Improvised progress capture

In most any kind of hauling system, you need a way to capture the progress of your hauling, so the load doesn’t slip when you ease up on your pulling.

Sure, it’s great to have a nice progress capturing pulley like a Petzl Micro Traxion) every time you might need one, or maybe a prusik minding pulley. But, dang, those little suckers are expensive! Plus, often in a self rescue situation, you need to improvise and adapt with the gear you have available.

Another option is the so-called “prusik minding” pulley. This is a pulley with the narrow “sidewalls”. This means that the prusik catches on the pulley, and doesn’t get sucked into it. Yes, these work well, but for some reason they seem to cost about twice as much as a standard pulley. I don't understand this at all, and that's why I don't own one nor recommend them.

Here are a few methods.

• In all the photos below, the load strand is on the left, the pull strand is on the right.

• In most of the photos below, I’m using a carabiner rather than a pulley. Pulleys are better to reduce friction but minimalist climbers do not often have one.

---

1 - Quicklink

Add a quicklink to both rope strands as shown, above the prusik. This keeps prusik from getting sucked into the carabiner.

The success of this depends on quicklink size, rope diameter, prusik diameter, etc. Like with all self rescue techniques, be sure and test this at home before you rely on it in the field. (And yes, I get it that quicklinks are a heavy, single use piece of kit that some people choose not to carry. You’re especially unlikely to have one on a glacier climb.)

---

2 - Captive eye carabiner (here, a Grivel Clepsydra)

That tiny end of that carabiner that fits nicely around your belay loop? That also does a nice job of keeping the prusik hitch from pulling through.

I love this carabiner for glacier travel. Your carabiner never gets cross loaded, which can be important when you're clipped to the rope rather than tying in to the rope, the double gate design means it will never freeze shut or wiggle open, and it does extra duty as shown below if you need it.

---

3 - Belay device

Use a tube style belay device such as a Black Diamond ATC. However, this has a few downsides.

1. You have to be clever enough to install it when you’re building your system; you can't put it on after the rope is loaded. The benefit of the quicklink is that it can be added after the rope is loaded.

2. You just “lost” your ATC into the hauling system. Generally it's best to keep important personal gear available if possible in case you have to use it later.

3. For moderate glacier travel, many people choose not to bring a belay device at all. So you may not have one when you're most likely to need it. But for other hauling situations, it works pretty well.

---

4 - Ascender

Here's one for the aid climbers, who are likely to have a pulley and an ascender. Before progress capture pulleys were invented, this was the standard hauling method on big walls.

This looks like the rope is getting twisted as it goes through the pulley. In fact, once you put a load on it, the pulley and ascender line up quite nicely.

What size haul bag should I get?

I think the short answer to this is the largest size that you can comfortably carry. If you're under about 5’5”, the larger bags are going to have shoulder straps and waist loops that may not fit your body very well.

How long are the walls you're planning to climb? Are you heading up a short outing in Zion National Park, where you're probably going to be on the wall for maximum one night? Then you can use a smaller bag. Or, are you heading up El Capitan on an outing of more than about three days? Then you probably want the biggest bag you can manage.

Haul bag sizing and pricing is kind of an interesting situation.

Let's look at Metolius, one of the most popular brands. Their largest two bags are called the El Cap and the Half Dome. (Costs are as of Feb 2019)

• El Cap: 157 liters, weight 3.6 kg, cost $229

• Half Dome: 125 liters, weight 3.4 kg, cost $219

So, for only $10 more money, and a weight increase of only 0.2 kg, you get an extra 32 liters of storage! For me, that's a no brainer. I'm getting the El Cap.

Below: the Metolius haul bag line up. From left to right, Half Dome is #3, El Cap is #4.

image: https://www.metoliusclimbing.com/haul_bags.html

Having some extra room in your haul bag, rather than packing everything into it like a Chinese puzzle, can make your life a lot easier.

And, of course, you don't want to fit everything in your haul bag anyway. For things like your portaledge, garbage bag, poop tube, wall bucket and your day bag, you probably will be using gear tethers anyway, like we described on this tip.

Anchor your haul bag with a docking cord

Standard big wall practice for many decades was to girth hitch a sewn loop daisy chain to your haul bag, and then clip the daisy to the anchor with a locking carabiner.  Seems like a decent idea on the surface, doesn’t it?

But just try to unclip that monster bag from an awkward stance, if the bag is being pulled sideways, and any number of other scenarios, and the shortcomings quickly become obvious - you have to lift the entire weight of the bag with one hand/arm, and use your other hand to unclip the carabiner on the daisy. Yes, it sucks!

You don’t EVER want to be doing this if you can possibly avoid it!

Here’s the modern way: always attach your haul bag to the anchor with a system that is releasable under load - the docking cord. This is simply a 15 (or so) foot doubled length of 8 mm (or 7 mm) cord that’s used to tie a munter hitch plus a “barber pole” wrap to the anchor that can be easily released, even under full tension.

A Munter Mule overhand, aka MMO, on a single or double strand, work as well.

The lineage of the docking cord method is a little hard to trace, but it's generally attributed to Chongo, a legendary Yosemite aid climber, and then further popularized by Yosemite veterans Pete Zabrok and Mark Hudon. (Let's give credit where credit is due, eh?)

Nice diagram from vdiffclimbing.com. (Note that the docking cord is clipped to the master haul bag carabiner. I prefer tying it to the long strap on the haul bag, more on that below.)

image: vdiffclimbing.com/bigwall-hauling/

---

Where do you attach the docking cord?

Many people clip it directly to the master carabiner, as shown below on the right. However, if you do this, when the bag is docked, you have the weight of the bag also loading the master carabiner, which can make opening at the bag bit more difficult.

I think a better option is shown in the left photo below: tie the docking cord with a retraced overhand knot directly to the long strap. If you do this, after the bag is docked and you release tension on the haul rope, you have slack on the master carabiner, which makes getting in and out of your bag much easier.

---

Here's one more tip on where to tie your docking cord (which I unfortunately learned after I shot all these photos). Most haul bags have some sturdy sewn tabs around the opening. If your tie your docking cord to one of these tabs, you can dock the bag higher up on the anchor, which often makes accessing the bag more convenient. Plus, there is no tension on either of the black straps, which makes getting in and out of your bag easy, One potential downside of this is that your bag may not hang level which is usually okay.

The photo below is not mine, I borrowed it off of Instagram and no longer know the source. If it's yours, please let me know and I will give you proper credit.

---

Consider where the bag should go on the anchor. Something to keep in mind: does the next pitch traverse? If it does, you want the bag on that side. For example, if the next pitch traverses to the right, you want the bag docked on the right. If it’s docked on the left, when it's released, it's going to do it's best to treat you as a bowling pin as it’s lowered out. You will probably make this mistake only once. =^)

If the next pitch goes pretty much straight up, it doesn't really matter where the bag is docked. Generally, you want it away from where your partner is coming up, so if the last piece of gear is on the right, you generally want the bag docked on the left.

If it's the last pitch of the day and you're spending the night in a portaledge, you need to give some thought to where are you going to hang the ledge and hopefully dock the bags somewhat close by. If you're going to put on the ledge fly, you need to know where the opening is, and hang the bags next to the opening.

And one more thing: some people will tell you to always pull the bag up tight to the anchor. But, unless this is your bivy spot, that's really not so important. The bag can hang down quite a ways below the belay after docking. You shouldn't need to get into it during the day, because you were smart enough to bring a wall bucket, or day bag, right?

---

Here's a tip: After you have your pigs docked, you need transfer the load onto your docking cord. To do this, you need to release the cam on your hauling pulley. Here's one way way to do that. Put a Grigri onto the “pull” end of the haul line, close to the pulley. Sit down hard, push off the wall with your feet, whatever you need to do to lift the bag just a centimeter or so. Once you lift it, release the cam on your pulley. Now, use your Grigri to slowly lower the load onto the docking cord. Clever, no? (This crafty rope trick comes from the excellent big wall instructional book “Hooking Up”, by Pete Zabrok and Fábio Elli.)

---

While you're at the gear shop buying the cord, you might as well get another 30 feet of 8mm cord, of a few different colors, so you can make gear tethers, something we cover at this Tip.

Note: it’s a Good Idea to make your docking cord a bright obvious color that’s different than your gear tethers, so you can see at a glance which is which.

You probably wouldn’t be too excited about having your only connection to the anchor be a bit of 8 mm cord, and your haul bags probably feel the same way. After you make the primary connection with the docking cord, consider backing it up to something solid. If you have one bag, this could be clipping the haul rope to some other point on the anchor.

If you have two bags side-by-side, each bag is clipped to a different master point in the bags are clipped to each other, so one essentially backs up the other.

(Think through what would happen if that docking cord were to fail - your haul bag could potentially free fall 60 meters the length of the haul rope, which would then put that force onto your anchor. Bad news!)

---

Here’s what big wall expert Mark Hudon has to say about this system, from his website Hudonpanos.com:

“I use 15 feet of 8 mil cord, doubled. Tie an 8 knot loop in the middle and clip it to the main haul bag carabiner. When you reach an anchor, reach down and grab both strands of one docking cord. Run them up through a carabiner on the anchor (I hang a carabiner down from one of the large lockers of my “Anchor Kit”) and tie a Munter hitch using both cords. Once the Munter is tied, separate the cords and wrap them in opposite directions (aka “barber pole”) around and down the docking cord coming up from the haul bag. After five or six wraps, secure the ends with a simple square knot. Each haul bag has its own docking cord going to different master point carabiner (and each haul bag is clipped to the other) so my feeling is that one is backing up the other.

Releasing this knot and the bags is one of the great features of this system. Untie the square knot and unweave the 8 millimeter cord.

Only when you get to the Munter will you feel any pull on the cords from the bags. It’s casual to let the cords slip from you hand and set the bags free. If I’m with a partner, I can hold both bags with one hand and only one Munter, while waiting for the haul line to come tight and the bags to start moving.”

Here’s a nice video by Mark that shows a very clever way to transfer the haul bag from one part of the anchor system to another, using “far end hauler”, a Micro traxion pulley attached to the haul bag.

---

Here’s a video that covers it well.

---

Finally, here's a great diagram from the always amazing artist Mike Clelland, showing how the docking cord works with the other components of a tidy big wall anchor. Note that the diagram shows a single strand of rope tied with a Munter Mule; a bit different than the double strand method shown above, but accomplishes the same thing.

image credit: Mike Clelland

Keeping a fixed rope away from a sharp edge

This tip and diagrams are from the excellent British book “The Complete Guide to Climbing and Mountaineering” by Pete Hill.  

---

A fixed line that takes a load can be tensioned over a sharp rock edge, resulting in possible damage to the rope, or worse.

Here are two possible ways to prevent it.

1) If there’s a gear placement next to the offending rock bulge, some well placed pro may offer a directional that can keep the rope off the rock.  This gear needs to be very solid, as it may take the full load initially rather than the anchor.

2) If there’s no gear placement options, you might try this Crafty Rope Trick:  Using butterfly knots, you can add a sling into the system that can abrade on the rock, possibly sparing your rope.

Finally, if you anticipate the rope being loaded over an edge, you may want to bring a designated rope protector length of hose like this one.

Climbing "shades of grey" - Dealing with conflicting advice

Short version: A vast majority of climbing techniques are not black or white, right or wrong, but exist along a continuum of subjectivity and best practice. If you receive climbing advice that differs from what you already know, ask "Why do you like to do it this way, and what might happen if I do it differently?"

---

It’s day one of climbing school. You’re out at the local crag with a handful of instructors and a few other eager students. One instructor, over the course of an hour or so, shows you how to belay and tie a few knots. You take a break, rotate to another instructor, and they then proceed to tell you a different method to belay and a different way to tie the same knots.

Aaaaaarrrgh! Confusion and frustration! Who should you listen to?

Sound familiar?

Just about every climber can think of situations in their climbing education where they received wildly different advice on a particular topic or technique. Your climbing mentor tells you to belay with your palm up, but the "Freedom of the Hills" instruction book suggests belaying palm down. There seems like a dozen different ways to tie a butterfly knot and everyone wants to convince you their way is the best. You get the idea. When you’re learning, it sometimes seems like everything is like this!

(And let's not get started on YouTube, where Reinhold Messner himself could post a climbing instruction video and even then some yahoos would rip his "incorrect technique" apart in the comment section.)

After you have some experience under your belt, you may be better able to interpret conflicting advice like this, but it can be especially confounding for the newer climber.

New folks are doing their best just to get their heads around the foundational skills, while underneath it all, anxiety is amplified because we all know we are doing a sport that can get you killed in an instant if you do something critical the wrong way.

Here are two approaches to hopefully cut through this fog. One is to understand that climbing techniques exist along a sliding scale. Two is to remember a back-and-forth dialogue needs to happen when you hear conflicting advice.

Let’s dive into each of these.

---

One: sliding scale

It’s part of human nature to want to put things in a binary box. Is it A or B?  Am I right or wrong? Are you liberal or conservative? Is this restaurant great or terrible? This worldview takes less mental energy than trying to weigh the nuances of real life.

But, we all know that most things in life exist along a continuum, a sliding scale of ambiguity between one extreme or the other. The same is true in climbing.

There are actually very few climbing techniques that we can call black or white, set-in-stone, always-do-it-this-way-or-you’re-gonna-have-serious-consequences. I’m giving this a very subjective number of about 10%.

What are some of those black and white rules? Try to think of a few right now.

• Never glissade with crampons on.

• Never take your brake hand off the rope when you're rappelling or belaying.

• Always check your partner's harness and knot before they start to climb.

• Always double back your harness buckle.

You can probably think of a few more, but there really aren’t a whole lot more than that!

That means the other 90% of climbing techniques exist along a continuum somewhere in the middle. You could divide these into five general categories:

1 - Never do it this way, you're gonna die or get seriously hurt. Example: Glissading with crampons.

2 - Outdated technique that has a few problems, but you’re not gonna die. Example, using 1-inch webbing for everything.

3 - Completely up to you, flip a coin.  Example: using loose chalk or a chalk ball.

4 - Generally preferred modern method, best practice: Example: belaying directly off the anchor in fifth class rock, as opposed to off your belay loop.

5 - Pretty much everyone agrees you should do it this way: Example: Tying knot(s) in the end of your rappel rope so you don’t zing off the ends.

So, this means that the vast majority of climbing techniques are fairly subjective and generally up to your personal preference. Good news, if you do it a different way, you’re probably not going to die! Hopefully this is comforting to the beginning climber who's trying to sort out all this well-intended advice that often comes from different directions.

---

So, that tells us that this climbing game is not as black-and-white as some people might lead you to think. What's the next step of sorting through the advice? How to decide what you want to absorb and what you want to discard? 

esteemquotes.com

Bruce, that's terrific advice, but as new climbers, it's hard to decide "what is useful and what is not". How do we do that?

Here's how. Simply ask, “What could happen to me if I do it differently than what you just showed me?”

---

Two: Reasons and Consequences

For the giver of advice (instructor): when you offer advice or suggestions, try to follow that up with your rationale(s) for doing so, and the potential consequences of doing it another way.

For the receiver of advice (student): if you hear something that's different from what you already think is correct, try to ask two questions (in a respectful way and ideally at a time that doesn’t interrupt the teaching flow.)

• The first question is: “Why do you like to do it that way?”

• The second question is, “What might happen if I do it another way?”

(Of course, this is much easier to do when you’re face-to-face with someone, as opposed to reading a book, magazine, or web post).

“Why do you like to do it that way?”  If the person offering the advice can immediately answer with a few tangible reasons WHY, then you might well think: “Dang, they know their stuff and have clearly thought this through. It’s different than what I’ve learned, but I’m going to consider this alternative method.”

On the other hand, if your instructor person shrugs their shoulders and says “Well, I dunno, I’ve just always done it like that and I think you should too," then that’s not a very compelling argument for their technique.

“What might happen if I do it another way?”  If the answer is "Ehhh, not much", then no problemo, you can pretty much choose whatever method suits you. But, the answer is "If you do it differently than what I taught you, there's a good chance of serious consequences, which are X, Y and maybe Z,” then that's something you should probably pay attention to.

I think you get the idea. Subjectivity is an essential part of climbing, and it's not nearly as black-and-white as many instructors make it out to be. Do your best to embrace the “shades of grey” and develop your own techniques and style within the sliding scale of accepted methods.

Snow telemetry for winter trip planning

Snow telemetry, or “SNOTEL”, is a system of snowpack data monitoring stations around the western USA. They offer real time snowpack data for a specific location. If you’re planning a trip in the general area at around that same elevation, you can probably expect to see about that same level of snow.

Below are some screenshots from showing how you can get started.

(Note that some of the screenshots are a year or two old, and the current website might look a little different.)

If you want to see snowpack models for the whole Western USA that are made from these data, you can learn about those here.

---

SnoTel stations in the Western USA (from CalTopo.com > Realtime Data)

From here, you can zoom in on one particular area of interest. For this example, we’ll look at the south side of Mt. Hood Oregon.

Above each small circle, if you squint a bit you can see three numbers. The top is the current snow depth in inches, the middle is the “snow water equivalent” (not of much interest to most backcountry users) and the bottom is the current temperature.

If you click on the red circle, you get a pop up graph of basic data from the previous seven days. If you want to take a deeper dive into the data, click on the “Official Site” link in the graph.

That brings up a page that looks something like this:

From here, you can look at all sorts of tables and graphs of past data. What has the snow depth and temperature variation been over the previous month? Was there a freeze thaw cycle, which might solidify the snow pack? You can view the data in a table or a graph. Choose what flavor of data you want to view, use the “Layout” drop-down to select a chart, use the “Time Period” drop-down to select dates you want to see, such as previous 30 days.

(Some of the charts shown below are from a year or so ago. The website is re-formatted regularly and what you see may not quite look like this.)

Table of recent snow data. See snow depth and air temperature. Can show at a glance if there’s a freeze/thaw cycle.

and a graph. The red line shows exact snow depth at that location.

---

In Feb 2021, Gaia GPS added a snow telemetry map layer as well, available for premium level membership. They are layer is a bit more user-friendly, because it has some color coding to show whether snow is melting or accumulating. Here's a screen grab of that, with the legend added to the lower left corner.

And zoomed out a bit . . .

Belay jackets 101

Andy enjoying a lovely afternoon in Antarctica. Credit, Andy Kirkpatrick collection.

The concept of a belay jacket has various origin stories, but American climber Mark Twight is typically credited with popularizing the idea.  Old school layering used to be something like: base layer, fleece or wool, hard shell on top.

But with a belay jacket, you dress more like a  minimalist cross-country skier - when skiing, you don't need much in the way of layering, because you're maintaining your heat through movement.  But if you stop for more than a few minutes, you better have something to put on.

Applied to climbing, you may start with a base layer and maybe a wind shell when moving. But in your pack is a VERY warm jacket to put on quickly over everything when you stop.

British climbing expert and winter hardman Andy Kirkpatrick has a wonderful, deep dive article on his website that covers the history, theory, design features and recommended models for belay jackets. It’s a great read for all cold-weather athletes.

(Yes, it’s a few years old, but the general principles don't change much.)

A learning sequence for any vertical rope skill

If you want to learn any rope skill that if you screw it up, there's a high chance you're going to die, here’s a conservative learning sequence you might want to follow. It increases the odds of you learning the skills and getting through the process in one piece.

Yes, that may sound a little dramatic, but learning new vertical rope skills is no joke.

For beginners, this might be rappelling.  For more advanced folks, it could cover Crafty Rope Tricks like passing a knot on a single rope rappel, or moving the rappel knot past an obstacle.

Let's use learning to rappel as an example.

1. Watch any solid instructional videos you can find. (Start on the alpinesavvy Video page)

2. Recruit a friend who knows what they’re doing with a few tasty beverages or dinner.

3. Start first on flat ground. It’s easy to do this in a park by throwing a sling around a tree and just walking backwards to get a feel for the basic movement.

4. Then try doing it on a staircase. Again, work with your partner. This gives you the feel of actually putting your body weight on the rope with minimal consequences if you screw up.

5. Finally, you’re ready for something vertical yet very close to the ground, where you can practice your moves under the careful eye of your experienced friend. Unfortunately, due to liability issues, most rock gyms do not smile upon people practicing Crafty Rope Tricks. Always ask first. You may have to be resourceful and find something on your own, A short retaining wall of 10 or 20 feet as a possible option. How about a tree? The first few times you rappel for real, having a back up belay of some kind is an excellent idea.

6. FInally, You can try rappelling from a real life stance, ideally with a skilled climber standing next to you while you do the entire set up, and remaining on a belay of some kind the first few times you try it.
   
   

Airflare - An app that helps search teams find you

The AirFlare app is a unique way to use your phone to assist search and rescue teams to find you in the wilderness.

For an app that’s essentially weightless and for a very modest monthly cost, you could have additional peace of mind on your backcountry adventures. 

The technology behind it is quite sophisticated, but it’s well explained on their website if you want details.

From their website: 

“AirFlare transforms your mobile phone into a wilderness rescue beacon that provides search teams multiple ways to find you on and off grid. AirFlare adds no weight or bulk to your pack, works with limited or no cellular service, extends off-grid battery life to a week or longer and requires no user action to be searchable. Leveraging the cell phone already in your pocket, AirFlare is a low cost, easy to use, lifesaving tool you don’t need to remember to pack.”

As more search and rescue teams hopefully embrace this technology, having the app on your phone becomes more and more useful.

DIY - measure UTM coords with your baseplate compass

If your map has a printed UTM grid on it (which is a good idea for various reasons, covered on this tip) you can, with a little practice, be able to estimate your position down to about 100 meters or so. This should be good enough for most applications.

However, if you’re into precision navigation, or want to make your map positioning a bit more accurate, here’s a quick DIY compass hack to increase your accuracy. 

Side note: You may have read of a little clear plastic device (above) made to do this, which is known as a “Romer” (supposedly after the British military officer who invented them.) These do allow you to do various bits of map and compass wizardry a little more easily, but they are small, easy to lose, only work for maps with a certain scale, and in general are not very suitable for civilian users, so I don’t recommend them for most people.

Let’s get to it.

You need:

1. a roll of athletic tape

2. a map with a kilometer scale bar divided into 100 meter increments

3. fine tip pen

(Note that if you print out a map from CalTopo, it should have a perfect scale bar for doing this.)

Put a thin strip of athletic tape on the top and right hand edges of your compass base plate. Trim away any extra tape.

Place the top right corner of the baseplate on the one kilometer mark of the scale bar.

At each 100 meter increment, draw a small tick mark onto the tape.

Repeat this for the right-hand edge of your compass.

When you're done, your compass should look like this:

Now, you can measure UTM coordinates on your map. Put the top right corner of the base plate on the point you want to measure, and then read the tick marks in 100 meter increments to the left for easting and down for northing.

Example: Put the top right corner of the baseplate on a map feature, in this example Sisson Lake. We can see at glance that, within the 1,000 meter grid square, the easting is about 500 meters and the northing is about 300 meters.

(Note - If you change to a map with a different scale, you’ll need to start over and copy the new scale bar.)

A true story: drinking water trailside in Nepal

Two trekker guys are hiking on the Annapurna circuit, a 200+ km trail in the beautiful Nepal Himalaya. One of them has a water bladder in his pack. The two guys stop for a break next to some porters who are carrying loads of supplies up to higher villages. It turns out that one of the porters speaks some English.  A conversation begins.

The porter asks, “What is that tube coming out of your pack?” The trekker guy replies, “It's for drinking water.”

The porter looks a little puzzled. He asks, “Why not use a water bottle?” Trekker guy says, “Because the tube lets me drink while I’m walking.”

Porter: “Why do you want to drink when you’re walking?” Trekker: “So I don't have to stop as often.”

Porter: “Why don't you want to stop?” Trekker: “So I can walk faster.”

Porter: “Why do you want to walk faster?” Trekker guy, pausing a moment: “So . . . I can walk more farther in a day and finish my hike sooner.”

The porter pauses. He talks with a few of his friends in Nepalese and they shrug their shoulders and chuckle. The porter turns back to the trekkers.

The porter says, “What do you think of Nepal?”

The trekker takes a deep breath, looks around at the stunning mountains, and back to the porter. He says, “This is really a trip of a lifetime for me. I've been dreaming of coming to Nepal for years, and it's one of the most beautiful places I could ever imagine."

The porter gives him a big smile. "I agree", he says, "it is very beautiful. That’s why there's no need to rush. You will be here probably just once in your whole life. So, my friend, take your time, drink your water slowly, have lots of breaks like the one we are having now, and enjoy your trip, these mountains and my beautiful country. Namaste.”

Climbing Gear Strength Ratings

Ever wonder how strong that pro or gear really is?  Here’s a list to get you started, and maybe help you win an argument or two.  I wanted to see a list like this for a long time, and after scouring the web and not finding any, decided to make my own. 

Metric notes:  A kilonewton (kN) is a metric unit of force. 1 kN is equal to about 100 kg / 225 lbs.  Ratings are rounded to the nearest kN.

Sources:  http://www.fishproducts.com, tech pages, “The Mountaineering Handbook”, by Craig Connally, the always awesome Petzl website, various web retailers, checking the gear ratings on some of my own stuff and in the local gear shop.

I made two lists. One is gear ranked in descending order, and the other is gear ranked by category (like seeing small, medium and large stoppers all ranked side by side.)

---

---

Takeaways (for me)

• Even with a severe factor 1 fall, the force on the belayer is only a tiny 2 kN.

• There's a BIG increase in strength from 6mm cord to 7 mm cord. Use 7 mm for cordelettes.

• A tiny wiregate carabiner may be stronger than a honker "belay" style carabiner.

• A well placed bolt is never going to fail you.

• You can almost rappel on your shoelaces; 2 kN is about the most force you can apply to the anchor.

• Climbing ropes are not tested for tensile breaking strength like most other gear. Because they are so stretchy, they absorb a huge amount of force before they have a break. But, if you stretch a rope until it breaks, that will probably happen between 14 and 18 kN. Click each link to see the relevant test results. 14 kN was for an old crusty rope, 18 kN was for a new one. Either one is super good enough.

---

Here's a video for our friends at Hownot2.com, breaking an older rope. Start at 9:45.

DIY - Nail polish marks The Spot on your crampons

If you wear your crampons with one and only one pair of boots, you can stop reading.  But many climbers swap crampons between different size shoes, such as stout boots for a more technical climb, and maybe lighter ones for later season travel.

Unless you remember the right crampon setting for each boot, switching from one shoe to another can lead to a trial and error process of finding the correct size setting.

(Do I use crampon hole number 6 or 7 for the light summer boot I’ll take on my moderate glacier climb?)

After you get your crampons dialed into the correct length for the boots you use most often, try this simple trick to be sure you can easily reset them.

Dab a spot of fingernail polish around the crampon hole that matches your most-used climbing boot.  That way, if the crampons ever are moved from that adjustment, it’s easy to see the right setting and move it back.

If you want to get fancy, you could use two different marks, one for each different sized boot.

Fingernail polish is also great for marking metal climbing gear like rock and snow pro.

Carry an ice screw for crevasse rescue

When you're on a glacier climb with a moderate to high risk of a crevasse fall, consider carrying an ice screw.

• If you do fall into a crevasse, you can hopefully sink the ice screw and clip yourself to it. This can take your body weight off the rope, which will make life a LOT easier for your partner(s) on top to set up a hauling system, or allow them a bit of slack in the rope so they can put some sort of padding under the rope at the lip of the crevasse. If you have a second ice screw (which maybe your partner on top can lower down to you) you could even aid climb your way out of the crevasse.

• The more obvious use is anchor building up top. You'll want a longer screw (16 cm minimum) to be sure you get good purchase in the glacial ice, which is often not the best quality.

For the weight conscious, it's hard to beat the Petzl Laser Speed Light ice screw (photo above). They have steel teeth, an aluminum tube, and are about 40% lighter than a similar steel screw.

Here’s a photo of my better side in my Petzl “Tour” harness, a super lightweight harness designed for ski mountaineering and alpine climbing. Notice on each leg loop, there are two elastic tabs designed for holding an ice screw. Even on a minimalist harness like this, Petzl thought it was worthwhile to have a place to tuck away not one, but two, ice screws. It's not for ice climbing, it's for crevasse rescue.

(And no, that’s not a sexy lightweight aluminum screw as mentioned above, but you get the idea.)

---

This tip is mentioned in the book "The Mountain Guide Manual", by Marc Chauvin and Rob Coppolillo. It’s an excellent resource for more advanced technique, check it out!

Protect a descent with “downleading”

Scenario:  Your team needs to descend a tricky section (steep snow / low 5th / 4th class) that’s about 1 pitch long.  The most skilled climber on the team feels fairly confident they can safely down climb it . . . but they’d feel better with some sort of backup.

A Crafty Rope Trick (CRT), sometimes called “downleading”, can be used to protect the last climber in this situation.

First, one end of the rope is fixed to an anchor and the other end tossed down. Then, all but the last 2 climbers descend the fixed rope, by rappelling the single line or by downclimbing protected by a friction knot.

Here's what happens next.

1. The second to last climber places protection (snow or rock) as they descend, and then clips the rope to the pro. These placements should be below any tricky moves, not above.

2. The last person, typically a more skilled climber, unties the fixed rope, then ties the rope into their harness.

3. A climber at the bottom puts the top/last climber on belay.

4. The top climber then downclimbs the pitch cleaning gear as they come to it, just as if they were “seconding” a route. The gear prevents the last climber from a big fall should they come off. The last climber ideally climbs below each piece of gear before they clean it, to reduce the length of any possible fall.

diagram: Andy kirkpatrick from his great book, “Down”

Rappel tip - Getting the knot past an obstacle

Note - This post discusses techniques and methods used in vertical rope work. If you do them wrong, you could die. Always practice vertical rope techniques under the supervision of a qualified instructor, and ideally in a progression: from flat ground, to staircase, to vertical close to the ground before you ever try them in a real climbing situation.

---

Scenario:  You’re the last one rapping on two ropes tied together and you’re worried about the knot sticking on the corner of the ledge or in a crack near the anchor. (In the Portland Oregon area, the rappel off of Rooster Rock in the Columbia River Gorge has a notorious knot-eating crack at the top, and is a great place to use this technique.)

Try this Crafty Rope Trick (CRT) to move the knot past the obstacle.

1. Move the knot as close as you can to the ledge, obstacle or crack you’re concerned about.

2. Girth hitch a two foot single runner above the knot, clip the other end to your belay loop with an extra carabiner (not the big locker to which your rap device is attached), and begin to rappel.

3. The knot will move along with you as you rap down. Once the knot is past any ledges or cracks where it might hang up, unweight the rope for a moment, unclip the runner from your harness, remove it from the rope, and continue your rap to the bottom.

This may be a little hard to visualize when you first read it, but try it once or twice and it should make sense.

---

A few cautions:

1) Practice this in a safe place!  A staircase is a fine place to learn.  It’s a little unnerving to see one side of the rope NOT sliding through your rap device, and the other strand sliding through twice as fast!

2) Doing this will cause one end of the rope to rise, so be sure both ends of the rope touch the ground or reach the next rap station with room to spare. Follow the best practice of always having a closed rope system; usually a stopper knot in the ends of your rappel rope, or the ends tied together. The first person down has the task of managing the rope ends. On a multi pitch rappel, a good way to do this is threading one rope end through the lower anchor and then tying the ends together to be sure the rope strands stay connected to the lower anchor.

3) This method is more complex on a free hanging rappel, as this makes it harder to unweight the rope to unclip the sling. If you see that the first few feet of your rappel is completely free hanging, then you want to add a load releasable hitch, such as a Mariner’s knot, or maybe a Purcell prusik (which can extend under load) to the system so you can release it under tension.

4) Be sure to use a single length / 60 cm runner.  Using a longer runner will probably cause the knot to be out of reach when you want to remove it from the rope.

5) Only do this when you have a metal-to-rope (carabiner, rap ring, chain, or quicklink) connection at your anchor. This technique causes the rope to slide through the anchor under load. This is something you NEVER want to do with a webbing connection, even if it's only for a few feet.

6) Hopefully this is obvious, but this maneuver only needs to be done by the LAST person coming down the rope.

7) Oh, and please practice this a few times on a staircase at first, willya?

1 - Rig for normal double rope rappel.

2 - Girth hitch a single length / 60 cm runner above the knot connecting the ropes.

3 - Clip the runner to your belay loop. (Note: in the photo below it’s clipped to the belay carabiner; the belay loop is better.)

Now as you rappel, the knot will move along with you. When the knot is past the obstacle, unclip the runner from your harness, remove the girth hitch, and continue your rappel.

DIY - Add gear loops to your pack for alpine climbing

On alpine rock routes, you’re probably wearing a pack. Even on longer one day routes from basecamp, at least one pack (maybe carried by the second) is usually needed for water, munchies, shoes for the walk off, and maybe a cap or windbreaker. But one of the Big Hassles with wearing a pack is that the pack waist belt can interfere with accessing the gear loops on your harness.

Counter this by adding two loops of parachute cord and tubing onto your shoulder straps.

These shoulder strap gear loops are a super handy place to keep some rock pro, a few extra carabiners and a nut tool, without fighting to get at the gear on your climbing harness hidden by your waist belt. Also, when cleaning a pitch as a second, it’s a fast and easy-to-reach place to clip gear. Of course you're not going to keep your entire rack for a long pitch on these gear loops, but more like a handful of pieces you anticipate needing between one good stance and the next.

(Some climbers may rack snow pickets and ice screws here as well.  But, keep in mind what this sharp flying metal in close proximity to your face might do to you if you take a fall. Not my first choice . . . )

---

Here's how to do it.

Supplies:

• 12 inches of 3/8 inch plastic tubing (internal diameter - “ID” of 1/4 inch, get this at any well-stocked hardware store)

• About 32 inches of parachute cord

• 2 zip ties (optional)

• knife/scissors

• lighter

Cut the tubing and cord in half, so you have two 6” pieces of tubing and two 16” pieces of parachute cord.

Patiently push the parachute cord through the tubing. Note, do NOT burn the ends of the cord before you do this, otherwise it won't fit through the tube. Ask me how I know this . . .

Bring the ends of the tubing together, and tie an overhand knot in the parachute cord around your pack strap, as close to the tube ends as you can. This should make the tube into a nice oval shape, and give you an inch or so of tail in the parachute cord.

Now you can burn the ends of the parachute cord to seal them. Do this outside or in a well ventilated area, use a candle or cigarette lighter, and have a small bowl of water to dunk the ends in once they are burning a bit.

This next step is optional, but nice to do if you have zip ties. Take two zip ties, and secure the tails of each loop of para-cord to your backpack strap. This helps keep the gear loops vertically aligned so they don't flop around. Trim off the zip tie after you’ve cinched it tight. (Below left, untrimmed zip tie, on the right, trimmed zip tie.) (Note that the zip ties are not loadbearing at all, they're there to keep the loop oriented up and down.)

Ready for action.

Learn the "V clove" anchor

I first saw this clever technique from a video posted by Josh Beckner, an IFMGA certified mountain guide. A link to his video is below. Thanks Josh! Connect with Josh and the School for International Expedition Training.

---

When building a three piece gear anchor, many climbers will automatically reach for the cordelette. However, if all you have is a double length / 120 cm sling, and if your gear is pretty close together, here are a couple of ways to rig it.

One way is using a girth hitch at the master point, covered here.

Or, try the “V clove” anchor.

Will you use the V Clove very often? Maybe not. But for more advanced climbers, it’s a fine trick to add to the toolbox.

Note: if you have one gear placement that's noticeably better than the other two, it’s best to make that placement the one that gets clipped, not one of the two placements with the clove hitches. Doing this can slightly improve theload distribution, because the additional strand of sling can mean a slight increase in load going to this piece. (In the example below, that would be the placement on the right.)

Here’s how to do it.

---

Place 3 pieces of solid gear.

Clove hitch a double length / 120 cm sling to the left piece, with the stitching close to the clove hitch.

Add a second clove hitch to the middle carabiner. Try to get the stitching between these two clove hitches to keep it out of the way.

Next, clip the sling to the right carabiner.

Clip a master point locking carabiner to the two strands that are hanging down.

Tie an overhand knot, you’re done.

Check out the video below for full instructions, starting at 3:00.

---

How strong it it?

Ryan Jenks from HowNOT2.com tested this anchor. With a Dyneema sling, it broke around 15 kN.

While not as strong as some other methods, given that the maximum possible force in recreational climbing is around 8-ish kN, this anchor is definitely strong enough, IMHO.

Here is a link to his YouTube short video showing the testing.

Below is a screen grab.

Sport climbing tip - use a quickdraw for a “fifi hook” rest

You’re working a sport route at the upper end of your leading ability. You are practicing dialing all the moves, and don't care how many takes you need from your patient belayer.  Here's a simple tip to give your rope and belayer a break.

Start your climb with a quickdraw clipped to your belay loop.

When you make it to the next bolt where you need a break, clip a draw, clip your lead rope, then clip the belay loop draw into the draw on the bolt.

Clip to whatever carabiner is convenient. Top or bottom, it doesn’t matter.

You can now take a full rest while hanging on your own draw, shaking out your arms, and scoping the next few moves.

This is known in some circles as “clipping in direct.” Other folks call it a “dog draw”, because you’re “hangdogging” the route.

(Bonus Tip - fingers pointed up, not down, is the Better Way to shake out. With your fingers pointed up, gravity helps the blood flow faster away from your pumped out forearms.)

This is essentially using the quickdraw clipped to your belay loop as a fifi hook, a device used by big wall climbers to clip in and hang whenever they need a break.

You of course remain on belay the entire time. But because you never called for a take, your belayer is not holding your weight on the rope, giving them a rest as well. Most important, you’re not losing your hard-won gain up the rock due to the rope stretch. It also gives the rope a chance to relax.

Some people might be concerned that chaining quickdraws together like this might cause some nicks/burrs that might damage the rope. This is theoretically possible, but I've never noticed a problem with it. Your mileage may vary.

When you're ready to climb again, unclip your “fifi” carabiner, let it hang again from your belay loop, work the next few moves until you get to the next bolt, and repeat as necessary.

---

Here's the classic big wall fifi hook. (Yeah, I know it needs a release loop in that top hole . . .) If you have one of these, you can certainly use it instead of a quickdraw. Slightly easier to take out.

Learn the "SWAMP" anchor

I first saw this anchor in action at Smith Rock in central Oregon about 15 years ago.  I was in the “mouth” on Monkey Face, belaying my partner on the airy aid pitch. While waiting, a Canadian guide popped up from another route, and set up this anchor in about 15 seconds to fix the rope for his partner.  “DANG”, I said, “That’s pretty slick, I've never seen an anchor built like that before.” He said it was common practice in Canada and the UK, where he had lived for a while.

I'm sure this rig has some different names of different parts of the world, but in the US it’s known as a “SWAMP” anchor, which stands for “Shelf Without A Master Point.” (I think this name is kind of lame, but I don't have anything better. If you know it by a different name, please tell me.)

The SWAMP anchor is simply an overhand knot tied in about the middle of a sling. Each end of the sling gets clipped to an anchor / bolt, and a master point locker gets clipped to the two loops made by the knot.

• Fast to make, simple, minimal gear, decent load distribution, no extension, and completely redundant, pretty sweet!

• Downsides: 1) no shelf (but those are a bit overrated, IMHO) and 2) might be a bit hard to untie after loading, depending on the sling material. (Some folks seem concerned about lack of redundancy if one leg were to be cut and then a heavy load applied to the other leg. In a recreational climbing scenario I think this is extremely unlikely to happen, but in other anchor applications it might be a concern.)

• Tying a standard cordelette style rig with a 60 cm sling usually doesn’t work, because the knot and loop take up too much of the sling material.

• A girth hitch master point solves pretty much the same issue and is easier to untie. Try them both and see which one you like better.

• As seen in the video, this is only used on a 2 piece anchor.

• It’s completely redundant and non-extending, but like all statically equalized systems, does not do so well in the load distribution / equalization department.  However, if you have a well defined direction of pull, and all you've got to build your anchor is one shoulder length sling, this can be a good #CraftyRopeTrick to have in the toolkit.

---

Let's address one common objection right off the bat: how strong is this? Yes you are completely reliant on that one knot holding. Good news: #SuperGoodEnough!

I tested this configuration with Ryan Jenks / HowNot2.com in spring 2023, and the results are below. About 20 kN in Dyneema, and about 28 kN in nylon. Being that your rope is going to break around 16 or 18, I think 20 is just fine.

---

Here’s a nice video posted by Josh Beckner, an IFMGA certified guide, covering just about all aspects of building 2 piece anchors. The SWAMP is demonstrated starting at 11:10.

And, here’s a photo sequence showing how it’s done.

Clip a single runner to one bolt or gear placement.

Tie an overhand knot in about the middle of the sling.

Clip the sling to the second bolt or gear placement.

FInally, clip in the master point carabiner and rotate the knot upwards a bit so it doesn’t abrade on the rock. Done!

---

You can also tie it with a double length / 120 cm sling. Can we call this the “Double SWAMP?”

Double over the sling, tie an overhand knot, clip one loop to each bolt.