UKH

Hello,

Could anyone advise on best options for a multi-pack of cheap steel carabiners for retreating from too challenging climbs - without wanting to leave decent gear up there?

Kind Regards,

Miska

IMHO best thing is to use really old normal Krabs, preferably ones you found. Steel Karabiners will rust and are heavy so that's a disadvantage, and they might not be cheaper than a cheap snaplink as sometimes you can shop about

Steel Maillons (quick links) are cheap and light but tend to rust closed so they becomes antisocial, so you're back to old and/or found krabs "bin biners" as I believe our American cousins call them

How many do you need? How often do you retreat --  do you want a 2 or 3 old snaplinks as "bin biners"?   can post you a couple if you are in UK (UK post only) if you are willing to donate the postage cost to mountain rescue, local hospice, or charity of your choice

Edit, I'm having a bit of a clearout at the moment so the timing is good

Hi Tom,

I've emailed you.

Cheers

If you are referring to sports climbing a much better solution is to invest in a clipstick and clipsticking your way to the top. leaving random snap gates on bolts can be quite annoying for others trying the route and leaving mallions is downright antisocial.

Thats what maillons are for:

https://www.climbers-shop.com/climbing-equipment/connectors/maillon-rapide-...

Your link to Climbers shop is for the 3 mm maillon with a Working Load Limit of 50 Kg and a claimed Breaking Load  of 250Kn ( ie about 25 Tonnes mass?) .    Shouldn't that be 250 Kg?   Anyway, certainly not enough for me to bail on!  Surprised they have it in their web site. 

Inglesport has a better table and, based on that , I would be looking at a 6mm one.   

https://www.inglesport.com/product/peguet-maillon-rapide-standard-oval/

Why not get some cord? Costs <£2/m, it has been tested on bolts and is plenty strong enough to lower off. Doesn't rust shut or make things dangerous for the next person clipping it (won't crowd the hanger and snap krabs). Easy to cut off by the next party if the knot can't be undone. 

I don't understand why more people don't encourage bailing off a bit of tat rather than a lump of metal which will probably get stuck and start to degrade the fixed gear.

Abseil off it rather than lowering or you'll melt it through. 

You can also abseil off a hanger. 

It doesn't damage the rope, How Not To did a video about it.

Its extremely rare you would need to leave anything on a sport route.

OK - wasn't necessarily recommending that particular one, but maillons in general!

Maillons in general are a pretty terrible suggestion. Don't use them for bailing - it screws over the next person to climb and leaves a rusty mess which usually needs a spanner to undo. Just use a normal snapgate. 

Yep, clearly a mistake on the Climbers Shop website. The breaking load should be 250kg or 2.5kN (standard 5:1 safety factor if working load limit 50kg).

https://www.peguet.com/self-certified-maillon-rapide-quick-links/standard-m...

Either way, it’s clearly not appropriate to use as PPE. I’ll drop them a message.

G.

To the OP- if you use cord, as Paul says here, you must NEVER lower down off it. Abseil, then pull it. Or just use a biner. It’s a few £   and it’s your life your protecting.

My suggestion is climb with someone way better than you so you can deploy them to collect your QDs, it's worked well for me for many years 🤣🤣

All carabiners are very cheap considering one's life depends on them. Of course, it is quite simple to use one's own gear to lower from (to avoid wear on fixed gear), and then last person up can retrieve it and rap off.

As others have said this should be a last resort and something you only do occasionally, so we just carry one bailout krab per person.

 Maillons are super cheap, but yes unless removed fairly quickly can rust closed and make a bolt unusable for the next climber. Personally I carry a retired snapgate off an old quickdraw, however my preferred option as suggested by Euan is to send someone else up the route to retrieve gear for me.

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If you don't keep finger tape on your harness, find someone who uses it and steal a foot or so of tape to stick on your helmet.  Now, when you leave your bail biner, you can tape the gate closed and you've got a pseudo-locker.

(And, to repeat what's already been said: NEVER maillons to bail from.  Don't put the next person in the position of dealing with it.)

Fair dues, but I'm just talking about bailing off a route (not a sport route/bolt) - where you're likely to be either using some tat or leaving some gear in situ - it just means you can run the rope through and its safe and cheap. In this case, nobody is dealing with a mess anymore than leaving tat/gear with a krab. Sure, if you are talking clogging up a bolt with rusty gear thats an entirely different kettle of fish.

Oh no, did you use the 'M' word!

Never carry a bailout krab, just sets you up mentally for failure...

If I bail off a route for whatever reason I'll leave a decent karabiner for the next better climber to have.

In the lost and found stakes I'm well in credit with found gear so I have no issue passing on a decent karabiner to someone else. 

I just found a new C4 camalot last week, that more than offsets all the karabiner I've left behind in nearly 30 years of climbing.

Because sport climbers do not carry a belay device on their harness while leading. 

Bit of a blanket statement. I, for one, have always had my belay device on my harness, regardless of the type of climb. Non-assisted belay devices weigh almost nothing. Where do "sport climbers" leave their belay devices while leading?

Well they bloody should. If they're leaving the ground without a belay device and a prussik then they deserve the shit-show they'll inevitably encounter. 

If you are sport climbing consistently, you are using a grigri or similar to belay in 99.99% of circumstances. Grigris are heavy, you don't carry that on your harness while climbing unless its by accident. You leave them on the floor. Not sure why thats such a complicated thing to understand/ such a surprise! 

I have never carried a prussik single pitch sport climbing; why would I? Its not trad climbing, you don't need it. The only time I've seen a use for it is bouncing back up the rope when you end up in space on steep terrain, but its not essential. On multipitch sport climbing where you might have to abseil retreat clearly it might be useful but on single pitch, almost never. 

Something like a grigri might be your primary belay device but who honestly owns one and not also a normal device? When I sport climb I usually use an assisted belay device but I also always have a tube with me. 

A prusik can be used if you ever need to abseil and can also keep you much safer if bailing off a single bolt (see here: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b5251575b409b5fa4744be6/1587...). It weighs next to nothing and can be utilised for loads of things. 

If you don't have a belay device on you then you should have spare lockers and the knowledge of how to use them to abseil (I prefer this one over a munter: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b5251575b409b5fa4744be6/af43...)

A 'get out of trouble' kit for sport weighs almost nothing yet you rarely see people carry them. 

I've never left the ground with a prussik or and ATC on a single pitch route (normally use a click-up), never had a shit-show, I've never left anything on a route. 

Thanks for the lesson...

I have never needed to abseil on single pitch sport. I do not see why I would; I would simply lower off. That is the conclusion that 99.99% of people who regularly sport climb come to. Despite what you seem to be implying, sport climbers are not incompetents. They just consider the miniscule risk that they will ever need to abseil not worth carrying 3 screwgates and a prussik up every pitch they do for no reason. You rarely see people carrying them because its not necessary. 

If I'm really stuck I'll clip in to a bolt, pass down a loop of rope, get my belayer to attach the clip stick & pull it back up.  

Umm... in my bag

Maybe you've not climbed in enough grotty south Wales quarries then! I've had to abseil on more than one occasion as the loweroffs had been stripped or it turned out they were the old trad anchors on top of the crag away from the edge. 

Ah! So we're onto the regular topic of crag swag.

Have you tried to find the owner of that Camalot? Are you right to keep it, without trying hard to return it to its home?

Many times I've been at a crag where beginners have stuck gear and I've retrieved it for them. I'm not the sort of person who will wait until they've left to nab their gear.

I've found a whole rack of gear before and absolutely I have reunited the gear and owner.

A single piece of gear on a sea cliff, no I won't be putting effort into finding the original owner.

I have no expectation at all of being reunited with gear I have left behind.

Generally clipped to the outside of my rucksack so I can find it again quickly when it's my turn to belay.

A new C4 could mean quite a lot to someone financially. The decent thing would be to post on Lost/Found and say you've got it - it hardly takes any effort. I don't see that the other parts of your post: retrieving gear for climbers, returning a whole rack (worthy actions to be sure), and your personal expectations of having gear returned, have anything to do with it.

The effort is in the time I spent removing the overcammed piece from a good placement in a sea cliff so it doesn't become another piece of useless rusting junk.

In terms of the decent thing as you put it. 

I believe when someone leaves stuck gear behind, particularly on sea cliffs, they should be posting on here letting people know. Not with the expectation on having the gear returned,  but with the hope that someone will clear up their mess and keep the routes clean.

Ah - new information! You said previously that you simply "found" it. I expect for many climbers that would change the case for keeping it.

Well that's a good point; but again, using that as part of a set of justifications to keep gear seems on slightly dodgy ground to me - I'm not sure what one thing has to do with the other.

If I find gear laying at the base of a crag, I will try and find the owner.

If the owner of gear is present while I remove a stuck item I will return it.

Stuck gear on a crag is litter, it has a negative impact on routes.

When you remove stuck gear you are already doing the original owner a good service by cleaning up their mess.

A lesson I learnt early in my climbing was watching someone remove a stuck cam I had placed, then walk off with it.

Though at the time I was a bit miffed, and this is something I would never do to someone else.

It taught me to really place cams carefully, and become proficient at removing stuck cams.

The guy did me a favour, though I didn't know it at the time.

Well said

I agree with all 4 of those points, and I do exactly the same. The difference between us is that after removing gear from the rock (even if to some extent it was stuck), I will try to return it, if it looks at all expensive/shiny/newish. I'd only keep (or discard) old, cheap, clearly abandoned gear. For me, not to do that feels wrong, and to use some combination of the other actions as justification feels like cant.

Sometimes I don't have the perfect-sized piece for what the rock offers and/or I may have already used it but if it's my neck on the line then I'm hammering that green into a purple-sized hole. Gear is not always placed badly and stuck because of incompetence and it's not fair to assume that every piece of stuck gear needs to be a 'lesson' for someone. Sometimes they just don't want to die.  

Good for you.

What I don't like is you implying that in someway my actions are dodgy and indecent.

That's a fair point, just take it out after you've had your near death experience. 

Yes, well you posted on a public forum confidently stating the circumstances under which you would assume ownership of someone else's property, together with a set of justifications, knowing full well that it's a contentious issue, so you did rather stick your head above the parapet! If you're going to keep the gear as "crag swag", keep it, nobody can stop you, but there's no point publicly advertising the fact and then coming over all offended when someone thinks your actions are dodgy - it was bound to happen

I never refer to stuck gear as 'crag swag', it's litter. If left in place will quickly become rusting junk, certainly on a sea cliff.

In the case of stuck gear, it's incorrect to call it'lost', it has been purposefully abandoned, ownership has been relinquished.

Don't conflate lost with abandoned. 

And I have a problem with the "litter" designation. Not because I don't think gear found in situ should be removed: of course it should, and I don't think anyone's arguing against that.

The question is what to do with the gear once removed, and the problem with calling it all "litter" is that it immediately sidesteps any thoughts of trying to return it, or feeling any responsibility in that direction. Not a problem with an old, rusting, jammed nut; but a new C4 cam .... really? I wouldn't feel right about just keeping it, even if I did spend some time getting it out.

I'm getting the feeling we'll just have to agree to differ.

You draw very black-and-white boundaries to suit your case, but in the real world most things are shades of grey. For example, just because a relative novice used an overly-tight cam placement with their expensive new cam, and/or the second didn't remove it correctly, and it got jammed, doesn't give you the right to pronounce it "purposefully abandoned", not in my opinion, anyway. They might be coming back for it. Or not, but they might be hard up and now they're more depressed than excited about their new activity. That scenario presents you with a golden opportunity to foster some good fellow-feeling among climbers, including those less experienced than yourself, and maybe restore a bit of faith in human nature, by returning the gear. Imagine how chuffed they'll be! And you'll get at least a cam's worth of positive feeling about doing it

When did gear come with a comprehensive life story for the finder? A few weeks ago myself and a partner had to leave an offset and quickdraw after a bad fall, injury and arduous extraction meant it was the only safe way to get off. How would you know the difference?

Gear can be left for any number of reasons. Incompetence at placing or removing, an accident, an absent-minded second, safety (e.g. back-roping downclimbs or traverses), butter-fingers. 

Finders can do what they want and can justify to themselves but don't make out like every piece of stuck gear is just someone placing it badly or someone being crap at getting it out. 

The thing that irks me more about this kind of thing is that you're long in the game and presumably have the gear you need. You keeping something superfluous that you find means that the person who lost it now has to buy that gear again while their gear sits in your draw or whatever. They might not be able to afford it or they might hold out in the hope that it is returned. Their personal safety kit in the meantime is diminished. 

I've returned things to people who were decidedly ungrateful (usually people with toughtags, who seem to assume that that means I should go out of my way to get their stuff back to them) and I've returned things to people who it meant a lot to. If I needed their gear I would have just bought it. 

As you say, there's many shades of grey with abandoned gear, but most of the time it is just that, abandoned and litter. If the person who got it stuck really cared or was so hard up in most cases they would clean the route.  I've got no problem with people getting abandoned gear back, I've got lots and don't want it but having a load of badly placed instu gear on climbs is rubbish for everyone. I've been in situations in the past where, due to my own incompetence I've had to abandoned gear, and after rather ashameidly admitting it on here, have been happy that others have cleaned up after me.

I should probably add... ive got no problem with people returning gear, I've had people very kindly return kit I had carelessly left at crags on several occasions (allthough that's not we are talking about here). It's more the attitude that it's totally fine to leave kit on routes because you are too rubbish or lazy to get it out but it's fine because someone will clean up after you.

And again, how do you know that that's the case when you come across a piece of gear? 

I think you (and Dan Gibson) are quite right, and I agree that it should always be removed where possible. I don't think that's being debated though, and I definitely wasn't making a case for leaving anything in situ; it was more about what to do with gear once it's out of the rock. Personally, I don't think the effort of removal gives me an automatic right to keep it, and I would always try to return anything new and/or expensive-looking.

On the rare occasion I've had to abbandon gear I've apologetically admitted it on here, and people can return or not.  If I saw a post on here, I would try to return it.  However I would much rather it wasn't there in the first place making things more dangerous for me!