UKC

Evening all,

As a fairly new climber who has only sport climbed outside a handful of times, I have a couple of questions and hoping some kind soul will take pity on me and share their wisdom....

Quickdraws - It appears that wire gates are used more for trad and solid gates for sport. As far as I can make out, both are just as strong but wire gates are lighter. Also potentially safer due to less tendency for the gate to ‘flutter’ when shock loaded. Therefore why do people use solid gates for sport? Is it because they are harder wearing and will potentially last longer? Is there any downside to using wire gates?

Also what about using alpine quickdraws. I sometimes use them if the guide says ‘extend bolt X’ for example. The main difference I can see is that you don’t have the rubber bit that keeps the bottom karabiner in place and the sling isn’t stitched. What impact could this potentially have when falling on them? Anything I need to be aware of that differs from using a standard quickdraw?

Lowering off - So I’m stuck half way up a sport route and can’t progress so need to bail. I hear many people talking about sacrificing a maillon / screwgate to lower off. If this is one of the hanger expansion bolts, then this certainly makes sense as wouldn’t want to lower off one of these. However if we are talking about the glue ins that can generally take a bight of rope, as long as I could clip in a cow’s tail to make safe and re-thread, why wouldn’t I do this and lower directly off the bolt without leaving gear? Is there anything safer about using a maillon / screwgate or is it just about not putting wear on the bolts over time in terms of ropes running through them? I imagine this is more of an issue on the top set of bolts then a bolt half way up a route. (P.S I don’t mind leaving a £3 piece of gear behind, just looking to understand the logic).

Thanks in advance! D

In reply to ATGNI:

1) As far as I'm aware people use solid gates for sport generally cause weight isn't an issue, they feel very reassuring to clip, they often have a bent gate to facilitate easy clipping and they are more likely to come with a big dogbone for yarding on. Might actually be a proper reason! I sport climb on wiregates and its not a big deal really, no real downside apart from thin slings are more of a pain to hang onto!

2) I have extended bolts with slingdraws with no problems before.

3) Threading a staple/glue in bolt halfway up to bail off is fairly standard practice, I've certainly done it. Strictly speaking you should probably thread two if possible but at the end of the day we often fall on just one bolt. I think this advice is historic more than anything and dates from when all bolts were expansion bolts, which as you say you definitely need a maillon/bail biner for.

Hope that helps, others will know more!

In reply to ATGNI:

Not silly questions at all, mainly already answered.

The difference in the extenders is mainly that for trad, a floppy extender is actually quite important sometimes, which is to do with the rope pulling on bits of gear in the wrong direction. For sport, there is no need for them to be floppy at all and people prefer a good, rigid chunky draw. Floppy is fine for sport though.

In reply to ATGNI:
Echo what Spidermonkey has said: if it's a glue- in / staple then lower direct off that by re-threading. However, lowering off one bolt only has clear risk regardless off the type of bolt so... there's a great way using a prusik to back yourself up. Petzl recommend it and you can find how to do it here:

http://www.ascenttraining.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Lowering-of-a-si...

In reply to ATGNI:

A further quick note: in the past I've used light wiregate quickdraws for sport. No safety issue at all with this. However, recently bought a rack of DMM Alpha Sport draws. If you've never clipped one of these then I'd recommend you try. They are simply brilliant!

In reply to ATGNI:

Really you are better to abseil off a sports route if on one bolt. Its simple physics, when lowering the bolt has the climbers weight and the belayers, wheras abseiling just the climbers, but it depends on the situation, and always make sure that you communicate clearly with your belayer what your doing.

In reply to spidermonkey09:

Wiregates on the bolt end are more likely to catch on the bolt head/stud and ones with a nose gate a pain to remove. For the top karabiner a keylock solid-gate is best.

In reply to Que Sera Sera:


I have always wondered about the physics of this. Although correct from simple theory, it miss the friction at the top and the fact the rope is dynamic. Any slight bounce by either the climber or abseiler will be transmitted to the anchor. With a lower one strand of rope will be involved and the minimum length of rope out will be equal to the length of the pitch. Hence a lot to mob up the bounce. With an abseil, two stands are involved (so less dynamic) and as you leave the anchor <1m in length, so not a lot to rope to mob up the energy of a bounce.

Has anyone looked at this either mathematical, or in the lab?

At this point, I'm kind of hoping Jim Titt will drop in.......

In reply to climberchristy:


Nice - I've not seen that technique before.

In reply to climberchristy:

I love Alphas, wish I had some.

In reply to David Coley:

It's addressed in the Petzl link above (albeit without detailed maths).

In reply to ATGNI:
I've always used solid gates for both, but when I bought most of mine, wire gates weren't invented. I've got a few wire ones now, but I like the reassurance of a good, solid gate

Lowering off.
Safest way is to sacrifice a mallion/screwgate, as you don't have to untie from the rope. Both have the problem of leaving gear that might cause a problem for the next climber.

Here's a way of escaping without leaving gear behind and without threading the rope through a staple using a bit of tat that can be recovered. Still requires untying from the rope. Bit tricky to describe without a picture, but here goes:

Works if you are 1/3 of the length of your rope up the route. Need a short loop of about 7mm cord, properly tied. Loop this through the bolt, then thread 1/3 of your rope through the two ends such that one end reaches the ground. Tie the other 2/3 end to the side of the tat with the knot on it. Once you've ab'd down, you should be able to pull through the rope to free the tat, then pull the other end to retrieve the tat.

Obviously, make sure you're clipped in before untying the rope, make sure you're abbing on the correct 2 strands and make sure you've tied a knot in the end on the ground. And don't drop the rope - clip a loop up while sorting out the threading.

Edit - if you're higher than 1/3 of the length of your rope up the route, you can repeat at a lower bolt.

I've done this a handful of times, including staples and bolts. Not ideal on bolts due to the edges of the metal, but as there shouldn't be any sawing or shock loading, you should be fine. You can use thicker cord, but then it might become a problem pulling it back through from the ground. You could always take a couple of bits of split hose pipe as padding.

In reply to ATGNI:

By and large people use solid gates for sport and wires for trad because that's what everyone else does, it's mostly just herd mentality. I've known people claim solid bent gates are easier to clip in extremis but I don't really buy it. They're also easier for a rope loop to accidentally catch and unclip.

Personally I use a rag tag mix of wire gate quickdraws and mixed straight/bent/wire slingdraws for sport whether I'm redpointing or onsighting. Same kit for trad. Works fine. Some have retainer loops, some don't. Krabs face whichever way they were last put back together.

Quickdraws with fat tape can be easier to pull up on but then so can slingraws.

Don't lower of maillons, they're dead weight on your harness, some can unscrew and uncurl dropping you and and once left they rust in place and block the bolts. If you can safely re-thread ta smooth 'bolt' (Staples, P shaped glue-ins and some forged glue-ins) then you can lower off. If you don't fancy lowering off the hanger just leave a krab. You can sometimes ab off something you wouldn't lower off (eg thread) but usually it's a worse option than leaving a krab. Best bet is buy/make a clip stick and learn to use it, no more getting stuck mid route.

jk

In reply to ATGNI:

The only difference between draws is weight. I personally use solid gates for everything, simply because they feel better to clip. You're talking a weight difference of grams, so certainly nothing noticable. Go with whatever feels better to you. I don't use alpine draws for sport climbing and only tend to use them for threads or spikes while trad climbing.

As for bailing, if it were me I'd thread and abseil if that were an option long before I considered lowering direct off a bolt. If you're not willing to do that I'd suggest leaving bail gear. You don't really want to lower directly from a bolt. If you must lower do it very slowly!

In reply to ChrisBrooke:


I'm not so sure.
If we assume the friction caused only 0.68 (a commonly assumed value) of the force to the left hand rope, the force on the anchor when lowering would be

(70 + 0.68*70 ) * 9.81 = 115daN

which interestingly is the same number as they get. Hence I'm not sure they are including the rope dynamics.

On the other hand, the abseiling illustration, as it does not give 70 * 9.81, but something higher does look like a small amount of bouncing or general shuffling around is included. Maybe it is measured data. Do you know how they did it?
Thanks

In reply to ATGNI:

Many good suggestions already on various rope techniques to lower off.

Better though is simply to clipstick your way to victory!

(remain on belay throughout victory-clipsticking for safety even when clipped into bolts)

In reply to David Coley:

Me? All my products are so strong the difference in loading is irrelevant
The Petzl value probably comes from the tests done here:- http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/crr_pdf/2001/crr01364.pdf but they don´t say what rope was used.

In reply to jimtitt:


Interesting read, but I think it only covers abseiling, not lowering.

In reply to zimpara:

Cheapest place at present that I could find is Rock and Run selling them for just under £17 each if memory serves.

In reply to David Coley:


I think the theory that abseiling is safer is barmy anyway, I´m not going to hang on a dodgy bolt, tell my belayer to take me off and pull the rope out of all those safe bolts I passed earlier. Each to their own!

In reply to jimtitt:

The lower off with prussik as described on the article posted earlier seems like the best bet, it means you only leave behind one bit of gear and are backed up in the case of a bolt failure.

That said, people who climb trad might not be too scared about a bolt failing during a lower-off...