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Top Rope Anchors 101
Posted on February 7, 2014
It was an unusually warm day today and I wanted to go out climbing, but surprise, surprise, everyone who I know that climbs wasn’t picking up their phones… Anyway, I just wanted to reflect on something that happened last fall. I was at our local crag, setting up a top rope on one of the crack climbs here (this is different than most outdoor/gym climbing, because you actually stick your hands inside of the rock), and noticed there was a group top roping a route next to mine, using only 2 quick draws?! Is this normal? This did not seem safe at all. They had one quick draw on each bolt, but all of the carabiners were NON LOCKING! This doesn’t seem safe to me because its quite easy for these carabiners to unclip the rope in the event of a fall.

I believe in being “bomb proof”, so I try to make a top rope anchor that can survive a number of catastrophes, something like this:

This way, I can keep myself, and others safe, and not have to worry about the rope unclipping itself.

Please, before you go out trying to top rope, learn how to be safe first!

Be safe, have fun, “send” me your thoughts! (get it?)

This could mean that if your climber falls, you wont have enough grip to catch them, or worse, could mean 4th degree burns on your hands

I quickly excelled at the sport and found myself instructing people on such things as Top Roping, Bouldering, Knot Tying, and Safety. Recently, I have further grown as a rock climber and have taken my sport to new heights: Outside! Words cannot express how great it is to be outdoors on the rocks and being an example and inspiration to the climbing community.

example and inspiration to the climbing community.

◾Climbers love music. It has been my experience that you almost always hear music at the crags. But before you blast Dr. Dre on your portable speaker, make sure you ask everyone at the crag what their taste in music is. You don’t want to play Hip Hop if the other group at the cliff prefers Jazz. An easy way to accommodate everyone, I’ve found, is to swap out iPods every half hour or so. This way everyone gets to hear their own music at least once.

You’ll hear a lot of climbers use the term, “core”. This is used to describe the fact that a lot of climbing uses the muscles in the middle of your body. But climbing itself does not work out these muscles.

Jacob Smith wrote:
Some of the comments do seem to give it away, which saddens me, i want to live in a world where this person exists.

Looks like the photo from Progression is from Elevation Place in Canmore Canada

And the grigri belayer in the first post is definitely not him: wrong belaying technique

And the guy on Getting Lucky... yea, Steve, back in 2009

There is no silver bullet yet but yea this person probably doesn't exist and I am terribly saddened.

Learn your commands! Nothing will make you stand out more as a noobie than not knowing your climbing commands. Climbers have their own language, and it’s best to learn it ahead of time so you don’t look foolish. When you start to climb, turn to your partner and say, “Climbing”, then he/she should respond, “Belaying”. If you need to rest after a hard move, let your partner know by saying, “Rest”. This lets him know to sit on the rope to make it tight so that you do not lose upward progress. They should respond with something like, “Static”, so that you know that the rope is now tight and you can rest. When you continue climbing, repeat “Climbing”, and your partner should repeat “Belaying”. Other commands are: “Watch me”, to indicate you are doing a hard move. “Dirt me”, to indicate you are ready to be lowered to the ground (dirt). “Come on!”, to cheer on a climber. “Sent”, a way of saying you got to the top of a route. There are hundreds more, and I will list all of them in a later post.

Since there is no rock climbing in the middle east, I feel like building these giant climbing gyms will finally bring in some much needed tourist dollars to the war torn region. And best of all, gives us climbers a reason to travel to the middle east, since as we all know, we can’t go anywhere unless we know there’s climbing nearby!

I for one, am looking forward to checking out Iran’s route setting!

don’t let climbing sandbaggery get you down. It’s their issues, not yours. Believe in yourself!

It’s nice to know I have fans out in Sydney! I love Kiwis, and hope to visit some day!

Keepin it real


Wes