Anchor building with the rope

David Coley wrote: My rule when teaching is that once the pro is in (don't want to rush that bit) then you should aim for a time of 5 seconds per piece. So a normal three point belay built with the rope takes 15seconds. A DIL belay is harder to set, and you have to tie the little loop, so allow 30seconds.

I don't think I'm that fast. Just tying, tightening and dressing a butterfly knot takes me a good twenty seconds, and the rest of the rigging takes me about another twenty seconds (three pieces but four clove hitches to be formed and tightened). So forty seconds if all goes well, longer if the anchor points are out of reach. I'd say as a general rule of thumb that once the pieces are in the rigging part should be under a minute.

Getting good pieces can be super quick or, in trying situations, painfully slow.

Mathias wrote:I'm interested in the pros and con's of using the rope to build an anchor.

A lot of good anchor advice here - just thought I'd respond to the pros and cons part of your question. (it's possible someone else already did, I skimmed the thread).

Pros: Does not require carrying any additional cordelette or slings for the anchor. Most likely the strongest and most dynamic thing on your rack. Longer than any cordelette or sling, so as long as you have enough leftover rope after the pitch, can get around a really large boulder when nothing else would.

Cons: More of a pain (though certainly manageable) when not swinging leads. Ties up some of the rope, so not feasible when either the pitch you just finished or the next pitch ahead is a full rope length. Probably don't want to use it if anchoring off a sappy tree.

Lots of different anchoring methods are good for lots of different situations. Learn as many as you can, and learn the basic principles so you are prepared to improvise. Don't get stuck on figuring out "the one right way", keep your options open. You'll probably gravitate to a few methods that make the most sense to you, but you'll eventually come across a unique situation that requires you to step outside your usual techniques, and you'll be glad you learned and practiced a wide variety.

Just curious how you belay with no powerpoint or redirect? Just off the harness?

I usually belay off of my harness through a redirect, I just rarely build the redirect into the anchor. most of the time the first piece in the anchor is also the lowest so the rope would then run roughly up from there, so if the gear is good I'll just redirect through the low piece. Its basically a two piece anchor that's not at all equalized. It kinda all depends though, in billcoes example I'd redirect through the bottom or middle piece, depending on which was at a more convenient height. If I'm on a big ledge I'll plop down on my butt and belay straight off my harness. Or, if the anchor is all spread out I may put in a few pieces just to redirect through.

I'm not suggesting its a bad idea to build it with a powerpoint or re-direct, It just never seems to work out that way for me

also, How do you guys paste a quote from someone else's post into one of those little boxes?

Jake T wrote: also, How do you guys paste a quote from someone else's post into one of those little boxes?

Go to the other person's post, hit the quote button on the right and delete any text that is not relevant but leaving in the quote/quote things in

Jake T wrote:Just curious how you belay with no powerpoint or redirect? Just off the harness? I usually belay off of my harness through a redirect, I just rarely build the redirect into the anchor. most of the time the first piece in the anchor is also the lowest so the rope would then run roughly up from there, so if the gear is good I'll just redirect through the low piece. Its basically a two piece anchor that's not at all equalized. It kinda all depends though, in billcoes example I'd redirect through the bottom or middle piece, depending on which was at a more convenient height. If I'm on a big ledge I'll plop down on my butt and belay straight off my harness. Or, if the anchor is all spread out I may put in a few pieces just to redirect through. I'm not suggesting its a bad idea to build it with a powerpoint or re-direct, It just never seems to work out that way for me also, How do you guys paste a quote from someone else's post into one of those little boxes?

Our terminology make not be the same but--by power point, you mean the main tie in direct to you ? and re direct is the piece you belay through ?

If so, I always, always belay through a piece..it helps greatly when belaying a second OR for the first piece on the next pitch

I also think that true equalized belays are kinda uncommon,,if 2 or 3 pieces are bomber, then equalizing CAN take more time than it's worth

john strand wrote: Our terminology make not be the same but--by power point, you mean the main tie in direct to you ? and re direct is the piece you belay through ?

By power point I was referring specifically to the alpine butterfly in rgolds picture, I usually skip it and use my figure 8 tie in loop in its place. So I guess there is a power point but its not a separate stand alone loop.

we're on the same page regarding the use of a redirect. I find that it usually makes things a bit faster and simpler. I usually just tie an overhand below my belay device when the second arrives, hand over the goods and they're off again whithout even having to anchor in or swap devices. For me at least, its the fastest way to swap leads.

mike h wrote:Here's my favorite, very well explained in this video. climbinglife.com/instructio…

Also my favorite, to me it is more simple/intuitive.

The isolation loop/rgold method is better if you're belaying more than a few feet from the anchor though as you'll be saving a lot of rope doing it that way.

For those of you who use double ropes, do you generally do the "DIL" approach with both ropes or just one?

As with everything, it depends. Often using two ropes simplifies, especially if you are using a harness belay or the anchor/harness belay I described earlier.

If you want three anchor points and a power point, you can do the DIL with one rope on two of the anchors, clove the second rope to the third anchor, and then bring a strand back to the power point to have it load all three anchors.

More and more, I find myself just setting up the DIL with one of the two ropes. This leaves you with a completely unencumbered rope if you have to do some kind of self-rescue heroics, and this eliminates the extra work that might be imposed by having a rope rather than a cordelette anchor.

The unencumbered rope also means that, in a pinch, a leader can stretch out the lead to the full rope length, although this would require them to untie and tie off the strand made shorter by the anchor rigging.

AaronJ wrote:For those of you who use double ropes, do you generally do the "DIL" approach with both ropes or just one?

One, unless some of the pieces are a long way from each other, then it's one strand on the left and one on the right.

On rope stretcher pitches it is worth remembering that you might have more rope left in one strand than the other, if which case use the longer rope so you don't run out part way through the build.

There's something I'm wondering about this. How does the teardown proceedure vary from a cord-based anchor?

I screwed around with some of these approaches in my living room today, and the one thing I noticed is that even if you do remove the cloves in what I assume to be the right order (closest to the leader/now belayer end of the rope) allowing slack to be taken in smaller increments instead of one 5+ metre loop at the end, this means the top belayer has to be taking slack for the entire time you're tearing down, or you have to be asking for slack to be taken up three times, one with each removed hitch (maybe not the last one, depending on the setup).

I'm not sure I understand your question, I'm having trouble visualizing what you mean. But, if your partner has finished a pitch and put you on belay from above, you shouldn't have to ask for them to take slack 3 times or even once - if you are on belay, they will be continually taking up slack.

the first piece you clove should be a bomber one thats within easy reach ... and the last one you take off when yr on belay

thats all there is to it ... nothing complicated ... in fact rope anchors are ofter faster to take apart than cord/sling anchors as you can start disassembling the anchor while still remaining attached to the last piece

and if you use cloves, they are often easier to undo than the standard overhand/fig8 of sling/cord anchors

;)

What I mean is, normally a metre (or more) of slack doesn't just appear instantaneously a few times while climbing as a second (okay, on easy terrain I suppose). I guess the problem would be mitigated if the climbers were used to the creation of slack being a part of the anchor teardown. I'm more used to the climber actually communicating when they start climbing, post-teardown, so the leader knows to start taking slack regularly. Just a slightly different approach, I suppose.

the slack is more or less irrelevant till the last piece come out ... which is when you would want it to be fairly snug

and yr belayer should be constantly pulling up the slack anyways once yr own belay

with the right anchor setup the disassembly is a cinch ...

in the pic below you can take out the lower piece anytime you want (even on the climb when yr partner is resting) providing he/she has enough pieces in ...

the main 2 pieces come out sequentially ... the last piece (left) when yr on belay

Simply clove the third piece

no need to wait till yr on belay before taking unknotting that sling ... or clip into that last piece with your non-dynamic PAS

i do apologize to MPers for not taking pics of "partial rope anchors" this week ... ive been too busy scrubbing off my durty beahs !!!

;)

There's really no problem here. The leader obviously knows what kind of anchor the second is using, so the leader knows that after he or she calls "on belay," there will be slack from the anchor disassembly to take up, and so they do that. If the leader is asleep at the switch, undo every knot up to the last clove and shout "climbing." The snoozing leader will wake up and take up the slack, and when you get the "climb" response, undo the last clove, remove the last piece, and climb.

For extra multipitch efficiency, the second can also clip to one piece of the anchor with a tether. Then when the leader says "off belay," the second immediately undoes the rope rigging and removes all but the piece they are tethered to, so that they are ready to go when the leader says "on belay." The process is made even more efficient if the leader does the same thing at his or her end, which is to tether to the first good piece, call off belay, and then finish building and rigging the anchor. This gives the second much more time to get ready to climb---done this way the second should be climbing as soon as the leader calls "on belay" (unless of course the last piece turns out to be hard to remove).

Before the finger-wagging starts, let's agree that a system like this takes judgement on the part of the leader and the second and isn't appropriate for every set of belay stances.

I would like to hear what other people say on this, as I mainly see figure 8 master points on most people 's anchors which mainly works but is usually only equalized between two pieces if the anchors shifts to the left or right a little.

I will use the rope to build an anchor when its just a giant tree or if it's a 2 bolt anchor. Thats quick and easy. Have not figured out yet how to tie into 3 pieces and equalize it with just the climbing rope.

So I manily build anchors with 3 pieces and a looped cordalette, equalized with the sliding x between all pieces. depending where my pieces are in relation to one another, I tie one or two low to the anchor overhand knots on the strand running to the higher up pieces to keep extension down if a piece were to blow. I always test the anchor rotating the cordalette at the bottom to make sure 3 pieces are equalized no matter where the anchor gets pulled. 

I use double fishman knots for tieing two ends of ropes together.  Clove hitch is a knot, and well used one at that. Theres always more then one way to skin a cat.

S2k4life wrote:

I will use the rope to build an anchor when its just a giant tree or if it's a 2 bolt anchor. Thats quick and easy. Have not figured out yet how to tie into 3 pieces and equalize it with just the climbing rope.

Take a look at multipitchclimbing.com and all will be revealed. In some counties the rope is by far the most common method.

rgold wrote: For three pieces aligned vertically, what Billcoe said (except for the "equalized" part, which won't be true, and in fact it is quite likely that only one piece will be loaded). For pieces spread horizontally,  Tie the butterfly powerpoint first, placing it at the level you want. The numbers give the clipping order. The "redirection point" is an optional feature. If you don't care about having a power point and are willing to deal with extra complication in a possible belay escape, you can skip the butterfly power point and instead clip back to the rope tie-in loop. A second for multipitchclimbing.com. The method they call the "DIL" method is almost the same as the rigging shown here. Dave Coley posts here periodically. But don't just go there, buy the book. There are variations of the above method on the web, and the differences are necessarily minor, but honestly, I think the one given here is the best in terms of efficiency and versatility. I think any method that requires you to estimate ahead of time how much rope some part of the anchor will need is going to be less effective in general than the process shown here, and some of the anchor methods are much harder to implement when the belay stance is out of reach of the anchors.

What are the advantages to this setup over tying off a BFK for the master point??

I've been meaning to update that video, or make a new one that is a bit more refined.  The above video was my interpretation of RGold's popular rope anchor photo that was circulating back on the rockclimbing.com forum, if I remember correct.  In any case, I do things a bit differently now and will throw a link up here soon.  I like cloving into the first piece and going off belay as quickly as possible (pro and stance dependent, of course).