3+ ways to avoid factor 2 falls on multipitch routes
This tip was written with the assistance of Richard Goldstone, thanks Richard!
image: German Alpine Club
Scenario: You’re on a multi-pitch sport route, leading the first pitch. You arrive at the anchor bolts, and look up ahead to the next pitch. You notice that the moves to get to the runout-rather-far-away first bolt on pitch 2 look pretty hard, about at the the edge of your partner’s ability.
Avoiding a potential factor 2 fall on your anchor is of course critically important. How can you do this?
Assuming you have a few meters of rope left after your lead, here's a Crafty Rope Trick (CRT) that may make things quite a bit safer for everybody.
Don't stop at the anchor. Clip one of the bolts with a quickdraw, and keep on climbing to the first bolt on the second pitch. Check to see that it’s stout. BACKCLIP it (see diagram), call for a take and lower, and lower back down to the belay. Now build your anchor and bring your partner up. You will probably be belaying off of your belay loop (not directly off the anchor), with the rope to your follower redirected through the first bolt on pitch 2.
(According to the image, this may be known in Germany as a “plus clip”; Can any European climbers verify this?)
So, how does this reduce your risk?
The rope is now already clipped through the first bolt on pitch 2. When you swap leads and your partner begins pitch 2, they begin climbing with a “toprope” through the first bolt. (Note, because you backclipped and lowered, when your second gets up to the bolt, the rope will be in the correct orientation through the carabiner. So clever!)
This is a good thing for everybody, because now they can never take a factor 2 fall on to the anchor. (If YOU had fallen when you climbed to this bolt on the second pitch, it should be no problem, because you would have had a large amount of rope in the system to absorb the force.)
And, assuming you’re swinging leads, there’s another small benefit. There's no moving the belay device from one position into another, it stays on your harness in the same configuration, which is a minor time savings and one less thing to do at the belay transition.
Now, the obvious potential downside to this, as with any redirected belay, is that if for any reason that upper bolt were to fail when you are bringing up your second, it's going to introduce an amount of slack two times the distance to that first bolt. That’s probably going to cause one hell of a drop and shock load! In addition, the redirect has introduced a pulley effect on the top bolt. Granted, any bolt in a reasonably decent condition should be able to hold this force just fine.
If you keep a pretty snug rope on your second to minimize any slack, the top bolt should not take any kind of significant load, but it's still something to keep in mind. Even so, you probably should not do this when you’re trad climbing.
If you're not too excited about redirecting through that top bolt, keep on reading, there's a solution.
Now, if you forget to do a “plus clip”, or don't like the condition of the bolts and choose not to, you still have a few options.
The “chariot belay”
Lower yourself below the anchor with at least 3 meters of rope and have the climber clip the anchor as the first piece. Doing this puts more rope between the belayer and leader, eliminating the chance of a factor 2 fall. This is referred to by some as a “chariot belay”.
Keep in mind the chariot belay has a few downsides:
It might involve some tricky rope work, both for you to lower yourself and for you to get back up when it's time to start climbing, depending on the terrain. A prusik loop or Tibloc might be helpful to ascend the rope.
The terrain below your anchor might make this impractical, such as if the anchor is just above an overhang.
It's going to put some potentially large forces on your anchor. You have the force of the falling climber countered by the belayer holding the fall, which creates a 2:1 pulley effect on the anchor. Yes, you've technically avoided a factor 2 by having more rope out, but you're increasing the force on your anchor, which the thing you want to avoid in the first place.
In this case, it's probably best to do a fixed point belay. This solution does not prevent a factor 2, but it gives you a much greater chance of catching the fall, along with less force going onto your anchor. The fixed point lead belay is a new concept for many people, we cover it extensively here.
image credit: Derek DeBruin http://staff.weber.edu/derekdebruin/fixedpointbelay/Fixed%20Point%20Belaying%20Slides.pdf
Tie a “catastrophe knot” so you don't drop your leader
The second pitch goes straight up off of the belay. If the leader falls, they could hit the belayer. To be sure you maintain control of the rope if this happens, you can tie a “catastrophe knot” clove hitch in the brake strand of the rope, as we cover in this tip here. This does not prevent a factor 2 fall, but it's probably going to keep you from dropping your climber to the ground. (Yes, this has happened, in one tragic and fatal accident I know about at Smith Rock in Oregon.) But, that's why you do whatever you can to avoid the factor 2 in the first place, right?)
The Crafty Rope Trick (CRT) described below comes from the excellent book, “The Mountain Guide Manual”, by Mark Chavin and Rob Coppolillo. Highly recommended!
Here’s one more option. This is a clever rigging method that avoids the redirect / pulley effect from belaying your second through the high bolt, but still makes it available for a “top rope” through the first bolt on pitch 2.
You start things exactly as you did before for the “plus clip”: climb past the anchor, backclip the first bolt on the next pitch, and lower back to the anchor.
This time, rather than re-directing your belay through the high bolt, you tie a “Big Honkin’ Knot” (aka “BHK”, double strand overhand on a bight) through both strands of the rope going to and from the high bolt. This makes a double-stranded bight knot with two loops, which you then clip into the anchor. (You can also tie a clove hitch on the strand of the rope returning from the top bolt, and clip that onto your anchor.)
You now belay your second normally directly off of the anchor in front of you, NOT redirecting through the high bolt.
When your second arrives at the anchor, you untie the BHK or clove, pull through the entire rope through the top bolt until it goes tight on your partner (yes, this is a bit of a hassle) , and then put them on lead belay. They are now “top roping” through the first bolt on pitch 2 just as above, eliminating any possibility of a factor 2 fall.
Yeah, this might be a little hard to visualize, but go set it up in the rock gym or in a tree in your backyard or something and you'll figure it out pretty fast.
See the book below for a few illustrations on how to do this, pgs. 35-36. (There’s a LOT of other first class material in this book as well, highly recommended! Go buy it now!)
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