact purpose. They create a durable, safe, easy to use anchor for lowering. If you are worried about communication with your belay and think rappelling is safer, then you can just go in direct without quickdraws on the anchor at all. Simply lead climb to the anchor, go in direct, and rappel. 

If you were top-roping and then rappelling, Upon getting to the top of the climb, I would move one of the quickdraws to the pigtail itself, go in direct behind it on the bolt, then prepare to rappel. 

Thank you for the clear and concise response covering all potential scenarios!

There is no reason you would need to rappel..The whole point is to have a quick, simple and safe way to lower of the routes. I have clipped both to the tails and to the bolts when there is space. both seemed to work fine.

How many of the routes at Rumney are set up with these currently (out of curiosity)? 

Mild thread hijack:

I am taking some new climbers out and wanted to show them a video of how to clean toprope anchors. While I have some faith in my ability to describe this in words, I thought I'd send a video as well. 

Most videos online are about how to clean if all you have is chains or rings, and I couldn't find any videos for the lower-off system. I don't want them to get confused and think they need to do any untying or other shenanigans.

The pigtail video below is useful. Does anybody know of a similar video to demonstrate the carabiner-style lower-offs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XOsD29XPU0

 I plan to install anchors of each type,  on the boulder at the base of the Meadows trail. They will be expressly for teaching top anchor cleaning. They will be within reach of the ground, climbers will be standing on rock so no environmental damage. I would have liked to do this last year, but things came up. 

Great thought Tim. Thanks a lot in advance.    Alan

Climb Tech's new top anchor mussy hooks are a good option.  The climbing rated wiregate seems like it will hold up. 

Tim, excellent idea! That will be perfect for teaching newcomers.

Bolts are there. One set with rings. DQ should have rams horns on the other set by now. 

This should give all a place to get comfortable with these things. 

Good idea, Tim. Thank you. I'm tired of listening to gym rats yelling up at their partners and teaching them how to clean anchors while they're 10 bolts off the deck. If these prevent just one accident they will be more than worth it. 

Great work, thank you.

Tim, thanks for making the 'teaching station' at The Meadows a reality.  It is a great service to all.

Muir Valley has one type for their teaching station, we have three.  We win :)

Pigtail/Ramhorn took me a clean or two to get perfectly comfy with but I think they are great.  As I noted elsewhere, one quickie at the anchor of Clusterphobia has a broken spring, just in case someone is keeping a list of candidates for replacement.

Probably because our style of drop in anchors do not require figuring out ;)