Make a sling anchor with just one carabiner

This tip comes 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.

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Note - The following tip is intended for more advanced climbers to add to the toolbox, and not meant as standard practice. Use carabiners when possible to attach a runner to bolts/chains/gear.

Someday in your climbing career, you’ll need to build an anchor after you’ve pretty much run out of carabiners.

If you have just one sling (either a double length/120 cm or a single length/60 cm) and one carabiner for the master point, you (might be) in business.

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Note / disclaimer:

This example is on a bolted anchor with rap rings. The rings give a nice rounded metal edge and is bomber strong. While you could get away with it, it's not best practice to girth hitch a runner directly into a bolt hanger or to a stopper cable. If you do this and catch any sort of significant fall on the runner, inspect it carefully and possibly retire it. On the other hand, testing has shown that hitching a sling to a stopper cable can hold between about 8 kN and 12 kN, which is probably more than you think. Can a bolt hanger be much worse than that? So, like I said, something for the advanced climber’s toolbox, and not for standard practice. See the last photo at the bottom of the page for what you generally do NOT want to do.

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Girth hitch a double length runner through one of the bottom rings, here the left. Try to get the runner’s stitching close to the girth hitch.

Pass the other end of the runner through the other ring, here the right.

Bring the loops together and clip your master point carabiner like so.

and tie it off with an overhand knot, done.

and here’s a video from AMGA Guide Cody Bradford showing how it’s done. (Note that Cody is using Metolius rappel hangers, which have a larger, rounded, sling/rope friendly edge than a regular bolt hanger.)

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How strong is this?

I posted a similar set up to this on Instagram, and got a fair amount of disparaging comments about girth hitch weakening the sling, never put a knot in Dyneema, Yer Gonna Die (YGD), this is stupid, blah blah blah.

So, I visited my gear breaking buddy Ryan at How NOT2, and we tested it.

Well, it did break . . . the steel carabiner, at 31 kN!

That's pretty crazy so I'm gonna say it again. The steel carabiner broke before the sling! Case closed, #MoreThanSuperGoodEnough.

Here's the video from HowNOT2 to showing the testing.

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This can also work if you have two pieces that are vertically offset, or if one is a piton. Note the girth hitch at the master point. This example comes from a nice PDF file showing some European style anchor techniques, made by the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (“Verband Deutscher Berg und Skiführer” or “VDBS”).

Supposedly, this style of anchor is more common in the south Tirol / Dolomites. In this area, the rock is often fractured or heavily featured and there's often fixed fixed gear. Using slings like this to connect directly to pitons and rings means there’s less chance of a carabiner being loaded sideways over an edge.

image: Standplatzlogik VDBS 2019 - Ausbildungsstandard VDBS & Alternativen

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Other rigging options - chains and a single length / 60 cm runner

You can also do this with a single length/60 cm runner. But you won’t be able to tie it off with an overhand knot as shown above, because it's too short.

One option is to make a girth hitch at the master point, which uses less sling material than an overhand knot. (Don't freak out about this, a girth hitch is fine to use at the master point. We cover it extensively at this tip.)

Or, even easier, if the chains are long enough, you might be able to clip both of them with the single big locker and have that be your Masterpoint. Yes, it's cool to do this and don't worry about three-way loading, we cover that in this article.

Oh, and on your next lead, bring a couple extra carabiners for the anchor, will you? When your partner arrives with some extra gear and freaks out about the anchor you built, feel free to add a some carabiners from their rack if it makes them happy. =^)

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If you happen to face this situation with only hangers and no chains/rings, it's still doable, but WAY Less Than Ideal. Please don't rig an anchor like this unless you really have to. Going straight through the bolt hangers is not the greatest. You may want to: 1) Check the sling after you’re done and retire if needed; 2) Brace the belay if you can with your body and belay from your belay loop; 3) Rebuild this with proper carabiners once your partner gets to the belay.

and sheesh, bring more gear with you next time, will ’ya?!

mtcams.net - Time lapse webcams of iconic mountains

Mountain webcams can provide real time images of recent storm activity, snow cover, and sun/shade on different features at different times of the day. This info might help you make a decision of your preferred route and equipment, and give you another tool beyond an avalanche and weather forecast.

But, webcams are usually a static snapshot of the current time, you often can’t look at historical images, and finding reliable webcams can be hit or miss. 

Here’s a solution to all that. Portland-based geographic data wiz Ben Stabley has a streamlined website for viewing time lapse images of major mountains - mtcams.net.

His website works great on a mobile device as well as a desktop computer. You can see webcam images of Hood, Three Sisters, Rainier, Baker, Shasta, Whitney, Grand Teton, Mont Blanc, Fuji, and the Eiger. (Other major but more remote peaks are not included because they generally lack good quality webcams.)

The website is pretty intuitive, you can click around for a minute or so and figure it out. Here's a step-by-step.

• Choose the mountain you want to see.

• Choose “From” and “To” dates.

• Press “Load Photos”.

• This brings up three tabs, the middle one is “Time Lapse.” Choose from one frame per second up to 30 frames per second. You’ll then see a time lapse image of webcam photos of that peak for your chosen date period.

Notice that the webcam interval is different depending on the mountain. For example, the Mt. Hood camera grabs an image every five minutes, while the Mt. Fuji camera grabs one image per hour. So experiment with the “frame per second” option until you find a time lapse that looks helpful. 

It's also fun to go farther back in time rather than just the last few days. Wondering what the snowpack was like on Mt. Rainier in late July three years ago? You can do that. (Note: imagery starts in 2017, so nothing before that.)

Where can I find GPX tracks for hiking trails?

As we like to say at Alpinesavvy, having a map is great, but having a map with your route printed on it is even better. And, having that route on your phone with a quality GPS app like Gaia GPS is another plus.

Knowing your route usually starts with a GPX file, which is a standardized format for sharing geographic data. A GPX track file is a simply a text file with a long string of latitude and longitude coordinates (and sometimes time and elevation), and a line drawn between them. This shows a hiking or climbing route that someone has recorded in the field or (hopefully) carefully drawn in mapping software. (If you can't find what you want, you can draw in your own route in mapping software like our favorite, Caltopo.)

Why do you want a GPX file? If you have a GPX file, you can print a PDF map of your route in CalTopo, which looks something like this (Hamilton Mountain, Columbia River Gorge)

Or, you can download it to Gaia GPS or your preferred GPS app/device, so you can use it for navigation in the field, here's a screen grab of that (Hamilton Mountain, Columbia River Gorge):

Historically, it's been quite difficult to find a consistent, quality source of GPX tracks for hikes and climbs, but that’s changed for the better in the last few years.

Here are two good websites where you can download free GPX files for hiking trails - GaiaGPS and AllTrails.

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Hiking - GaiaGPS.com

Gaia GPS is my favorite backcountry navigation phone app. In addition, the GaiaGPS.com website has steadily improved and it’s now is a solid place to locate hike track files, provided you know where to look. Plus, if you already use their app, a big timesaver is that you can save a hike description or hiking track directly onto your phone with one click.

Note: You need to have an account at GaiaGPS.com for this to work, and the below examples are shown on the desktop website, not on the app. (The app has some pretty good built-in hike finders as well, but we're not covering that today.)

Here's how to do it.

Click “Hikes” from the top menu bar.

Search for the name of the hike you want, or use the map finder to zoom into your area of interest. (The search function can be a little hit or miss; it can help to type in the state you're looking for so you don't get results from all over the world.)

Once you find the hike you want, give it a click. The easiest way to save both the track and a lot of info about that hike is to click the big green “Save Hike” button at the top right corner. This saves pretty much that entire webpage on your phone, with distance, elevation gain, recent trip reports, and of course a base map with the GPX file.

On your phone, this is saved under the “Saved > Hikes” icon along the bottom of your screen.

Also helpful: along the bottom are icons for “Copy Link” and “Share”, which lets you send that webpage easily to your other hiking buddies. (From what I can tell, it's pretty much the same as a copy paste of the web address.)

If you want to see other Gaia users’ uploaded tracks of the same area, which might show some detours or other areas of interest off of the main hike, you can do that too. Scroll down the page a bit, until you come to “Public Tracks”. This shows a link, and often a bit of a trip report. If you click on any one of these links, it will open that person’s track in a new window, and you can download it if you want.

And, a whole other way to look at these data is to use the Gaia “Public Tracks” overlay, which shows the recorded tracks of everyone who has shared a hike in that location. We cover how to do that at this tip.

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Often it takes a few minutes before Gaia GPS can synchronize with your phone. If you download the hike or GPX file to your GaiaGPS.com account, and it's not showing up on your phone, You can force the synchronizing to happen like this: Go to the Gaia app, Settings, and toggle the “Sync/Backup” button, shown below.

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Hiking - Alltrails

Alltrails is another good choice for day hikers to find quality GPX files. The website has a clean interface, and lots of functionality even on the free version.

To find a GPX track, zoom into your area of interest and choose the hike you want, here Hamilton Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge. Tap the “More” link on the left side. From this drop-down menu, select “Download Route” to save the GPX file onto your computer.

Once you have that GPX file on your hard drive, you can import it to Caltopo and print a map or save as a Google Earth friendly KML file, upload it to your guy GPS account to put onto your phone, or share it with your hiking partners.

Where can I find GPX tracks for climbing routes?

Thanks to my friend and Peakbagger.com expert Daniel Mick for assistance with this article.

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Disclaimer 1: A GPX track file shows an approximate route, not necessarily the best one for you to take based on current conditions. Mountain landscapes, especially snowfields and glaciers, can change on a daily basis. A track recorded on a dry summer day might be not show the best route when wet or snow-covered. Carefully preview the route on a map before you leave home. Don’t blindly follow a GPS track In the field if it doesn't make sense. Any GPX file you download from the Internet can be suspect.

Disclaimer 2: Do not rely on a GPX track file to show you the way on technical climbing routes. If you're at the base of the third pitch and you're wondering if you should take the left crack or the right crack, your GPS is not going to help. Due to you moving slowly and that the GPS signal can bounce around on a vertical cliff, the accuracy is just not there. So, you can use it for the approach hike, but not on vertical terrain

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As we like to say at Alpinesavvy, having a map is great, but having a map with your route printed on it is even better. And, having that route on your phone with a quality GPS app like Gaia GPS is another plus.

Knowing your route usually starts with a GPX file, which is a standardized format for sharing geographic data. A GPX track file is a simply a text file with a long string of latitude and longitude coordinates (and sometimes time and elevation), and a line drawn between them. This shows a hiking or climbing route that someone has recorded in the field or (hopefully) carefully drawn in mapping software. (If you can't find what you want, you can draw in your own route in mapping software like our favorite, Caltopo.)

Once you have a GPX track, you can print a PDF map of your route in Caltopo, which looks something like this (Mt. Rainier, Disappointment Cleaver route):

Or, you can download the track to Gaia GPS or your preferred GPS app/device, so you can use it for navigation in the field. Here's a screen grab of that (Mt. Rainier, Disappointment Cleaver route):

Historically, it's been quite difficult to find a consistent, quality source of GPX tracks for hikes and climbs, but that’s changed for the better in the last few years.

Of course, right here on Alpine Savvy we have a curated collection of more than 70 GPS tracks of the most popular climbing routes in the Pacific Northwest. So, If you want to climb one of these more common routes, that’s a great place to look first. But, if you can't find it there, check out Peakbagger.

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Peakbagger.com is a great place to find quality GPX tracks for climbing routes.

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If you're after more technical mountaineering/scrambling routes, I have yet to find any better source for GPX tracks than Peakbagger. Yes, the website looks like it was designed in 1996, but don't let that stop you, there's some amazing functionality once you drill down.

Peakbagger is arguably the best one-stop-shop for mountaineering information, with trip reports and GPS tracks, heaps of links to weather, maps (CalTopo, Google, Bing, etc.), and other mountaineering websites (SummitPost, Peakfinder, books on Amazon). Plus, it’s a compendium of global bucket lists of every variety and flavor (elevation, prominence, state/country, county high point, etc.

But for our purposes, we're only interested in finding GPS tracks. Here's how to do it. (When you first look through these instructions, they might seem long and complicated. Trust me, they're not, once you get the hang of this you can work through it in a minute or two.)

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For this example, let's say we want a GPX track of the North Ridge route on Mt. Baker. To start with, type in a keyword from your peak name in the “Quick Search” box in the top right corner.

Depending on your search term, you might get a lot of answers. Check that the location and elevation is for the peak you want. Click the “Name” link in the second column when you find the right one. Here, it happens to be the first choice.

Scroll down toward the bottom of the page. Under the section “Ascent Info”, click “Show all viewable ascents/attempts”. For more obscure mountains you might get just a handful; Baker has over 1,200!

This brings up a spreadsheet format of all of the recorded climbs. (For mountains with fewer reports, you might see a spreadsheet that shows all of the climbs without separate years. Here for Mt. Baker, with thousands of reports, they are broken down by specific years.) We want to see everything, so click “All”.

Just like a spreadsheet, if you click on the column names, it sorts them alphabetically. Click on “GPS”. This shows only the trip reports that have a GPS file. Excellent, out of more than 1,200 trip reports, we just narrowed it down to only a few dozen that have a GPS track. (You‘ll see many climbers do not name their route, not useful! Peakbagger users, please be helpful to everyone else by at least naming your route and better yet, contributing a GPS track.)

Under the “Route” column, look for your route, in this case, North Ridge. (If you can't find the route listed, but you do see a GPS link, you might need to click that link and look at a preview map to see if it's the one you need. In this case we have a half dozen examples of the North Ridge, so we don't need to do that.)

Right click on the “Ascent Date” in the first column that has a GPS link for your route, and choose “Open link in new browser tab” so you can have a look at the actual GPS tracks.

Another useful aspect of Peakbagger is the “Ascent Date” column. Some routes can change significantly whether it’s snow covered or not. If you have the choice, you probably want to look at a route that’s from about the same time of year that you intend to go.

Here we finally see something pretty useful: a GPX track of our route drawn on a map. Have a look at a few tracks drawn on the preview map, they should all look pretty much the same. (Of course, routes on glaciers and snow fields can change a lot from season to season.)

If the route looks good, click the link under the map, “Download this GPS track as a GPX file.”

Done!

Tip: there's no rule that says you only have to download one track. In some cases with tricky route finding, you might find that having several different tracks on your phone or map can be helpful. In Gaia GPS, you can toggle the visibility of different tracks on or off if you find they’re getting distracting.

Below is a screen grab from Caltopo, with three different tracks on it for the North Ridge route on Mt. Baker. You can see that there is quite a bit of variability in the approach, which you would expect on a glacier with changing conditions. Also, when you get up near the summit, there appears to be a couple of different options as well.

Also note that the recorded tracks on the ascent vary a lot from the “North Ridge Route” line drawn on the map! As cartographers like to say, “the map is not the territory”, meaning the real world is what you should follow, not necessarily a line on a map. Yet another reminder that routes on glaciers can change a lot!

A slick carabiner rappel brake

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.

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If you forget your rappel device, drop it (whoops), or maybe you’re on a really long alpine climb with just a short rappel and don't even want to bring one to save weight (Mt. Olympus, I'm looking at you) the somewhat old-school technique of a carabiner brake can offer a smooth rappel with gear you already have.

Now, before you roll your eyes about this being an old-timer technique from Freedom of the Hills version 2.0, (when harnesses were made from braided blackberry vines and Mt. St. Helens was a real mountain), stay with me. This method has a place in your tool kit, and uses just three lockers.

What are some other options if you or your partner drops your rappel device?

• You can rap with a Munter hitch and a single carabiner. But, it’s probably going to twist the hell out of your rope unless you use the correct technique.

• Your partner can lower you, probably directly off the anchor. Learn lots of ways to do this at this article.

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Safety note 1: There is a remote chance that the rope might unscrew a carabiner gate, so please keep an eye on this. In the example below, I’m using two auto locking carabiners to lessen the chances of this happening. Like I said, this is not a common-practice set up, more of an emergency kind of a thing.

Safety note 2: The friction with this technique will probably be less than using a standard rappel device. Maybe a LOT less. It depends on variables like your weight, the diameter of your rope and whether it's old and crusty or new and slick. Always use a third hand autoblock backup, and gloves are a fine idea also. Because of this diminished friction, it's probably best to use this technique in less than vertical terrain. Practice it in a controlled environment like a staircase to get a sense of how fast your rap is before you try in the real world.

• You can generate slightly more friction by rotating the carabiners so the small ends are together.

• This can be a fine place to use a locker draw to slightly extend your rappel.

• If you don't have three locking carabiners, you can use two regular ones, opposite and opposed, on the bottom, clipped to your belay loop.

• As with other flavors of carabiner brake rappels, when you remove your rope, it's really easy to drop a carabiner, because at least one of them is not attached, in this case the top one with the orange sleeve. So watch this when you take it apart.

• If you're really short on gear, you can do this with two carabiners instead of three. The third carabiner is mostly to prevent the rope from rubbing on your harness or rappel extension. If you decide to use only two carabiners, keep a close eye on your rope.

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Here’s how to rig it.

A rappel extension is not required for this carabiner brake, but it's good practice to use one, so we're showing it. And, as mentioned above, using a third hand /autoblock backup is usually good practice, but it's not shown here for clarity.

For a rappel extension, here we’re using a double bowline tied through the belay loop. (This is a crafty yet unconventional way to make a rappel extension, which we're going to cover in another tip soon.) You don't have to do it this way, use whatever kind of extension you like Yes, this sling is tied through the belay loop. There is no problem attaching your tether to your belay loop, it’s plenty strong, but if you prefer to go through your tie in points, then go for it.

1 - Clip a locking carabiner to your rappel extension.

2 - Clip a second locking carabiner to the first one.

3 - Pass a bight of both rappel rope strands through the second carabiner.

4 - Clip a third locking carabiner to these two strands of rope, and then . . .

Clip that third carabiner onto the strands going to the anchor. Check that ALL carabiners are locked.

Under load, it looks like this:

And finally, here’s a short Instagram video from Guide Cody Bradford showing how it's done.

"Locker draw" - What is it, why carry it?

A “locker draw” is simply a short quick draw style runner, a.k.a. “dogbone”, with locking carabiners on either end. Some people may dismiss a locker draw as something that overly cautious sport climbers may use on a top rope anchor, but they have many more uses.

You don’t buy these premade like a normal quick draw, you need to buy the dogbone and locking carabiners separately. A good combination is to have two sizes of locking carabiners: one D shaped, and a compact pear-shaped HMS style, as shown below. (The CAMP “Nimbus” carabiner on the left, is perfect for this.)

Tip: Put the HMS carabiner in the small constricted end of the dogbone, and put the D shaped carabiner (here, orange) in the top loose end of the dogbone. Use the orange carabiner to clip the gear, the HMS carabiner to clip the rope.

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Here are some ways to use a locker draw.

1) Bolted top rope anchor. A normal multi pitch anchor doesn’t require locking carabiners on the bolts. But a top rope anchor, which may be unattended throughout the day and have many people climbing on it, may benefit from having at least one locker draw. We cover toprope locker draws at this post.

Below is a typical set up, with one locker draw and one standard quick draw. Bottom gates are opposite and opposed.

Here are two extra long (25 cm) Petzl Express draws, which can be helpful if the bolts are far apart. Here we have lockers on everything. Some people may consider this overkill, but if you're in an instructional type setting, with many climbers all day using a single top rope, having lockers on all four points may give extra peace of mind. This can be especially true with kids or beginners.

It's debatable if two locker draws offer much more security than one. But if you have them and it makes you feel good to use them, why not? There's really not much downside.

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2) Rappel extension. Extending your rappel device so it’s not directly on your belay loop is a good idea for many reasons, which we cover in this tip. There are lots of different ways to rig it, and one quick and easy one is with your locker draw.

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3) Extending your tie in / belay point; declustering your anchor. When you a master point at one level, connecting both yourself and belaying your partner from that one point can be awkward. A locker draw can extend the tie in or the belay carabiners. This can make the belay more convenient and less awkward, depending on your stance.

Example: Standard anchor on a mini quad (180 cm runner). Nothing wrong with this set up. But depending on the stance, the leader’s clove hitch tie in point on the left and the belay carabiner on the right might be annoyingly close together.

Here, a locker draw is added for the leader’s tie in. This moves their connection point lower, making the anchor less cluttered at a single point.

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4) Using it as a regular quickdraw before a hard move, before a big run out, or right off the belay as the first clip, to pump up the psyche.

If you find yourself doing this on a regular basis, you may want to invest in a pair of Edelrid HMS Strike Slider carabiners. These have a clever locking mechanism that is very easy to open with one hand, and can work better for making fast clips.

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6) Rig a toprope with the rope through the chains to make it easy for a beginner to clean, but so the wear‘n’tear happens on your own gear, not the fixed hardware. (A regular carabiner can work fine here as well.)

And here's another way to set up a similar type of anchor, this time with vertically oriented chains and a locker draw. Note, the rope is going through the brown colored ring master point on the bottom, but all of the load from the climber is resting on your own quick draw. This is a great system, because you have complete redundancy from both bolts and also super easy cleaning; the last person just removes the quick draw and lowers off.

Photo: IFMGA Certified Guide Dale Remsburg @daleremsberg

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7) Ice thread backup. If you make an ice thread anchor for a rappel, you can place a screw(s) above it and clip a locker draw to the rope as a backup for the first person(s) down. The last person cleans the draw and the screw after the thread has proven it holds. Be sure that all of the weight is on the ice thread, with no force on the locker draw.

photo: Dale Remsberg - https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsx7X6ZhcpA/

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8) Winter climbing device attachment. No photo for this one but you can get the idea: Use it to extend your belay device farther away from your harness if you're wearing lots of thick winter clothing. This makes it easier to connect the belay device properly because you can see it more easily.

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9) Always gives you two extra locking carabiners for any kind of rescue situation. If you've ever practiced any sort of rock rescue, about 30 seconds into any scenario, you're going to wish you had a few extra lockers. If you carry a locker draw, that gives you two lockers when you need them.

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10) As a directional placement for ice or rock toproping. In many toprope setups, especially for ice, having a directional placement as shown below is a good idea. Using a locker draw here gives more security than a standard quick draw.

image credit: Sean isaac

The DMM Pivot - a better belay device?

Plaquette style belay devices allow a leader to belay the second directly off of the anchor, and have the device lock up in the event of a fall. This has become the modern standard belay method, provided your anchor is stout. The Black Diamond ATC Guide and Petzl Reverso are the most popular such devices, but pretty much every major manufacturer has their own flavor.

However, one of the minor headaches of using these devices is that it can be tricky to lower your second, especially if they are free hanging on the rope (admittedly an unlikely situation).

(If they are able to slightly unweight the rope, giving you just a few inches of slack for a second or two, you can easily lower your second using the Load Strand Direct, or ”LSD” method, which we cover in this tip here. This is a crafty rope trick every climber should know.)

But, in some unusual situations, your second might have fallen below an overhang, perhaps be injured, or for whatever reason not be able to give you a little bit of slack. In this situation, most of the standard belay devices lock up completely, and unlocking them and lowering your second in a controlled manner, known in some circles as “defeating the plaquette,” usually requires some clever tricks with a sling, Munter hitch, and some other other shenanigans that if done incorrectly, can cause you to drop your climber. Yes, it has happened.

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To quote Bruce Lee, “The best fight is the one you never have.” Meaning, if you can avoid even trying to defeat the plaquette, with rope shenanigans that might result in a bad outcome, that’s usually the better approach.  

Well, fortunately good design has caught up with belay devices. The DMM Pivot is an innovative device that allows you to easily lower a second, even if the rope is under full load. 

The connection point to the anchor is a U-shaped bit of metal on a sort of hinge. This hinge allows the device to rotate. So, to lower your second, you simply clip a small-nosed carabiner, nut tool or redirected sling to the “ear” of the belay device, give it a tiny bit of upward pull, and easily lower your second in a controlled way. (It's still best practice to have a third hand/autoblock friction knot on the brake strand when you do this.)

This process is significantly trickier with the Petzl Reverso or Black Diamond ATC Guide. 

Given that the DMM Pivot costs about the same and offers better functionality, to me it’s a great choice if you’re looking to upgrade your belay device.

(Some people complain the Pivot heavy, but it’s really not.  A Pivot weighs 72 grams, Petzl Reverso weighs 57 grams. If 12 grams are keeping you from sending your project, you should probably do a little more strength training and not stress out about your belay device weighing you down.)

Here's a longer and more detailed review about the DMM Pivot (written by an AMGA Rock and Alpine Guide)

And like most climbing techniques, it's a better show than to tell. Here's a video that shows how to use the DMM Pivot. Start about 5:30 to see the anchor set up and how the “pivot” release works.

Use GaiaGPS public tracks to find GPS tracks

As we like to say at AlpineSavvy, “A map is great, but a map with your route drawn on it is even better.” That usually means getting a GPS track of where you want to go.

Trying an initial search on websites such as peakbagger.com (climbing) or alltrails.com (hiking)is a great place to start. But, if those sites don't give you a track file, here's another trick to try - the publicly posted tracks at GaiaGPS.com.

This is a bit of a hack to find GPS tracks for a hike or climb. It's not the most reliable, and not guaranteed to give you what you’re looking for. But if other avenues don’t work, this is an alternative.

Note: You need to know pretty much where your route goes, and also be aware that being publicly posted is no guarantee of the quality of the track. The person posting may have done it in a different season then you want to try your climb. They may have tried a different approach than what you intend.

Note: Gaia can sometimes be a good source for those scramble/half trail routes that are not a common hiking trail but are also not necessarily mountaineering objectives either. Think high routes like the Ptarmigan Traverse in the North Cascades, the round Mt. Adams trail, the popular through hike of the Alpine Lakes wilderness in central Washington, routes like that.

Disclaimer: Before you use ANY track file you find on the Internet, always know that it provides a general guidance of where to go, and is not a step-by-step route which you need to follow. This is especially true on snow/glacier climbs, as in the example below.

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Here's how to find the public tracks at GaiaGPS.com.

In a distant corner of the GaiaGPS.com website is a map overlay called “Public Tracks”. If you turn this on, you should see all of the publicly available tracks people have uploaded to Gaia GPS in your area. If you're going on a reasonably popular hike, scramble or climb, one of these might well be the track you need.

Another benefit from using the public tracks overlay as you can see where people are actually going, which might show a rerouted trail that's marked incorrectly on the map.

Note: you need to have an account at Gaia GPS for this to work.

For this example, let's look for a track for the North Ridge of Mt. Baker climbing route in Washington.

Go to GaiaGPS.com, login to your account, and tap on the “map layer” icon on the left side of the screen.

In this example I'm using the “OpenCycleMap HD” layer, which shows backcountry trails and topography pretty well. Feel free to choose any map layer you like. Zoom in to your area of interest; here Mt. Baker.

On the left sidebar under “Layers”, scroll all the way to the bottom. In the “Overlays” section, you should see a checkbox for “Public Tracks.” Check this box.

Once you check the box, all of the public tracks for your chosen area should appear on your screen. (These are all tracks that that backcountry users have saved to GaiaGPS and given permission to share publicly.)

Yep, there may be a LOT! Or maybe none at all, if your objective is not very popular. See even more if you zoom in.

If you see a lot of different colors drawn over pretty much the same route, that's a pretty good indication that’s where you want to go too.

If you know where your route goes, start clicking on some of the colored lines near your route. A label should pop up, and you may well find the track you're looking for, as seen below.

If you click the title link in the pop up box, that should open up another page where you can see just that track, and download it.

Clicking the track link brings up a page of just that track. Hey, looks pretty good, might be able to use that one! Click the “Data” menu to download the file to your account, GPX file recommended. If it's downloaded onto your desktop account, it should auto-magically synchronize with your phone in a minute or two.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Try a girth hitch at the master point

I first heard of this technique from IFMGA guide and technical director of the American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA) Dale Remsberg, and a video (see it below) made by the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (VDBS).

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Researcher and AMGA Certified Rock Guide Derek DeBruin partnered with Petzl USA to perform a rigorous analysis of the girth hitch master point. Conclusion (published September 2021), it's solid.

Read Derek’s article here.

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Why might you want to use a girth hitch at the master point?

• Keeps the master point carabiner properly oriented, it can never spin and become cross loaded

• Easy to untie after it’s been loaded (no welded knot to deal with)

• Easier to tie and untie if hands are sore and/or cold, or you’re wearing gloves

• Adjustable - If the load direction changes after tying it, you can feed slack side to side to get better load distribution

• You can equalize three placements with a 120 cm runner and two placements with a 60 cm runner, if the bolts/gear are close together. Great if you are short on long slings

• Redundant (even though it may not appear so at first glance. Really it is; cut one strand and it still holds, see a video testing on this below

• Plenty strong (yes, girth hitching “weakens” the sling, but this is a 20+ kN runner; are you really worried about it?)

• Endorsed by Climbing magazine and backed by solid research

If you try to tie a cordelette style anchor with an overhand knot in a double length / 120 cm runner clipped to three pieces of gear, the knot (almost always) takes up so much material that it can’t be tied. Given this, for a three-piece anchor, most climbers would automatically reach for their cordelette.

But, there’s another option. Provided the gear is fairly close together, the 120 cm runner works great if you make a girth hitch at the master point rather than an overhand knot.

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The same technique also works with a two piece anchor and a single length runner. If you get to a two piece anchor and find you only have a 60 cm runner left, or you don't want to deal with untying a welded knot, or if you think carrying a huge cordelette is kind of a PITA, this is an solid alternative.

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Let's address that “how strong is it / doesn't a girth hitch weaken the sling?” a question right off the bat. This was tested by our friends at HowNot2.com. It broke at around 28 kN.

Are you surprised by this? Think of it this way: the 22 kN sling is doubled, giving it a minimum strength of around 44 kN. Then you tie the knot which approximately by half. So, the resulting strength is somewhere in the neighborhood of the original untied sling. The takeaway: absolutely strong enough for any recreational climbing load.

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Here's a break test of a girth hitch master point tied with Sterling Power Cord. This cord is wonderful for cordelettes and anchor building. It's 5.9 mm and rated about 20 kN. Our friends at HowNot2.com did a break test on this: 29 kN.

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Let's look at some common concerns and questions about this method.

- Is it okay to use a girth hitch? I thought it weakens the sling too much. The maximum load you could ever have in a recreational claiming scenario of crazy factor 2 fall onto the anchor in somewhere around 9 kN. As you can see in the image above, this anchor tests somewhere around 28, kN so no problem.

- Is it redundant? It might not appear so when you first look at it, but in fact it is. Watch the videos below. You can see one strand being cut under load and not pulling through. (Having a sling get cut like this in real life is maybe a 1 in 100,000 occurrence, but yes, it has happened.) Consider the much more likely scenario of a piece of gear pulling and then the master point being loaded. If the sling were to slip, the carabiner clipped to the gear would slowly slide and eventually be stopped by the girth hitch. Some of the videos below show the sling actually being cut. You can test this without cutting your gear, just put full weight on it after unclipping one of the pieces.

- What about the video from “How Not To Highline”, where it says the girth hitch master point is not redundant because it slips under load? Yep, I saw that video. (Ryan is a great guy and is doing some very interesting testing, I love his YouTube channel.) Yes, this method can “fail” if: 1) a sling gets cut, 2) is then subjected to a very large (6-7 kN) load, and 3) that load is continuously applied. This is applicable to a highline set up, which is why Ryan tested it, but a constant load on an anchor of 6+ kN is very hard to achieve in a normal climbing scenario. (Climb team of four NFL linemen at a hanging belay? Expedition big wall climbing with 600 kg / 1,300 pounds of haul bags, all hanging from the same anchor point? Not gonna happen.)

(Some testing where it gets impacted with a sudden dynamic load of 7+ kN would be interesting. If anyone knows of tests like that, please let me know, I think the Alpine Club of Italy has some results, I'm trying to track it down, stay tuned.)

- Did you make this up in your backyard? I've never heard of it before. It's not yet widely used in the United States, but gaining in popularity. It’s widely used in Europe. It’s advocated by lots of IFMGA Certified Guides, the German Alpine Club (DAV) and the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (VDBS), demonstrated in the video at the bottom of the page. Do you think some of the most expert guides in the world would advocate a technique that’s unsafe?

- Can I tie it with a Dyneema sling? According to the video below made by the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (VDBS), the answer is yes. (Some climbers suggest using a 11 or 12 mm Dyneema sling (such as the Petzl Pur’Anneau) rather than a skinny 8 mm sling, which might lessen any slippage, if that's something you're concerned about.)

- Is there a usable shelf? Hmm Sort of. Maybe. Apparently the German Alpine Club (DAV) thinks not; I’m looking for a technical recommendation on that, stay tuned. But, IFMGA Guide Dale Remsberg says yes; but to use the shelf, a load needs to be clipped into the master carabiner, so the shelf is best used to belay from. If the shelf is an anchor point for a climber, you also have to have a climber in the master carabiner. You may find if you load the shelf and the master carabiner at the same time, some wonky carabiner loading issues start to develop because they're pretty much right next to each other. A shelf is an optional feature in anchors, and very rarely a requirement. Experiment with this in a controlled environment and see what you think.

- What about adding a twist in one strand before you make the girth hitch? Does that mitigate slippage? Canadian rope solo expert Yann Camus did an interesting study that showed this in fact might help. However, a piece of protection failing and a slow steady pull causing anchor failure is not going to happen, because the carabiner attached to the protection would wedge against the hitch.

- Can I top rope on it? Yes, but it’s not so great. The main reason is that’s it's difficult to tie this around two carabiners, which is what most people like to have at the master point when top roping. The secondary reason, at least for me, is that the security of this anchor relies on the cord being firmly snugged down around the carabiner. Over the course of a long top rope session it's possible that the hitch could loosen up and start to do some strange things on the carabiner, especially if no one is there to monitor it. For a long top roping session, other options such as a quad may be preferable.

- What are the best uses for this anchor? This is best used on multi pitch climbing. It’s a good choice if you need to equalize three pieces of gear and have a 120 cm runner and not a cordelette, or if you’re climbing in cold weather and want to tie it quickly with gloves on, and avoid dealing with a welded knot.

Are you on a SAR / rope rescue team and need to maintain a 10:1 safety factor in everything you rig? Are you trying to pull your car out of a ditch? This may not be not the best anchor for you. It’s another tool in the toolbox for more advanced climbers, and not a perfect technique for every situation.

- “I dunno, it just looks sketchy.” That's fine, sometimes what we feel can be more important than what we think. Alpinesavvy offers information and ideas, not advice. If you don't like it, don't use it. =^)

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Test 1: Here's an unscientific (but still quite fun) test I recently did. TWO pretty big guys, Dyneema sling, both of them loading a girth hitch master point. One strand, cut . . . no problem!

Test 2: Full weight of climber hanging from anchor, slippery Dyneema sling cut very close to the master point, no slippage. Also, no slippage when using cord. (This Instagram post has three sections, the video is in clip 2 and 3.)

Test 3: Slow pull break testing in Germany, no issues with the girth hitch slipping.

• Nylon sling, 2 arm anchor, one arm clipped, failure at 15 kN.

• Nylon sling, 3 arm anchor, two arms clipped, failure at 23 kN.

• Dyneema sling, very short, one loop of two clipped, test stopped at 12 kN.

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Hey, don’t listen just to me. How about these reputable endorsements for the girth hitch master point?

Ortovox (a German company best known for avalanche transceivers and related ski mountaineering gear) has an excellent Youtube tutorial video series on many aspects of mountaineering. The video series has the (somewhat awkward) title of “Safety Academy Lab Rock”. It's produced in partnership with Petzl and the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (in German, “VDBS”). So, you can probably assume that the techniques shown have technical approval at the highest levels.

The video below shows various VDBS guides building multi piece anchors using an open (aka untied) cordelette.

In every case, they use a girth hitch to create the master point.

(The climber in the video is also using two techniques uncommon in the United States: 1) using an overhand knot to make a loop from his cordelette; and 2) threading the open/untied cordelette directly to the pitons / protection without using carabiners.)

Watch the video below. (The whole video is only 3:30, but if you have a short attention span, start at 1:00 and 2:00. )

Note the girth hitch at the master point in the thumbnail image below (and yes Eagle-Eye, this is for a four piece anchor.)

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Dale Remsberg is an internationally licensed mountain guide (IFMGA) and technical director of the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA). He has a great Facebook feed with regular tech tips. On it, he recently highlighted the girth hitch as a master point, calling it one of his “go to’” anchors.

Below is a screen grab of his post.

The photo and comments from Dale’s post:

image: Dale Remsberg Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10220309097824401&set=a.10204728922969767&type=1&theater

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Below is a PDF article (LINK) from Erwin Steiner, a guide in the Dolomites. It's in German. A rough translation of the takeaways:

• “Even when loading one arm of the anchor, it only slipped 1-3 cm”

• “ . . . these tests gave us full confidence that the girth hitch can be used for anchor building. It has clear advantages in the guiding context when it comes to usability, use of material, security, speed, and comfort for the clients.”

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This crafty anchor has a girth hitch on the top piton and at the master point. This image comes from a nice PDF file showing some European style anchor techniques, made by the German Mountain and Ski Guides Association (“Verband Deutscher Berg und Skiführer” or “VDBS”).

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IMAGE: STANDPLATZLOGIK VDBS 2019 - AUSBILDUNGSSTANDARD VDBS & ALTERNATIVEN

Here's another image from the same PDF. Note the use of an “open” or untied cordelette, which can be threaded through fixed gear like pitons, and then tied in an overhand knot. Once again, girth hitch at the master point.

IMAGE: STANDPLATZLOGIK VDBS 2019 - AUSBILDUNGSSTANDARD VDBS & ALTERNATIVEN

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Here's another nice feature of this technique. It's easy to adjust the angle of pull if it changes. Here's a nice Instagram video clip from @GoldenMountainGuides showing how that works.

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I get it that everyone is not going to be thrilled with this as an anchor technique. And that's OK, you don't have to. Alpinesavvy is here to offer ideas and information, not advice.

In the end, everyone has personal accountability for their own choice of technique and level of acceptable risk. (That's why they call it the “Freedom of the Hills”, right?) But, at least be open to new ideas, especially if they come from reputable sources.

Use Google Drive off-line to store trip documents

This tip comes from AlpineSavvy reader Tim Donner, thanks Tim! Disclaimer: this tip is not directly related to alpine climbing, but it's pretty handy, so here it is.

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Say you’re planning a climb or backpack trip. Useful documents for pre-trip study and field use could include:

• .pdf map(s) made in Caltopo, perhaps at a couple of different scales covering your entire route, ideally with a GPX track file of your route drawn on it

• a .gpx track file of your route

• a scan or photograph(s) of guide book pages

• Google Earth screen grabs, ideally with a KML file of your route drawn on it

• If you're leading a larger group, perhaps: 1) a roster of trip participants, with personal and emergency contact info; and 2) a general info document (prospectus) for participants with all needed trip details

Here's a convenient way to store all the documents you might need for a hike or climb off-line on your phone, and have access to them when you’re outside cell coverage.

A few notes:

• The instructions below are for iPhone; Android peeps, I'm sure you can follow along.

• I find it easiest to do this on a desktop computer.

• This method uses the cloud on Google Drive, so to do this, you need a free Gmail account. It’ll probably work on other types of cloud storage like Dropbox, but I'm going to stick with Google drive for this example.

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Here’s how to make files available offline in Google Drive:

1. On your desktop computer, assemble all your trip documents in one folder.

2. On your desktop computer, open Google Drive and make a folder there for your trip. For example, “Rainier climb 2019”.

3. On your desktop computer, click and drag all relevant files into this Google Drive folder.

4. Open the Google Drive app on your phone, and navigate to the folder.

5. Tap on the “three little dots” icon to the right of the file name, and tap “Make available offline”. You need to do this individually for every file in the folder, but it just takes a second or two for each one. (To be clear, you can’t set the available offline feature for the folder, you have to do it individually to each file.)

6. Done! Now, all these files stored on your phone, available when you’re outside of cell coverage.

7. To test it, turn on Airplane mode and turn off Wifi. (Doing this simulates being in the backcountry with no cell coverage.) Try opening all of the files in that folder, you should be able to do so.

8. One more bonus, you can share this Google folder with everyone else on your climbing team, so you all have the same documents. To do this, navigate to the folder in Google Drive from your desktop computer, Click the folder name at the top, and choose “Get shareable link” from drop down menu. Click the “copy link” button, and now you can share that folder with anyone else on your trip.

9. Once you’re home, deselect the offline use to free up storage on your phone. The files stay in your Google drive for reference or sharing, if you want to do that hike or climb in the future.

10. One more bonus: with offline use, if you have a Google doc ready, you can add/update notes during the trip and they will be synced once you get back into cell range.

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A few screen grabs of the process. . .

In Google Drive on your phone, tap the “three dots” icon next to a file name . . .

Then tap “make available offline” for each file.

Here's what the “Get shareable link” screen looks like. Click copy link and then you can share the folder with anyone else on your trip.

Rope management - clip knots to a big carabiner

(I first read this tip in the British climbing magazine “High” about 15 years ago, and I believe the article was written by Andy Kirkpatrick, so I‘ll give him credit here for the idea.)

Here's a link to a newer article on Andy's website that covers this in more detail.

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Good rope management on a multi pitch climb is one of the keys to efficient belay transitions. There are various approaches to keeping your ropes tidy. Any system that keeps the rope out from under foot and from snagging on rocks, roots, cracks, and is easy to feed out snag-free on the next pitch, is a good choice.

What are some common methods?

• If you're standing on a nice big ledge, lucky you, just make a “pancake pile”.

• At a steeper stance, you can lay butterfly coils across your lap (lap coiling). I’m not a fan, as having 60 m of rope hanging right off of your tie in point is a hassle.

• You can make coils and clip them into a sling. This can work pretty well, but unless you make tidy coils, you can get a royal mess can you try to feed out the rope.

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Here’s an easy and elegant alternative for multi pitch rope management, that works for swinging leads or block leading.

• Take a wide mouth locking carabiner, such as the CAMP Core Lock (above) and clip it somewhere to the anchor.

• As the second climbs up and the belayer takes in slack, the belayer ties a slip knot every 10 meters or so and clips the loop to the big carabiner. Keep these loops loose so they are easy to untie; don’t snug them down or worry about dressing them very well. For a 60 meter rope, this will give you at most six knots in the carabiner, with the rope loops hanging about 5 meters or so down from the belay (hopefully not getting in the way of your partner as they get close to you). Do NOT lock the carabiner gate.

If the belayer is using a Grigri or plaquette style belay device guide mode, this is even easier.

When the second arrives at the anchor, the rope is in tidy loops and ready for the second to lead out. If you’re swapping leads, you’re all set to go, because the last loop to be clipped should be the first loop for the new leader to head out.

To belay the new leader, the belayer simply unclips a loop, pulls with one hand remove the slipknot, and the rope is ready to feed.

• If you want to make your loops shorter, simply add a second large carabiner to the anchor and continue clipping slipknot loops to that after the first carabiner is full.

• If you can, start with slightly larger loops, and make subsequent loops slightly smaller, so each loop will pull up and feed cleanly without getting tangled with the other ones.

• If you're leading in blocks (with the same person leading several pitches in a row) simply rotate the carabiner clockwise 180 degrees, so the wide part is clipped to the bolt. Now the last loop that you clipped is the first one that you can unclip, which lets you block lead smoothly. (That's probably a little confusing; try it once and you'll figure it out.)

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Sidenote: I received a surprising amount of hate mail when I posted this on Instagram. “This is a crazy system, I can't imagine trying to unclip a knot while I'm lead belaying, have you ever actually even tried this, blah blah blah . . .”

Idea: If you find it difficult to unclip a loosely tied slip knot with one hand and untie it, you should probably work on your skills. Yes, having a Grigri or similar assisted braking device can give you a momentary backup if you do need two hands for a second to untie the knot.

Plus, think about it this way: if your leader is moving fast, that probably means the climbing is easy for them, and they should be ready to take a momentary break of a few seconds about every 10 meters, so you can untie a knot. Conversely, if your leader is moving slowly, then the climbing is difficult. But, because they’re moving slowly, that easily gives you time to reach down and untie the knot. Either way, the system works.

The purpose of Alpinesavvy is to give ideas and information, not advice. I'm certainly not saying everybody has to use the system, but don't knock it until you try it.

Finally, keep in mind the source, Andy Kirkpatrick - he knows his stuff.

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And, speaking of Andy, let's look at a couple of alternatives from his excellent website.

You don't actually even need a carabiner at all. You can tie off the rope onto the arms of the cord that makes up your anchor.

Image: https://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/rope-belay-wrangling

Or, you can make a sort of daisy chain. (I have not tried this variation, but it looks like it should work.)

Image: https://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/rope-belay-wrangling

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Here's a nice video clip from Petzl via Facebook that shows a similar system. (Sorry I can’t embed this video on my webpage, you need to click the link to see it.)

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This works slightly differently for big wall climbing.

As the second ascends the fixed rope and cleans the gear, they have a large carabiner hanging from a short sling (usually about 30 cm) from their belay loop. The short sling is somewhat optional, but it declusters the front of your harness a bit and makes it slightly easier to clip in the knots. The second ties a backup knot every 10 meters or so and clips it to the carabiner.

This backup knot system is pretty standard practice in big walling, as it does two main things: 1) Protects the cleaner from a huge fall in the event their ascenders become detached from the rope, and 2) Helps prevent the rope from blowing / swinging sideways and getting hung up somewhere where you don't want it to be.

The one downside to this technique: as the cleaner nears the top of the pitch, most of the weight of the rope hanging off of their harness instead of having it hanging weightlessly beneath them. If there isn't a knot in the end of the rope that might get snagged, and if the pitch goes pretty much straight up, and if there is no wind, it might be a better call to not tie the backup knots and just let the rope hang free.

The trick is when you get to the top, you keep all of the loops tied into the carabiner, and transfer that onto the anchor. Ta dah, instant rope management for the lead rope, everything is already tied up in short 5 meter long loops, ready to belay the leader. No rope bag needed. As mentioned above, if you’re leading in blocks, you unclip the loops for a moment and reverse them, so the correct knot is on top for whoever is leading the next pitch.

Another tip for a big wall climbing: this same system of rope management can work for the haul rope also. As you pull up your piggage, generating slack in the haul rope, simply tie off a slipknot loop every 10 meters or so to keep things tidy. (But a dedicated rope bag usually is best.)

For big wall climbing, this is how the harness of the second would look when cleaning and tying the back up knots.

Knot geeks rejoice - this is your website

The Australian Professional Association of Climbing Instructors, (PACI) has a deep collection of technical articles on knot tying. (Would you believe a 76 page article on just the bowline?!) If you’re a rigger, rescue professional, or a citizen climber with a curiosity about rigging methods, this website is a great place to start.

Many of the articles / papers are written by Mark Gommers, a man who clearly takes his work very seriously and a guy I would love to meet someday.

Climbers should probably start with article number one at the top, simply called “Knots”. It's described as a: “Comprehensive compilation of life support knots - includes test data and tying methods”.

(Note: some of the PDF files are password-protected, but if you use the link below, they tell you the password most of the time, so access is easy.)

A rainy afternoon, a length of rope to practice with, and a big pot of tea are recommended accessories.

Here’s one page from the “Knots” article as an example. The below image is copyright PACI.com

Seek - iPhone app for instant plant ID

Learning the names of backcountry plants and animals is both personally rewarding, occasionally practical, and can lead to a greater empathy and connection with nature.

But, how many of us REALLY want to lug the plant ID book into the woods, and take the time to stumble through it to put a name to that flower or tree?

Well, as they say, there’s an app for that. iPhone users, check out Seek. 

This machine learning based app does a remarkable job of identifying plants, wild or domestic. (And apparently animals to, but I haven't tried that yet.)

Here’s basically how it works.

1. You see a plant you want to know the name of.

2. You open the app and point your camera at the plant.

3. In a few seconds identifies the plant (or critter), usually the species.

4. For any of us who have struggled through the tedious process of keying out a plant in a botany book, this is pretty much the Holy Grail of plant identification. 

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Notes:

• Is it perfect? No. But still pretty darn impressive.

• It’s free. In these days of high dollar premium phone apps, this is a refreshing change.

• It works in airplane mode. You can save your battery in the backcountry and still identify plants without a cell connection, very cool.

• It seems to work best for plants in North America. It tripped up on a Norway spruce and a Korean pine, although it did get it down to the correct genus.

• Supposedly it works for animals also, but that little brown bird I saw didn’t hold still long enough for me to take a picture of it.

• The app ID’d flowering plants correctly from the leaf structure only, without seeing the bloom. Going to have to try it next spring when wildflowers are out for sure. 

• Supposedly it works on mushrooms also. (But, as a long time mushroom hunter, I wouldn’t use this to identify edibles; might want to wait for version 2.0.)

One nice feature: it stores all the plants and critters you have successfully identified, so you can look back at them and refresh your memory. When you tap a plant you’ve saved, it gives you a paragraph or two about it, and the taxonomy of kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, which can give you a little more background botany, if that's your thing.

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It’s really fun to use. I first gave it a run at what I thought was the perfect spot, the Portland Arboretum. It has a lot of unusual trees, most of them are labeled, and it seemed a perfect place for a test drive. The app did have a stumble or two, (between a fir and a spruce tree) but overall it was about 90% correct.

I’ve been walking by Arctic Butterbur and Hooker’s Fairybells my whole life and never knew the amazing names of these unassuming little flowers!

This app is similar to the amazing improvements in real time translation. You could take years to become proficient in another language, or you can use a translation device that lets you speak with a non-English speaker, in real time, no study required. Call me lazy, but I think I'll usually take the modern technology. =^)

A phone app for first and last light

Knowing the time of first light and last light can be important for outdoor adventures.

• Surfers want dawn patrol.

• Photographers want the “golden hour” just after sunrise and before sunset for good lighting.

• Climbers often want to plan a trip around first available light - like hike the approach trail in the dark, but then reach the first part of tricky route finding, crevasses or technical climbing when you can see what you're doing.

There are a few ways to figure this out. For example, at my latitude of about 45° north in Oregon, the sunrise time minus about 30 minutes (and the sunset time plus about 30 minutes) gives a pretty good approximation for first and last light. (Sunrise and sunset are available on just about every basic weather app on your phone.)

But, if you want to get a little fancier, such as figuring out first light at some point in the future for an upcoming trip, or in a different location/latitude, or both, then things get a little trickier.

There are some in-depth websites that show times for civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight, that relate to the number of degrees that the sun is below the horizon, but not many people really know what those technical terms mean. (For our purposes, we're interested in civil twilight, which is pretty much when you can stumble around outside without a headlamp and not fall on your face.)

If you want to geek out and get more into this, you can go here and here.

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So, how about a phone app that simply tells you first light, last light, sunrise and sunset, with a nice clean interface and no fluff? 

Well, here’s an iPhone app that does this one thing and does it perfectly - Sunrise Times. (Android peeps, you're on your own.)

It tells you sunset, sunrise, first light and last light of anywhere on earth. Long touch on the map to show a location different than where you are.

This is the free version. Pay an extra $7.50 annually for the paid version, and you get to choose a date in the past or future, helpful for trip planning. (When this came out a few years ago it was $3 for a lifetime subscription, which I personally found it more palatable . . .)

Protect a fixed rope with 1 inch webbing

When you fix a single strand of rope over an edge, be it for big walls, ropes courses, caving, rescue, etc. it's often a good idea to pad the edge so tension on the rope does not damage the rope sheath.

There are lots of ways to do this. Some are some fairly DIY / spontaneous with gear you already have, such as shoving a backpack under the rope, or tying a Klemheist knot with some webbing and putting that on the loaded edge.

Another DIY rope protector that works well uses a bit of car heater hose or retired garden hose, described in this post.

You can also go with a premade product designed for this, such as the Petzl Protec (below) or something similar. This works well, and if you find yourself regularly fixing ropes, investing in specialized gear like this (about $23) is probably a good idea.

image: https://www.petzl.com/US/EN/Professional/Ropes/PROTEC

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Here's another method that’s inexpensive and quick to deploy.

You probably have a section of forlorn 1 inch webbing floating around the bottom of a gearbox; now’s the time to break that out. Cut about a 2 foot section.

Slide the end of your rope inside the webbing, adjust the webbing so the middle of it is more or less over the loaded edge, and add a little athletic tape to hold it in place. That's it. (The one slight downside to this method is that you need to run the rope through the webbing before you tie any knots in the rope, so it does require a little foresight.)

Rope end is fixed around the tree with a “tensionless anchor”, and then run over the edge. A couple of feet of green 1 inch webbing protects the rope. Webbing is taped in place.

CalTopo pro tip: elevation profiles

If you're new to CalTopo mapping software and want to learn the basics, start with this video

CalTopo elevation profile example

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Knowing the distance and elevation gain on a hike, bike ride or climb is really helpful. This is known as an “elevation profile” because it shows your route in sort of a side view graph, typically with vertical gain on the left axis and distance on the bottom axis.

In the pre-computer days, this was a very tedious task, involving counting contour lines through a magnifying glass, and measuring distance with a ruler. It was such a hassle that no one except true map geeks ever bothered to do it! However, in these modern times, making an elevation profile with with great mapping software like CalTopo is easy, if you know where to click.

For this example, let’s use a hike / climb of Broken Top, a popular climb in central Oregon. (Or, if you like, you can use any hike you already know.)

Go to caltopo.com and zoom into your area of interest. The default map layer, called “MapBuilder Topo”, is a good place to start.

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First, you need a line on your map of your route.

If you know where the trail(s) or route goes, you can draw the line yourself. Right click, choose “New” > “Line”. Click on your starting point, usually the trailhead. You can draw line segments in three ways.

1. Draw short line segments with a series of clicks.

2. Draw a freehand line by tapping the control, shift or command key and click / drag.

3. Snap to an existing trail, shown in yellow highlights. (Sometimes the snap to function is handy, sometimes it's a hassle. You can turn this snap function on / off by selecting “Snap To > None” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner.)

Play around with these for a while to see how they work. Double click to finish your line. To delete a line you don’t like, mouse over it, right click, and select “Delete”.

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Note: Don't be too concerned if the line you draw is not EXACTLY on your trail or route. You're not a professional surveyor here, you're just trying to get a general idea of the distance and elevation, so being super accurate is not usually so important.

Also, keep in mind that any estimated distance and/or elevation derived from a computer is always going to be a little different than the real world. The guidebook says that a hike is 10 miles and 3,000 vertical feet, But when you drawn an elevation profile in CalTopo it says it's 10.5 miles and 3400 vertical feet. And, when you hike it with your GPS recording a track, the track show something different. Which one is right? Dunno. How can you tell? You can’t. Does it matter? Probably not. Don't get too hung up on the exact numbers, this is for general estimation and planning purposes.

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If you made a line with a series of short line segments, you can move the line a bit to make it more accurate. Mouse over the line, right click, and choose edit. The line should redraw with a series of small white dots. You can click and drag these dots to move that portion of the line. Play around with us to get a feel for it.

You can also make an elevation profile with an imported GPX track file. If you don’t know where your route goes, this is a good approach. On AlpineSavvy you can find tracks for more than 70 of the most popular climbing routes in the Pacific Northwest. For other mountaineering objectives, you can try Peakbagger.com, or some other local website with hiking tracks, such as oregonhikers.org. Sometimes a Google search for “Hikename GPX track” can get you what you need.

For our Broken Top example, when you’ve drawn your route, it should look something like this. (A solid red line is the default.)

After you’ve drawn your route, look on the left side of your screen. Under “Lines and Polygons”, you should see a red line with an “N/A”: after it. This is the line you just drew.

To the right of this, you should see three small icons. The first one looks like a little graph, the second one is a little pencil, the third one is a red X. Give each of these a click and see what happens.

The red “X” is delete.

The “pencil” icon is edit. Here you can add a name for your line, change the color, line style, or line weight. (In the photo below, I changed my line color to purple and increased the line weight a little bit. This is also a good time to add a descriptive name to the trail, such as “Broken Top climb”.)

Finally, clicking the “graph” icon should give you an elevation profile of your route.

If you move your cursor over the elevation profile on the bottom, you should see a corresponding red dot on the map in the upper part of your screen, showing your map location. Pretty cool!

Here’s an extra feature of elevation profile. On the top right of the elevation profile, you should see a small button that’s labeled “expand”. If you click this, you’ll get even a more detailed elevation profile. This shows a few extra whistles and bells like amount of forest cover, slope and aspect of the route, and more.

Looking at the slope coloration along the bottom edge of the line graph, we can see that it's a fairly flat approach up until about the last mile or so. That's about what you’d expect from a climbing route.

This is a lot of words to explain a pretty simple process. Try it a few times and you’ll pick it up quickly.

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And yes, CalTopo is terrific. Please consider a modest annual subscription (starting at $20) to support continued use of this great tool.

Click the “Upgrade” menu along the top of the CalTopo screen to see various subscription options.

How to find public lands with map software/apps

There are lots of reasons why are you may want to see a public lands overlay on a map, along with your position. Here are a few. (Personally, I use public lands overlays mostly to find free camping, so that's going to be the main focus of this article. Car camping can be great. Secluded car camping for FREE on public lands that allow it is even better.)

• You’re headed out for a dawn start for a hike or climb, and want to find a spot near the trailhead to sleep for the night. How do you find a good place? 

• You want to visit a popular national park in the summer, but of course all the campsites in the park are booked. Where could you camp for free just outside the park and visit for day use? 

• You’ve embraced some version of “van life”, and never want to pay if it all possible when you're sleeping in your rig.

• You're heading out for a hunting or fishing trip and want to be sure you don't trespass.

image: commons.wikimedia.org

On main roads, you might see a nice welcome sign like this. But on many smaller roads, you won't.

For the most part, land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the US Forest Service, (USFS), allow free camping pretty much anywhere unless posted otherwise, provided you don't need amenities like a gravel parking pad, running water, picnic table and a toilet. (The government-speak term for this is “dispersed camping”. RV folks might call it “boondocking”. )

This policy also mostly applies to state owned forest land in Oregon, owned by the Oregon Department of Forestry, or ODF, and in Washington, on land owned by Washington Department of Natural Resources, or DNR. Your state may have a similar system.

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Here's a great map showing public and private lands in Oregon. Anything marked Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, or State Lands (usually Oregon Department of Forestry in the Coast Range) is generally open for camping. (Note that National Wildlife Refuges, while federally owned, are typically closed to dispersed camping.) Check out the original map and zoom around here.

source: https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/land-ownership/index.php

But, sometimes it’s hard to know whether you’re actually on public land that allows free camping, or not.

Good news is, there’s some good desktop mapping software and phone apps that can answer the question, hopefully leading you to a secluded, free overnight spot with no hassles. 

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Disclaimer #1: As cartographers like to say, ”the map is not the territory.” Meaning, what’s really on the ground is the truth, not the printed map or phone app in your hand. If the map says you’re on public land, but the sign on the tree says no trespassing, or there are some grumpy locals who are giving you bad vibes, use your common sense and move on. 

Disclaimer/observation #2: The federal lands map layers in general seem to be more correct and consistent in these map tools / apps than the state land maps, at least for where I am in Oregon. In Oregon, it’s pretty easy to tell in the Coast Range whether it’s public or private. Privately owned lands almost always have a locked gate at the access road, and public lands do not. 

Observation #3: Rural gas station attendants are often great sources for good free campsites. A small tip offered for your gas before asking can work wonders.  =^)

Observation #4: I’d like to think I hardly need to mention this, but Leave No Trace principles of course apply. Don’t camp in meadows, near waterways or other fragile areas, leave zero garbage, toilet paper or fire rings behind, be VERY careful with campfires (if you even choose to have one) and observe all rules regarding fire closures, common in the summer. Have a walk around and pick up somebody else's trash before you leave.

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Desktop: Caltopo

For this example, let's look for possible camping spots near the Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon.

Go to CalTopo.com, my favorite backcountry mapping software, and zoom into your area of interest; here’s Crater Lake NP. Choose a map layer. I like “Mapbuilder Topo”, the default.

Then, mouse over the map layer menu in the top right corner, and check the box next to “Land Management”, under the “Map Overlays” section.

Now, your map should look something like this. Note the clear boundary between the National Park land around the lake, and the green tinted National Forest lands around the park.

Now we’re talking! Look at all those logging roads (in the red box) just outside the main road that leads into the park from the west, all on National Forest land. Most of these should offer some decent, free dispersed camping options, just a few minutes away from the park boundary.

Here’s one more. This is just outside the main entrance station at the southwest corner of Mt. Rainier National Park. Check out those roads on the green Forest Service land; looks like a good place to camp for free and then go into the park the next day.

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Phone apps - Gaia GPS “Public Lands” overlay

Phone based apps of course have the big advantage of showing your real time location AND the land ownership around you. Here are two that I like. 

On the “professional version” of the app, which is $40 a year, Gaia GPS has a map overlay option called “Public Land US”. With the “pro” version, Gaia has an advantage of being able to adjust the opacity of the map layers with a slider bar, which can be a big help in seeing smaller roads and pull outs.

Below is a map legend for Gaia GPS that shows the different public lands layers.

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Here we have the map layers “USFS 2016” and “Public Land (US)”. We see a brownish tint for the National Park, and a green tint for the surrounding Forest Service land.

Zooming into the same area where the main western access road enters the park, we see all of the forest service roads, many of which should offer some good camping options.

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Phone apps - Gaia GPS “Gaia Topo” free map layer

Recently, a GaiaGPS made some significant upgrades to their primary map layer, called “Gaia Topo”. (One great thing about this layer, it's free, both on the desktop and on your phone.) One of these improvements is showing public lands right on the map. Here's an example around Mt Rainier. (Please ignore the waypoints and climbing routes on the map.)

The subtle shading on this map shows different types of public lands. Along the main road Hwy 706 coming into the park, you pass through State Forest lands shown and light purple. South of the park is light green, which is National Forest. Slightly darker green is a designated wilderness area. And finally the light brownish orange is the National Park itself. Note, there is no dispersed camping allowed in national parks, but the State Forest and US Forest land should be fair game. Note there are lots of roads in both these areas you just need to zoom in more on the map to see them.

Gaia GPS Public lands example using Gaia GPS topo

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Phone apps - FreeRoam 

I'm sure there are several other apps that do this, here's a plug for one that I'm familiar with.

FreeRoam is a phone app designed to show camp options and public lands. It’s free. It shows BLM and USFS land, some but not all roads, existing public campsites, and occasionally user added “dispersed camping“ sites. The app does not have all the whistles and bells of Gaia GPS, but as far as showing your location and whether you are or are not on federal land, it does a decent job.

As a side note, in my brief time using it, it shows some state owned lands, but not all. It seems to be geared more toward federal land ownership.

Back again at Crater Lake NP. (Note the bounty of official $$$ campsites around Diamond Lake in the National Forest land north of the park, if that's your thing.)

And again, zooming in just outside the park to the west near Highway 62. Note the app shows just the primary forest service road leading south of the main highway, and not all the smaller secondary roads.

Well, that ought to be enough to get you started. Of course, you can mix and match some of these sources as well if you really want to get creative.

For example, you could use your nice big desktop screen at home and Calopo to scope possible campsites, maybe even using a satellite view, mark some way points, and then transfer those over to Gaia GPS on your phone to use when you're actually driving.

Hey, you pay your taxes. Get maximum use out of your public lands, and if you don't need a picnic table, go camp for free whenever you can.

Run out of runners? Use your gear

Getting low on runners on a long trad or big wall pitch? Might be time to get resourceful with your remaining gear. Stoppers/nuts, hexes and tricams can all be used as “runners” if needed.

El Capitan "Gigapixel Climbing Routes"

image: http://www.xrez.com/blog/el-capitan-gigapixel-climbing-routes/

This made the rounds in Yosemite circles a few months back, but it’s such an amazing photo project that it deserves a wider audience. 

The photography wizards Eric Hanson of Blueplanet VR and Greg Downing of HyperAcuity created an extremely high resolution, zoomable image of El Capitan, complete with red lining of routes and a climbing team in action on the Nose. You just need to see this, click the button below, zoom in, and be amazed. 

The technical details of how this photo was created go something like this: a high definition camera took about 2,000 images of El Capitan, and then the images were stitched together to make one single super high res image.

Then, all the climbing routes were drawn on the photo. 

And to top it off, another 2,000 or so photos were taken of two climbers on a one day climb of the Nose route, and these were added to the photo. 

You don’t have to have ambitions of El Capitan to appreciate the technical expertise, creativity, and beauty of this project. 

And, if you do want to climb El Cap, this could be a terrific planning and route finding resource.

(For example, you can see in this photo exactly how far down you need to lower down of the Boot Flake to properly execute the famous King Swing on the Nose :-)

image: http://www.xrez.com/blog/el-capitan-gigapixel-climbing-routes/