UKC

! Warning: Totally subjective statement !

It seems to me there is an obsession in the US with finding the 'perfect' anchor building technique, following (or misinterpreting) various acronyms from SERENE to KISS.
What is the problem of simply building an anchor which suits the climb/belay and getting on with it?
What's the point of developing 3 different types of self equalizing Cordellettes (which are in the end either not equalizing or redundant)?

Anyway, has buggered me a while and the recent threads about anchors forced me to get this rant out.
But I believe common sense and a repertoire of different techniques is a way better anchor than anything they have come up with...

In reply to uncontrollable: There is certainly a peculiar US slant on multi-point anchors which I've never really understood either.

However in terms of UK climbing what is quite refreshing is that everything any UK recreational climbing really needs to know about building belays using the rope is covered in just over 5 pages in the BMC Climbing Outdoors booklet with about 6 diagrams and as many photos.

In reply to uncontrollable:

Agreed - I started reading this http://www.rescuedynamics.ca/articles/pdfs/EarnestAnchors3.pdf and lost the will to live fairly quickly.
Suppose it is useful for beginners, except it gives the impression that it's all so complicated.

You might want to consider the difference between buggered & bugged

In reply to uncontrollable:

I know what you mean, but lets consider many north Americans use a single rope, batch lead, run it out between gear more and tend to have longer pitches on multi pitch routes compared to the UK and therefore don’t have such so much rope left to make up the belay.

I have climbed with a few north Americans in the past its quite a different rope management style.

But your right they seem obsessed with the debating it… may be its important to them

In reply to Carless:


Thanks for your contribution to the 'free English lessons provided by UKC' sheme.
I'm still hoping for UKC to implement a voice over button to keep improving on my accent

In reply to uncontrollable: Perhaps, & this is just an out there shot in the dark, it's only the annaly retentive types who can be arsed writing it up & posting it on the internet that you are seeing. Maybe most American multipitch climbers are inherently no different to you & they just use common sense & a mixed bag of tricks, BUT they couldn't be arsed getting involved in discussions about it online to the same extent, so your viewpoint of it is flawed? Just a theory like...

In reply to uncontrollable:

LOL, have you read Jim Titts comment on the Dolomites thread? Something like, stop faffing about and get on with it unless you want to be benighted.

I stood and marveled at the way someone set up a belay one day with umpteen nuts and krabs and clove hitches, taking over ten minutes.

I dobbed in two good nuts, ran the rope through the krabs on them back to me and tied it off in a half hitch secured with a krab in a couple of minutes.
Maybe not in the book any more, but it was at one time and works well. KISS

In reply to uncontrollable:


I suspect, as they have only one grade system, they don't have anything better to argue about!

In reply to Frank4short:

I fully agree with you, hence the first line of the post.

In reply to uncontrollable:

dunno. plenty of obsessives in UKC slpitting hairs over wire gates and the differences between WC and DMM.

but yeah, only the yanks have the acronyms.

In reply to Carless: good god there is alot of info there, seriously I usually enjoy that sort of stuff but that is enough to make anyone loose the will to live

uncontrollable - As for the north americans, my misses is from canada and during the time I have climbed in and around BC with her and her mates I havent experienced the anchor obbsession, however they did seem less experienced and more up tight about dangers and situations, perhaps its down to the sort of climbers youve experienced!