The “meat anchor”: what is it, how do you use it?
Photo credit: diagram by Andy Kirkpatrick, used with permission. From his excellent book “Down”, highly recommended!
This article was written with assistance from my expert canyoning friend Kevin Clark, author of “Canyoneering in the Pacific Northwest: A Technical Resource” Lots more on meat anchors in his book.
If you’re ever unfortunate enough to find yourself at the top of some terrain that needs to be rappelled, but has zero anchor building possibilities, you might want to pull the “meat anchor” out of your bag of tricks.
A meat anchor is where a person(s) is the actual anchor, so other people can rappel (or maybe be lowered) directly off of them.
The meat anchor is also known as a “human anchor”. It’s a variation of the classic sitting hip belay.
A meat anchor is often used in canyoning, where you often encounter a wide variety of terrain, with much of it possibly down-climbable and relatively short by alpine climbing standards.
The least skilled and/or heaviest person goes first. The most skilled climber (and hopefully the lightest climber) goes last. In a larger group, the anchor can be backed up by other team members when the first/heavier people are descending.
A meat anchor can also be used to belay someone who is downclimbing, or lowering, if necessary. (You’ll have a lower load on the anchor if they rappel.)
Of course, if you’re able to brace your feet on something, or sit your butt down in the snow, this can be remarkably strong and improves the security of your anchor.
Got more than two people? Share the load. Have them sit in a “train”, clipped to each other's harnesses, and have them back each other up. They can also sit side-by-side, and equalize the load off of each other's harness.
What else helps to decrease the load? Having the rope go over a ledge (which can decrease forces on the anchor up to 66%), having the rappeller go slowly with minimal bouncing, and have the rappeller begin as low to the rock as possible.
Here's a scenario that might be used with a larger group.
You come to a drop that you think is downclimbable, but aren't 100% certain. Set up a meat anchor (backed up), then an experienced party member downclimbs on belay. One of three outcomes:
They report back that it's an easy downclimb, so toss the rope down for them to coil, and everybody downclimbs.
They report that it can be downclimbed, but it's spicy - and might be better for the newbies to rappel. Newbies rappel off the human anchor and best climber goes last.
They have to be lowered, so it's a rappel for every one. Maybe the human anchor stays in position and have people start rappelling, while another person starts rigging an anchor nearby.
You're probably thinking, “What about the last person, what do THEY do? Of course, this doesn’t give many good options for the last person going down. Hopefully they’re able to downclimb. This often might be the case with a guide-client scenario, or a more experienced trip leader with beginners.
The first person down can place protection anywhere they can find it, and clip one rope strand to it. Then the last person can downclimb and clean the gear, while being belayed from below.
This technique is known in some circles as “downleading”, and it can be a good strategy whether or not you’re doing a meat anchor and want to safeguard the descent for the last person. Here’s an article on downleading.
So, this is a Crafty Rope Trick you’re hopefully not doing on a regular basis, but it might get you out of a sticky situation.
Photo: meat anchor with multiple “anchor points”
image: https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/114012583/transition-to-canyoneering
