UKC

Hi. I'm wanting to take my daughter climbing at Portland but so that I can lead the routes I need to be able to set up an anchor at the bottom so she doesn't shoot up the crag if I fall off (there's a big weight difference). 

What's the chances of finding some grade F4 - F6a routes where I can set up some sort of belay anchor, whether it's a couple nuts or a tree or boulder? 

Hi Cheyne is a good bet. There are plenty of routes at Neddyfields where you can either set up a top rope off the big blocks at the top. Or lean over to put a rope on the anchors (near accelerator).

Most of the cliffs starting at sea level are on boulder beaches so good bet for ground anchors available. Most of the higher level cliffs are just off soil so not much luck there.

Thanks for the tips. Very helpful. 

Have you considered trying an Edelrid Ohm (coupled with a reasonably thick rope, as that gives it even more friction) instead?  Or is the difference too great for even that?

I climb mostly with 2 blokes who put together aren't quite as heavy as one of me, and it works great for that.

I'll take a look at that but I'm 6'1" and on the voluptuous side while my daughter is 13 and slim. It might be a bit much of a difference. 

As I said it works fine for me being slightly over twice the weight of the belayer, and works even better with a thicker rope.  I'd suggest giving it a go - even if it isn't enough on its own, it might mean that a rucksack with a few rocks in strapped to her is enough to safely balance you.

At a wall, for instance, I need a 40ish kilo weight bag to balance things (typically belayer 2/3 of the climber works due to friction without an Ohm) and I was finally prompted to buy one when the new Big Rock initially only had smaller (10-15kg ish) weight bags and we needed 3, which looked silly, was really awkward and was hogging them.

As a bonus I could probably persuade her she needs to carry a rucksack full of rocks to the crag!

I'll definitely order one to try. 

FWIW the other thing that's been of benefit to my climbing from the Ohm is that while you *can* use it for top-roping it's a bit cack-handed due to the rope running up the wall against the holds.  So I pretty much lead everything, which has done wonders for my confidence.