UKC

Hello, I'm fairly new to climbing. Only done Bouldering, Top Rope and Tope Rope solo at a few crags. I've been looking at Top rope anchors set ups, particulary in situations where there are no placed bolts. I've seen some set ups where the climber uses a static rope, and ties it to a couple of trees, or uses cams or nuts if trees arent available. Then with the same rope, ties a couple of loops, at  the distance where you want the anchor to hang. Then a couple of carabiners or quickdraws on those loopes, and it's good to go. Just run your dynamic rope through the carabiners and you can either just pass the rope through the carabiners and leave one line for belayer and one for climber, or tie the rope in the carabiners so both lines can be used by the climber to rope solo and ascending the rope if necessary. I was wondering what is the general opinion on this type of set ups, and why not also use a dynamic for the top anchor, woudnt it be safer? Also would there be any way that i could tie the climbing rope in this anchor, and have the whole lenght of the rope in a single line?

Apprectiate any help

(ps: sorry if any term is inacurate, I'm also still new to proper climbing terms and words.)

I think the only thing you have missed is a rope protector where the static line hangs over the edge.
I used to use a short length of hose pipe threaded along the rope.

E

Thats brilliant never thought of protecting the static rope.

The fact that the rope can move across the edge of the crag (causing wear and tear to the rope and also possibly the rock), also answers this question in your OP:

"...and why not also use a dynamic for the top anchor, woudnt it be safer?"

You really want to minimise the movement in any rope that's hanging over the edge, so you don't want stretch in the rope connecting the anchors, especially if they're some distance away.  (eg: trees a littley way back from the top of the crag) 

Also static rope tends to be more hard wearing, it generally has a more densely woven more robust sheath and it'll take more abuse before its strength starts to be compromised.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time to share the knowledge.

https://cdn2.apstatic.com/photos/climb/112227093_medium_1494327659.jpg

E

That drawing seems to have gone a bit wrong at the (double) bowline tied around the boulder - if it's a normal bowline the stopper knot should be inside the loop (because the dead rope emerges on that side of the knot).

Hang on a sec...  like this.

Incidentally, that's one of the reasons I prefer to tie in to my harness with a simple bowline (and stopper knot) - because the tail then hangs down out of the way instead of emerging from the knot next to the live rope.

What about the padding, is there any other good options apart from the hose pipes previously mentioned. That drawing seems to show some kind of cloth i believe. I heard that we should never mix 2 soft material together while climbing. Is this statement still true in this situation?

It's probably meant to be a bowline on a bight as that would be an easy way to create a long loop of rope to go around the boulder:

It clearly isn't.  There's only one loop of rope going around the boulder and the caption says 'double bowline' (which is the knot I tied and took a photo of).

Also a bowline on a bight is not an easy way to create a long loop of rope to go around a boulder - it's more effort to tie than other ways of creating a big loop, uses twice as much rope as it needs by going around the boulder twice, and most of the time it  tends to be better to thread the rope around the boulder or whatever and then tie the rope afterwards.  You can't always tie a big loop first and then chuck it over a boulder, and fairly obviously you can never do that with a tree. 

Ideally you'd be able to thread the rope around first and then tie the knot (from scratch, starting with a plain rope) afterwards - and that's the big advantage of a bowline over a re-threaded figure of eight in this situation.  (I know you know this, I'm addressing the OP here.)

You can re-thread a bowline on the bight of course (it's a popular choice to tie in with in some places) - but the way you'd do it to tie a big loop around the boulder is to tie an ordinary bowline first then use loads and loads of rope to go all the way around the boulder again and back to the knot again to re-thread it.  When you could just use about half a metre of rope emerging from the ordinary bowline you started with to tie a stopper knot instead.

You don't want a loaded rope to run across another rope, a sling or something, because the rope that isn't moving is going to get worn very quickly and might even melt.  For example you can lower off a sling around a tree with a carabiner, but trying to lower off by threading your rope through the sling directly would be death on a stick.

But you only have to give it a tiny bit of thought to see that "never mix 2 soft material together while climbing" makes absolutely no sense as a general rule to stick to dogmatically.  Does that include the belay loop on your harness?  And your pants?  No, obviously not.
(See also: the old chestnut about how you must never connect metal to metal.)

Personally I don't think those kinds of simplistic rules are ultimately very helpful.  Look at the situation, think about what's going to happen when ropes are loaded, when things move around, and use your imagination.  If you're using a bit of old carpet as a rope protector, yes, the bit of old carpet might be slightly damaged in the process of protecting both the rope and the rock, so choose your bit of old carpet wisely.  Maybe don't use a priceless Persian rug.

Hi. Although you seem to be getting good advice on this thread (so far), I would caution you against relying exclusively on information you get from an online forum. Having said that ....

There is a principle in climbing known as redundancy which is important to understand. In the context of setting up a bottom rope (aka top rope), this means using multiple anchors (usually just two but bombproof ones) and arranging the rigging rope so that if one anchor fails the other will still do its job. This normally means tying a small fig 8 loop in your "V hang" at the pulley point. You don't need multiple loops or multiple crabs, but you should always use a locking crab (or two snapgates/quickdraws with opposing gates).

As others have said, the back-and-forth sawing action of a dynamic rigging rope as it stretches will wear it out very quickly. Get yourself some static (strictly speaking, semi-static) rigging rope (15 metres is common for this application), and a couple of rope protectors (or improvised padding) so that your rope has a chance of lasting a nice, long time.

I would advise getting an instructor or a trustworthy, experienced climber to show you this set up, and point out the common pitfalls; or, at the very least, consult a good instruction book (e.g. Libby Peter's books).

Hope this helps

If you're going to be doing it often you can buy rope protectors. Petzl do a thing called a Protec for about 15 quid.

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It's very important because even a static rope isn't 100% static. They are actually really called semi-static.
If a top roper is bouncing up and down on a tight top rope, practicing a crux for example, it can create a sawing action on the cliff edge.

E

+1.  Rope protectors pay for themselves pretty damn quickly if you're doing a lot of top roping.

Apologies for the pedantry, but they're actually called low-stretch. Your second point definitely holds true though. Whatever the OP does, do it carefully. Even fabric rope protectors won't protect from a sharp edge forever

Whatever. Still, most of the big manufacturers calling them semi-static too

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I've sometimes used an old bit of carpet cut to shape, ideally the sort with rough hessian backing, not the modern foam-backed stuff, and duct taped into a tube-shape so that the hessian is against the rope.

https://www.vdiffclimbing.com/top-rope/

This maybe useful for you.