Taking Risks with Anchors

Afternoon everyone.. I just got my account today, I think the world of the quality of the advice I read on this side.
I've been climbing for about 20 years, and this question occured to me to ask..

When or do you ever take chances with your belay anchors? Hear me out before you slam me..

I recently did the East face of the 1st Flatiron...On pitch number 4 or 5 I got a little off-route, missed a belay ledge, and found myself out of rope, in a little slot, with a big, pronounced flake right next to me.
So I took 3 double length runners, tossed them over the flake, clipped in, then slid down kinda to weight them so they wouldn't blow or otherwise flip off..I ran the belay from my harness.
Now my logic was my climbing parter is good, and the 1st flatiron is mostly slab and 5.5, and this guy could handle it, so the chance of a fall was minimal.
I clipped a short runner to the slings as well so he'd have a place to clip in...

It's climbing, sometimes you take a calculated risk right? In my mind, this was better than downclimbing and traversing right to get to a belay ledge. I hate downclimbing...

Stupid or the name of the game?

All depends on the situation and your abilities etc etc. So each scenario is different. What is a-ok to one might be TERRIBLE to another.

My anchor has just been my butt behind a rock on a ledge to bring my partner up before and I felt it was 100% ok.

Thanks... I felt it was ok, but I couldn't help but feel guilty, like when he got to the anchor he was going to be mad..
The funniest part of the story is he never got there.. It started to rain and we ended up having to bail off the side..

If you made do with what you have why second guess it.

Sounds like the real lesson here is to keep track of the rope you have left ( communication with belayer maybe ) and maybe pitch things out a little more. Passing up good belay stances to run the rope out does not necessarily speed things up.

Like mattm said it has a lot to do with the situation. Sounds to me like you made a decent decision in your case. If you are worried about your follower you may have to make more risky moves yourself to keep them safe. Usually a decent idea to warn your follower if you have a belay that's not ideal...

Sometimes my anchor (and my partner's) is my last piece of gear. It's called simul-climbing.

I think speed on the 1st is paramount to safety with these afternoon thunderstorms booming lately. Thank god we are getting rain these days.

Glad you got off safely. Is there webbing/static line up there for the bail out right now?

Good comment about communication. Usually I have my partner yell "20 feet!" when i have 20 feet left. The first can be ascended in 3 long pitches to the ridge if you use a 70m and some minor simul-climbing.

cheers.
-chris

This is definitely a judgement call, and I've made similar ones in the past. I would just make sure your partner is cool with stuff like that, because if the marginal anchor that you choose blows, not just you ends up getting hurt/killed. Also, it doesn't sound like you do this regularly, but I know people who do, and it's definitely a bad habit. When you start having to weigh the likelihood of your partner falling or not and your anchor holding or not, it becomes a dangerous gray area that can have severe consequences.

Hockey Playing Climber Guy wrote:...big, pronounced flake right next to me...

Big...good. Pronounced...may be good, may be bad.

How pronounced? This would be called a summit if there weren't rock above it kind of pronounced? Or, this thing is being held on only by the lichen growing between it and the face kind of pronounced?

May've been bomber. May not. Hard to say w/o a pic.