Strange anchor

I was climbing in an old quarry near Swanage a year ago and went up a route with a bizarre anchor. It consisted of two bolts in a perfectly vertical line, with the lower having a strange enclosure.

Can anyone tell me how this is suppose to be used for rappelling off of two points equally? Or what the strange hook lower down is for?

From the picture it looks good to me, but I would still inspect it at the rock and bolt contact to assess the condition.

I would say the hook is for rappelling, and they are in a vertical configuration because only one is needed for the load and the other is a backup - Euro style?

Brits tend to orient their bolted anchors vertically. This theoretically increases the overall strength of the configuration when equalized. Practically, the extra strength makes no difference to the safety of the anchor, so these configurations tend to be an annoyance rather than a help.

The lower hook is a design intended to thread a rope through for rappelling which locks in the rope without having moving parts. Swanage is a maritime crag, so 'biners and other anchors with gates and such tend to rust quickly. Some are concerned that cold shuts leave the potential for the rope to pop out of the top. This design "solves" this problem. You can feed a bight from the middle of the rope up through the bottom of the triangle and over the hook to get the middle of the rope into the hangar basket to rappel (or you can just feed an end through).

The way this particular anchor is set up, I can't think of a practical way to rap off two bolts here without some clusterfuckery. It's likely that this was originally intended as a one-bolt anchor, with the second bolt added later.

Yeah, it was all solid enough and I didn't have a problem rapping off of it. I just had no idea how things were meant to be hooked in. If I remember right, I ended up running the rope up through the higher point, then snaking it through the loop around the hook.

Euro design. It is easy to hook a bight through and onto it and lower off without untying or even clipping in. They have some good theory behind it, but I much prefer two horizontally placed redundant anchors with easily replaced wear points. Euros seem fine with one non redundant anchor a lot, with the reasoning being that it is exceedingly strong. That is fine as long as there was no hidden flaw in the installation process. Yes, we rely on single points like our rope, belay device etc. But they are not installed by some random unknown element who maybe didn't do a great job with the glue.

Also, can you imagine what a PIA it is to replace it once it eventually wears out: cut it off and core drill it. I love the materials companies like Fixe use, but some of the designs leave me scratching my head like one single wear point that once worn require replacement of the whole contraption.

edit - being maritime, it makes sense to avoid moving parts that would bind up, as shoo indicated.

"but some of the designs leave me scratching my head like one single wear point that once worn require replacement of the whole contraption." - M Sprague

All about the money... buy another one - they hope.

Thanks for the responses folks. It had crossed my mind that this was analogous to cold-shuts for an easy lower in some way, but I'd gotten stuck trying to think of a way to put the rope through securely. My mind didn't even approach the idea of feeding a bite through the bottom; I'd just gone up with the intention of rappeling.

BigFeet wrote:"but some of the designs leave me scratching my head like one single wear point that once worn require replacement of the whole contraption." - M Sprague All about the money... buy another one - they hope.

Well the installer didn´t pay for that one and won´t have to pay for the replacement either, same as all the rest of the bolts there which visiting cölimbers didn´t contribute to. It was installed by the current President of the BMC who just happens to be my brother and I made it.
We did a fair few of these at one time but some climbers can´t work out you just put a bight of rope up through the guard bar and drop it over the centre bar, the guard bars ended with people hanging on them and getting bent so we discontinued the design. We replaced that design with one which confused people even more so that is also discontinued! They hold about 78kN by the way as they are 12mm stainless bar and 4" deep in the rock.
The bolt above was added later so people could install the rope and then a draw above for top-roping without wearing the lower-off but still have redundancy.

And us Euros know that placing the bolts so the "equalise" is illogical and a waste of time and usually money so we all do them vertically more or less and we don´t rap off sport routes, ever.

Jim, I respect your work and your thinking very much, but I disagree that horizontal placement is "illogical". Maybe so in regards to equalizing for strength, but just from a practical use point of view I find two horizontal placements work well. It is very easy to throw a quickdraw on each and have them match up. It depends on what your priorities are.
I would definitely go for a vertical installation over the widely spaced horizontal or off angle set-ups we see on a lot of old school anchors, but I like a little bit of horizontal space (6-8 inches in good rock) to work with. It is often handy.

Not that my opinion holds any weight against that of Mark's and Jim's, but I definitely agree with Mark.

It's not about additional anchor strength via equalization. It's simply about horizontal bolts being faster and easier to deal with. Vertical anchors are just generally more annoying, with the potential for all kinds of silly rope things going on. Horizontal? Clip and go. Not that it matters for sport routes, but for multipitch it helps keep stuff organized too, since you can clip things out of the way more easily.

Simply put, if strength isn't really an issue, why not go with the easiest option?

On an unrelated note, if you're in the south of England, and want to see some truly masterful pieces of British anchor engineering, you should be sure to check out the chalk cliffs at Saltdean.

"Well the installer didn´t pay for that one and won´t have to pay for the replacement either, same as all the rest of the bolts there which visiting cölimbers didn´t contribute to. It was installed by the current President of the BMC who just happens to be my brother and I made it.
We did a fair few of these at one time but some climbers can´t work out you just put a bight of rope up through the guard bar and drop it over the centre bar, the guard bars ended with people hanging on them and getting bent so we discontinued the design. We replaced that design with one which confused people even more so that is also discontinued! They hold about 78kN by the way as they are 12mm stainless bar and 4" deep in the rock.
The bolt above was added later so people could install the rope and then a draw above for top-roping without wearing the lower-off but still have redundancy.

And us Euros know that placing the bolts so the "equalise" is illogical and a waste of time and usually money so we all do them vertically more or less and we don´t rap off sport routes, ever." - Jim Titt

Well, the condescension is acknowledged, Jim. Glad you and the family could put something together for us poor peons. Next time I'll look for the tip jar at the top of the climb.

The gear looks "bomber", and in fact I would prefer that all anchors looked like this. 78kn with a 12mm stainless bar - who would not like that?

Great work, seriously! You contribute to this forum with very well thought out data and writing, and I know you have an impressive resume, but the snark does not do well for you.

I believe M Sprague and myself had visualized something like this when making the comments:

Fixe Draco V

Kudos for being able to make and install anchors, for not many do it well.

Cheers!

Jim, I for one, enjoy the snark. Keep it up.

Some of these fools believe they have an idea and forget their manners. I'm glad you and Byrnes are here to put them back in place.

"Some of these fools believe they have an idea and forget their manners." - nicelegs

Elaborate, please.

I feel that a response is normal when being called out and quoted, no? Do you feel that my snark is something that you can ignore?

I can bite my tongue and call it a day, most of the time, but today I'm grumpy and didn't let it go. Will you?

It was only a not-so-subtle hint that he who pays the piper calls the tune, not someone on the internet. With an element of humour hopefully:-)
Today I´ve dealt with:-
A climber complaining about a rusting lower-off on a route I´ve never done and didn´t bolt but it at an area I´m involved with. He seems to think my suggestion of just chopping it is incorrect but made no mention of paying for re-equipping.
A bolt fund who´s follow-up order is stalled as no-one can be assed to install the last batch.
A bolt fund who´s debt is 18 months in arrears.

For sport route lower-offs horizontal placement is illogical, why attempt to equalise the lowest loaded bolts on the route? On most of the routes I´ve done in the USA (which isn´t many) the rock tends to be smooth and flat so it´s easy to arrnge horizontal but most other areas I go to in Europe the choice of positions is far more limited and the offset vertical orientation gives far more possibilities for placement at a lower cost.

Jim Titt wrote: For sport route lower-offs horizontal placement is illogical, why attempt to equalise the lowest loaded bolts on the route?

So your opposed gate quickdraws you are lowering off and leaving for your buddies to use match up (rope therefor stays in the correct position on the bottom of the biner and doesn't end up wearing on nylon etc. I prefer to have the rope running over the wider radius of two biners at the top anchor than sharply over one (I'm open to an argument for why that may not be desirable) With good bolts I am not worrying about equalizing for strength reasons.

shoo wrote:... I can't think of a practical way to rap off two bolts here without some clusterfuckery.

Excellent! I have never thought to verb that noun, but I will certainly use it. Thanks!

My experience in Europe was two vertically oriented bolts, connected by chain, and a fat replaceable shackle on the bottom. Far better than many of the shit anchors we use over here. Most of the locals carried a new shackle on their harness.

I climb a lot in Rifle where most of the routes have steel biners at the top anchors. On the most popular routes these steel biners wear out in about a year. So I'm a big fan of easily replaceable anchor hardware.

A two-bolt anchor is better since we don't have x-ray vision to verify the integrity of the rock and bolt placements. Two wear points, properly placed, wear twice as long and don't wear your rope as much. JMHO.

On a side note: Titanium anchor bolts placed 15 years ago in Cayman show no measurable (vernier caliper) wear. Granted, there's not much traffic, but this was on the most popular route, which many people top-rope by threading directly through the anchor. So if they ever wear out, I'll be long gone.