Upward Pull Anchoring in a Roped Solo

"A picture is worth a thousand words" 

Please share actual real world pics of upward pull anchor setups used in Roped soloing.

I know there are many different ways of doing this and many consider these "Trade Secrets".

Thx,  Dean

Aid route?

Aid routes.  Yes.   Any route you've been on Mark would be great.   Big fan.  Seen one of your pics.  Three bolt three knot w screamer.   Lead line tied to haul line out of rope bag ???

Yeah, I'm trying to find that photo...

.

An anchor on ZM. Notice the slack between the screamer and the next bolt. That will allow the screamer to scream.

Also on ZM.

I made a mistake on this anchor. Notice how if I fell, the screamer would put an odd twist on that first biner. I'd put the screamer right onto the bolt hanger to correct it. I hadn't developed my "Anchor Kit" idea yet. Now, I have three of those big lockers, two of which have quickdraws. I dock my bags to the bottom biner on the quickdraw. NOTHING else is every clipped onto those biners!!!!! I would now simply clip the screamer to the top, Anchor Kit biner.

Most of the time on a solo, I'll forgo the better way of building an anchor that Mark taught us all (butterflies on lockers on anchor bolts) and use a masterpoint via cordelette. THis allows me to hang the haul bag from this point and then just clip the lead line to this masterpoint as well and forgo the screamer as the weight of the haulbag (at least on lower pitches) will work just like a partner for dampening the force of a fall applied to the anchors. If I'm fixing (no haulbag), I'll use the screamer with the added loop to allow it to tear on a properly setup anchor in Mark's method. 

Blood and Coin - Lost Brother

Prowd - Lost Brother

Roulette - Leaning Tower

Afroman - Washington Column

Tribal Rite - El Cap

Added bonus Rebelay off a hook 

Thanks guys,   Wealth of knowledge there. 

That rebelay off hook looks scary, wouldn't you just use that rig for holding the rope weight only ? 

1990 Aid/Free Solo at Devils Punchbowl CA.  Clove hitch only.  No redundancy.  Unknown to me then,  I know better now.

Dean Wright wrote:

Thanks guys,   Wealth of knowledge there. 

That rebelay off hook looks scary, wouldn't you just use that rig for holding the rope weight only ? 

That's exactly what a rebelay is; you use the tension on the rope to both hold the hook in place and to keep the rope weight from pulling the slack through your device. Also very good for just before a sharp edge that way when you jug to clean the pitch, the tension is held on the rebelay preventing the rope from sawing against the sharp edge while jugging. Obviously the rebelay does not need to be on a hook and can be used on any secure placement.

Kevin,   Never jugged on a rebelay,   Wouldn't that be kinda dicey ?

Dean Wright wrote:

Kevin,   Never jugged on a rebelay,   Wouldn't that be kinda dicey ?

Nope.

If the hook popped, what would happen? Nothing, he might drop down a couple of feet since the rebelay is holding the rope tension and there is no rope tension above it. Let's not start in on the dreaded and highly fictional "falling on a toothed cam" subject.

Be logical here, be real world and be real human, Kevin is an excellent wall climber so is he going to place a hook rebelay on something sketchy? No, he's going to place it on something pretty bomber. 90% of all hook placements you will ever make are going to be over bomber flakes or very secure edges.

People fictionalize the difficulty of aid climbing to a large degree. People on the trade routes think that since its rated A/C3 it must be sketchy. It must be sketchy so they must do sketchy moves. Well, if you are on something real bad, a bad hook move, or some real dicey nut or cam, you're making the wrong move. "C3" on the trade routes means three or four not fully bomber pieces in a row. "Not fully bomber" means a little bit less than anchor quality. 

Mark Hudon wrote:

If the hook popped, what would happen? Nothing, he might drop down a couple of feet since the rebelay is holding the rope tension and there is no rope tension above it. Let's not start in on the dreaded and highly fictional "falling on a toothed cam" subject.

Be logical here, be real world and be real human, Kevin is an excellent wall climber so is he going to place a hook rebelay on something sketchy? No, he's going to place it on something pretty bomber. 90% of all hook placements you will ever make are going to be over bomber flakes or very secure edges.

People fictionalize the difficulty of aid climbing to a large degree. People on the trade routes think that since its rated A/C3 it must be sketchy. It must be sketchy so they must do sketchy moves. Well, if you are on something real bad, a bad hook move, or some real dicey nut or cam, you're making the wrong move. "C3" on the trade routes means three or four not fully bomber pieces in a row. "Not fully bomber" means a little bit less than anchor quality. 

Real talk from Mark. I love wall climbing and the technical engineering aspect of it. I love the pushing yourself through irrational fear partnof the sport. I HATE actual "real live death moves" that only happen when FAing or doing obscurities. Mark is correct in that you will NEVER reach a truly messed up move on a trade route because those before you had the "honor?" of removing hose foryou already (except for clipping mank fixed gear that could pop at any time - another reason why I stay off trade routes now unless I'm rope gunning a friend up something for their experience)

Another not-often-spoken-of aspect of aid grades is that there's actually two forms of grading in the valley: there's trade route/noob grading that tends to be about overall difficulty of placements and tends to be rather soft either due to fixed gear or just because noobs tend to think of a single beak placement as "omfg A4 brah!" The there's obscurity and FA grading where the difficulty is more based upon the experience the climber has IN THE VALLEY and the actual fall possibility. 

An example of the latter is on my route Blood and Coin on Lost Brother in the valley (spray spray spray) where one of the crux pitches is 190' of 20-30 beak placements (most #1 beak tips) and small gear; it sounds scary but based upon rivets and solid beak placements, you're never going to fall more than 15' or so IF your placements are done correctly. So what's the grade of the pitch? A2. But the same pitch on a trade route would be given A3/4. I ended up grading the pitch A3 because I know that new climbers don't respect A2 and though a solid A2 braking climber will have no trouble, there's plenty of climbers that would get into trouble if they went up with a "just A2" mentality. Grades are weird man. 

They said building an anchor at the bottom of "Brain Dead" at Looking Glass to solo the first pitch was impossible.  I didn't believe them.  Filled up my backpack with as many large rocks as I could and wrapped it up with the cordellete.  I felt pretty confident with this set up, but I did clove hitch the first piece of semi solid gear.

Ryan7crew wrote:

They said building an anchor at the bottom of "Brain Dead" at Looking Glass to solo the first pitch was impossible.  I didn't believe them.  Filled up my backpack with as many large rocks as I could and wrapped it up with the cordellete.  I felt pretty confident with this set up, but I did clove hitch the first piece of semi solid gear.

Solid.

Kevin,   Pretty slick screamer setup off the tree anchor,    You guys ever Solo anything in Zion, I know sandstone is a tad scarier.

https://cdn2.apstatic.com/forum/13264.jpg

Haven't been to Zion yet but when time allows, it's certainly on my list of places to go for an extended period of time. 

Kevin DeWeese 1 wrote:

Haven't been to Zion yet but when time allows, it's certainly on my list of places to go for an extended period of time. 

You already probably know,   Permit required for overnight bivouac.  FYI

Dean Wright wrote:

Kevin,  I don't see your route Blood & Coin on MP.   Secret ?    Love to see a topo

https://www.mountainproject.com/v/109405831?search=1&type=route&method=resultsPage&query=Blood%20Coin