Weird way to clip a draw - safety discussion

I recently sent a route where I clipped a bolt in an atypical way. I first clipped the draw to the rope then I clipped the draw to the bolt (opposite order to the way you normally do it). It was very quick, I had no trouble clipping the rope, it felt very natural, and it actually required the optimal amount of slack to be drawn up by nature of the pully mechanics created. It seemed to improve on current clipping technique (for that clipping situation) as it took less time and was less cumbersome for the belay and for myself as the climber.

My belayer called it weird though and thought that it might not be a good idea to clip draws in that way.

This leads me to some questions on this method:

-is it a viable way to clip a draw?

-is it a method that already exist and has a term applied to it?

-what are general thoughts about it from the climbing community?

I know that many will say “why not just use proper technique, it works well and is used by all” and to that I say, if a quicker technique works (for specific clipping situations) that doesn’t have any large safety concerns(as far as I’ve thought about it), does that not make it viable? Obviously a high clip might not be the best for this technique.

I’d love to hear your thoughts so discuss away:

With the added friction in the biner I would imagine it would be worse for high clipping, if clipping by the waist or lower I can't see how it would be quicker with the rope.  Something you can do with longer draws is clip the draw then clip the draw to the rope by grabbing the dogbone. 

The higher on a route you get the less optimal this technique will become, especially clipping overhead.

It's been done, but not really a good idea in general because of friction. And if hanging the draw is at all tenuous you now have extra unnecessary slack out if you blow it.

I have once done this but with a sling (so I wasn't lifting the rope) where it was a bit of a "dyno clip" that I was unsure of.

For hard trad redpoints people will sometimes have gear pre-clipped to the rope to save the extra step of clipping.

The thought of this makes both elbows hurt

Doing what OP suggests makes it about 3X harder to lift the rope up towards a high bolt. (2X due to the "pulley effect", +1 due to friction.)

I do this often on ice climbs with draws preclipped to the rope and the screw side clipped to a shoulder sling. I find it easier than looking for draws on my harness if I have bulky clothes on, and less fumbling with gloves on. Super easy to clip because the screws are always waist high. Never tried it on rock but might make sense for high clips using double length sling. Less of a fall if you come off while clipping since you’d pull little or no rope up. 

I’ve definitely done this clipping the first bolt on a really hard clip, never mid pitch though.  Not really sure I can see an advantage.

It is pretty normal to do something similar on cracks when bumping a cam.  This probably gets done all the time at Indian Creek, removing a cam from waist level and placing it above your head with the rope already clipped.  This generally feels like a waste of energy but sometimes it is nice to have the piece a little higher.

https://youtu.be/2kvbx1ccMb4Like Mikey said it's a good trick for clipping the first bolt, especially when it's a hard position or a far reach so that you're quickly on belay. Adam Ondra does it too check out him break it down in this video about 7:40 :

Ondra  has all his gates facing direction of travel. HGD

A couple of considerations...

1. If you only have an exact number of draws, then if you drop one because it's a heavier clip, you're hosed.

2. If you whip while clipping, which is never good regardless, then you may take a wildly swinging draw to the face when you come to a stop, unless you hold onto the draw throughout.

Herewith a couple of illustrations from an early/mid-1980s catalogue; the type of harness probably gives a clue as to its origin:-

As others have pointed out, the procedure becomes more difficult the higher overhead one is trying to clip - or easier the longer ones draws are. If a particular problem clip is known about in advance - either from prior beta or simply spotting it before actually getting there while still having the opportunity to prepare something - one can take Austin's sling suggestion a stage further by clipping the sling through the bolt-end biner of a standard draw and then clipping either a single biner or another draw, depending on how much of a reach it's going to be, to the bottom end of the sling; pre-clip the rope to the lowest biner in the chain - ie the single biner or the rope-end biner of the second draw - and make the clip, then clip again into the first [highest] draw as one passes the bolt. This assumes that one is sufficiently frightened as to prefer to be doing the following moves above a normal draw rather than a whole string of them!

Ignatius Pi wrote:

Herewith a couple of illustrations from an early/mid-1980s catalogue; the type of harness probably gives a clue as to its origin:-

So not a new idea, by any means!

As others have pointed out, the procedure becomes more difficult the higher overhead one is trying to clip - or easier the longer ones draws are. If a particular problem clip is known about in advance - either from prior beta or simply spotting it before actually getting there while still having the opportunity to prepare something - one can take Austin's sling suggestion a stage further by clipping the sling through the bolt-end biner of a standard draw and then clipping either a single biner or another draw, depending on how much of a reach it's going to be, to the bottom end of the sling; pre-clip the rope to the lowest biner in the chain - ie the single biner or the rope-end biner of the second draw - and make the clip, then clip again into the first [highest] draw as one passes the bolt. This assumes that one is sufficiently frightened as to prefer to be doing the following moves above a normal draw rather than a whole string of them!

I remember seeing either that or some other catalog in the early 80’s and thought it was a great idea until I tried it.   

It takes twice the energy to lift a pre-clipped draw (along with the rope of course) above your head to make a clip, as opposed to just lifting the rope itself to clip the draw you already clipped to the bolt. toward the end of a long lead this x2 weight really adds up.

On a super tenuous wart of a hold, this may be enough to pitch you off. But really, it may make your arm more tired if you do it too much.

Kevin Mokracek wrote:

I remember seeing either that or some other catalog in the early 80’s and thought it was a great idea until I tried it.   

Indeed. I think that the velcro 'jet tabs' that appeared on a few harnesses in the late-1980s were intended as a refinement of this idea - albeit for just a couple of 'super urgent' clips rather than a whole bunch of them - but they never really seemed to catch on. And the perceived need diminished, of course, as pre-placed - and extended - draws gradually became the norm in the redpoint world.

I use this all the time when I'm climbing to the first bolt. Gets me on belay just a tiny bit quicker. I can only remember doing it once mid route because I wasn't sure I could hold on long enough after clipping the draw to clip the rope too. 

Noah McClain wrote:

I use this all the time when I'm climbing to the first bolt. Gets me on belay just a tiny bit quicker. I can only remember doing it once mid route because I wasn't sure I could hold on long enough after clipping the draw to clip the rope too. 

But why not just stick clip?

Bryce Adamson wrote:

But why not just stick clip?

I usually do, but sometimes we'll forget the stick clip or the bottom of the route is super easy climbing.

I've used the pre-clipped draw really effectively on a couple routes because of a difficult clip mid-way through a traversing move but can't really think of any other good applications. If its a hard to reach clip I generally do one tall stand to get the draw on, squat back down into my rest position to gather up rope, then stand up again to clip and continue. I think it can be an efficient method it just has limited applications. 

Greg R wrote:

Ondra  has all his gates facing direction of travel. HGD

It turns out most of us learned wrong; gate relation to direction of travel doesn’t matter. Gate on same side as the nut. That’s what they should have taught us. 

T
This guy explains gate on nut side advantage vs old direction of travel myth starting at about 2:20 on this video