UKH

Hello all!

When it comes to building a belay station at double bolts, I’ve always been taught to either build it using a sling to a master point or using the rope, but I’ve just come across this image on the petzl website, and I’ve seen it used by some euro guys too - could anyone talk me through the pros and cons of this setup and why it may or may not be useful?

(second image down, where climber is attached via lanyard on one bolt, rope to other)

https://m.petzl.com/GB/en/Sport/Belaying-and-descending-on-multi-pitch-clim...

many thank! 

My guess is the idea is if you are carrying a personal anchor (a sling and biner; Petzl Connect Adjust etc), then it’s faster to just go in direct on your personal anchor and clove hitch the QD via the rope you already have running through it that you clipped when first arriving at the belay. Then you just need to take a single screwgate and set up your equalised point via a sling to set up guide mode on the reverso.

pros: fast; only need 1 screw gate rather than 3-4 if setting up to belay from and securing into a central master point; if you’re carrying the personal anchor why not use it esp if it’s a Connect Adjust which is easily extendible and dynamic; 

cons: clipping the sling through the top biner on the QD you are clove hitched to looks irritating and faffy; can’t bloc lead off it as the next pitch will have to be led by your partner 

Upon reflection it only saves you one screw gate (duh).

I’d just make the anchor on the rope, TBH. 

Oh and your partner could restack the rope and you could lead the next pitch, you’d just have to leave a QD behind. 
 

so in summary, ignore me. 
 

but in further summary, I can’t see any advantage of using this set up vs the two you describe 

The only 'pro' I see in this is the pro-duct that Petzl are selling

I see! Interesting... I’ve also seen it done with standard slings instead of the petzl connect like I this photo - so I’m curious why this method keeps cropping up 

if leading in blocks rather than swing lead; the belay transition (images 2 to image 1) is slightly easier.

there are many ways to skin a cat, but if you're climbing a lot of pitches in a day any method should be simple and slick.

It's a quick and easy way to attach yourself to two bolts if you're climbing with a single rope and lanyard already attached to your harness. There are loads of different ways to do this, with the rope, slings, a central point on the anchor chain, but I guess Petzl just picked a common method and ran with it.

Pro's and cons? It's annoying climbing with a lanyard. It's extra kit to carry if that's a consideration. But on steep terrain, it can be really useful to just clip right into a bolt at a stance, pull yourself tight on your lanyard and then go hands free to fiddle with the anchor and belay plate etc. 

Theres loads of data out there now on how easy it is to break slings falling onto them at anchors. A dynamic adjustable lanyard is obviously a better solution, especially if your reading the tech tips from a manufacturer of said equipment! 

This is a variation of a variation of belaying. So the reason you would do it Is as follows:

When belaying using a reverso as a magic plate, you do not need to be in line with the system. Using this system allows you a greater freedom of movement. It keeps the belay clean and simple (all bar the extra tie in) and the reverso runs without interference to the second.

When your second arrives at the stance, they can mount a locker into the sliding x sling and tie in using a clove hitch and immediately put you on belay. Before they arrive personally I would release the extra back up tie in on the second bolt so that the belay is ready for you to lead off.

because you are connected with a lanyard, your belayer can attach you to their belay plate and does not need to yard in slack once you have removed your rope tie in. You can then un clip and start climbing immediately.

Does this style of belay make sense for most people? Probably not. On big multipitch bolted routes where time counts and a clean, clear system helps improve efficiency and reduce time spent faffing at the belays, absolutely. So 1-2% of users?

The benefit if you're into that sort of thing is it's fractionally quicker to clip something than to clip and tie something. The benefit to Petzl is they sell lanyards.

The downside is buying and carrying unnecessary kit.

jk

There's some good stuff on here:

https://people.bath.ac.uk/dac33/high/6TheBelay.htm

I don't think there are many benefits to this as a belay set up, per se, but the obvious benefit here is that by clipping directly into a bolt with a lanyard, you can untie from the rope and still be secure, e.g. if you are at the final belay and want to abseil once your partner reaches you. A lanyard bought for this specific purpose is not necessary; a sling or quickdraw can also work, so long as you're careful not to shockload it.

A number of small advantages coming up on this thread - perhaps it's a sum-of-the-parts benefit?

Petzl connnect lanyards are easily adjustable - slings aren't (without unclipping, and tieing the knot in a different place), and adjusting a tightened clove hitch is possible but faffier, especially if your weight is on the anchors. I find it really useful being able to adjust the stance slightly and stop calves and feet getting uncomfortable.

Second, on a lot of bolted multipitch climbs you are descending by multiple abseil where you will be independent of the rope, and in these circumstances an adjustable lanyard wins hands down over a sling on both comfort and safety.  And if you are going to carry it for the way down, you might as well make use of it on the way up.

It's not quite as efficient as you describe because re-stacking the rope for the bloc lead is still required, so it's not just a case of 'second arrives, puts you on belay and off you go'.

I use a Petzl Connect for

1. cleaning sport routes

2. having a safe, dynamic way of attaching to anchors when MP sport climbing which as Max says is much superior to a regular sling (esp when abseiling)

3. going in direct to a bolt so that I can send down a loop of rope and have the clip stick of shame sent up to me in order to cheat through the crux that is shutting me down

They're ludicrously expensive for what they are, but they are right handy once you've got one. 

If you stack your rope well and are able to flip it over then it is. And besides, restacking your rope would have to occur if yuo tied in with the rope aswell. In the past I have used a system whereby I've stayed clipped in with a lanyard and untied, the second has arrived, clipped their lanyard and untied and retied to my end whilst I take the kit, then they put me on belay whilst I tie in on their end and off I go. It sounds like more work but it was actually incredibly quick once you got used to it. As I said though, it's not exactly a mainstream usage and I wouldn't go round recommending it to beginners as there is naturally a margin for error! I also have the connect and use it for all the things you have cited plus in the mountains. It's not something you need to replace very often and I'd say on balance for the number of uses you get from them, they're worth it. I'd rather have one and not buy a third pair of rockshoes

Small benefits, yes; with the trade off that you're having to carry an unnecessary piece of equipment.

Its all about both speed & safety.

As soon as the lead climber shouts safe, you the belayer can strip everything other then your cows tail, lanyard. The same scenario is happening with the lead climber too to save time, once the lanyard is attached he builds the anchor & belay 

Obviously if the price of the petzl lanyard is deemed to be too much, just attach a fixed length of dynamic rope to your harness, same result without the adjustability.

And comfort, and convenience.

And if the price is putting you off, Decathlon sell the kong slyde for £5, which paired with just under 2m of 9mm dynamic rope does the same job. 

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/kong-slyde-id_8388518.html

Something interesting for this - I stack the rope in my prussik, which I hang from above one of the knots on my quad. This has several benefits - firstly no weight on your lanyard, which means greater maneuverability and no weight pulling on your back which actually makes a noticeable difference to belay discomfort. It also means the rope is stacked very neatly and tends not to get messed from stance changes etc. 

Assuming I'm block leading, when the second arrives at the belay, they bang their prussik or sling onto the other side of the quad, then I swiftly restack the rope whilst they clip the gear onto one of the centre strands. They then reclip their belay device whilst I organise my rack, and then I climb off. 

When swinging leads this system is even more efficient, because it means you get a perfect rope feed every single time, plus not having to faff with the rope in front of you on your lanyard, blocking the belay device etc. You can give one strand a quick tug and a nice clean loop of rope will drop, ready for the next five or so metres of belaying. 

The way the rope stacks in the sling is such that it does not tangle and always feeds out very cleanly. There's certainly an extra few seconds involved in stacking in the sling as opposed to on the lanyard, but the potential for faff that it removes is far more than the time it costs - similar to the difference using a small haul-bag makes compared to backpacks when climbing harder pitches. Great system and I really recommend it. 

It’s not unnecessary if you are sport climbing. I don’t carry one when Trad climbing, but when going in to bolts (either single but especially on multipitch and even more so if abseiling off) the Petzl Connect is simply replacing a non-dynamic piece of kit you’d have anyway, with something better. 

Exactly my thoughts.

If it's an abseil descent I'll carry a lanyard and use it; if not I'll probably not bother. 

Do you have any pictures, I can't quite get my head around what you are doing without it being quite hard/awkward to stack the rope cleanly?

This should work: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2P22x3YTEDTZHv2NA 

It's worth mentioning I always use guide mode or a grigri when belaying a second. 

Fair enough and each to their own; I don't have anything against the Connect or similar lanyards except that I find a lanyard wrapped around from my tie-in to my gear loop(s) is generally a bit of pain, as it's just one extra bit of crap hanging around and potentially getting tangled in draws or gear. I'm sure other people don't mind it, though, so each to their own, as I say. I imagine an adjustable lanyard could potentially be quite useful as an instructor, whilst rigging, too. But, you can do the same things and more with a sling, so long as you know its limits. And I can't imagine taking a factor 2 onto 1m of dynamic rope is really a great idea, even whilst it's safer than doing the same with a dyneema sling.

Gotcha, thanks. Not sure I'm ever that organised.....

Correct me if I'm wrong... but in the picture it looks like you are connected via your lanyard to a single strand of the blue sling ("sliding V") that has been knotted at either end (2 knots).

Wouldnt this make this strand of sling aprox 4 times weaker (~50% reduction per knot), now also in a setup with no redundancy? i.e. if the "sliding V" fails you are no longer connected to the anchor?

It doesn't appear safe to me...?

The anchor is a quad. Not sure what you mean with 'sliding v'. The setup is redundant i.e. if one piece failed I would still be connected to the system, albeit with a short load (maybe 15cm slip, max.)

You're playing the game of 'oooh but is it safe' with numbers that really don't scale. Even if the sling was 50% weaker than rated with knots in it'd still be rated to 12kn i.e. 1200kg of force. As you can imagine, it's impossible generate this kind of load onto an anchor without cutting yourself in half first. 

I'd go through the relevant maths for each part of the setup - but actually it's all irrelevant - due to the fact that you always use a Jesus piece on one of the bolts when leading off, the system is never loaded with more than bodyweight plus kit. This doesn't mean it couldn't hold a huge amount of force, but in practicality it never does. 

Basically the quad is a well respected standard within the climbing world and is a bomber setup when using anchors that you are sure are good i.e. bolts or proper bomber gear. On more questionable belay setups with 4+ pieces, I would use a different system such as a cordalette with independent attachment points, or more simply just rope. 

Hope this helps explain it - it's a grand setup and absolutely ace for the multis! 

Would also just like to say it wasn't me who disliked your comment, questions about safety are never a bad thing. 

Isn't this a total pain to stack in the prussik especially if second is climbing fast.

For what it is worth, if using twin ropes, I clove hitch the unbelayed rope into a crab near the bolt somewhere so I have a big space to dump the rope into. If not twins, then use a long sling. I don't notice the weight. 

I meant  sliding V as in - the strand of sling you are clipped/anchored to - should the sling fail at either knot then the entire strand will fail (with anchors intact)

I see what you mean as being redundant at the anchor but I don't see how it's redundant at the sling. You are right though , the forces generated at a belay are small and here shared between two bolts so perfectly safe. I just have this fear with knotted slings! Also it looks like a fig8 on a bite knot so kinder on a sling than a overhand too.

Thanks for explaining the quad, never heard of it (learn something new everyday!) but looks like a very useful setup on sport multipitch, with equidistant bolts. I'll definitely try it out but probably undo the knots after every route to spread the wear out and peace of mind!

No worries. Yeah, it's best to cycle the knots after each route to make sure things run smooth. I also tend to use dyneema/nylon blends rather than pure dyneema just for piece of mind, although in reality it makes little difference.

I use fig 8's at the end so the force required to cut the sling would be pretty massive. Great to see you applying the right questions though because it's what keeps us all safe!

Naah it's pretty chill, you obviously need to have the motion practiced if the second is moving quick but you can also get away with long rope loops in this configuration. I tend to let it drop at least 2.5-3m on each side meaning you only have to thread it every 5-6m and the rest of the time you just pull the slack through occasionally which is easy because the prussik holds the rope weight. 

It's one of those things that one the surface presents a small amount more faff but spares vast quantities of faff from rope tangle etc which ultimately results in more consistent, efficient movement. 

Misha, you've just reminded me that when I was starting out climbing (and before I knew any better) I bought a metolius rope hook, which is dedicated bit of kit that fulfills the purpose of your prussik, except being an open 'hook' it's even easier to stack as you don't have to thread the loops through. 

https://www.idahoadventuresports.com/products/metolius-rope-hook

This one I will concede is an unnecessary extra piece of gear, I can't recall ever having used it.  Though does make an excellent hanging place for the stepladder in my basement.

One way of using this set up is as follows and is great for an experienced team of 3 leaning in blocks

1. leader arrives at stance and places QD on one bolt and clips rope. This is always a good idea. I once fell off the stance on cemetery gates and broke a leg 

2. place sling and lanyard

3. clove QB

4. bring up both seconds at the same time

5. do not tie seconds in, just leaving them hanging from the reverso, tie one backup knot for each below the reverso. The advantage of this is that the reverso creates an adjustable lanyard as long as you like. Often it makes sense to park the third below the ledge as space is limited. For here they sort the ropes whilst the second belays. The is only for experienced teams

6. leader grabs another reverso off the third, converts the clove into just a clip (hence forming the Jesus piece) and heads off

for more details hop over to multipitchclimbing.com