UKC

Just a reminder to please avoid using those to bail off routes on Portland; lowering off existing glue-in/U-bolts directly is fine.

Maillons get corroded in no time in marine environments, and become virtually impossible to remove without an angle grinder. I spent a couple of hours last weekend trying to get one off the crux of The Oldest Profession (7a), unsuccessfully trying a combination of WD40 + adjustable spanner and a medium-sized bolt cutter.

Ironically I dont think (the vast majority of?) this audience needs to read this, but I find myself wondering where/how to draw attention to it. I believe it is already mentioned in the rockfax guidebook.

I assume you mean abseiling off a threaded rope? Because lowering a climber from the ground where the rope runs through the glue-in/staple certainly isn't!!

Maybe not the purpose of this thread, but having used grinders while suspended by rope for work, I'd avoid using grinders if a cordless reciprocating saw could be used instead, e.g. to cut a stuck maillon.

Oh.. and have a steel strop (e.g. https://www.lyonequipment.com/anchors/wire-strops/lyon-galvanised-steel-str...) from your harness to a backup device on rope above you so even an uncontrolled grinder/saw touching a weighted abseil rope won't ruin your day.

Sorry if teaching you to suck eggs, but the grinder comment piqued my interest 

It absolutely is fine. Staples and glue ins are fine to lower off. The OP is correct. 

Agreed.  Lowering off a staple is totally fine, and I'd expand the OPs request and ask people not to use mallions to bail off any route anywhere.  They're pain to remove and get in peoples way.

Any time I've had to bail off a route and couldn't clipstick my way up it, or downclimb it I've just used a screwgate.  It's a gift to the next person on the route.

it does make a mess and some routes have two or three... I often carry a small hacksaw in my bag to remove what I can.

Courses for horses. I'd much rather use a grinder than a recip saw - much more controllable imho.

Totally agree with your steel strop suggestion though

Thanks for trying to clean it up. Looks like the route is so good you did it twice in a week, will have to give it a go then!

You obviously haven't seen the grooves they get from people repeatedly doing it then!  Try reading this article:- https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/the_dorset_bolt_fund_-_fund_ra...

from which this picture has been taken:-

Wear from lowering off is considered acceptable, wear from top-roping is not. The article asks climbers not to top rope from the fixed gear.

It seems to me a bit short sighted to leave bare bolts as a lower-off. The volume of traffic threading a lower-off is going to be many many times that of a random mid-route bolt.

It's no different from when people clean a route and lower off. No one is abseiling off sport anchors after cleaning them. 

But that's why most anchors have either a chain with some sort of big maillon on it or sacrificed krab (preferably but not always a working screwgate). I can't think of anywhere in the Peak where there are just staples as the lower off and nowt else. Can you? 

I did 7 routes at Harpur Hill on Sunday, IIRC all of them except one slightly more obscure line up on the upper tier of Dark Side, had twin staples with maillon holding abseil rings as lower-offs (I think all from Gary's hard work of re-quipping the lower offs over the last couple of years. 

It's still not right though, even if it's going to take a lot longer to cause damage than toproping it's still going to wear the bolts out before their time.

The article quite clearly states "of course the LAST person up can lower off them"

I completely agree that having a chain and ring or something else to lower off is better than just the staples.

In Dorset all components of the anchor have to be marine grade stainless steel. The 316 stainless steel staple system used in Dorset was developed to keep the costs down whilst allowing thousands of routes to be bolted. Adding 316 chains and full lower offs would have been financially inhibitive at the time.

However, in recent years, thanks to the Dorset Bolt Fund, support from climbers, the BMC and Rockfax and the efforts of many climbers, particularly Marti Hallett, modern full sport anchors are being added.

That was how Portland lower offs originally were back in the day! I recall in the early days struggling to thread a 11mm rope through twin  staples whilst clipped in. Thank god for the unsung heroes re equipping these routes as well as thinner ropes.

It's not likely to be a random bolt though, it'll most probably be the one at the crux

Think people missed your advice to abseil rather than lower off a threaded staple. Pulling through an unweighted rope definitely creates less wear 

The discussion was initially about leaving bail out maillons mid route. The amount of wear a mid-route bolt takes from being lowered off is going to be fairly inconsequential compared with the situation at a lower off where it's the same bolts all the time that takes the wear.

I don't know it's entirely helpful to conflate the two points, because this is one of the things that leads to people having to cut bail maillons and bail biners off routes in the first place.

I agree with the sentiment, but how do you lower directly off the bolt if you’re bailing before the top? You can’t really rethread a single bolt mid route… (I mean it may be possible but very difficult and potentially dangerous for the inexperienced)

(Playing Devils advocado, because personally I’d always just clipstick to the top).

Are there cases of bail biners also getting corroded up mid route? I do carry a perfectly ok but older wiregate krab on my harness sport climbing just in case I need to bail mid route. I haven't needed it yet, but most the bolts hangers around here are bent sheet ones where you do need to leave a biner. I've generally presumed it would quickly get claimed as crag booty (and probably kept for the same purpose!) by the next person on the route. In Dorset would it be considered better manners to lower directly off the staple, rather leave a krab?

Haven't done much sport climbing in the peak because I have a couple of mirrors in my house which I might catch a look of myself in. 

I have come across plenty of staple lower-offs elsewhere though. They're not great. I added extra maillons to the staples at Portishead Quarry (because loads of people toppy the E2 straight through the staples). Think they got robbed within a couple of months.   

I feel that strop should also have been posted in the tree thread...

Depends how long it gets left there. If you are the last person of the summer season to go up a route, and you bail, it'll probably need a hammer or a grinder by the spring, same as a maillon would.

In the peak it would probably be fine, but most normal carabiners don't deal well with prolonged exposure to the sea air.....

You can and if you don't have a clipstick you do, is probably the short answer!

how though? Wouldn’t you be going direct into a single bolt? And with your leash and/or the QD taking up all the space needed to pass the end of the rope through?

That's because you are mostly climbing in the quarries and at a particular grade Toby. 

It's quite the norm for the harder routes down the dale to have just a pair of naked resin bolts at the anchor. The more popular routes tend to have an additional component like a crab or maillon and ring. It's not unheard of but it is rare to see climber who are operating at a higher grade to mistreat the lower offs like you would see every single day at Horseshoe for example. Also a large proportion of the routes are lucky to get one ascent a year so there is no desire to add an expensive lower off on these.

Unless someone has over countersunk the eye of the bolt so deep in the resin which also risks camming the carabineer you should easily be able to pass an end of rope though. This along with other multiple lower off scenarios is a very worthwhile skill that people should learn in a safe environment beforehand.

As for it being a single bolt? Consider the risk you have already taken, with the possibility of taking a high fall factor on to the first bolt when there is little rope in the system and the failure of any particular bolt in a fall could result in a ground fall do you think lowering your body weight off a single bolt is all that risky?

You're still on belay the whole time so while you're re-threading it's no different to sitting on a single bolt after falling off. And if you're worried about lowering off the one bolt, you can add a prussic from you harness to the side of the rope running through the draws and move it down as you lower, so if the top bolt did fail the prussic would catch you on the last draw with the rope still clipped to it -  then you can take all your gear out and it's just as safe as on the way up.

This is obviously last resort bailing though, it's obviously better to just always climb with someone stronger than you so they can clean up your overly ambitious onsights.

I think someone did post a link to Lyon strops for the tree anchor. Personally I'd use steel wire rope and some rope clamps/saddles in that case as it's less of a theft target and cheaper, but that ship sailed.

I appreciate that the small size of a single bolt used to be tough with an 11mm rope and anything clipped in, so use a small thin sling and thread that to give lots more room for the rope to thread through. Easier nowadays with thinner ropes though.

so why do we bother having two bolts forming the anchor at the top?

Most staple bolts are big enough to fit a quickdraw/carabiner and a single strand of rope through simultaneously. After all, if this wasn't the case it would be rather difficult to lower off an anchor that just comprises two staples. 

If the eye is particularly small then looping a sling or piece of thinner cord through to attach yourself to will free up more space to thread through with.

In a perfect world all routes would have lower offs with maillon and rings or chain and a centralised point. In the real world, as Kristian has pointed out, this is both unnecessary and sometimes impossible for access reasons. Two naked resins are a lot less visible than 2 bolts, maillon and rings. 

Toerag is still wrong. Obviously don't top rope through resin bolts (which is what caused those grooves) , but if you've got in over your head and need to bail it's completely fine to just lower straight through it. 

So you’d add a mailing to a single bolt then lower off rather than thread a single bolt. Haven’t you just added another point of potential failure to the system whilst still retreating from a single bolt?

This isn't a universal thing - it is rare to see single bolt lower offs in the UK but there are climbing areas elsewhere where it is more common

Single staple lower offs are common in Italy and Germany, probably more places. Usually plenty of room to thread a staple with a quick draw in. If you have a fat rope, occasionally you have the thread a single strand and not a bite. You are also protected by the lower draws until you remove them / there is too much rope in the system. There is also the prussick system Petzl has a good guide for.

I've removed steel biners that have been in place on the coast for about 10 years with a pair of pliers to open the screw. Admittedly I did need to tap the gate with a hammer to get it open. I can see maillons being a bit more difficult though

I spoke to someone ages ago now who'd had to take a load of kit out of infinite gravity that had been left there too long and I think a fair amount of that needed a hammer, from what I recall