Fixed gear

I was climbing yesterday in an area where one of the routes has at least one fixed TR anchor. I didn't go up to the top, but some guy climbed it and was yelling about there being a ton of webbing up there. He ended up bringing down some webbing (and possibly more) from the top, claiming that there were still two sets of fixed anchors up there (each a magic X + lockers) in addition to his own (he didn't trust the fixed gear).

I have some questions about this:

1) Why would anyone bother leaving a fixed TR setup on a climb? Nylon doesn't exactly weather well, and everyone climbing at the crag must surely have their own TR anchors--none of the other climbs in the area have this type of fixed gear.

2) What warrants fixed gear of this type for some climbs and not others?

3) What's the etiquette when it comes to removing obviously weathered gear? The webbing the guy brought down was pretty frayed according to him. I didn't inspect it.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "fixed anchors?" When I hear that, I envision bolts or fixed pins, in which case I don't understand why there would be any webbing involved at all (just clip a couple of draws or slings for toproping, then clean it and rap when you're done). Maybe you mean the webbing was fixed to trees or other natural anchors?

Usually when I encounter webbing left by other climbers, it's there to rap off of, not as a toprope anchor. Maybe at the climb you're referring to, the leader belays from the top after leading the climb, then both climbers rap from the webbing (with a rap ring, quicklink or bail biner).

As to removing old webbing, the usual "etiquette" is to cut away the worst old tat you find and add some new webbing of your own to the mix for safety's sake. That's probably why the guy found a bunch of webbing at the top of the climb -- usually more gets added than gets taken away.

Hope this helps.

JL

Yeah I felt like that was unclear as I wrote it. I'll try to clarify! At the top of this climb there are two anchor bolts. I'm not sure if there are chains/rap rings attached to the bolts.

Now, attached to the anchor bolts are several top rope "setups*" consisting of four locking biners and webbing arranged in a magic-x configuration. Apparently these "setups" are left there all the time.

As far as leaving webbing behind for rappelling--wouldn't chains and rap rings be better, provided you're dealing with bolted anchors instead of natural ones? Is it just that webbing is cheaper? I'd feel pretty sketched out rapping down on webbing that had just been sitting there, even if it looked OK.

Toby B wrote:Yeah I felt like that was unclear as I wrote it. I'll try to clarify! At the top of this climb there are two anchor bolts. I'm not sure if there are chains/rap rings attached to the bolts. Now, attached to the anchor bolts are several top rope "setups*" consisting of four locking biners and webbing arranged in a magic-x configuration. Apparently these "setups" are left there all the time.

Well, I don't know where you're climbing and so don't know the local customs, but that's sure not the way it's done at any area I've ever climbed at. Per my earlier post, if the anchor bolts are ring anchors, you'd normally just clip a couple of draws to toprope off of, then rap or lower off the rings when you're done. If the anchors don't have rings, it's customary to add a couple of quicklinks and treat them as you would ring anchors. I can't think of a good reason to permanently hang webbing off of perfectly good bolts.

JL

saxfiend wrote: Per my earlier post, if the anchor bolts are ring anchors, you'd normally just clip a couple of draws to toprope off of, then rap or lower off the rings when you're done.

Please don't lower off of fixed gear, rappel. No offense meant at all JL, just don't like slowly cutting through rap rings.

Yeah JL that's the way I've always done things too, minus lowering off the rings--not passing judgment or anything I just love rappelling!

Maybe I misunderstood what this guy was saying. I will ask around locally because it just seems incredibly bizarre to leave prerigged magic x's at the top of a climb year-round like that. When I find out I'll let y'all know!

Toby B wrote:I was climbing yesterday in an area where one of the routes has at least one fixed TR anchor.

Well, it's pretty hard to speculate without knowing where you guys were. So where exactly were you?

saxfiend wrote:I can't think of a good reason to permanently hang webbing off of perfectly good bolts. JL

There are a lot of places that do. At Beacon Rock there is a tradition of fixed anchors and all the anchors are actively maintained; most all are Metolius Rap hangers at this point. Quite a few of those have two, nested, independently-knotted sliding-X slings of 1" with two Fixe 50kn SS rap rings on them straddling the X. There are a few reasons why this is the setup: slings are by and large the tradition at Beacon, the WSP wanted all the chains gone and anchors off trees (and any replacement webbing slings color-matched), many slung anchors serve two routes (different sides of the hex columns), and some are extensions to make pulling over the distance of the top of the columns smoother. The most active anchors have the slings replaced every 2-3 years (slings replaced since '08 are also brass-washer tagged with the year of replacement), but I wouldn't hesitate to rap on any of them 10 years from now - they are completely bomb if not excessively so.

Beacon is pretty much all multipitch trad and the vast majority of the anchors are just used for belaying and rapping as not much TRing goes on out there, but for the amount that does happen the twin Fixe 50kn SS rap rings will last long after we're all dead. None of the anchors there need to be augmented, replaced, or otherwise modified and when we find one that has been they were invariably done by someone with no ability to judge what they were looking at, but rather following yet another one-size-fits-all rote rule (like "he didn't trust the fixed gear") that attempts to [poorly] substitute for true experience and judgment. The last time it happened the guy replaced late-'07 dual slings with a single sling which he coincidentally dated 2007 with a sharpie - not sure what he thought he was accomplishing on the whole.

Apparently I've kind of stepped sideways into some old debate that's been covered a lot elsewhere, so I just want to clarify--this was at Ozone, at the top of Chain Mail, a single pitch sport route with (I believe, I haven't climbed it) rap bolts.

Since nobody seems to have heard of this practice, though, I'm guessing that speculation in this thread probably won't hit on the answer--I'll just ask around locally.

Tony, actually, a lot of us have heard of the practice and, good or bad, it's common as snot at a lot of crags around the world .

Look, Ozone hasn't even existed long enough for slings out there to go bad. Second, the guys who developed and climb there regularly obviously have the route's anchor setup the way they want it. Either way there's hardly reason for someone not one of the regulars to be chopping anchor slings at an urban crag like Ozone. Again, everything out there is so new that assuming a "ton of webbing" w/ multiple lockers is anything but solid tells me there's some basic experience / judgment issues with the guy's thinking. And the whole "I don't trust fixed gear" rote-rule thing basically is a statement you are incapable of judging how solid what you found is. That may be a 'safe' approach to adopt when you are a new climber or otherwise lack the experience - but if he was one of those then he also didn't have the judgment to fuck with the anchor in question. Given that, as Saxfiend said above, he should have only been adding to the existing slings if he was that squeamish about it, but not otherwise tampering with it.

P.S. Questions about any of the PDX/Gorge crags would probably be better addressed over on cascadeclimbers.com than here.

I didn't mean to imply that nobody here knew the answer, more that either what I was describing was an unusually obscure practice or that I wasn't communicating very well. Or both! Clearly I was wrong--thanks Healyje.

Please tell me where all this beautiful gear can be found? I think I need a few new lockers and maybe a bit of sling! Sorry, just trying to lighten up an otherwise condescending thread....

Choss Chasin' wrote: Please don't lower off of fixed gear, rappel. No offense meant at all JL, just don't like slowly cutting through rap rings.

Lowering off the rings appears to be standard practice at most sport crags. Not saying it's a good idea (being primarily a trad climber, I always rap rather than lower), but it is a fact of life.

JL

saxfiend wrote: Lowering off the rings appears to be standard practice at most sport crags. Not saying it's a good idea (being primarily a trad climber, I always rap rather than lower), but it is a fact of life.

I agree it, is a standard practice at [some] sport crags but we both know it shouldn't be. This is what I hate seeing!

mountainproject.com/images/…

my assumption would be that there are no rap rings or links or chains on the hangers, so someone installed webbing through the anchors and/or left lockers/webbing to rap and/or lower.