UKC

In reply to UKC Articles: For a beginner video, the method she uses is rather convoluted. The video assumes that all anchors are the same setup!?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
I agree. It's a bit complicated.
I'm from Slovenia and common practice in this parts is to clip ourselves into the anchor than tread the double rope thru the anchor, make a double eight knot, clip that to a harnes with a locking biner and than untie the original eight knot. We use the method from the video only if the anchor is too small for the double rope.

In reply to ovca:

Exactly, which is, more often than not, an exception.

In reply to UKC Articles: Note to self: Never post anything on UKC that might be of some use to someone.

Come on guys, it's a perfectly simple and valid method. If you find that complicated god help you if you ever have to set up a less than straightforward trad belay.

It's a fairly short tail on that figure 8 - given the target audience I'd have made that longer...

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

She shows the method that works on all anchors so must be learnt first, other anchors can use other methods but the way she shows is the only certain one.

In reply to GridNorth: Tbh, im not a huge fan of online instructional videos like this at all.

Way to open for numpties getting themselves hurt, after watching 12 how-to videos. Suddenly they know everything.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Maybe I'm over cautious but I certainly would not thread my rope through the actual chain link because of the possibility of the join/burrs cutting the rope

In reply to Darron: So what would you do? If one bolt is just a chain link and the other has an abseil ring/closed krab on it. It's an easy matter to check that there is no burring and if there is use another link or donate a maillon.

In reply to UKC Articles:
that's the standard way in France but not the BMC one (which sounds the same as the person from Slovenia who posted above).

I've never liked the BMC way, but it's a personal thing. My pals do the Brit way I do the French way, everyone's happy.

In reply to French Erick:

I learnt the Brit/BMC way but, as said, it doesn't always work and you end up doing it the way shown in the video.

I think what is important is that the novice learning a method is also taught to understand why you do certain things eg. always have the rope attached to something so there's no rick of dropping it, always have at least two attachment points for redundancy etc, multiple visual/weighted checks.

In reply to Skyfall:
true.
I learned on my todd with friends my age (13-14). After a few months, my mum asked a person she knew climbed, from her work, to check what we were doing was safe .
He came to the crag and found us untying at the top whilst keeping the rope in our teeth!Instead of telling us off,he let me lead another route whilst he was belaying, at the anchor (they are really incredibly well placed in very compact limestone) he yanked the rope off my mouth and asked me "what now?". A lesson I'll never forget (my teeth still do remember)!

He then explained to us about possible failure of anchors... Most sport climbing will have very sound anchors but you should indeed make sure you've got a system in place.

In reply to El3ctroFuzz:

Far better that they know nothing. Obviously.

In reply to French Erick:

Erick,
Not sure that it is a 'BMC way'; I've seen the odd Frenchman, and even the odd 'normal' Frenchman, doing the same thing. But it does have the benefit of being a wee bit quicker as you effectively miss out one element of the process. And the simpler the process the less risk of cock up.

Agreed; there are a few lower-offs that do not accept a doubled rope but they are getting fewer; indeed the number of places that provide a clip or a 'pigs tail' of some sort are increasing.

As someone above said - the important thing is to know why you are doing what you are doing and develop the ability to vary what you do to accommodate the odd strangeness.

In reply to andyathome:
What I DID struggle with was the title. Saw the news item and had absolutely no idea what 'Cleaning a Sport Anchor' was about.

In reply to andyathome:

Seriously?

In reply to Fraser:

Bloody hell could they have not found a crag to film on without loud background road noise!? And please drop the annoying background music as well!

In reply to Fraser:

Honest Injun! I'd have understood 'threading a lower-off' or summat but 'cleaning a sport anchor' had me thinking of Vim and Brillo pads.

In reply to UKC Articles: Ditto on the traffic noise and stupid music. This just typifies why sport climbing really should be given as much respect as trad, plain scary. There must be a better way to do this, or maybe we'll just go and do trad instead. Yes, that's the answer.

In reply to UKC Articles: It makes life easier if you clip your draws into bolts/links that you're not trying to thread the rope through as well.

In reply to andyathome:

If they know nothing, they wouldnt be in the situations in the first place.

You would never hire an instructor or guide, then watch him do it once, then leave and go and do it. No, you practice train and consolidate with the correct supervision.

In reply to andyathome:

I agree. I clicked on it and watched the vid just to see what it really meant.

In reply to ovca:

Thats what we (self + regular partners) us now for preference unless the eyes of the bolts are too small to double through

In reply to UKC Articles:

Obviously it's just one of a number of safe techniques but it is the one that always works and it is safe.

Personally I'd prefer to see this sort of video focus on the why-to rather than how-to but that's how my brain works, I know plenty of other people prefer this instructional style.

Oh and add me to the no idea what 'cleaning a sport anchor' means. I was expecting scrubbing brushes and some heavyweight offshore engineering

jk

In reply to jkarran: Perhaps those who "cleaned the anchor" had just "sent" the route. I also dislike this creeping culture of Americanisms. Come on UKC English in it's original form please.

In reply to GridNorth:

She didn't even use a locking krab. Instructional vids should at least teach best practice..

In reply to Frogger:

Who decided using a locking krab was best practice? Whist I usually use one myself plenty of people don't, and with the redundancy demonstrated in the video there doesn't seem to be any significant increase in risk.

In reply to Frogger:

Why on earth would you bother with a locking krab when you have two points of attachment all the time ?

The real danger of learning by the book is that it clearly doesn't teach the underlying principals behind the 'best practices' that enable people to make sensible risk assesments.

In reply to UKC Articles: Frogger is wrong in any case. She does use a locker to attach the F8 to the belay loop which is what I assume we are talking about.

In reply to GridNorth:

Not when she is pulling through the slack she isn't.

You obviously haven't seen it go wrong when locking krabs haven't been used. Unlikely, maybe, but not good when it happens.

There's no right and wrong, there's just being responsible towards new climbers who are more likely to make mistakes... hence locking is better than not.

OK?

In reply to Frogger: Are you suggesting that one of the QD's should have a screwgate karabiner? If that is the case and if your argument was valid it should have two screwgate karabiners. I don't see a problem she is attached with another karabiner/QD therefore there is redundancy. Perhaps I'm just not understanding what you are getting at.

In reply to GridNorth:

There is so much wrong with this video it should be taken down