Snapgate or locking carabiners on anchors?
This article was written with collaboration from AMGA Certified Rock Guide Max Lurie. Connect with Max on Instagram, @alpinetothemax and his website.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
