Anchors and egos.

[mitchleblanc]

Check out my recent post on my website (www.mitchleblanc.com).

I think it's funny (or rather, not funny) how people often get personal about their "anchor setting" and make it hard (or impossible) to correct them or offer advice.

My recommendation is to take a locking biner (lock the gate) and hold it in your fist, something like a brass knuckle. (Old Omega D's work well).
When they ignore your advice, I recommend punching the stubborn ass right in the neck or solar plexus.

Seriously though, in places like Kamouraska, when you see SO many scary nightmare anchors, it would be a full time job telling people what they should be doing... And is it any of your business? If someone wants to die, it's their prerogative! (Note, this is an apparentely incorrect usage of the word "prerogative", but I believe it is acceptable according to common usage).

It's easy when it's your ass who's using the rope, you can insist, or leave...

Anyway, it's frustrating and happens often. Thoughts?

[martha]

I've come across a few shoddy (word usage) anchors and have tried to help several people. some accept the help. and others don't.

I've had a run in with a miliatary buck on It's a way of life/snakepeel. his anchor was SKETCHY and I actually was leading up one of them and he was using one bolt from each anchor (the bolted on for snake peel and the bolted one for IAWOL) so the angle was really wide and his biners weren't locked nor was his sling equalized. When he wouldn't take my advice I said, "well, I have to anchor here too so I am moving your stuff and making it safe" and I proceeded to move his flowers onto the proper anchor and make it safe.

[mathieu]

Mitch you are a zen master, I would of lost my flowers as soon as she would of touched down from abseiling. A good hit with a #10 slung hex would of surely set her straight.

In Grassi Lakes this summer me and Brent were climbing next to a group that basically did the exact same anchor set up with the slight difference that the rope didn't go over an edge. Its actually quite a comon practice as i've noticed there. Hey here is a question for the kids, how does that differ from a sporty two quick-draw anchor??

[Fred]

Although people TR on two quickdraws all the time while sport climbing, I think the philosophy in sport climbing is as follows:

1. first leader places draws and gets lowered (all bolts backing him up for redundancy/safety)
2. pull the rope leaving draws in place
3. the next leader leads the route and reties his rope through a fixed anchor and gets "lowered" (not rapel) to retrieve the draws. This way he's able to pull himself in on overhanging routes for backcleaning.

Any kind of TR should be done with a proper anchor. That is the safest way. I'm not saying I'm not going to do it tomorrow cause I'm sure I will but...

Another special note. Never TR through the rings or chains direclty. I've seen so many people do this and it puts alot of wear on the anchors and it's not safe (why? because the rope wears the metal while slipping under load. So you may be TR'ing through a weaker metal). Getting lowered is much different since the loads are much smaller (i.e. not dynamic).

[martha]

plus, doesn't top roping through anchor bolts directly bring us back to the 'death triangle' of sorts?

[mathieu]

Actually the reason the death triangle is called as such is that in most cases you would have an equilateral triangle (whoaa grade 5 geometry comes in handy after all). Which means that all sides are relatively the same lenght.

Now we all saw those charts where it says that you need a shallow angle to make an equalized anchor or else the forces will just grow expodentially on each piece. Well an anchor with the magic X with the sides (distance beween both pieces and the distance from piece to X) being the same would put 60% of the force on each piece. Now the death triangle has each piece essentially pulling towards each other so the force is actually now 120% on each piece (60% coming from the bottom and 60% coming from the other piece).

In our scenario we do not have a equilateral triangle the top is so much smaller than the lenght of the climb that essentially it becomes insignificant and the two pieces could in essence be treated as one. In my opinion its not wrong, its just that it doesn't distrubute the load evenly and leads to situations such as the IFB scenario.

[mathieu]

Also can I quickly add that the mountaineering ice axe would complement nicely my # 10 slung hex in weapons choice. Now i specifically pick the mountainerring axe instead of waterfall ice axe because the agressive teeth on an waterfall ice axe would be too messy and cause trouble in retrieval. Not that i've ever thought about that but...

[mitchleblanc]

Mitch you are a zen master, I would of lost my flowers as soon as she would of touched down from abseiling. A good hit with a #10 slung hex would of surely set her straight.

In Grassi Lakes this summer me and Brent were climbing next to a group that basically did the exact same anchor set up with the slight difference that the rope didn't go over an edge. Its actually quite a comon practice as i've noticed there. Hey here is a question for the kids, how does that differ from a sporty two quick-draw anchor??

As for being a zen master, I assure you I was losing it on the inside!

As for the anchor: If the bolts are relatively "horizontal" and the rope is not dragging over an edge, I actually don't think just clipping the anchors with biners is all that bad, and I definitely don't think clipping the anchors with two draws is bad... in this case however, the bolts weren't "even" and they were way back from the edge. And it's different to lead up, setup a sport anchor, then top-rope... versus going up and setting up an anchor intentionally for top-roping.

[Ropeguy]

Sitting here crunching some numbers and I believe the following will tell you how much force you will have on the ancor straps.

Using TR as a set up

Total weight divided (COS) of angle

Total weight = climber,belay slave and all gear

Example 200lbs of total weight,30 deg angle =230.94 lbs
divide that by 2 and there is your weight on each strap 115.47 lbs

[The Teth]

I once made the classic mistake of not checking the anchor that someone else setup, before climbing on it myself. I was bouldering at Castle Rock, California. On the way out we went by Goat Rock where some climbers had setup on my favourite route. It was a 5.9 with major fear factor as you had to climb out the roof of a cave at about 40 feet off the ground and then do a big swing and a dynamic heal hook right at the upper lip of the cave. The upper lip of the cave was about six feet farther out than the bottom of the cave, so major overhang and major exposure.

Anyway, these guys seemed to know what they were doing. (ie. Good belay technique etc., and one of them had already taken a fall on the setup.) So I offered to belay one of them in exchange for a climb on their rope. When I got to the top I found that they had daisy-chained four slings to run thirty feet to the anchors at the top of the cliff, rather than using the bolted anchors set specifically for that climb (accessible via a cave/tunnel which ran through the cliff). Some of the slings where only half inch and there was no backup. Just the one thirty foot daisy chain.

I assessed my options, and then yelled down that I would down climb instead of being lowered. When I got to the bottom I did not say anything. I just walked away. I was hopping the anchor would break on the next climb, hopefully breaking the legs of the idiot who put it up. Not that I was any less of an idiot for climbing on a stranger’s setup and not checking the anchor myself.

My friend took photos, and from his position you can see the anchor setup in the photos.

Teth

[Fred]

Sitting here crunching some numbers and I believe the following will tell you how much force you will have on the ancor straps.

Using TR as a set up

Total weight divided (COS) of angle

Total weight = climber,belay slave and all gear

Example 200lbs of total weight,30 deg angle =230.94 lbs
divide that by 2 and there is your weight on each strap 115.47 lbs

Yes this is true but you should specify that the angle of 30 degrees is with the vertical and that the angle between the two anchor lines is 60 degrees.

Also, if you tie the same set-up in an american triangle configuration, the loop tension is the same (115.5 lbs) but the resultant force on one bolt become (2)(115.5)Cos(30) = 200 lbs. So that means you basically double your load on the anchor since now 400lbs total is resisted by your system. Note that the resultant force angle is at 30 degrees with the horizontal which means that you have lots of sideways pull (keep in mind for pitons in horizontal cracks).

But when you think of it... 200lbs is 1kN and bolts are rated to 20+kN's so you essentially have a factor of safety of 20 and even 10 if set-up with an American Death Triangle.

[dcentral]

I was talking about this with an extremely experienced mountaineer this weekend.

We basically agree that the more you know, the more your sketch factor increases.

Ignorance definitely is bliss when it comes to anchors and pro. Too bad the less you know doesn't make you safer.

It does say a lot about the gear through that people can be so reckless with their lives and still walk out at the end of the day.