Clean sport anchors by lowering - New AAC guidelines
The sport climbing anchor debate of “should the last climber lower or rappel” debate has raged back-and-forth over many years. It’s not my wish to fan these flames.
But, shared here as more of an FYI, public service announcement, the American Alpine Club (AAC) has officially come out with the stance that they support lowering.
Summary of reasons:
Changing from one safety system to another (from belaying to rappelling), and the potential for communication errors regarding whether a climber is on or off belay, has contributed to many accidents. Here, the climber stays on belay the entire time.
The climber is never untied from the rope, which means they never have a chance to drop it.
No additional specialty gear, such as a rappel device, extra carabiners, daisy chain, tether, or PAS, is required.
The well intentioned rationale for rapping is usually to avoid putting wear and tear on the anchors, but the AAC calls this “. . . misplaced sense of stewardship that seeks to preserve anchor hardware.” Modern anchor hardware is extremely robust, and ideally meant to be easily replaced.
Here’s how to do it:
The second climber climbs the route, cleaning gear as needed.
The second climber arrives at the anchor, and clips directly to the masterpoint of the existing anchor. This connection can be made with either a quick draw, or a tether / PAS.
Remaining on belay, the second calls for slack, pulls up a large bight of rope, and feeds it through the anchor hardware meant for lowering.
The second ties an overhand or figure 8 on a bight, and clips it to their belay loop with a locking carabiner.
The second calls for “tension” or “take”. The second checks to see that they are being properly held by their belayer, the rope is threaded correctly through the anchor hardware, and their carabiner is locked.
The second cleans the anchor material from the bolts.
The second unties the rewoven tie in knot from their harness, and pulls the tail of the rope through the chains.
The second calls “ready to lower”, and lowers to the ground.
To clarify, this does not mean that a group of two or more should initially set up to top rope on the anchors. You should pretty much always do this on your own equipment. This scenario is only for the last person up the route, who needs to clean the gear and safely get back to the ground.
The AAC is certainly not saying that every sport climber should start to do this on all routes tomorrow, nor that it’s best in all situations. But for the AAC to make an official policy statement on this is a pretty big deal, many instruction schools and guiding companies are doing this already. So it’s important for the climbing community to be aware of this, regardless of your own thoughts on the matter.
Here's a nice graphic from Petzl that shows you the step-by-step:
image: Petzl.com
Here's a video from the American Alpine Club, showing this technique. The lowering procedure starts at about 3:10.
Here’s a nice video from AMGA Certified Rock Guide Cody Bradford, see how fast it can be?
While sadly Cody is no longer with us, his Instagram continues to stay up and is a great source of tips like this, check it out.
And here's a longer one, with IFMGA Guides, that goes over the steps in a bit more detail and a couple of different scenarios.
