The "double top rope quad" anchor
This tip and video come from AMGA Certified Rock Guide Cody Bradford.
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.
Say you’re toproping with a few friends on two adjacent routes that share one common anchor. It can be a challenge to set this up so you have two separate master points, while minimizing anchor cluster.
There are various ways to rig this, but here’s one that’s exceptionally simple and clean. Use a quad anchor, and put two opposite and opposed carabiners on each pair of the quad strands.
Your quad anchor could be a large length of cord (usually 7mm) tied in a big loop cordelette style, or the new school “mini quad” typically made with a 180 cm runner, as we cover in this tip here.
To make the master points, you can use two lockers, or one locker and one snapgate. Both are fine. The choice depends on the gear you have available and your general level of acceptable risk.
Is this example “overbuilt”? Maybe. Do you have to have locking carabiners all the way around. No. But hey, if you're out climbing with several people, I bet you can come up with six lockers! To me, it's sort of like looking both ways before you cross a one-way street. Technically you shouldn't have to do it, but in reality, there's no downside to doing it, and it may give you a warm fuzzy feeling. On this website and my Instagram, I am generally going to show the most conservative approach.
No one should “safety shame” you if you decide use all lockers. (Remember, YOU are responsible for your safety and level of acceptable risk; don't let other people's opinion or what you read on the inter-web dictate that for you.)
At a top rope anchor, the anchor is “unattended” - you’re not there to monitor the rigging maybe for hours at a time with perhaps many people using it. Given this, most folks use an anchor set up that is a little more secure (i.e., more lockers) than they might for a lead belay anchor, even though the potential forces involved in top roping are much less.
Safety note: It's best to use this set up on adjacent routes, and not to have two people climb the same route at the same time on different ropes. If you were to do this, you might have a situation where one loaded rope could be running over the other rope, not good. Clipping the rope through the top bolt or piece of gear on each route as a directional can help ensure the ropes stay away from each other.
