I realize this is an older video so this may not be seen but I believe you set up your atc backwards. The braking side with the teeth is supposed to face down towards the unweighted side of the rope
I wouldn't have removed both quickdraws. I would have kept the rope through one of them and on belay so as not be be relying solely on the PAS to keep me safe but then those are just my thoughts
It's better if you place the overhand knot on your belay loop with a locking carabiner not the side loops. So in case something goes wrong with your sling or anchor you will drop on the next draw below not on the ground
Very nice and detailed video. I do have a comment and wondered if anyone else thought the same. I’m not currently a climber but have an interest in trying it out. This video is pretty damn scary in a sense as are the other videos on cleaning a sport climbing route. It’s just that it seems to be a lot of steps and instruction and if you fudge it up then you are dead. Maybe it doesn’t seem as bad when you are on the wall because I assume that one would be highly focused with a bit of adrenaline pumping.
Your fears are warranted - rappelling is one of the most dangerous parts of climbing. The best thing you can do is to hire a certified instructor. Once you learn the basics, you can use reputable books to add more techniques (e.g. different anchor configurations) to your arsenal of skills to determine what works best for your available hardware & risk tolerance.
I'm a beginner and was wondering how do you clean your quickdraws from a sport route if you don't make it all the way to the top anchors? Do you just do the same thing (with no redundancy) on your highest/last quickdraw?
The safest thing to do is just leave the draw, they aren’t worth much relative to your life. You can’t do the same thing because there aren’t chains at every bolt.
You said do it repel directly off the chains right? In the video it looked like you repelled directly off of the chains -just an unexperienced climber trying to learn thx
Clear video, but you never wrap your rope around your leg. Thats just asking for an injury should you fall. Install your autoblock instead of wrapping the rope around your leg. Also using a leg loop for an autoblock application is also a bad idea......leg loops are not designed for full weight application especially for a factor 2 fall, plus if a fall was to happen, using a leg loop will most definetly cause you to flip upside down. What would have been better, would have been to install your ATC on your daisy chain which would have gave you a little extention, and then install your autoblock below the ATC and attach it to the belay loop.
"Clear video, but you never wrap your rope around your leg." Leg-wraps are used by climbing guides around the planet and are totally valid. "Also using a leg loop for an autoblock application is also a bad idea......leg loops are not designed for full weight application especially for a factor 2 fall, plus if a fall was to happen, using a leg loop will most definetly cause you to flip upside down." Autoblocks connected to leg loops are also par-for-the-course around the world. Extending the device and having the autoblock off the belay loop is fine as well. Lastly, care to explain how they might manage a Factor 2 when cleaning an anchor lol?
As I said.....just because it is used by some around the world still doesn't make it safe.....bad idea. Even harness manufactuers will tell you, the leg and gear loops on a harness are NOT designed for that purpose.
really appreciate you taking the time and effort to put up this video - i'm returning to sport climbing after a 10+ year hiatus and this was an extremely helpful refresher!
In general, I think this is good instruction but I think some things can be done to make it a little safer. Specifically since sharing with the public as instruction, this should have been included. 1. Have a locking biner on the PAS attached to the anchor side. Removing gear, threading rope and grabbing the chains you can easily open an non-locker. Since you are pulling up, you are also unweighting the rope meaning it could slide out. Hopefully you have two attachment points and are already set up to rappel, so the result wouldn't be a ground-fall but just loosing part of your system and giving you a bit of a scare. 2. The anchor should be equalized. For case #1, you would shock load the right anchor a little. Since the PAS is nylon, should be fine but the phrase 'should be' is not a comfortable one in climbing. 3. If you have the opportunity to girth hitch the PAS to your belay loop it takes one component out of the system that COULD be removed. Since you are setting up a biner for your rap device, you don't want to mix up those biners on accident. Again, these are ways to make cleaning safer. The method above is not unsafe, but I believe the recommendations I've added make it safer with a minimal increase in time to clean. Points 1 and 3 would be setup prior to climbing, and #2 can be done before the climb if you already know the spacing of the bolted anchors.
So what would I do to add an autoblock to this in case I let go? I've rappelled with an autoblock on single rope, but does it also work on double ropes? I feel like it would slip or I wouldn't be able to get all 4 wraps with a 13.5" autoblock sling. Also is there a way to retrieve the rope, but use a single rope rappel? Or would that just be ridiculous and significantly harder?
Thanks for this video. I was looking for a decent one to show a friend before I showed him in person. Surprisingly hard to find one where someone raps from the chains rather than being lowered.
treksez some people think the brakes garb too much and just use that side for belaying. depending on the thickness of the rope, the non-teeth side can be plenty of friction.
Great video! I hope to accomplish my first lead this summer (after personal instruction, of course), but this video is great. Now I know what to expect when getting to the top! Thanks for posting!
[schoffal commented - I give you 1 scenario. If the 2 bolted anchors accidentally fail during you thread the rope through chains with the rope attached to the gear loop. Imagine what will happen to you? You have to think, where the rope you have to attach to save your life if something happened. Better attach the rope with a carabiner to the belay loop before release the figure 8. Then you can thread the rope to the chains. At least you still save with the last quickdraw below you if the 2 bolted anchors fail. Correct me if i am wrong.] answer - he falls to the ground because he has already been taken off belay
Schoffal - let me get this straight. You trust two bolts you're directly attached to less than one bolt you would take a large dynamic fall on? What's more, in order to thread the rope for the rappel, you HAVE to go off belay, which means that a knot clipped into your belay loop is useless anyway. Clipping into two bolts is redundant and safe, assuming the bolts and rock are in good condition (which is easy to check). At some point, you have to accept a certain level of risk when rock climbing.
I give you 1 scenario. If the 2 bolted anchors accidentally fail during you thread the rope through chains with the rope attached to the gear loop. Imagine what will happen to you? You have to think, where the rope you have to attach to save your life if something happened. Better attach the rope with a carabiner to the belay loop before release the figure 8. Then you can thread the rope to the chains. At least you still save with the last quickdraw below you if the 2 bolted anchors fail. Correct me if i am wrong.
Do you attach your personal anchor system through your belay loop or through both hard points? I have started to use two slings girth hitched to harness with lockers on the ends and have been girth hitching both through the hard points. However, when I tie in as well, the hard points seem to be quite clustered and I was wondering if anyone had an opinion regarding safety/wear and tear on slings using this method? It seems safer because with them girth hitched to the belay loop, it is three way loaded which i know is never good and it seems like one sling is definitely taking more load than the other. Opinions? Thanks.
According to the manufacturer recommendations of the Metolius PAS 22, the anchor system is to be girth hitched to the main loops of your harness. The same place you'd tie in with your rope. I'm not saying the belay loop can't work, but just know that it's not the recommended way to tie your personal anchor system
So is it enought to use only one PAS? Sure you clip into two individual bolts but still its only one point attached to your harness? I just ordered one but now im getting second thoughts...
Many climbers feel a single PAS is sufficient, but it still makes me a little nervous. I prefer two slings girth-hitched individually to my harness's soft-gear loops with a locking biner on each.
It could be the angle of the lens but when you threaded the rope through the chain the angle it formed with the bolts seemed more than 90 degrees. With the extra length of the quick draw it made the angle much lower.
what you started saying at 3:30 was pricless !!! your a legend man saves route setters like myself 100's of dollars, this is THE best demostration of cleaning an anchor on youtube
Lowering off chains after a sport climb is considered fine. As long as you DONT top rope through chains or rap rings for a whole climbing session and continue to lower off a sport anchor or sling tied anchor, it should not put excessive wear and tear on the hardwear. I understand that rappelling reduces "wear and tear" on fixed gear. Rappelling is safe if done properly with a back up using and auto blocking device or prusik. To many deaths have come from rapping when it was indeed possible to lower. When ever possible at the end of your route session, lower if possible. There is way to clean anchors while still being held by the belayer and attached to your PAS. Check out this video for a great example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-G7N5RcsSyUw.html
Safety is paramount, but as you can see from the video, even with no teeth engaging the rope, I still have to shove the rope into the device as I begin to lower. Furthermore, in addition to a manageable amount of friction in my device, I have a trustworthy friend giving me a fireman’s belay. Good comment though... I'm a huge fan of safety.
This video was meant to outline the basics of cleaning, not hash out the intricacies of how to load a particular rappel device. If you watch the video again and look very carefully, you can see in several places (as I’m lowering) that the way I have it set up, the teeth on the device never engage the rope. They come close, but trust me, they don’t contact. I’ve done this a million times and I’ve watched it close-up and personal. Thanks again for your comments though.
When you load your rope into the ATC backwards (I.E. toothed face facing downwards) it creates a lot of extra friction that can seriously heat up your belay device. I prefer z4's method.
2. The leg wrap only frees your hands to make removal of the PAS easier, it doesn't take the place of an autoblock or a fireman's belay for lowering. Good comment though. I've found it's hard for a beginner to get a friction hitch configured properly to facilitate easy removal of the PAS since it has to be just the right length and you have to move it up the rope in order to put slack into the PAS for easy removal. The leg wrap is pretty fool proof and works great for that step of the process.
1. Thanks, and good point. Realistically speaking, it's tricky to rig an anchor that will truly stay taught on both sides throughout the whole cleaning process. If I rig my PAS optimally, the longest static fall that I could possibly experience would take up about six inches of slack. Do you know what the stats are for dyneema failure from a short fall off of static anchors? I don't. That's why I've gone back to good ol' fashioned bomb proof 1" tubular nylon webbing.
But when you repel the top of the rope is always engaged into the piece. So with your break hand you pull it away from the teeth. How you have it the teeth are always running on the rope without ever coming off. The only way for the teeth to not bit the rope is when your weight comes off. Think of it this way your weight is pulling you down while the rope is pulling up. So the moment you put weight the top part engages with the rope. So when your break hand comes off the lowest point is the top.
A few observations. It's a good vid, just not for pure beginners. 1. If you're using a PAS, both attachment points should be taut. Most of these are made out of dyneema now, and strength is significantly reduced if shockloaded. 2. Teach them a proper friction hitch instead of leg wraps. The Klemheist is simple. Rig it first, then the weight of the rope into the device becomes a non issue because you have a free-hanging bight to feed in.
Good thought but you might want to watch that part again. I always tie an overhand on a bight and then clip it onto a gear loop. The reason I use a gear loop instead of the belay loop is covered in an earlier comment. You might want to check it out. Thanks for your comment.
Good eye! But, I intentionally load my device that way (with the teeth away from the break side) in order to minimize drag as I'm lowering myself. If you were to look at that particular device close-up, you'd see what I mean. I want the smooth (non-toothed) side of the device on the break end because if you turn it around so that the toothed end is down, the teeth bite the rope as it's going into the device... which adds drag.
