Alpine retreat anchors - Part 2

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This article was written with assistance from Max Lurie, an AMGA Certified Rock and Alpine Guide. Connect with Max at his website and Instagram.

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Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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The techniques shown below are NOT standard anchor building practice. For normal anchors, clip a carabiner to your gear placements before you clip the sling/cord. These examples are retreat anchors for bodyweight rappelling only, when you want to conserve your gear.

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Be it challenging weather, poor conditions, route finding errors, or general loss of mojo (a.k.a. “ambition exceeding ability”), there can be lots of valid reasons to turn around on an alpine route. It may not be something you actively planned for, but it needs to be handled with the same level of focus and detail as any other part of your climb.

When you retreat / bail (and yes, it’s “when, and not “if”), be it a one pitch sport climb or a major alpine adventure, the objectives should be similar:

• Get to the ground in one piece

• Have each rappel anchor simple to build and easily strong enough to rappel on

• Leave a minimum of gear behind

Let's be clear on one thing: this is no time to be a cheapskate. Yes, we hate to leave gear behind, but if you HAVE to leave your beloved #3 Camalot for a rappel anchor, then do it without hesitation. The simple question is, what's your life worth? At the same time, you don't want to over build your anchors, and leave behind gear that you might need lower down if multiple rappels are required.

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What are the forces on the anchor when rappelling?

I recently came across a nice video from the meticulous gear testers at Edelrid. (Have a look at their “Edelrid Knowledge Base” on YouTube, they have lots of goodies there.)

Check out the screen grab below from one of their videos.

Short version:

• If you bounce around on the rope like some special forces cowboy, you can generate between 2 and 3 kN as a temporary peak load.

• When you rappel smoothly, the load to the anchor is pretty much your body weight.

Takeaway: rappel smoothly without bouncing to minimize force on the anchor.

Image: screen grab from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7rKGDxrdTA

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There are lots of ways you can rig a retreat anchor. Here's a good one.

• Simple (easy to check)

• Fast to rig

• Plenty strong enough for rappelling

• Requires minimal gear

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Place two pieces of solid gear fairly close to each other (here a stopper and a piton). Starting with about 2-3 meters of cord (here, 6 mm), pass the cord through both anchor points as shown.

Tie a flat overhand bend to make a loop.

Tighten the knot, leaving tails of at least 3 inches / 8 cm.

Pull down the cord, making a “U” shape.

Girth hitch masterpoint on a taped gate carabiner. (Lots of other options here. If you have enough cord, you can tie an overhand knot. If you want to use a quicklink or rappel ring, that works. I'm showing my favorite method to keep things consistent.)

This approach is fast, requires minimal fiddling with knots, and uses a small amount of cord. Efficient use of materials is the main benefit to the girth hitch master point.

Potential downside, you need to leave behind some hardware to make the girth hitch. (If you had another foot or so of cord, you could tie an overhand on a bight and rappel from that rather than the girth hitch.)

If you're new to the girth hitch master point, yes, it's legit and yes, it’s redundant. Read a more on the girth hitch anchor here.

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• What if the anchors are farther apart?

• What if you want to use a sling instead of cord?

• Tying a cord directly to a stopper wire? How strong is that?!

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Alpine retreat anchors - Part 1

Premium Members can read the entire article here: 

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---

This article was written with assistance from Max Lurie, an AMGA Certified Rock and Alpine Guide. Connect with Max at his website and Instagram.

---

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

---

Be it challenging weather, poor conditions, route finding errors, or general loss of mojo (a.k.a. “ambition exceeding ability”), there can be lots of valid reasons to turn around on an alpine route. It may not be something you actively planned for, but it needs to be handled with the same level of focus and detail as any other part of your climb.

When you retreat / bail (and yes, it’s “when, and not “if”), be it a one pitch sport climb or a major alpine adventure, the objectives should be similar:

• Get to the ground in one piece

• Have each rappel anchor simple to build and easily strong enough to rappel on

• Leave a minimum of gear behind

Let's be clear on one thing: this is no time to be a cheapskate. Yes, we hate to leave gear behind, but if you HAVE to leave your beloved #3 Camalot for a rappel anchor, then do it without hesitation. The simple question is, what's your life worth? At the same time, you don't want to over build your anchors, and leave behind gear that you might need lower down if multiple rappels are required.

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Alpinist Steve House has a terrific video on “Failing Well”. “Success on a climb is going up, making good decisions, and coming back. That's the outcome we should be attached to. To me, that’s what ‘fail well’ means.”

Six minute YouTube video, highly recommended. Takeaways:

• Strategic retreat is an inherent part of alpine climbing. It’s a skill that improves with practice.

• Having solid retreat technique can give you the confidence to try harder routes, knowing that you can retreat from just about anywhere.

• Maintain awareness when ascending. The way up might also be the (unplanned) way down. Remember potential anchor points, problem areas and the right way to go.

• Retreat is often done under stress, tiredness, darkness, bad weather, etc. All the more reason to turn up your focus and awareness to counter these compounding factors.

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Some general guidelines for retreat anchors . . .

• Use two equalized pieces whenever possible. Sure, the classic climbing books are full of epic stories of rapping off of a single stopper or piton. One that’s perfectly placed should be sufficiently strong, but that shouldn’t be your first choice unless things are really desperate.

• Use static equalization. This is probably not the time for a sliding X anchor. Your gear may not be the greatest, and there's only two pieces, so you want to minimize any potential shock loading at one piece fails.

• This anchor is only for rappelling, so the “rules” change a bit. The belay anchor general principle of striving for “three good pieces“ doesn’t necessarily apply to a rappel anchor. If you rappel smoothly on a dynamic rope, the anchor will only see about 1-2 kN, and the direction of force will always be down. So good news, your anchor doesn’t need to be multi-directional or tremendously strong. However, we're still aiming for some other core anchor principles of strong (enough), redundant, load distribution, and no extension.

• The examples below don’t use carabiners on the gear. You’d never make a proper belay anchor like this as regular practice, but it's acceptable for an emergency rappel anchor. It's fine to run cord or webbing through stopper wires for a rappel anchor; it holds 8+ kN. (See previous point, the rules change a bit.)

• Rappel smoothly to minimize forces on your anchor. Don't jump / bounce around like some special forces cowboy.

• Keep your rigging simple. You should really only need one or two variations on the basic theme, so no need to get overly fancy. You're probably going to be doing this under a bit of stress, and bailing on marginal anchors is not something most people practice very often. Keeping your rigging clean and simple makes it easier to check and to remember.

• You're going to need a fair amount cordage (and maybe a few slings) so plan ahead. 6 mm cord (rated to about 7.5 kN) is cheap, light and easy to carry, so consider that if you anticipate making a lot of anchors. Tying those pesky knots always seems to take up more cord than you think! Plan on about 2.5 meters of cord per anchor. You can get away with a bit less if the gear placements are right next to each other, or if you use some clever knots like a girth hitch master point. If you and your partner each carry about 10 meters of cord, that's enough for a LOT of anchors.

• Use your cordelette. Six meters or so of cord (7mm is the standard) makes a cordelette for the way up; you can think of that is equal to about 2-3 potential anchors for the way down. If you and your partner each carry a cordelette, together that should be good for about 5-6 anchors.

• What about webbing? Tubular webbing can work as a retreat anchor, but it has a few downsides compared to cord. 1) Webbing strength drops off quickly if it gets damaged, unlike cord that has more of a protective sheath. 2) Webbing is more easily degraded by ultraviolet light. 3) Webbing usually requires tying a water knot, which can be a little finicky and a hassle to tie if you have gloves and/or cold fingers. For these reasons, cord is usually a better choice. (See an example below of how to use a sewn sling.)

• Carry a knife, so you can cut up your cordage (or maybe even an end off your climbing rope) to make an anchor. Also, a knife is useful for cleaning up any rat nest of old sun-crusted cord and webbing you often find at alpine anchors. Good rule of thumb, if you add cord to improve an existing anchor, remove the oldest piece(s) and take it with you.

• Don't have a knife? It’s remarkably easy to cut through rope or webbing with a small length of 2 or 3 mm cord. Tie a bight knot in each end, clip the loops to a pair of carabiners for handles, and then rapidly saw back-and-forth through the material that's under some tension. You’ll cut it through in a few seconds.

• Look first for a tree or rock horn. Give it a good kick first to assess its strength. You can drape a sling or tied loop around this and use it for a rappel, with no gear left behind. Note: use caution with putting the rope directly around/over a tree or rock horn; the friction could make pulling the rope difficult or impossible.

• Look for fixed gear on the way up. Remember where it is; you might need it on the way down.

• Be wary of the “bail trail”. Don't be tempted to depart from your route to go towards a retreat anchor that someone else has left. If your route description says “belay from the ledge”, and you see some sketchy looking stoppers equalized with a shoelace on terrain that looks clearly off route, that probably means it's a bail anchor and not a belay anchor intended for ascending.

• Leave a cam if you have to. Yes, your life is worth it. If you have a perfect placement for a larger cam, versus fiddling around trying to equalize several different stoppers, go for the one cam and get the hell down, especially if you have multiple pitches to go and it's starting to rain, getting dark, etc.

• Stoppers and a piton or two are good choices for retreat anchors. Stoppers are inexpensive, strong, easy to check if you have a good placement (well, the bigger ones, anyway) , easy to bounce test, and can be set in rock that’s dry, wet, icy, or muddy. If you have a ice tool hammer, feel free to use it to smack on the piton as well as the stopper. To weld in a piton or stopper, you can beat on it Neanderthal-style with a fist size rock (and maybe your nut tool). But a hammer is always going to be better. No one's going to be cleaning it, so don't be shy.

• If you find a fixed piton, see if there’s a nearby stopper placement you can use to equalize the two pieces.

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Pitons!

You don't wanna carry too much metal with you, but a knifeblade and a “Universal” piton can be great to leave behind for anchors.

Knifeblade and CAMP universal piton

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There's a lot more to learn about retreat anchors!

• What’s a “Universal” piton, and why is it cool?

• Are Tricams good for bail anchors?

• What’s a cheapskate locker, and why should I carry one?

• Can I run the rope directly through the cord?

• Why a metal connection for the rope?

• How can I back this up?

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Do This, Not That (Part 1)

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1 - Anchor hooks: gates facing out

In a typical anchor with carabiners, it's usually good practice to place them opposite and opposed. However, with anchor hooks (aka Mussy hooks), it's typically best to have them both facing OUT, away from the rock.

Why is this?

The American Safe Climbing Association has installed thousands of these anchors throughout the US. They recommend gates out. Click the article link above to read the longer reasons; here’s the short version:

“Anchor hooks are placed with gates out for a couple reasons. If opposed the inward facing hook tends to gouge into the rock and scar it up, along with orienting strangely to wear much faster on the nose or even get pushed into the bottom of the wiregate. If they are extended with chains to lay flat and opposed the rope gets pinched behind the hooks and wears unnecessarily/grooves the rock.“

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2 - How to extend a quickdraw

A steep or reachy sport route may require extended quickdraws.

It's good practice to extend them as shown in the photo below. Of these two, the quick link is more secure. Or you could have a locking carabiner in the middle (left photo) to add further security.

The methods shown below are not so great. In the left, the carabiners could be twisted and unclipped in a fall. On the right, the rope can rub over the top of the dog bone, not good.

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3 - Protect a fixed rope with a rebelay

If a fixed rope is running over an edge, it's quite easy to damage the rope, especially with a larger load.

An easy way to fix this: a rebelay. To make a rebelay, make another anchor point (by placing gear or clipping a bolt) below the edge that's being loaded. Pull up a bit of slack, tie a bight knot, and clip that bight to the lower anchor. Now, when the rope is loaded, no force goes to the section of rope over the edge.

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4 - “Alpine Equalization" Don't clip the thumb loop

With “alpine equalizing”, you try to share the load between two pieces of gear, typically cams, by clipping one directly to the other. If the crack is cooperative and you can move the cams up or down the crack slightly, you can often get pretty decent load sharing.

In the photo on the right, the top cam is clipped to the thumb loop of the bottom cam. If the bottom cam fails under load and transfers all the load onto the top cam, you’re now cross loading the thumb loop in two opposite directions, which it’s not designed to do.

Testing shows this can start to deform the thumb loop under a load as low as 2 kN. The actual breaking strength was around 12 kN, so you're probably not gonna die if you do this, but you could definitely mess up the cable on your expensive cam.

It's best to avoid the problem by clipping the sling, as shown from the left photo,

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• Want to learn a tip for block leading?

• How about the best way to toss your rappel rope?

• Or maybe the best anchor hardware set ups to avoid rope, twisting?

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How to cut an Aramid core rope

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This tip comes from Australian rigging expert Richard Delaney. Connect with Richard on his excellent website Ropelab, Instagram, or his YouTube channel, where he has loads of concise, informative videos.

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Yo! Disclaimer!

Important: the chemicals in superglue may not play nicely with most ropes. In this case we're using them only at the very END of the rope, which will never see a load. When you're doing this, be careful not to get glue on any other part of your rope.

(Aramid is the general term for a type of fiber. Kevlar and Technora are trade names for basically the same material.)

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Need to cut and seal the ends of standard nylon rope or cord? The hot knife in every climbing shop works great.

But melting and cutting doesn’t work so well on Aramid core rope (such Sterling Powercord), because it’s fireproof!

Here’s a way to cut and seal an Aramid rope. (Works on regular climbing rope and cord too!)

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What you need:

• Tape. I used cloth athletic tape. Masking tape doesn’t hold very well.

• Sharp, thin knife. Don’t use your favorite steel blade for this; it’ll dull fast. I used a tiny but very sharp ceramic knife. Razor blade works too.

• Superglue. Cheap super glue have screw tops that don't work very well and the remaining glue is probably gonna dry out after you use it once. Name brand glue, like Loctite, have a much better quality, screw top, allowing you to reuse the glue. Spend a little more and get the good stuff.

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Tip: Do this over a surface that you don't mind dripping superglue on! Ask me how I know this, and can't use my favorite green cutting board for food anymore . . .

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1) Put a tight wrap of tape around the end of the rope. This helps make a clean cut.

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2) Cut through the rope.

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3) Smooooge some superglue into the fibers at the end.

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There’s one last important step.

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How do you offer safety advice when climbing?

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You're out climbing at the local crag. You see another person (not your partner) doing something that's potentially dangerous.

• Do you speak up?

• If you don't speak up and somebody got hurt or worse, how would you feel?

• If you do speak up, how do you do so in a respectful and constructive way?

• What's your personal responsibility?

• Have you ever been on the receiving end of advice about your technique? (I have!) How did you feel about that?

Have you been on either side of this delicate situation?

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There are many factors and it's a personal judgment. There’s a big difference between someone using a technique that isn’t ideal or to your liking, and someone doing something genuinely unsafe.

I once came across an anchor that another climbing party had set up with a sewn pocket daisy chain. Not a PAS style with sewn loops, rated to 22+ kN, but one made for aid climbing, with sewn pockets that are rated around 2-4 kN. It was a top rope, where the loads were going to be low. 

• Is this standard practice? Absolutely not!

• Were these climbers in imminent danger of the anchor failing under top rope loads? No.

• It was a really goofy way to set up an anchor, but there wasn't anything lethally wrong with it. I chose not to say anything.

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What about actions that may have more serious consequences?

Some examples where I have intervened:

• Someone about to rappel off the end of the rope

• Using a rope too short when top roping, and about to drop the person they were lowering

Here's the general approach that I used in these cases that led to a (mostly) constructive conversation and a good outcome. Your mileage may vary.

My opening line: "Hey there, how's it going? Can I offer a suggestion?"

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• How about what to say if they don’t want to hear it?

• What are some other things to consider in this delicate situation?

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How to avoid edge loading carabiners

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Scenario: you’re building a multi piece gear anchor. You place a cam in the perfect spot but . . . Bummer, the racking carabiner is being loaded over the edge of the crack or some other non-optimal way.

(This might also happen when sport climbing: if route developer drilled a bolt in the wrong place, and your quickdraw carabiner is loaded over an edge.)

Why is edge loading a carabiner bad?

1. It can dramatically weaken the carabiner, as in breaking around 3-4 kN rather than the rating of 22+ kN!

2. The carabiner gate might start rubbing and opening against the rock, which you never want to have happen.

Not good! Whaddya do?!

(Apologies for the not-so-great photos, they’re screen grabs from a video I made about this.)

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Here are two ways to handle this.

Method 1: basket hitch

Basket hitch a sling to the cam sling or thumb loop. Now the sling is loaded over the edge of the crack, not the carabiner. Much better!

You could put a girth hitch on the cam sling instead of a basket hitch, but the girth hitch is quite a bit less strong.

Simply push the racking carabiner off to one side and ignore it; you don't need it for the anchor.

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Method 2: Tie an overhand knot in the sling and clip below it

If you don't have enough material to make a basket hitch, try this.

Tie an overhand knot in the sling (or one leg of the cordelette). Pass a loop of the sling through the cam sling or thumb loop, then clip it below the knot as shown below.

Now, the purple sling is loaded over the rock edge, and not your carabiner. Nice!

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• Want to see my video demo of the overhand knot trick?

• How about the test results of how bad edge loading actually is?

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How to add a GPX file to your phone

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GPX track files for Mt Hood Oregon, available on my website.

• A good GPX track file for your climbing route helps you to stay on course and avoid epics.

• Alpinesavvy has more than 150 GPX files for some of the most popular climbing routes in the Pacific Northwest.

• Here's how to get those GPX files from my Google Drive to your phone.

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First, what’s a GPX file?

A GPX file is a universal file sharing format for geographic data.

Basically it's a text file of latitude longitude coordinate(s). If you draw it on computer mapping software like CalTopo, it will only have lat/long data. If you record it in the field, it usually will also have timestamp and elevation data.

A GPX file can be a single waypoint, for example say of a favorite campsite, a good place to pick huckleberries, or your car at the trailhead.

More useful for climbing is what's called a track file. Here, your GPS device, which these days is typically a phone app, records a continuous string of latitude longitude coordinates every few seconds in the field.  A GPX track file can have hundreds or even thousands of different points.

GPX files are free, easy to share, and weighs 0.0 grams; what’s not to like?

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If you try to open a GPX file, you make see something like this: a long list of latitude longitude coordinates. Not very helpful in this format.

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Why your phone (probably) needs a little help . . .

If you try to open a file with a .doc extension, your computer knows to open it in some sort of word processing program.  A .jpg extension? No problem; your clever phone knows it's a photo and has no problem opening it.

However, for more esoteric file extensions like GPX, that isn’t necessarily the case. So when you open a GPX file, you may need to tell your phone what app you want to use, because it can't usually figure it out on its own. (Silly phone . . .)

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So, GPX files are cool, got it. How can I get a GPX file(s) onto my phone navigation app?

Here are two ways.

1. Doing everything from your phone

2. Moving files from your desktop computer to your phone

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For this example, we’re using:

• Mt. Adams in Washington

• Google Drive for GPX tracks storage

• Gaia GPS on my phone. (Of course there are different peaks, cloud storage options and phone operating systems, but hopefully with this example you can figure it out.)

Here’s a step-by-step process of downloading the GPX file and opening it on your phone.

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Step 1 - Open your preferred GPS app on your phone. Navigate/zoom to your area of interest.

Step 2 - Open the Google Drive folder with the tracks. When you find the file you want to download, tap the “three dots” icon on the right.

Step 3 - Tap “Open in”.

Step 4 - Your phone may give you a horizontal selection of icons which it thinks might be useful to open this GPX file. My phone never seems to offer the navigation app that I want to use. So, swipe all the way left until you get to the three dots / “More”, then tap it.

Step 5 - Scroll down through the list of your phone apps, and choose the navigation app you want. In this example it's Gaia GPS. (CalTopo works fine too.)

SWEEEET, You’re done. The app should take a moment, import the GPX file and it should draw up right where you want it. If it doesn't draw right away, try closing and reopening the app. then zooming to the area.

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Want to see some screen grabs showing the process when you already have the file saved on your computer?

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Snapgate or locking carabiners on anchors?

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This article was written with collaboration from AMGA Certified Rock Guide Max Lurie. Connect with Max on Instagram, @alpinetothemax and his website.

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A common question for climbing anchors: should I use locking carabiners on the bolts/gear?

It's an important topic, and there are some strongly held opinions on this, so let's have a closer look.

Short version:

• For multi pitch climbing, using snapgate carabiners on the bolts or gear is acceptable.

• For top rope climbing, it's a generally accepted standard in the guiding and teaching world to use locking carabiners on the anchor and master point.

• We all get to choose an acceptable level of risk. Try to understand the realistic, and not imagined, risks of your methods.

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Before we get into the details, let’s look at some bigger-picture concepts:

• If you have a single life-critical connection, then a locking carabiner is good practice. (For example, the rope and your belay device, and your rope or tether connection to the anchor.)

• If your anchor is “unattended”, like for a toprope, then locking carabiners can be more important.

• If your anchor is “attended”, like a multipitch climb with someone next to it the whole time, with hands and/or eyes on the anchor, locking carabiners are generally not required.

• It's helpful to understand the difference between perceived risk reduction and actual risk reduction.

• The argument of, “I want to reduce my risk as much as possible, so I use lockers everywhere on my anchor”, is a bit simplistic. How far do you take that? Do you use lockers on the first couple of quickdraws when you’re sport leading? Steel carabiners are much stronger than aluminum ones, so do you use steel carabiners? I'm guessing the answer to both of these is no for just about everybody.

• It's good to have a solid understanding of the capabilities and limitations of your gear, and let those guide your decision rather than emotion, hearsay, and “that's-the-way-I-learned-it”.

• Be aware of generally accepted best practices among guides and industry professionals. Also be aware that what might be standard practice in one industry, such as using triple action lockers for say tree/arborist work, does not necessarily mean it's also good practice to use that same gear for recreational climbing.

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The snapgate crowd says:

• Totally fine to use them on the anchors.

• The failure of any single non-locker would not cause catastrophe.

• What's the realistic mechanism of failure for a snapgate carabiner? Any mechanism that could cause them to both fail at one time is so incredibly unlikely that using them is acceptable; each carabiner is connected to a separate independent strand of the anchor.

• On a multi pitch anchor that is “attended”, any potential problem can be hopefully noticed and fixed right away.

• Side note, it makes no difference whatsoever which direction the carabiners face when clipped to the anchor points. They can both face right, face left, face each other or face opposite, it makes no difference. The concept of “opposite and opposed” carabiners applies at a masterpoint, not when clipped onto the the bolts.

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There's another way to think about it. If you build a trad anchor with, say, 3 cams, most people would be fine with using the snapgate racking carabiners already on the cams.

If you wanted lockers everywhere, and built a three piece anchor on a multipitch, you’d probably have to carry about six extra lockers (three for the leader and three for the previous anchor) which is . . . maybe a little ridiculous?

So, if you’re cool with using snapgates on your cams when building a gear anchor, logic says you should also be comfortable with them when building a bolt anchor.

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• What are some of the arguments in favor of using lockers everywhere?

• How about using lockers on the bolts for a top rope anchor?

• What does an AMGA Certified Rock Guide have to say about this?

• How does the economics principle of “the law of diminishing returns” factor in?

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Protect your fixed rope from abrasion with a sling

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I learned this #CraftyRopeTrick from AMGA Certified Rock Guide Adam Fleming. Connect with Adam on Instagram, @adam.fleming.climbs

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Anytime you have a fixed rope that's loaded over a ledge, (for a rappel, rigging rope, or maybe something else) you run the risk of abrading your rope. The chances or damage increase if the rock is abrasive and/or the edge is fairly sharp.

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Here's a trick that saves your rope, using gear you probably already have. Use a “sacrificial” sewn sling, cord, or tubular webbing.

• If using a sewn sling, you can tie an overhand knot in each end of the sling, creating two redundant strands.

• Consider using (old school) 1 inch webbing. It's pretty burly, inexpensive, and is a good application for this trick.

• Keep the amount of rope that's isolated by the sling fairly short. If both sections of the sling are cut, the load is going onto your rope, and you don't want that to be shock loaded. (In the photo, it's a bit too long, whoops . . .)

• Inspect this sling carefully after you're done and toss it if it shows any abrasion. That's why a nylon sling or cord might be better than Dyneema; it’s less expensive.

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Want to see a video I made on how to rig this? How about some other options to protect your rope from abrasion?

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Descend by self-lowering

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This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of an experienced climber, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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Image: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Accessing-an-exposed-rappel-station?ActivityName=Canyoning

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We typically think of rappelling (or maybe being lowered by your partner) as the only options to get down a cliff. But there’s another one to consider: lowering yourself.

This technique is less common, and has a few pros and cons. You go more slowly and have increased friction, but there are times when those might be good!

It’s pretty simple.

• Pass one end of the rope through the anchor.

• Tie in to this end of the rope.

• Put the other side of the rope into your rappel device.

• Lower yourself.

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Here's how to set it up with a standard tube style rappel device. Note extension and third hand back up,

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Notes, pros & cons of self lowering . . .

• For a self lower, be absolutely sure the rope is going through some kind of METAL connection (carabiner, quicklink, chain, rap ring, etc) at the anchor point, never webbing or cord! The rope is MOVING through the anchor point when you lower yourself!

• You’re lowering on a single strand, which usually means less friction. But the rope is also moving through the anchor point, which adds friction. These sort of balance out, and your descent speed typically is about what it would be with a two strand rappel.

• You’re descending at half speed compared to a standard rappel, which can help with rope control, again good if you have a skinny rope. Or, it could be a bummer if you have a long way to go.

• The person who’s self lowering must deal with the entire length of the extra rope. (If your partner is lowering you, the extra rope stays at the upper anchor.) If you can get a good rope toss to make sure it gets down the cliff without tangling, good for you. If not, having the rope in a ropebag or backpack can make life a lot easier.

• Be sure and tie a knot in the end of the rope (or maybe clip the other end of the rope to your belay loop with a locking carabiner) to close the rope system, so there’s no chance you can rap off of the end.

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Will Gadd: Keeping your hands & feet warm, Part 3

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Will Gadd voiding the warranty on his boots. Photo: @pete.hoang

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Veteran Canadian ice climbing expert Will Gadd knows a few things about staying warm. This article is part 3 of a series of posts he made on Instagram. I’m sharing it here with Will’s permission.

Connect with Will on his website and Instagram, @realwillgadd

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Warm feet - General Tips

A lot of the “Hands” tips are also about keeping YOU warm and happy first, and the same is true for your feet. Feet are harder to manage, and seem to get seriously cold more often.

I’ve never seriously frozen a finger, but I’ve frozen my feet at least twice to some extent, and have to work harder to keep them functional than my hands most days.

Realize that keeping your feet warm takes action on your part. It won’t just “happen” with one set of clothes or approach, you’ve got to be flexible with the environment, think ahead and act regularly to prevent misery in the future. It’s a war of many small battles, not, “My feet are really cold, doh!”

Cold feet start primarily when your core temp drops and your body decides to sacrifice the peripheral bits such as feet and hands. So don’t let that happen!

Control your core temperature to keep your feet warm. Have a light “moving but not sweaty” outfit and a “standing almost bivy” outfit that will keep you warm even if you’re standing around for an hour or so in the temperature you’re out in that day.

The difference in body heat output while moving vs. standing is massive, far more than peeling a few “layers” can deal with. If you just open the Goretex vents on your jacket you’ve done nothing useful. Take it off.

Layers are for onions and cakes. We need to think more “raging furnace while moving” vs “standing sleeping bag.”

Move in the least amount of clothing you can for the elements you’re in. You can move in less than you think mostly. Most people can run at -30 with running shoes on if they are moving hard enough. You’re a furnace, if you’re moving. Move, dress to stand, or freeze.

Test this in a low consequence environment, like hiking fast near your home/car on a cold day for an hour or so. Dress lightly at first. Once you're moving and body temperature is up, you may be pleasantly surprised at how little clothing you need.

A “standing” outfit means a big jacket, insulated pants, maybe mitts etc. Your “moving” outfit may be nothing more than a thin synthetic, or it may be close to your “standing” outfit if your output level is low. When I coach XC kids skiing I get laughed at for my puffy pants and jacket, but kids move so slow I have to totally overdress or I freeze. 

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Warm Feet: Specifics

Feet are big compared to hands. They take longer to get cold, and longer to warm up. If you start a day with cold feet you’re starting with a problem.

Unless you’re moving fast for 20 minutes or so right away you’re going to have cold feet until you do, or maybe for the day. So start the day with warm feet.

I don’t put my boots on while driving to climb or ski for this reason; my feet get cold sitting at my desk, as there isn’t enough blood circulating to keep them warm. Most of the time there isn’t enough warmth in the back of a car to keep your feet warm either, and they can actually get really cold. Oddly, some people think the exact opposite, and that’s OK too, but think about it. If your boots are really warm and you are too then your feet will sweat in the car, so make sure you keep your feet dry for the ride. Keep your boots in the car, not the back of the truck or trunk. Crank the heater and warm ‘em up on the drive.

If your feet are cold you have to get your core temperature up, and you have to circulate blood through your feet. This means moving, not just adding insulation! If your feet have gotten cold you will have to “overdrive” your body to pump enough blood through your feet to warm them up.

It takes about five minutes of going hard uphill to get the blood really pumping through your feet, and another five or so for them to be truly warm. Or 200 squats and 100 “leg swings” on each leg if you’re standing at a belay. Anything else won’t work.

Constriction on your feet is terrible in winter. If you stuff your boots so full of socks that they are tight on your feet, I guarantee you will be cold. Leave room! If you crank your ski or climbing boots down and then don’t loosen them you will get colder feet. Loosen your boots at belays or when resting, the difference can be amazing! If you have to bivy then loosen your boots right off. It may save your feet.

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Protect a fixed rope with a rebelay

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When rigging a fixed rope, it's very important to protect the rope from being loaded over any sharp or abrasive edge.

Repeatedly loading the rope (from rappelling, taking falls when top rope soloing, and especially ascending) could damage it. Ropes often get loaded over edges on big walls, because the belay is usually on top of a ledge and not beneath it.

One way to protect your rope: the rebelay.

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Rebelays have long been used by cavers, who know how to take good care of fixed ropes. Rebelays can also be useful in some climbing applications, such as big walls, instructional settings, or rescues.

A rebelay is simply adding an additional anchor(s) below the potential abrasion point. This secondary anchor can be SOLID gear you place, or a bolt.

Tie a bight knot (a butterfly works great, because it's usually easy to untie after loading) and clip it to this rebelay point.

Now, the weighted rope is on the rebelay, and not the primary anchor. All of the rope above the rebelay is slack, so it can't be damaged if it runs over an edge. Nice!

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Three ways to equalize crevasse rescue anchors

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While anchors for crevasse rescue operate on the same principles as other anchors, equalizing a loaded placement can require some different methods.

If you’re building a two piece snow anchor and want to equalize / share the load between them, you can treat it pretty much like a rock anchor. Place your two pickets, deadman, buried skis, whatever you‘re using, connect the protection with a cordelette, long sling, or your rigging of choice to make a master point, and there you go.

However, in crevasse rescue, this is often not the best approach. The above method can take a lot of time, digging, and packing down of snow. This is all happening while your unfortunate partner is in the hole, and hopefully your other teammate(s) on the rope are trying to keep them from slipping down any further.

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So, for crevasse rescue, the typical approach is:

• Get one anchor in fairly quickly. (If the snow is reasonably dense, this can be a vertical picket.)

• Transfer the load to that, ideally with one team member sitting in the snow behind it to back it up.

• Then, if you think it’s needed, a second anchor can be made and equalized with the first one.

Here's the tricky part: because there's already a load on anchor #1, it can be difficult to get the length of the sling or cord from anchor #2 JUST right to have proper load equalization / sharing.

Here are a few ways to fine-tune the connection between the anchors so you can get a decent load distribution.

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In these examples, I'm using what I call a “crevasse cord”. It's basically a mini cordelette made from ultra-strong cord. My preference is about 10 feet / 3.5 m of Sterling VT-X cord. It's 5.4 mm, rated to 15 kN, and has a Dyneema core with a polyester sheath.

This is carried “open”, or untied, not tied into a semi-permanent loop.

Here's a more detailed article about the crevasse cord and the many ways it can be helpful in a crevasse rescue.

Because this cord is so strong, you can rig it “bunny ears” style, with a small overhand figure eight on a bight loop in one (or both) end(s). Rigged like this it’s still probably good for 8+ kN, which is a much higher load than you should ever experience in a crevasse rescue scenario.

The standard cordelette you might use for climbing, which is about 6 meters of 7 mm cord still works fine for crevasse rescue. But I find it heavy, bulky, and usually too long; I prefer a smaller length of the Sterling VT-X.

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Method #1 & 2: Clove hitch or trucker’s hitch

Clove hitch: This is probably the easiest method and uses a knot you already know. Tie a bight knot in one end of your crevasse cord. Clip that knot to the carabiner on anchor #2. Tie a clove hitch and clip it to anchor #1. Feed cord through the clove to remove as much slack as you can in your crevasse cord.

Trucker’s hitch: The trucker’s hitch isn’t used very often in climbing, but it's a super handy knot to know for lots of other life applications. This also does a little better job than the clove hitch to actually share the load between the anchors. Just like above, tie a bight knot in one end of your crevasse cord, and clip that knot to the carabiner on anchor #2. Pass the other end of your cord through the carabiner on anchor one. Tie a trucker’s hitch to put tension on the crevasse cord.

Here's a video showing the trucker’s hitch method. It starts about 11:30.

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Method #3: Alpine block and tackle

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How do you rappel past a damaged section of rope?

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Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

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Photos and method in this post are from Walter Britschgi, @walterbritschgi, shared with permission.

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Scenario: you’re rappelling down through some nasty loose rock.

• During your rappel you kick some rocks loose. 

• One of them unfortunately hits your rope, damaging one strand.

• Now, you need to finish your rappel, get past the damaged section of rope, and tie it off, so it's secure enough for you and your partner to continue going down.

• How can you do this?

(Yes, it's a very unlikely situation, but if it happens, you’ll need to deal with it.)

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Bigger picture, it's good practice when rappelling to look DOWN and be aware of what’s below you. Is the rope stuck in a crack? Are the ends on the ground? Do you need to pendulum to reach the next anchor? Or, in the case below, is the rope damaged?

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Here’s another scenario where someone had to deal with this. (From Instagram. Sorry I don’t have the original post to offer credit.)

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Here’s one method to rappel past a damaged section of the rope.

• Stop a short distance above the damaged rope strand.

• Go hands-free on your rappel. Let your autoblock take your weight. Tie a hard back up/catastrophe knot a few meters below in both strands, and clip it to your belay loop with a locker.

• Add a friction hitch above your rappel device. A single length 60 cm sling is a good length for this.

• Clip the friction hitch to your belay loop with a locker. Feed a little rope through your device until your weight goes onto the friction hitch.

• Key move: Slide only the damaged strand of rope through your device. Once it's above you, tie a bight knot (overhand is fine) to isolate the damaged part of the rope.

• Now is where it can get a little physical. Pull the slack rope through your device so you can reload both strands equally. (If it's really steep, you may need to add a second friction hitch as a foot loop.)

• Put your weight back on your device, remove the friction hitch, untie the hard backup knot, and continue your rappel. 

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Check out the photo sequence below, courtesy of Walter Britschgi. (Note: recommended hard backup knot isn’t shown.)

Image: @walterbritschgi

Image: @walterbritschgi

Image: @walterbritschgi

Image: @walterbritschgi

Image: @walterbritschgi

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Will Gadd: Keeping your hands & feet warm, Part 2

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image: Will Gadd collection; Helmcken Falls, BC Canada - https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wtpfsRLNj/

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Veteran Canadian ice climbing expert Will Gadd knows a few things about staying warm. This article is part 2 of a series of posts he made on Instagram. I’m sharing it here with Will’s permission.

Connect with Will on his website and Instagram, @realwillgadd

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How to have warm hands: General Tips

Take your gloves off immediately if your hands start to sweat. Even at -20 you can walk or ski with bare hands, but if you get your gloves even a bit damp you will suffer. Same with your hat. Open the front zipper of your jacket. Take care with your gloves—drop them in the snow and they get wet, you get cold. They are precious. Cargo pockets on your pants or bibs can be a good place to stuff your gloves for temporary storage.

Keep the next pair of gloves you’re going to wear inside your jacket, preferably next to your skin. Putting them on will feel glorious!

The colder it is, the more you have to move. Below about -20c I just don’t multi-pitch. If it’s really cold go top-roping. Set a timer, each do 15 minutes of hard laps in your moving outfit, insulate up, repeat. Good to go even at -30!

If your hands are getting cold fix them NOW by moving. At belays I’ve done hundreds of squats, arm swings, leg lifts, jumping jacks, whatever it takes, but if you’re starting to get cold in your standing outfit the situation is not going to improve. Move. Even just doing stomach crunches in place is going to help. On lead that may mean doing 50 arm swings, or squats if the climbing is slow, or just moving fast if safe to get your core up.

Warm sugary liquids. I usually fill my water bottle or light thermos with hot water and some sort of sweet powdered stuff. This encourages drinking it, and also just feels nice. Like hot packs I’m not sure if they make a material difference to heat, but stress/not happy is a bad.

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How to have warm hands: Tech Tricks

Wet anything = cold. It sucks, but change your shirt after the approach. The worst is to arrive wet, put on your standing outfit, and then lose all your heat drying out your shirt. It can literally ruin the day. A moment of pain is worth it! Dry = happy.

On colder days add more clothing to your legs. Slightly thicker long underwear, thicker pants = happiness. If it’s really cold, wet or windy I’ll wear Gore-Tex pants while climbing. That can make all the difference, but if it’s not cold/wet/windy then you will sweat out and be miserable. Be sure they are cut for climbing and not ski boots, loose legs are deadly with crampons. Tape if necessary.

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Will Gadd: Keeping your hands & feet warm, Part 1

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photo: Will Gadd collection

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Will Gadd, Canadian ice climbing expert, knows a few things about staying warm. This article is from a series of posts he made on Instagram. I’m sharing it here with Will’s permission.

Connect with Will on his website and Instagram, @realwillgadd

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How to have warm hands - Gloves

Cold hands suck the fun out of ice climbing. It’s a huge topic, and there is no “one” solution. I’ll come at the problem from a few different angles, hopefully one or two resonate with you.

Tip 1: Don’t wear big gloves. Big gloves are for belaying only, they will make your hands cold if worn for activity. Sounds backwards, you need big gloves to stay warm, right? Nah. What happens with big gloves is that your hands will sweat in them as you move. Once the interior of your big gloves has even a tiny film of water in them you are doomed to have cold hands.

To test this theory, stick your hands outside while dry. Now do the same thing with wet hands. The moisture on your hands makes it feel way, way colder, and that’s what happens when you have even slightly wet fingers: you get cold hands unless you’re operating at very, very high heart rates. Even then you may be sweating and have frozen hands. Only use big gloves when you are standing around and NOT sweating.

Big gloves also don’t dry fast if there’s a tiny sheen of sweat on your hands, because there isn’t a big enough temperature gradient to drive the moisture up through the fabric to the outside. So they get wet, and stay wet inside, and you are miserable.

Big gloves also require more force to constrict around your ice tools, which means you’re squeezing harder, which means less blood flow, which means cold hands . . .

So, for moving you need “disposable” gloves as your hands will sweat in even thin gloves. That’s OK if you’re Nordic skiing and giving it, but for climbing we’re going to stop moving. At that point a slightly damp thin glove has served its purpose, and is tossed into the bottom of the pack, dry your hands, belay gloves on . . . I bring up to one pair of gloves per pitch if I think it’s going to be wet.

If it’s very cold and you still have to use your hands, try mitts and a very thin liner glove for standing around. Having all your fingers together helps them stay warm, and the thin layer also really helps them stay warm in the brief intervals you bring them out. But thick gloves don’t work as well because you end up taking them off to do anything. Misery sucks.

Get flexible gloves that aren’t tight. A little larger is better if they are flexible, but stiff and tight will make you hang on too tight and constrict circulation, which equals total misery. This is why heated gloves generally don’t work too well; too stiff to climb or easily open carabiners.

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How to have warm hands: Layering is BS.

I have watched kids play bare-handed, physical outdoor games at -20, not because they’re Canadian but because that’s how our bodies work: If your body temperature is warm enough then your hands will be too, pretty much regardless of gloves or air temperature. What really matters is the temperature inside your body.

When that drops, your body gives up on keeping your hands warm and focuses on your core. Less blood goes through your hands. You have to use this knowledge to balance your clothing, your furnace (your muscles etc.) and the temperature. If any one of these three systems is out of whack then you will suffer cold hands or worse relatively soon. How to balance them? Dress for where you’ll be, not where you are. If you’re skiing and hot you’ll only get hotter. Strip down.

Layering is nonsense, most of the time we are either moving or standing, not adjusting a thin layer while prancing along. If moving and heating up, strip down until you are warm to slightly cool but no longer sweating (if possible). When you stop put on enough clothes that you can stand there comfortably for as long as you need to plus 20 minutes or so. 

If you stop moving and wait to feel cold before putting on clothes you’ve missed the temperature cues and will suffer cold hands. I routinely belay in my down pants and huge down jacket. Together they weigh very little, but I could almost bivy in them if I had to, even in -20. My hands will be warm if my gloves are dry (see last post). Before I start climbing again I’ll strip down to my moving layer, switch to smaller dry gloves, and be a tad chilly (but my core isn’t yet dropping so my hands are still warm) before moving again.

With minor variations, I have a “moving” outfit, and a “standing” outfit. That’s it.

Layers are for onions and fashion victims, no one can calibrate their heat output that precisely. I have never see anyone de-layer on the fly other than adventure racers, and that’s another topic.

So, strip early, strip lots, dress early and more than you think you need.

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How to have warm hands - General Tips

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Load transfer: The stirrup hoist

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This is part of a series of articles that cover methods to move a large load a short distance, typically to unweight an anchor.

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In some unusual climbing situations, you may need to lift a very large load a very small distance.

• Maybe on a big wall, where you rigged your bags old school style (sheesh, use a docking cord, will ya!?) and you need to lift them a tiny bit to unclip the carabiner.

• Maybe in a rescue scenario, when you have an unconscious person hanging off of a loaded anchor, and you need to lift them just enough to unclip them.

In either case, it's often better to use your bodyweight to try to do the lifting rather than your muscles. Work smart, not hard!

Don't make a habit out of this. It's almost always better to use some sort of releasable knot or hitch to anchor your load when you can. But for those cases when you didn't do that for some reason, the stirrup hoist might come in handy!

Here's a way to set that up, called the stirrup hoist.

This is not the most efficient method, but it's pretty fast and uses minimal gear, so it's a good one to have in the toolbox.

You might want to try this first and see if it solves your problem, before you try more elaborate systems, such as the alpine block and tackle, or the 2:1 redirected haul.

• Clip a long sling onto the load. Slippery Dyneema would be a good choice, to minimize friction.

• Pass the sling through a carabiner on the anchor, and let the sling hang down below the anchor. If you happen to have a pulley, run the sling through that to minimize friction. (In the photo below, I’m not using a pulley.)

• Step into this “stirrup”. Your body weight, along with lifting the load with your arms, should hopefully be enough to move it up a bit to solve your problem.

• To give a little extra boost, you might try bouncing on the sling ,which will apply more force to the load than your static body weight.

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The "Swiss cheese" model of risk mitigation

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The Swiss Cheese model is a metaphor used in safety science. It illustrates how accidents typically occur due to multiple, overlapping failures rather than a single cause.

• Each "slice" of cheese represents a layer of defense (such as safety measures or procedures) within a system.

• Each “hole” in the cheese symbolizes a potential weakness or failure.

If a hole in one slice of cheese is covered by a solid part of the next slice, you have a partial problem but is not (yet) a catastrophe.

Even if a slice of cheese is only 5% holes, there’s still a small chance that two holes could align, and that's when you could have a serious problem.

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What's in my pack: big wall gear by Brent Barghahn

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Brent on a crux section of El Corazon, El Capitan. Image: https://www.brentbarghahn.com/climbing-blog/el-corazon-ground-up-2022crux

Brent Barghahn, professional climber and humble bad-ass, knows a thing or two about big walls. He has some very impressive free ascents on El Capitan, such as El Corazon, El Nino, and Golden Gate.

He’s also an innovator of climbing gear, much of it for lead rope solo and top rope solo. Check out his company, Avant Climbing.

You can read some detailed stories of his climbing adventures on his blog.

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One of his blog posts is a collection of general big wall tips.

The big wall tips are excellent. Many of them you'll find on the Alpinsavvy big wall section, such as:

• the 2:1 haul

• having a Traxion on your haul bag

• using a tagline, among others.

In addition to the expert tips is Brent’s schweeeeet gear checklist. Attention to detail is crucial on a big wall, and a solid checklist like this will help you bring most everything you need.

(Yes, it's mostly focused on free climbing, which is beyond the skill level for most of us plodders, but it's still very useful for aid climbing.)

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Alpinesavvy Premium Members get a direct link to the gear checklist. If you're not a Premium Member, you'll have to go to Brent’s blog at the link above and click through and find it yourself. My Premium Member article also has a link to a longform video with an interview with Brent and discussion of top rope solo and lead rope solo techniques.

Head scratcher: can you solve this rappel problem?

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This noggin-scratcher was solved in real life by Albin Thunander. Albin is a Swedish IFMGA Guide Candidate, and he shared with me the details of how he dealt with this. You can usually find him in the mountains around Chamonix. Connect with Albin on Instagram: @albinthunander.

I first heard of this trick from @tiffany_hensley, thanks Tiffany!

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Think you're good at solving climbing problems on the fly? See if you can figure out this one!

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Here's the scenario:

• You're at the top of a 100 meter cliff.

• There are only two anchors: one at the top and one at 50 meters.

• You have one 80 meter rope.

• There's no way of making other anchors and you can't walk down.

• All you have is basic gear, like a harness, belay device, prusik cord and a couple of slings and carabiners. You don't have a Beal escaper, a tagline, or 25 meters of shoelaces or any other fancy gear.

How do you get safely to the ground?

• There's no trick answer; no parachute, bouncing, rope stretching etc. It's actually doable and relatively low-risk, without any death techniques using self-releasing knots or taped-open-carabiner-fifi-hook Ninja trickery.

• Treat this as more of a math problem, and not a climbing skills problem.

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After you think about it, scroll down for a hint. After you read the hint, scroll farther for the answer.

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

.

Hint: You have a knife. 

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Answer:

1. Measure 25 meters of rope. Cut it. (If you don't have a knife, you can cut it on a sharp rock, or run a sling back-and-forth through the rope for a few seconds.)

2. Tie a bight knot at both ends. Clip one end of the 25 meter rope to the top anchor.

3. Toss the other end of the 25 meter section of rope. (This effectively makes a new “anchor” 25 meters below the top.)

4. Rap down this 25 meter single strand with the rest of the rope.

5. Xxxx . . .

6. Xxx . . .

7. Xxx . . .

8. Yay, done!

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