How To Clean Anchors and Set A Rappel

so why do we use anchors like I've got two chains right here why don't I just like throw the rope through those chains we all do a top rope lap and then we pull the rope and no one else to go back up to reduce the wear on the boots on the stuff that's out there exactly you know all this fixed gear someone went to a lot of work to put it in and if you top rope if you're a ropes going through this stuff weighted it's gonna wear it out super fast especially so in the desert and especially so like this one that the sand gets a little wet because it kind of sticks to the rope and then it makes the rope more abrasive and it's amazing how quickly things will wear out this this carabiner is probably only a few months old and look at it that's just from the laying and rappelling on it here in the desert so stuff wears out really quick and we want this gear to last so manufacturers recommendations for wear on my carabiners belay devices is a millimeter of wear so the way you'd measure that is just put it up next to a new one and kind of use something to measure measure that once a good group starts to get in there I get too much friction on the rope and it kind of makes it difficult to use when you see people clean anchors go back and get the gear at the end of the day there's two ways to do it they can go up untie feed the Rope through and get lowered or they can go up rig the rope to the middle through these anchors and then rappel down so when you get down to the bottom and you come off rappel you pull the rope and it's going through here with no weight at all so if you lower its the weighted rope on there and although it's just one time for every group it's still gonna wear this stuff out quicker so generally preferred to rappel sometimes I'm like super overhanging sport routes it's stuffed like rappel down and clean the gear so it's a little bit more acceptable to just be lowered down at that point the most common mistake where people get hurt and super experienced people have gotten hurt before is the Blair thinks that I'm gonna rappel I think that I'm gonna be lowered I go up I clean the anchor I say take I lean back and no one's holding the other end of the rope you know nice quiet crag like this probably wouldn't happen but if there's like a row River something down here where there's a lot of people climbing speaking over each other like that communication could happen very simple so first thing is on you have a discussion with my Blair I know I'm gonna go up I'm just gonna rap down so once you take me off belay you're good to go okay so you're gonna rappel down yes I okay awesome um almost speed buckles on my harness I got a good knot to both my time points I just narrow waist since we have a climb anything today you got a speed buckle awesome for cleaning there's three steps I I look at like three big steps instead of like trying to remember every little thing because anchor configurations are always going to be different at the top and one thing when I set up an anchor I never want to put my carabiners through the bottom links or the the wrap rings because I need to feed my rope through that and that's just gonna be awkward so step number one is right now my my safety is on the rope I need to transfer myself from the rope to the anchor you've got your personal your fancy pencil device a lot of times I use a double length sling pas these are really good for this and I'll bring a pas out sometimes oh um sport climbing but I like kind of multi-use so I just use a sling doubling sling and a girth hitch it to myself so super simple for my to attach myself I can just clip my two strands up here unlocked the thing about this since we have a quad anchor that attaches these two bolts together is I can just clip into the quad and I'm good I'm never gonna trust my life to a piece of gear I don't own which is a bolt so right now I'm actually attached to both of these bolts through the quad anchor if we were up here on an anchor that was maybe like two drawers with lockers I'd have to clip into this chain and that chain to be attached to him because these two like two drawers would be would be separate from each other I just attached myself to thank ER and now anytime I transfer my life from one system to another I'm gonna double check first and sometimes I'll even talk to myself and verbalize in an anchor because this is the point we're like on our own we don't have a partner to double check us so cool I've got a good girth hitch here I am locked into the anchor on two strands and you can take me off belay so first thing I want to do is I'm gonna pull up a little slack so step one was transferring my life from the ropes and anchors step two is gonna be rigging the rope and then step three is transferring my life back from the anchor to the rope so we're in step two rigging the rope right now I'm gonna have to untie for this so I want to make sure I don't lose my rope because then my friends would laugh at me probably sit at the base knowing my friends they'd make me sit up there for a couple hours and then they'd come and get me so that's never happened and I really don't want to go through that so I can tie a knot in this I can do an overhand or an eight on a bite I prefer just to clove hitch it throw it on a carabiner so I'm not gonna lose it now I can untie now whew my rings you should stay I don't like take off I'm gonna bathroom I'll be right back you know name enjoyed you just stay around that that's not a bad idea at all and if I I'm actually when I rappel I'm gonna use my own backup but if I wasn't doing that I could ask Anna when I repelled to give me a fireman's Blaye always good to have a backup when you're rappelling like that's rappelling is where a lot of climbers get hurt and killed so my ropes through here I want to close the system now so I'm just gonna tie a barrel knot and now this way I'm still gonna hold onto this bike and come out of here and if I did lose this like especially with these chains there's no way that's gonna go through that could feasibly go through a rap ring but it's probably hung up so now I want to rig the rope to where both ends are on the ground so depending on how long this rope is I might have to go all the way to the middle of the rope what I'd have to do is pull up this end all the way and then the way I'm calling this coil both sides of it pulling it through so I know when it goes tight that is the middle a little bit more work you know if I can see the ground no big deal then it can just toss it down and see that it's on the ground if I can't see the ground I don't know where the middle is and my partner is still there I could communicate with my partner to find that so I pull enough rope through from the ground throw down rope awesome my rope is set up so I'm gonna set up an extended rappel with a backup which is a pretty standard way a lot of people do things so I can do what's called a friction hitch off my belay loop and the type there's different types of friction hitches I'm going to use what's called an auto block so I'll take both strands so this is called a prusik loop and it's just five or six millimeter accessory cord I find a good length for this is 48 inches and then the ends tied together with the double fisherman's they make one called the hollow block that's kind of more of a braided a little more expensive kind of a fancy one but yeah just five or six mil accessory cord let's start with through a carabiner and I always like to make sure I'm keeping my knots in this like out of the middle of the system so I'm gonna start with it right by the carabiner take my two ropes and then with two ropes probably about three wraps is the amount of friction I want two three actually these ropes real slick I'm gonna go one more for lock back the other end goes back through the carabiner or I lock that so this if I pull is gonna hold the rope and if I just push down on it the Rope slides through the auto block is a friction hitch with the least amount of friction and it's gonna be below my rappel device so I don't need a whole lot of holding power I'm not like falling right on this and having it hold my body weight I just needed act like a hand under a belay device in case something happens to me so if I've got all this weight hanging from the rope one of the cool things about this too is I can just pull up slack if that ropes pulling down it's gonna keep slack here and make it easier to get my rappel device on the road since I've got this off my blade loop I don't want it going up into my device so I can use it on this extension works very well with the PAS I think you can rig it away with your pencil thing Joe so I clip through both these strands I'm gonna go teeth down that's more friction if you've got this style device and you're a lighter person you can go teeth up which will be less friction take a bite on both ropes make sure everything's nice and clean into my rappel device and then very important make sure I clip both strands lock my carabiner cool now I can test this system out sweet so I'm no longer on this anchor I'm just on my rappel device with this this backup and so I'm actually waiting the system so I just finished step two I rigged the rappel so step three is I'm putting my life back on the rope again I'm gonna double-check I can either start at the bottom or start at the top I like to start at the top so the ropes through both my rings I'm captured on both strands in the carabiner I'm captured here I'm captured there I've got a backup sweet I can come out of the anchor now if I put this back to my belay loop it actually gives me a little bit of redundancy since I'm not attached on so now I can do what I came up here to do actually clean the anchor it's always important to remember that it's kind of easy to forget sometimes get back to the ground where's the anchor and now I can just I like to go a hand down below my friction hitch and then use my top hand just to unlock it and then keep it unlocked and I can rappel down if I let go you never want to like just blindly let go and trust it you can you get like different sheets if they're super slick you might not get as good at friction and like need an extra wrap so it's always good to test these out a little bit with this specific friction hitch and specific rope to make sure it is locking if it ever is a little slippery and you need to stop you can just pull up like that and that usually engages it if let's say maybe I tossed the ropes and they're tangled around something that I need to like mess with that and recoil the ropes or some sort of shenanigans an extra safety thing I could do is just tie a overhand on a bite that's called a catastrophe knot now if I was like doing something here for a while and I like spun and hit this by accident no way it's gonna go past that knot - there's actually another way to do this that uh but it's got kind of a weak link to the system if I didn't have an extension here and I wanted to rappel right off my harness I can put the friction hitch on my leg loop and actually do you use this technique quite often if I go off my leg loop I want to go on the inside by my by my inner thigh why would I not want to put this over here because it could like undo my buckle in my leg loop could come undone so if you ever do this technique you want to go off the inner part of your harness right here both ropes correct so they're just like your brake hand if you lost control like when I want to stop and pull down on the brake strands so they'd be doing the same thing if I wanted to stop they pull down on the brake strands and they'd stop me so I can do my friction hitch down here so if we looked at what I was just talking about like what do you gain and what do you lose less piece of equipment faster like a couple things that are pretty cool but there is one major weakness to this system if I turn my body that way this can get sucked up it can get jammed in there it can make it not work so if I'm doing it this way I have to be very conscious of my body position not to spin my hips that way and maybe if a rock did hit me in my like on that way that could undo it so there are a couple like pretty big weaknesses in that system

Channel: Jill Adler Ski Play Live Publishing

Views: 163,394

Keywords: Red Rock Rendezvous, cleaning, anchor, anchor system, rappel, climbing, rock, rock climb, rope, prusak, prusik, carabiner, belay, gear, sport, rock climber, rock climbing, sport climbing, How To, Tips, Climbing (Sport), clean anchor, las vegas, red rocks, red rock national reserve, Doug Foust, climbing education, adidas terrex, adidas outdoor, rappelling, best practices, american alpine club

Id: Izju1kmmU-0

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 17 2017