Alpine Tips
Will Gadd: Keeping your hands warm, Part 2
Here are some winter-tested tips from Canadian ice climbing expert Will Gadd for keeping your hands (and feet) warm. This is part two of a series of three articles.
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image: Will Gadd collection; Helmcken Falls, BC Canada - https://www.instagram.com/p/C7wtpfsRLNj/
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
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.
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 warm, Part 1
Canadian ice climbing expert Will Gadd shares some of his top tips for keeping your hands (and feet) warm. This is part one of a series of three articles.
Premium Members can read the entire article here:
photo: Will Gadd collection
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
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.
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.
How to have warm hands - General Tips
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Load transfer: The stirrup hoist
Do you have a big load that you need to move a short distance? Here's one crafty way to do it: the stirrup hoist. This may not be the most efficient method, but it's quick and simple.
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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.
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.
For more comments on this method and the photo of how to set it up, please join my Premium Membership.
The "Swiss cheese" model of risk mitigation
The “Swiss cheese” model is a metaphor for how risk can be reduced through overlapping and redundant safety systems.
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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.
How does the Swiss Cheese model apply to climbing?
What's in my pack: big wall gear by Brent Barghahn
Pro climber Brent Barghahn has some impressive free climbing ascents of El Capitan, and definitely knows a thing or two about what to bring on a big wall. Here's a link to his checklist from a helpful blog article he wrote.
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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.
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":
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 is useful for aid climbing.
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?
Think you're good at solving climbing problems on the fly? See if you can figure out this one!
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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!
Think you're good at solving climbing problems on the fly? See if you can figure out this one!
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.
After you think about it, scroll down for a hint. After you read the hint, scroll farther for the answer.
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Hint: You have a knife.
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Answer:
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.)
Tie a bight knot at both ends. Clip one end of the 25 meter rope to the top anchor.
Toss the other end of the 25 meter section of rope. (This effectively makes a new “anchor” 25 meters below the top.)
Rap down this 25 meter single strand with the rest of the rope.
Xxxx . . .
Xxx . . .
Xxx . . .
Yay, done!
There are a few more crucial steps! If you want to learn ‘em, join my Premium Membership to read the whole article.
How to safely shorten your tether
Need to shorten your connection to the anchor when using a tether? It's common to unclip and reclip your locking carabiner, but this can increase the chances of clipping it incorrectly. Here's a simple and more secure method.
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At a busy anchor, especially when you have some distractions, it's quite easy to clip your rappel tether / PAS incorrectly.
I’ve done this myself, and fortunately realized my mistake very soon after, yikes!
The main cause of this problem is often when changing the length of your tether.
A common way to do this is to completely unclip the carabiner from one loop, and then clip it into another.
When you do this, you introduce the chance of clipping it wrong.
Here are two recent accidents where this seemed to be a direct cause. (Both of these reports are from the American Alpine Club’s website called The Prescription, which offers a monthly blog and archive of North American climbing accidents.)
Here's the analysis of one accident from the American Alpine Club:
Laycock’s accident was eerily similar to another recent incident, suffered by a climber in Arizona. Both fallen climbers had tied overhand knots in a 120cm length loop of 20mm sewn webbing to create adjustment pockets for a home-made PAS. This is a common practice. In both cases, it appears that the tether was not clipped correctly with the carabiner, but instead the knot caught in the bottom, non-gated end of the tether carabiner.
Wow, that photo is scary! You can see that clipped like this the knot MAY jam into the carabiner temporarily, even under light bodyweight. This could easily fool you that you are properly connected, when in fact you're absolutely not!
Here's a simple way to pretty much eliminate this problem: keep a locking carabiner as your primary connection to the anchor, always on the end of your tether. To shorten your tether, don't move that carabiner at all. Instead add a second one and use that to adjust the length of your connection.
Worldwide climbing accident reports
Starting in 1948, the American Alpine Club has published an annual report of climbing related accidents in the US and Canada. What other countries do the same? Here is a summary. If you can add to it, let me know!
Even though this is an article published after January 2024 and would normally be a shortened version, I decided to make the entire article available for free on the nonmember pages, in the interest of learning and reducing risk for everybody. =^)
Accidents in North American Climbing 2023, from the American Alpine Club
Reading about climbing accidents is not fun.
However, it’s an important way to learn, and hopefully reduce risk and avoid future accidents.
Starting in 1948, the American Alpine Club (AAC) has published an annual summary of reported climbing related accidents in the US and Canada, titled “Accidents in North American Climbing” AAC members get this for free.
(The AAC also publish a monthly accident report “sampler” on their website, called “The Prescription”. This is free, offers an archive of recent accident reports, and is a good representation of what you’ll find in the complete publication.)
I was curious: what other countries publish a similar report?
I made a post asking about this on my Instagram. Many helpful people offered info and links about accident reports from different countries.
Here’s list of climbing related accident reports from around the world.
If a link is broken and you know a better one, please let me know.
If you know a resource for a country that's not listed here, please let me know and I’ll add it.
Australia - Australian Climbing Accident Register, “a volunteer-only project to promote open discussion of incidents and near miss events in recreational climbing in Australia.”
Britain - the British mountaineering Council (BMC) publishes accident reports.
Chile - Annual review of accidents from escalando.org. Also: Book about accidents in Chile by Rodrigo Fica
France - SERAC, database of accident and incident reports
France - Understanding Mountain Sports accidents, from the Petzl Foundation
France - ANENA - National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches, avalanche related accidents
Germany - indoor climbing and outdoor climbing reports; (links are at bottom of page)
Spain - Spanish Mountain Federation
Switzerland - Free PDF downloads for the last 10 years or so of accident reports, in French
Turkey - Mountain accidents report, in Turkish.
How to rappel on marginal anchors
Someday, you'll find yourself at a rappel anchor that is Less Than Ideal. Here are some tips to hopefully get you and your partner down in one piece.
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image credit: Silas Rossi, @silasrossi
At some point in your alpine climbing, you’ll be forced to use a rappel anchor that’s as sketchy as Donald Trump’s tax returns. Here are some ways to hopefully get you and your partner down in one piece.
Improve the anchor. Is it a strand or two of sun crusted, rock rodent chewed ancient webbing? Get out your cordelette or a sling(s) and leave those behind. Old, weathered webbing can be as weak as 3-ish kN! (See some test results below.) Yes, people have died from this type of anchor failure, don't be the next one. You do have a knife, right?
Remove the garbage. If the anchor looks like the rat’s nest in the above photo, do everybody a favor: cut away the worst parts and leave only the best two or three bits of cord.
Are you arriving at a dodgy anchor from a rappel? Stay on rappel and bounce test the anchor. While secure on the rappel ropes, clip your tether into the masterpoint, and give it a few good bounces. A good bounce on a static tether puts about 3x your body weight onto the anchor. If it holds, good. If it doesn't, you're still backed up on your rappel rope.
Backup the anchor if it all possible with other gear. Send the first and heaviest person down first so the backup can do its job if the primary anchor fails. (Obviously this rule was made by heavy people.) If the anchor holds for the big person, it's likely gonna hold for everybody else, and the last person can remove the backup. If the last person is still sketched, they have the right to leave behind ANY gear they want as a backup. Yep, including that $90 cam, your life is worth it. See video at bottom of page for an example.
Bounce test. Ideally, when you’re backed up to something solid, load the rope and give it a solid bounce. Be sure that the backup is unweighted and doesn’t take any load during this test. As mentioned above, a decent bounce is about 3x your bodyweight, way more force than actually rappelling.
Rappel slowly and smoothly, not like some Special Forces cowboy.
If the anchor is truly marginal, the first person down can place gear and clip one strand of the rope to it. If the top anchor fails, this might save the day.
Old sun-crusted webbing is shockingly weak!
As in, not much more than bodyweight weak, like 3-ish kN! Check out the test results below.
The frugal climber’s stick clip
Do you enjoy ankle breaking ground fall potential with the crux just before the first bolt? (Smith Rock Oregon, I'm looking at you!) Cool, neither do I. Enter the frugal climber’s stick clip. All you need is a stick, some tape, and a rock.
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If your personal ethics allow it (and mine definitely do), stick clips are great.
Sure, those super long extendable fiberglass poles with some fancy carabiner-grabber-thingie on the end work sweeeet, especially for really high bolts.
However, for the frugal climber, there's the time-honored dirtbag method.
All you need is some a small rock and a stick. Tape or a rubber band are nice, but optional.
Left photo: tape method. This is my preference, it's a bit more reliable. Tip, tape the middle part of the carabiner as shown here, keeps it more stable. A sturdy rubber band or two works pretty much the same way. (Note that depending on the quality of your tape, this might leave some sticky stuff on your carabiner, which is not so great.)
Right photo: forked stick method. This is a bit more finicky, and you usually have to pull some downward tension on the rope to keep the top carabiner from flopping around. (Yes, in the photo it’s hard to see a stick there, but trust me, there is. =^)
Below is a link to a short video showing how it's done.
Can (or should) you resling cams yourself?
The webbing on your cam slings has a lifespan of about 10 years. What do you do then? Ideally, send it to the manufacturer for replacement, but that's not always possible. Here are some DIY options, and a list of all known places you can get replacement cam slings.
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image: HowNOT2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M19taMAZHp4
The generally accepted maximum lifespan of soft goods like nylon, Dyneema, and yes, slings on your cams, is around 10 years. If you use them heavily, it could be a lot less than that.
Reslinging a cam is not a money-making venture by the manufacturer or pretty much anybody else. Also, a manufacturer will almost always only resling their own cams.
If you live in the US, and a few places in Europe, getting this done by the factory is a possibility. But, if you’re outside this area (or if you live in Europe, and have cams made by Black Diamond) sending them directly to the manufacturer for sling replacement is probably not be cost effective.
So, what about replacing those cam slings yourself?
Here are some break test results of various DIY cam sling replacement options tested my friend Ryan Jenks, the mad scientist gear-breaking founder of HowNOT2.
(Disclaimer, these were tested on a limited number, your mileage may vary, if you want to be certain it's done right, then send ‘em back to the factory.)
Summary:
A 30 cm Dyneema sling doubled with a basket hitch is probably going to be your best bet. Be sure and clip both strands! Broke at 17.2 kN.
A 30 cm Dyneema sling tied in a double bowline on a bight also works. Broke between 10 and 13 kN, based on sling width. (Interestingly, the 8 mm sling tested stronger than the 11 mm sling.)
Avoid a girth hitch! Broke at 9 kN, and will probably mess up your cam. (Interestingly, it broke at 9-ish kN both on the slow pull and in the drop tower.)
Or, if you want to skip it entirely, cut off the sling and clip a short quick draw to it, good to go.
Cam reslinging companies
This information is current as of 2024. Of course, policies can change, so check before you mail anything.
If you know anyone who reslings cams who is not on this list, please email me so I can add them, thanks!
Gear companies:
Other companies that resling cams:
De-cluster your anchor with the ”revolving door”
Sometimes at a busy anchor, you may have a rope on top of another one, and those two ropes need to trade places. Here's an elegant way to do this: the "revolving door" technique.
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At a busy anchor (maybe with several people, or a big wall) it's very common to have one rope/cord/sling under another one.
For whatever reason, sometimes those ropes need to “trade places”, as in, the top rope needs to be on the bottom, or vice versa. How can you (easily) do this?
You might be tempted to try the “anchor limbo” by physically shimmying underneath the rope, or maybe even untying completely to move the rope above or below the other one. I’ve done both, and they both suck.
But there’s a much simpler (and elegant) method: the “revolving door”.
It's deceptively simple, and to my eye, looked like a bit of a magic trick the first few times I did it. Once you learn it, you might laugh at how easy it is!
To do this, you need two things: 1) the rope that you need to move above or below needs to be clipped to a carabiner, and 2) the rope needs to NOT have a giant load on it.
Brief description: say you have a rope on the top, and it needs to be on the bottom/under of what we’ll call the “fixed” rope.
Go to the carabiner that's clipped to the fixed rope. The gate on this carabiner needs to be facing up.
Open the carabiner.
Clip the “top” rope into the carabiner.
Here's the key move: Spin (aka “revolve”) the carabiner 180°.
Now, the gate on the carabiner should be facing down. Open the carabiner, and unclip the bottom rope.
Schweeeet! The “top” rope is now UNDER the fixed rope! Give yourself a high five for being so clever. =^)
You probably will want to revolve the carabiner back again to its original position, with the gate up. If it was a locker, relock it.
Like I said, kind of magical! Definitely a #CraftyRopeTrick!
Like most things in climbing, it's a better show than a tell. Here's an video from IFMGA Guide Karsten Delap showing how it's done.
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Load transfer - The 2:1 redirected haul
Do you have a big load that you need to move a short distance? Here's one crafty way to do it: the big waller's trick of the "far end haul". aka 2:1 redirected haul. (I learned this from big wall expert Mark Hudon, thanks Mark!)
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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.
I learned this trick from big wall expert Mark Hudon, thanks Mark!
You may find yourself in a climbing situation where you need to transfer a BIG load from one anchor point to another.
Beginner big wall climbers, you know what I'm talking about; you clipped the haul bag in the wrong spot and it needs to get moved, whoops! (I’m an expert on this particular mistake; I probably did it five times on my first wall . . .)
Maybe a rescue situation (which you’re hopefully never in) where you need to lift the weight of your uncooperative partner off of the anchor to continue rappelling.
How can you do this the SMART way?
Brute force powerlifting is probably not going to cut it. It's much smarter to use a little mechanical advantage to make this happen. Work smart, not hard!
Here's one method: a redirected 2:1 haul with a progress capture pulley. In the big wall world this is known as the “far end haul”; here's an article on that.
The steps here might appear complicated when you see them the first time, but as soon as you give it a try you'll learn how easy it is.
Look through the step-by-step photos below and then watch a how-to video at the bottom.
You have a big load on the right anchor, and you need to move it to the left anchor. How do you do this the smart way?
Here’s a step-by-step sequence, with a tutorial video at the bottom.
Clip some cord or rope to the anchor.
Clip your progress capture pulley such as a Petzl Traxion, onto the rope is shown. (Remember to clip it “teeth to tail”, so the “teeth” on the device point to the “tail” side that you’re going to pull.)
Clip the Traxion onto the load.
Add a redirect to the anchor. A pulley is good here if you have it. In this example, I’m using the excellent Petzl Rollclip.
Now you're ready to pull.
Put the rope or cord through a Grigri or a Munter hitch on your harness.
Pull DOWN with your body weight.
As you do this, you’re raising the load with a 2:1 mechanical advantage, and the Traxion pulley captures your progress. Nice!
With the high-efficiency Traxion on the load and the Rollclip/pulley on the redirect, your loss of pulling force due to friction is minimized.
Want to see the last few steps and a video of how to set it up? That's available for Premium Members.
Premium members can read the complete article here:
Rope anchors: the Alex Honnold anchor
Here's a fast and simple method to build an anchor using the rope, typically on two good bolts. (Alex says it's his favorite, so that's what I'm calling it. =^)
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Did you realize halfway up the pitch that you left your long anchor sling with your partner down below? Whoops! Better have a Plan B. This is an easy one, use the rope.
Did Alex invent this anchor style? No, climbers have been using this for decades. But, Alex said in an interview that this is his favorite style of anchor for roped multipitch climbing, so that's what I'm calling it. =^)
This anchor is a fine choice when you have a pair of decent bolts.
Note that the belayer is not on the equalized portion of the anchor. They’re clipped directly to one bolt, and indirectly attached to both. The belayer has redundancy, but not equalization.
With properly placed bolts that can each hold well over 20 kN, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Benefits of building an anchor with the rope:
Typically uses the minimal amount of gear. No need for extra slings, cords, or untying slings with knots when you’re done.
Uses the strong and stretchy rope, which you always have. Strong and stretchy are good things to have in an anchor! (Even if you prefer making anchors with a sling or cord, you might not always have those, and it's good to have some alternatives.)
Downsides to building an anchor with the rope:
It works best if you’re swinging leads on a multipitch climb. If one person is doing all the leading (aka block leading), or if this is the last anchor at the top of a climb and you’re transitioning to rappel, it may be better to craft an anchor from a sling or cordelette so you have both ends of the rope to work with. (Even if you plan on swinging leads, your partner might decide they don't want to take their turn and you might have to go again, so keep that in mind.)
Rope anchors can make many self-rescue techniques more challenging, because the end of the rope is a component of the anchor. Yes the belayer can can simply untie and they're out of the system, but then they may have a harder time using the rope for anything useful.
If the next (or previous) pitch is a real rope stretcher and you might need every bit of it, this may not be the best choice. (Rare, but it can happen.)
When the leader pulls up the rope on the second, the rope pull comes tight first onto the anchor and not directly onto the second climber. This can create a few meters of potentially unwanted slack when the second breaks down the anchor. The second can clip to one bolt or piece of solid gear with a tether before they remove the anchor, as a possible solution.
The Alex Honnold anchor, step-by-step . . .
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How strong is a “stabbed” rope?
Plodding along on a glacier climb, you get a little careless and CHUNK, your crampon spike goes straight through the middle of the rope in front of you. Does this dangerously compromise the strength of your rope? I tested it with HowNOT2, here are the results.
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Scenarios for a “stabbed” rope . . .
Top rope ice, climbing, you carelessly swing your tool, and CHUNK, you drive your pick straight into the rope. Whoops!
Walking in a rope team on a glacier. A careless step and you stab the rope with your crampon. Whoops!
If you do either of these, does it completely compromise the strength of your rope?
I've always wondered about this, so I tested it on my latest visit to the gear-breaking mad scientist genius Ryan Jenks from HowNOT2.com.
The rope we tested was a Beal Opera 8.5 mm, common for glacier travel.
Disclaimer, yes, results will probably be different depending on rope diameter, size of the spike, type of sheath used in the rope, etc. We had a small sample size. This is what we got, don't take it as gospel.
Test 1: Crampon stab through the rope?!
Broke at 11.9 kN. It broke in the knot, and NOT in the “stabbed” part of the rope.
That's close to full strength of the rope.
Click image below to see the short video.
Test 2, pounding a nail multiple times through the rope?!
Test 3: Ridiculously beating on the rope like a manic woodpecker in the same spot with an ice tool ?!
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Can you girth hitch a Dyneema sling to a picket?
Can you tie a sling directly to a picket hole? Is it going to be strong enough to catch a fall or use as a anchor in crevasse rescue? I did the testing, and have a broken picket to prove it.
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If you’re trying to shave weight on an alpine climb, you might wonder if it's okay to girth hitch a sling directly to a picket.
(Yeah I know, cool Euro climbers don't use pickets and make an anchor out of their buried ice axe, cigarette pack, or whatever, but that's a different topic.)
Does this dangerously weaken the sling?
Is the sling gonna get cut on the sharper bend radius of the picket hole?
Should I use the sling full strength (about 22 kN) and clip it with a carabiner like normal?
All good questions! I was curious about them as well. So I took a visit to the gear breaking lab of mad scientist Ryan Jenks, aka Mr. HowNOT2, to find out.
We used older Dyneema slings hitched through the middle hole on an older style MSR Coyote picket.
The girth hitch tested at a bit over 10 kN.
(Yes, with a limited sample size of 1.) For me, that's acceptable for a crevasse rescue anchor, because your picket is going to pull out of the snow before you approach that much force.
Not that you should ever be generating a load like that in a standard crevasse rescue to begin with . . .
But hey, if you want to use the sling full strength at 22+ kN, then clip it to the picket with a carabiner, your choice!
Next we tried a basket hitch. As expected, that was a bit stronger, around 16 kN.
After that, just for fun, we doubled the sling through the hole; a double basket hitch. (Yes, we kept using the same picket for every test, so it might've been a weakened after the first two .)
Here's what happened. The sling it was fine. The picket broke 18.4 kN!
Want to see a YouTube short showing the break test, and a way to tie this with a bowline? That's in the complete premium member article.
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Adjustable tether + Fifi hook for tricky cleaning
Here’s a DIY gear hack that’s handy when cleaning a traversing aid pitch, or maybe a overhanging sport route. Girth hitch an aid climbing fifi ihook to an adjustable tether. Now you can easily transfer your weight on to the gear, which lets you unclip your quickdraw and/or the rope. Pop the fifi, take an (exciting!) swing, repeat as necessary.
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Need to clean a steeply traversing aid pitch?
How about a sport route that's severely overhanging and/or traversing?
The challenge you have in both cases is the gear you're trying to clean is being tensioned by the rope under your bodyweight, and that's usually a pretty big problem.
Here’s a simple way to solve it: an adjustable tether with an aid climbing fifi hook attached. I‘ve used this on the infamously traversing bolt ladder on Monkey Face at Smith Rock Oregon, and it works perfecto.
Be sure your fifi has a “release cord” loop tied into the top hole as we see here. This is key to be able to release this under load.
They usually don't come this way from the store, you have to add it yourself. I'm simply using parachute cord.
Notes . . .
It’s pretty much the same procedure for cleaning quickdraws from a steep sport climbing route, but that's a bit easier than this.
Yes, there are several methods you can use to accomplish this, but after you try this you may not wanna do the others. Give different techniques a try and see which works best for you.
What's sweet about this for aid climbing is that it uses gear that you already have on your harness. Typically you would only use a fifi when leading, but in this case, you remove it from your harness and put it on your tether when needed for cleaning.
Here's how you do it, step-by-step:
Klemheist ver 2.0: stitching IN the knot
A Klemheist is a useful friction hitch / rope grabber, but DANG, have you ever tried to use it to actually go up to fixed rope? Tied in the normal way, that sucker bites down hard and is really difficult to slide! Here’s a clever variation that gives adequate grab on the rope, and is much easier to slide when you need to move up.
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Credit for this method goes to Silvan Metz, @silvanmetzfotografie
Left photo, normal way to tie a Klemheist. Right photo, the modified method which is much easier to slide.
The Klemheist is one of three friction hitches every climber ought to know. (The other two are the prusik and the autoblock, aka French prusik, or Machard.)
Friction hitches are used typically used as a rope grab in a mechanical advantage haul system, and as a tool for emergency rope ascending.
The Klemheist is handy because you can tie it with either cord or a sewn sling, and you can easily adjust the amount of friction by increasing or decreasing the wraps around the rope.
But DANG, have you ever actually tried to climb a rope with a Klemheist, especially one tied with a skinny Dyneema sling? You probably discovered that it bites down very hard on the rope, and is very difficult to slide up after you've loaded it with your body weight.
Here's a clever variation on the Klemheist hitch, where the stitching on a sewn sling is intentionally tied INTO the hitch, as in the photo above on the right.
WTF?! I learned in Knots 101 you should never do this, why would you?
Answer: for ascending a rope.
By including the stitching in the hitch, it allows enough friction for good grabbing on the rope, but also allows the knot to MUCH more easily slide on the rope when you need to move it.
Notes . . .
Works great with a sewn sling, even Dyneema (Don’t use Dyneema for a rappel backup.)
Grabs pretty well in both directions, but still holds best in one.
Easily adjustable with the number of wraps; more wraps for a skinny rope, fewer for thicker ropes or twin strands.
Some people think this is a Hedden hitch, or maybe an FB hitch. To be honest I don't really care about the name. It's more important to know how to tie it and the best applications, so let's not get distracted by lineage and whether I use the exact right term to describe it. There are lots of “knot-knerds” that like to argue about stuff like this. I’m not one of them.
Sounds cool, how do you tie it?
Check out the Instagram video below from Silvan.
Load transfer: The alpine block and tackle
With nothing more than a cordelette and two carabiners, the “alpine block and tackle” creates a bit of mechanical advantage that can help you move a large load a short distance.
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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.
If you tie your cordelette “bunny ears” style, as I recommend in this Tip, you can use it to make a low-tech block and tackle system. #CraftyRopeTrick for sure!
(History side note: The term “block” comes from the wooden blocks that were originally used on ships to raise heavy sails, and the “tackle” refers to the ropes/rigging running between the blocks.)
Climbers typically think that mechanical advantage systems only come into play in a rescue-type scenario. But there are some other situations where they can come in handy.
When might you want to use an alpine block and tackle?
In general, to move a large load a very short distance.
Maybe you're in some other kind of rescue scenario, and you need to momentarily lift a load off of a carabiner an inch or two to unclip something.
Maybe you're on a big wall climb, you screwed up your rigging somehow, and you need to lift your haul bag a few inches to get it unclipped. (Note, if you use a docking cord to attach your haul bag to the anchor, you should never have this problem.) See image below.
You have a strand of rope with a weighted knot, and you need to unweight the rope so you can untie the knot. To do this, put prusik loops above and below the knot, and rig the block and tackle between the two prusiks. See image below.
In the example shown in the video below, you can transfer or share the load in a crevasse rescue off a sketchy initial gear placement to a stronger second placement.
Note: I tested a 6:1 theoretical alpine block and tackle system with a spring scale. My results show a real world mechanical advantage of about 1.8 to 1. (Round that to 2 to 1 if you like, easier to remember.) Perhaps helpful, but a long way from 6:1!
How do knots affect cord and webbing strength?
Most climbers know that tying any sort of a knot reduces the strength of cord, rope or webbing. But what about tying multiple knots in the same strand? Does that reduce the strength multiple times? What happens when you have a loop of cord tied with a knot, is the strength reduced in that? The Alpine Club of Italy did some testing, here are the answers.
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Tying a knot in rope, cord or sling decreases the strength. (While it varies depending on the material and the type of knot, a conservative rule of thumb is about 50%.)
Is there much of a difference in strength loss between cord and webbing?
What about nylon vs. Dyneema?
What about a standard anchor configuration with a knotted sling?
Do multiple knots in the same cord decrease the strength more?
All interesting questions, let's find some answers!
Strength loss from knots in webbing and cord
Here’s a nice diagram drawn by IFMGA Guide Georg Sojer @sojercartoon from an article by German Mountain Guide / Bergfuhrer Chris Semmel of the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (“Verband Deutscher Berg und Skiführer” or “VDBS”). It’s from a German climbing magazine, here’s the original.
Interestingly, it shows that cord is slightly stronger than webbing. Also note that when a larger loop is doubled over, even with a knot, the strength is twice that of the unknotted material.
image: https://www.outdoor-magazin.com/klettern/basiskurs-alpines-klettern/
What about nylon vs. Dyneema?
Great question. Lots of people think if you tie a knot in Dyneema, it's somehow magically going to break. Maybe in a drop tower with a concrete block, but highly unlikely in a real world climbing scenario. Some testing from the German company Edelrid gives us some answers.
Edelrid tested the strength of both “polyamid” aka nylon, and “high-density polyethylene”, aka Dyneema, in 3 ways: 1) a single strand, 2) in a sewn sling, and 3) a sewn sling with a single overhand knot in the middle.
Here are the results.
You can see the strength of the nylon sling is higher in every case. In terms of strength by weight Dyneema might be stronger. However, the nylon sling is made of more material and it stretches about three times as much, so it can hold a higher load.
The Dyneema sling with an overhand knot broke at 11.2 kN. This is still significantly higher than anything you would see in a recreational climbing scenario, so I personally don't have any problems doing it. Having said that, if you want to use your slings at full strength, avoid tying knots in them when possible.
screen grab from: https://youtu.be/0SqHwymGxfM
Here's a nice video from Edelrid showing their testing procedure. (I recommend browsing through the entire series of knowledge base videos from Edelrid, there are some gems in there.)
My friend Ryan Jenks, founder of the YouTube channel HowNOT2 did some very interesting testing comparing “tech” cord (Sterling VT-X) with a Dyneema core, to standard nylon cord.
The Minimum Breaking Strength (MBS) the tech cord was significantly higher than a comparable diameter 6 mm nylon cord.
MBS of VT-X cord: 15 kN
MBS of plain nylon 6 mm cord: 8.8 kN
The VT-X cord is rated a bit less than twice as strong as the nylon cord.Ryan broke each cord 5 times, with a figure 8 knot on each end.
8 to 8 average, VT-X: 8.6 kN
8 to 8 average, nylon 6 mm cord: 6.6 kN
The VT-X still tested a bit higher, but not very much higher. Then, he looked at those break test numbers as a percentage of the MBS.
VT-X: 57.6%
nylon 6 mm cord: 75.6%
Isn't that interesting? Tying figure 8 knots in the VT-X cord breaks about half of the rated strength, but the same knot tied in nylon cord breaks about 3/4 of the rated strength!
This tells us that tech cord loses a larger percentage of the rated strength when you tie knots in it.
If I understand Ryan's explanation of this, this is because the tech cord, being very static/non-stretchy, does not elongate at the outer radius of the bend in the knot. The nylon, because it is stretchy, loses less of its strength in the knot. Cool!
So, for me, the takeaway is that 6 or 7 mm nylon cord in just about any recreational climbing situation is probably gonna be fine.
Having said that, using higher strength tech cord for anchor building gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, extra kN and it only cost like $1.20 a foot, so I'm gonna still roll with my V-TX cordelette, which I especially like for snow and glacier travel.
See all the results at his video below.
How do knots weaken slings in standard anchors?
Here's a common anchor scenario. 120 cm Aramid / kevlar sling rated to 22 kN. It’s doubled, with one arm clipped to each bolt. A overhand knot is tied for the master point.
How strong is this anchor?
Scroll down for the answer.
The answer is B, around 22 kN, the original strength of the sling. Why? Because the sling is doubled before the knot is tied.
Doubling the sling also doubles the strength to about 44 kN. Adding a knot reduces the strength about 50%, down to around 22 kN.
Same principle applies to a girth hitch anchor, here are made with Dyneema.
Next time you hear somebody saying “OMG, don't use a girth hitch, it weakens the sling by 50%!” remind them of this.
This is confirmed by the (always awesome) testing by Ryan Jenks at HowNot2.com. His testing showed the girth hitch master point breaking at around 26-28 kN. (Check out his video here, start at 7:10 and go to 9:00.)
A couple of screen grabs are below.
