Top rope natural anchor

Would you guys climb with two of these as an anchor? 

No              

Really? Why not? I figured two of these linked together with webbing and a master point would be good enough

Texas rope trick.

It's a clever idea, if you can stomach the lack of redundancy from a cut in the red webbing.
From a practical matter, I reckon that the right carabiner or webbing would snag on something when you tried to pull the blue tagline to retrieve the anchor. The carabiner or webbing would get caught on a tree root, rock, or something at the base of the tree. It'd also be pretty dangerous to have the two carabiners whip down once you pull it over the ledge.

Just search for the nearly infinite threads on retrievable rap anchors

All this to prevent walking back up and tearing down your anchor?

I would not. Climbing on this setup (TR or otherwise) is not the appropriate application for this technique. There are better ways to set up a monolithic anchor with less material/equipment. 

Why would anyone do this? Just pass your maguey around the smooth post. Rappel on double line, then pull one end of your rope.

No need for webbing, quick links, paracord, or other tactical innovations .

Dave Olsen wrote: Why would anyone do this? Just pass your maguey around the smooth post. Rappel on double line, then pull one end of your rope.

No need for webbing, quick links, paracord, or other tactical innovations .

As others mention, it's not an anchor style intended for top rope anchors, it's for rappel anchors. As to why anyone would do this for their rappel anchor:

I'm not much into canyoning but I think the logic goes:

• When used around a living tree, you feel wrapping the rope around the tree will slowly kill it and/or think pulling the (perhaps wet) rope will be hard
• That means normally using a sling/cord around the tree instead, but:
  • You don't want to leave anything behind because:
    • Leave no trace / anti-littering ethic
    • Feel it's wasteful/unnecessary/personal-opinions

I don't like killing trees but I don't mind leaving webbing/cord (and possibly quicklinks) behind so I don't use this technique myself. Each to their own though.

No way. No need for top rope in general. For rap, a sling and locker are like $20 so just leave them for the next person?

Make the webbing redundant and sure, Id climb on it. It may not be the most elegant solution but I can't imagine this system failing catastrophically as long as the tree is bomber, especially under typical top rope loads.

bomber

Andrew Anderson wrote: Would you guys climb with two of these as an anchor? 

No, stop using trees

Andrew Anderson wrote: Would you guys climb with two of these as an anchor?

Don't see why it shouldn't be OK if considered worthwhile. Just possibly slight risk of getting rope stuck if the non-pull side of the rope is carried up with its krab when retrieving and weight of rope/krab/tree causes a jam (I find this hard to visualize though without testing).

If using the method would replacing the blue tag line with a short cord length or sling attached to the pull side of the doubled rope (by any method eg prusik knot) just below the anchor work equally well (ie avoid need carrying for tag line). Also could not the red tape with loop tied in each end be replaced by a long sling (no need to tie loops)?

Edit: I read carelessly and mistook this for a retrievable abseil setup of dubious worth, so after reading the post showing this to be a troll thread I realize I've been caught out twice. :)

OK, so the OP was probably trolling. For those who think the resulting toprope anchor will be retrievable, look at what the OP actually said. If you connect them together with a master point you will no longer be able to pull the pull cord and get it down.

If you don't connect them with a master point then yes it will be retrievable and should be safe enough for a toprope anchor but now you have 2 extra cords hanging down the climb getting in your way, (and you had to carry all that extra cordage to the crag). Presumably, if you are setting up such a toprope anchor you already walked to the top of the crag once (no way I would volunteer to lead with 2 tag lines and 100+ feet of webbing hanging from me), so there is no real need for a retrievable TR anchor. Just build a regular anchor and walk back up to the top at the end of the day.

Bryce Adamson wrote: OK, so the OP was probably trolling. For those who think the resulting toprope anchor will be retrievable, look at what the OP actually said. If you connect them together with a master point you will no longer be able to pull the pull cord and get it down.

If you don't connect them with a master point then yes it will be retrievable and should be safe enough for a toprope anchor but now you have 2 extra cords hanging down the climb getting in your way, (and you had to carry all that extra cordage to the crag). Presumably, if you are setting up such a toprope anchor you already walked to the top of the crag once (no way I would volunteer to lead with 2 tag lines and 100+ feet of webbing hanging from me), so there is no real need for a retrievable TR anchor. Just build a regular anchor and walk back up to the top at the end of the day.

This guy is the smart one