I messed around with some anchors last night and wanted to see if people could critique them. The anchors I would be building are going to be for sport routes for top roping my friends on. Some pictures dont show a opposing double locking carabiner on the master point but that is what I would be doing every time.

The anchors would be for a lot of top roping otherwise I would probably just stick to two opposed locking quickdraws.

I also did some reading and found a way to avoid reclimbing a route once my friends top rope. You run the rope through the links and build a anchor that is higher than where the rope runs in the links. Then when my last friend goes they can just undo the anchor putting the weight back on the chains. Does anyone see anything wrong with this method?

Pictures:

Uneven anchors Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

Three points Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

Three uneven Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

Even bolts Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

Even Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

3 points Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

3 points Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

3 uneven Submitted By: Mostafa on Oct 6, 2011

Yer gonna die!

for top roping on a pair of bolts (the only style of anchor you're likely to find in Red Rock), one quickdraw on each bolt is more than enough. if you want to really go overkill, have a locking biner on the rope end of each draw.

the anchors you have pictured are all fine, but way overkill for a pair of bolts on sport routes.

as for your friends- I would suggest going climbing with more experienced folks to get your own fundamentals down prior to going out and being the only source of knowledge on the cliff.

I figured it was a bit much, but I just want to know the basic knowledge of anchors - just in case. I'll keep it simple since like you said John in Red Rock the routes I'll be climbing are pair of bolts.

This makes my anchors look sketch.

One thing that may be of use: Where you have the double lockers in the first pic, you may find it easier to belay if you have one locker and then two more, thus instead of having the rope pinching between the anchor and the rock it is on either side, if that makes sense.

I made anchors that we only use when sport climbing and although very basic, we find them very handy and my other climbing partners seem to prefer them now. I took some 12" long, thick Petzl dog bones (quickdraw webbing) and put lockers on them. I used some smaller lockers for the bolt/chain and bigger lockers for the rope end. They live on the back of my harness when sport climbing and go on quick and easy at the anchors. It's a little over kill but keeps me free from worry and works well for "most" sport anchors. It's simple and that seems to work best for us, especialy when climbing with poeple of different skill levels.

There's no way those chairs are gonna hold a fall brah, I agree, YER GUNNA DIE!!!

For heavy TR activity a set of steel lockers for the master point will save wear and tear on the fancy aluminum ones. It does add another 4oz to your redpoint attempt though.

Wow. So many lockers, so little time............
Try not to tie knots in the runners to make up slack; instead loop them through the upper biner. Or, if climbing on bolts, don't worry about uneven-ness and more on load direction. Eventually, if you climb a lot of sport you'll just start leaving 2 regular draws up top and be done with it. Remember, the only reason we bolt 2 anchors on sport routes is simple redundancy; one bolt is enough in terms of load and force. If not, something is terribly wrong (bad stone, bolting ignorance).

Does your boss know what you're doing while you're supposed to be working?

can't believe no one has posted to just use the rope ;)

The material is not redundant in the 2nd and 3rd pictures. Add some material or clove the rope to your strongest point as a backup.

Edit: last photo too. Imagine cutting each strand individually.

The second, third and last ones all lack redundancy where the lockers for the rope are. In the second one if the webbing were to get cut anywhere the whole anchor would fail, in the third one if the blue webbing going to either of the left two points got cut the whole anchor would fail and in the last one if any strand of the blue webbing to the left of the knot got cut the anchor would fail. I know these scenarios are rather unlikely at the top of single pitch sport climbs, but redundancy is your friend. You don't really need dynamic equalization to toprope off of 3 bolts anyway, especially if it means sacrificing redundancy to achieve it. I usually use a quad off of 2 bolts, and a cordelette off of 3 (as in picture 6).

quad Submitted By: JesseT on Oct 7, 2011

The last one, at least to me, isn't ideal. You have roughly a quarter of the total weight on the left two legs and roughly half on the far right leg. Usually not a big deal, but sometimes it is.

Knowing how to set up anchors like this is a great start, but the biggest thing to learn is the limitations of your gear and when to apply what system to the situation at hand, which comes with experience.

I never use this many lockers, my rule of thumb is if the anchor points are redundant they are not needed. I also never pair up lockers. Some things dont need redundancy ( ie harness, rope and lockers ). I know, someday .....I'm going to die.

I second the advice to have someone more experienced with you, but barring that...

Just think to yourself if this strand breaks, is there another independent strand that will bear the load. That's always a good double check.

Also, be sure if you have someone come up after you on an overhung route that they are following not top roping. I've see people almost break their backs from swinging out at the start of overhung top ropes.

Good points above about redundancy. Always make sure to ask yourself what will happen if a strand is cut/fails. In a couple of cases, failure at the masterpoint means failure of the entire system. I would also like to third the "quad". It's a really quick, simple solution that can be pre-tied before heading up a route. Clip it, and you're virtually done.