Cleaning a route you didn't get up

seriously all these shenanigans to save a carabiner or two. just post to MP that you want to buy 10 bail biners. spend $10 bucks. always keep two on your harness for when you need to bail. lighter than a gri-gri and no damn prussics to tie. most of the time someone will be climbing after you and will retrieve the two biners. in fact they will be glad to because they get the ego boost of finishing your climb for you. hell I bet most of the time you can just lower off your draws and someone will return them.

its true after you climb for a while you will have an entire collection of bail biners. especially if you climb some trad.

and check the biners and draws that are left in place. biners get worn through and have cut through ropes before. never trust equipment that you find at the cliff without checking it for yourself.

I haven't had to bail off of anything yet, but I like the prussik idea if lowering off a single biner. I often have a small tied loop with me that I'll use as an autoblock when rappelling, and it makes for a great foothold when frenching. It's much thinner than the Petzl pdf 7mm recommendation though, probably 5mm, and on a non locker.
I wasn't particularly thrilled about their recommending leaving a quick link, as I'm sure Alvaro wouldn't be either.

Locker wrote:I recognize Matt Damon on the left. But who is that with the Dog?

I believe that is Alexi Honnold (Alex's conjoined twin that was seperated pre-pubescently).

More importantly, who is the lurker sitting at the table with the spilled piss-jug?

Dan G0D5H411 wrote:Remember that the Red is still sandstone and while most bolts are good, it is not worth your life to risk lowering off one bolt. On any sport climb where I am on softer rock or questionable bolts, I will clip in direct (while still on belay), clip my rope through a bail biner at my current bolt AND through another bail biner on the bolt below. Then your belayer can lower you while you clean your draws. Some may say this is overkill but I think I am worth more than 5 bucks. On the REALLY steep routes, it also makes it easier to clean your route when being lowered vs rapping from your bail biner.

A cheaper way to retreat off a sport route with redundancy is to slide a prussik down the belay rope as you are lowered.

Mike Lane wrote: We all circulate the things. They come and go

False. They end up on my trad rack as trad draws making up The World's Cheapest Trad Rack.

5.samadhi wrote: False. They end up on my trad rack as trad draws making up The World's Cheapest Trad Rack.

Thaddeus Thiggins wrote:

thats what they tell me when they watch me climb :(

"On that note, just unclip and take falls all the way til you get to the first bolt and then downclimb after you pull that draw off. I mean, whatever?"

What is wrong with down climbing? Sure the op is talking about not leaving gear on sport climbs, but d-climbing can be a valuable skill to learn.

Or the op could probably stick clip all the way to the top and lower off the chains cleaning draws on the way down. (Learning nothing in the process.) It is infact sport climbing, so I mean, whatever?

Dan G0D5H411 wrote:Remember that the Red is still sandstone and while most bolts are good, it is not worth your life to risk lowering off one bolt. On any sport climb where I am on softer rock or questionable bolts, I will clip in direct (while still on belay), clip my rope through a bail biner at my current bolt AND through another bail biner on the bolt below. Then your belayer can lower you while you clean your draws. Some may say this is overkill but I think I am worth more than 5 bucks. On the REALLY steep routes, it also makes it easier to clean your route when being lowered vs rapping from your bail biner.

If doing this also a good idea to put a prussik on the belay line and clip to your belay loop with a locker as you're lowered so that if the bolt fails the prussik eliminates the huge amount of 'slack' that is now in the system and may hold in the fall. Do this if I have to bail off trad leads.

Dan G0D5H411 wrote:Remember that the Red is still sandstone and while most bolts are good, it is not worth your life to risk lowering off one bolt. On any sport climb where I am on softer rock or questionable bolts, I will clip in direct (while still on belay), clip my rope through a bail biner at my current bolt AND through another bail biner on the bolt below. Then your belayer can lower you while you clean your draws. Some may say this is overkill but I think I am worth more than 5 bucks. On the REALLY steep routes, it also makes it easier to clean your route when being lowered vs rapping from your bail biner.

I used to climb at the Red a bunch and don't remember ever hearing about a bolt failure of any kind. Are you aware of any instances at the Red where a bolt has failed?

I have lowered off a single bail biner a number of times and never had any issues, but your suggestion of having a second bail biner on the next lower bolt definitely provides good redundancy. For those that are concerned about lowering off one biner, it is a good solution.

Great discussion!

"What is wrong with down climbing?"

- I agree that the OP climber is crazy to consider doing this. If for no other reason: You might as well pull the run-out section, or crux, if you are good enough to down climb and clean your 5.10 or 5.11 route! Damn man, I appreciate the down climbing skillset as much as anyone, but it's HARD as hell! Can you imagine down climbing a steep-ass sketchy sport route and get all your gear, never whipping, back to the ground? You would be a bad-ass and would not have any problem with the route in the first place!!!

If it is a 5.10 or 5.11 CRUX ( aka the hard part that usually earns a modern sport climb its grade), then it is quite likely that you made any number of easier moves to get there. Example:
You hit a 5.10 crux, protected by the 3rd bolt, but the moves to the 3rd bolt are in the area of 5.8? Why not reverse the easier moves and take your gear to the ground? Obviously down climbing is not the solution every time a climber gets shut down, but it can be a quick way to retrieve gear, and is often no more of a risk than is taken while bouldering.
Have fun, and be safe out there dudes.
-Mackley

first off please dont be one the gym rat idiots at red, there is enough of them there already so know what you're doing before you go or you will most likely just make people who go there often upset......secondly youre going to the red.....so anything that you are getting on that's hard will most likely be steep and will also most likely be permadrawed up.....probably illegally.

Thanks to whoever the person was that bailed off the route we did at Shelf today. Your brand new Black Diamond D perfectly replaced my worn out one with the weak spring.

Dave Alie wrote - 

In support of Dan's point, lowering off one bolt and cleaning below isn't ideal as you're looking at a ground fall once you reach half of your high point. Backing up that bolt by leaving a bail biner on the one below also will work, but a cheaper option is to tie yourself via prusik/autoblock into the opposite strand of rope (the one that passes through the quickdraws rather than the one you're tied into), sliding the knot down with you as you lower and clean. This way you are effectively tied in to the other strand so if the top bolt fails, you would take what amounted to a lead fall onto the draw immediately below you.

Yes, this assumes that you brought a prusik to a sport crag, but I think it's a good idea to always have one at least in the pack, and it's not hard to get in the habit of bringing one up with you on routes where you know you're likely in over your head.

Can you tell me more about if it's even possible to clean all quickdraws on a sport route if you haven't gotten to the very top/fixed anchor point. I was recently climbing on Shelf Road and got 7 quickdraws fixed to bolts when I reached the crux just above the 7th quickdraw/bolt. After multiple attempts to climb to the next bolt, I was unsuccessful. My partner and I made the decision to leave the top most quickdraw on the bolt as our "anchor" point and clean the route by lowering. Once on the ground, we pulled the rope through the quickdraw and considered our lesson in humility a donation to the climbing community. 

It may be foolish to even ask, but is there any way to make a "psuedo anchor" and clean all quickdraws off the failed sport route without using a bail biner, etc. 

We waited 7 years for this ^.

I would say “search the forum” but…

Jake Jones wrote:

We waited 7 years for this ^.

I appreciate the help!

Mac B wrote:

It may be foolish to even ask, but is there any way to make a "psuedo anchor" and clean all quickdraws off the failed sport route without using a bail biner, etc. 

Short answer, no. There are several safe methods for minimizing your losses up thread that all work and you should use what you are most comfortable with slash whichever system makes the most sense to you. If you want to avoid leaving biners or draws on routes that are too hard, IMO the best way is to bring a stick clip with you and stick clip your way to the top of the route then clean as normal. In typically in over my head and the stick clip upward bail is my retreat method of choice. Remember to remain directly connected to two bolts if possible when you hoist your big loop up to the next bolt, otherwise you're potentially exposed to the same risk as when lowering off a single piece. Essentially you're introducing a large loop of slack to the system to clip high above you so make sure to manage that in a way thats appropriate for the situation. 

Whatever you decide, do not try to save some coin by leaving locked quicklinks in the high bolt that the next party will struggle to undo while on lead. Rumor has it if you do this, you will be visited by The Ghost of Sendings Future who will take a dump in your chalk bag, narc you to the local climbing coalition, then tell all your Facebook friends you wear a helmet while toproping in the gym.

Edit: feel free to DM me if you have questions and I'd be happy to talk about it in detail. No sense getting hurt over a carabiner.

TLDR the whole thread 

just bring. Stick clip and you can get up or down anything.

End thread.