UKC

Planning a trip with my uni club this Easter, and we'll be mostly climbing on the Scogliera crag around El Bahira campsite.

Do many of the routes on that crag have snapgates at the top, removing the need for cleaning routes? (We were blessed in Paklenica last year)

Some of our members may not have cleaned a sport route before, so I'd like to know whether we'd need to teach people or if so much of the crag has snapgates that we'll be OK.

I can't answer your question as such  as it's a while since I've been there. However, surely the sensible answer is ... teach them to rethread and clean routes anyway as it's a skill they are soon going to need.

Also, even if the vast majority of the routes at any given crag have snaplinks, the odd one often doesn't. So, for example today my mate and I were climbing at Forada, Costa Blanca. Did 6 routes between us and 5 had snaplinks but one was a ring needing rethreading. So, someone trying to answer your question might say "yeh all the routes we did there had snaplinks" but actually some routes on the same crag(s) may not. I guess what I'm saying is you likely won't get a very reliable answer to your question. So teach them the skill anyway. Good luck and I hope you all have a great trip. 

and dont forget to clink the last bolt to the descending rope so there is some redundancy should anyone make a mistake at the anchor. Provide your own equipment to lower all but the last member of your party ... 

I went a year ago and remember a good portion of the routes needed threading.

As others have stated, threading is such a useful skill that isn't too complicated to learn/teach, that there's no reason why all of your peers can't learn it in the next month! It opens up more options for everyone to climb different routes, and not rely on someone being a designated "cleaner" which can get tiresome. Or worse, the first leader threading and then others top-roping off the anchor directly.

Hope you have a good trip it's a lovely place!

Most of them need to be rethreaded, some have "ram horns" which just needed the rope looping over, other have a bizarre "pigs tail" thing at the top which I've never seen elsewhere.

Hi, we took a large uni club trip there last Easter to the same campsite, send me a message if you want any beta on campsite arrangements and practicalities or crag sectors. The lower-offs there are mixture of rings, ram's heads and pigtails so getting your members all competent and safe at cleaning routes will reduce the stress for your committee massively. The pigtails or monster hook are a custom design of the area's main bolter(who I believe is on UKC) and can be perplexing if never encountered before. The place is a fantastic crag and campsite, hope your club enjoys it as much as we did.

We went back in October and saw plenty of rams heads around El Bahira. I generally agree with the rest of the thread though, take some time to teach the club threading, super useful skill! Set some quickdraws up in the house and do it at pres 

Others have mentioned the desirability of teaching people. In my view, it's essential. The whole point of sport climbing is to make things as safe as can be. The two most dangerous places on any sport route are likely to be near the ground and at the anchors. Fluff it near the ground and it may be a broken leg. But fluff it at the anchors and...

Nobody should be allowed to strip a route until sorting things out at the anchors is hard-wired into them. You need to be able to do it competently, no matter what the anchors are like. You need to be able to do it competently when you're cold, tired, hungry, out of sight/sound from the belayer, etc. 

It's not enough to teach simply at the level of technique - because situations will change. People need to understand the principles so they always know why they should be doing something - which may be different on route A to route B (different circumstances).  

Mick (the person who once made his mate belay to an ant hill)

Why any reluctance on your mate's part, Mick? Was he worried about the integrity of the belay - or was it perhaps to do with the imagined intent of the army of its Tom-and-Jerry-cartoon-style denizens marching purposefully along the ropes in his direction?

If you have the time head to the Peak and go to Horseshoe, they have a boulder with bolts in at ground level so you can teach, and show people from a safe height. Also on the top level is a number of very easy 3 bolt climbs that are great for getting that first experience. better to learn at a relatively short height than getting 20mtrs up and having a wobble!!

I remember the first time I saw a pigs tail lower-off, on a very sparsely bolted route in Frankenjura. I had no idea how to rethread it (even though it is very simple). I was about to lean back to weight the rope, before I realised the rope wasn't threaded right at all, and would have just pulled out. The last bolt was about half way down the route (easy slab above the bolt), I would have almost certainly hit the ground.

So learn how to rethread all types of anchors, and always expect the unexpected!

Possibly he was imagining Tom and Jerry movement upwards coinciding with abrupt movement downwards...

Mick