Ropes & Anchors
The Ropes & Anchors field trip rotates you through four stations. This page only covers a small part of what's taught at each station, but if you learn & practice these things before the field trip, the field trip will be a lot less overwhelming, and you'll learn more from it. Make sure you bring a cordelette to the field trip. (21-ish feet of 7mm nylon cord is my recommended cordelette material)
Single Pitch Cragging Skills: Leading on Bolts, and Cleaning Sport Anchors
See the separate page about Leading on Bolts
Anchors
I highly recommend reading the book "Climbing Anchors" by John Long, or "Rock Climbing Anchors" by Craig Luebben, (both books cover essentially the same material.) Those books do the best job at explaining the many different ways you can rig SERENE anchors. During the Ropes & Anchors FT, the focus is not so much on how to place trad pro, and more on the rigging that connects multiple pieces of pro to make it SERENE.
Practice building the following types of anchors to get a jump-start on the field trip. If you don't understand any of these, don't worry, just bring that question to the field trip. For each anchor type, ask yourself, which letters in SERENE does that anchor type do well at, and which ones is it making sacrifices on?
For a really complete (and long) video on all of the above anchor-types and more, here's my big video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SkCojauHto
Belaying for Multipitch
So far you've only ever belayed from the bottom of a pitch, with the climber above you. In order to lead multipitch routes, you'll need to learn how to belay from the top of the pitch, while your climber is below you. If the climber falls, you don't really want their body weight pulling downward on your harness; it's safe but it's really uncomfortable. Some options for avoiding that are to use a redirect, or belay directly off the anchor with an auto-blocking belay device. Everything is situational, and each of those ways of belaying has their pros & cons, but mostly we'll belay directly off the anchor with an auto-blocking belay device. Watch this video to get an overview, and then watch the video specific to your belay device, since each brand gets set up slightly differently. It's important that you know exactly how to set up your particular brand of belay device in auto-blocking mode before going to the Ropes & Anchors FT and can do it confidently, since not every instructor will be familiar with every belay device, and you may have to teach them.
Rappel Anchors
As an Intermediate student, it's your job on the climb to build rappel anchors that'll be left behind when necessary, whether that's creating a new one from scratch, or more likely, replacing old worn-out or sun-bleached webbing on existing rappel anchors if necessary. Rappel anchors should definitely still be SERENE, but since they're going to get left behind, we keep the cost down by not using any carabiners in the anchor if it's avoidable, and instead taking the extra time to untie one of your double runners or cordelette, threading it through or around things, adding a rap ring (to avoid dangerous nylon-on-nylon friction) and then tying permanent knots to close the loop and make it SERENE. (If it's a Basic climb, consider asking a Basic student to donate a runner or two for each anchor so you aren't always bearing the full cost.)
Read this page: http://www.summitpost.org/rappel-anchors-a-few-thoughts/846367
And watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dycbg16qtb4
It'll be your job to throw the ropes too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQHDGrcdymw
Advice on leaving minimal gear, but staying safe: http://www.climbing.com/skills/improvised-rappel-anchors/
Single Pitch Cragging Skills: Leading on Bolts, and Cleaning Sport Anchors
See the separate page about Leading on Bolts
Anchors
I highly recommend reading the book "Climbing Anchors" by John Long, or "Rock Climbing Anchors" by Craig Luebben, (both books cover essentially the same material.) Those books do the best job at explaining the many different ways you can rig SERENE anchors. During the Ropes & Anchors FT, the focus is not so much on how to place trad pro, and more on the rigging that connects multiple pieces of pro to make it SERENE.
- Strong/Solid --> Each piece of pro the anchor is constructed out of must be bomber.
- Efficient --> Both in terms of time and gear consumed. An anchor that takes tons of time and gear to build is less efficient.
- Redundant --> If any one piece of the anchor is cut, breaks, or accidentally unclips, the anchor as a whole will not fail.
- Equalized --> The total load on the anchor is divided between multiple pieces of pro, so they share the load.
- No-Extension --> If one piece of pro fails, the master-point of the anchor will not move significantly.
Practice building the following types of anchors to get a jump-start on the field trip. If you don't understand any of these, don't worry, just bring that question to the field trip. For each anchor type, ask yourself, which letters in SERENE does that anchor type do well at, and which ones is it making sacrifices on?
- 3-point cordelette anchor, with a big figure-8 or overhand forming a master point and a shelf (in real life, this is what we use most often)
- 2-point anchor, with a double runner, tied off like a cordelette
- 2-point sliding-X, using a double runner
- 2-point sliding-X, using a double runner, with added limiter knots
- Challenge: 3-point equalette, using a cordelette
- Bonus: The Quad. Tied with a cordelette. I prefer this anchor anytime I'm setting up a single-pitch top-rope that's going to get used for more than just one or two laps. For example: when teaching at the Mountaineers Clubhouse, Exit 38, or Vantage.
For a really complete (and long) video on all of the above anchor-types and more, here's my big video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SkCojauHto
Belaying for Multipitch
So far you've only ever belayed from the bottom of a pitch, with the climber above you. In order to lead multipitch routes, you'll need to learn how to belay from the top of the pitch, while your climber is below you. If the climber falls, you don't really want their body weight pulling downward on your harness; it's safe but it's really uncomfortable. Some options for avoiding that are to use a redirect, or belay directly off the anchor with an auto-blocking belay device. Everything is situational, and each of those ways of belaying has their pros & cons, but mostly we'll belay directly off the anchor with an auto-blocking belay device. Watch this video to get an overview, and then watch the video specific to your belay device, since each brand gets set up slightly differently. It's important that you know exactly how to set up your particular brand of belay device in auto-blocking mode before going to the Ropes & Anchors FT and can do it confidently, since not every instructor will be familiar with every belay device, and you may have to teach them.
- Reverso instruction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YDB1jj21s
- Mammut Smart Alpine instruction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoziFy96L4g
- Edelrid MegaJul instruction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpQocYmjyD0
Rappel Anchors
As an Intermediate student, it's your job on the climb to build rappel anchors that'll be left behind when necessary, whether that's creating a new one from scratch, or more likely, replacing old worn-out or sun-bleached webbing on existing rappel anchors if necessary. Rappel anchors should definitely still be SERENE, but since they're going to get left behind, we keep the cost down by not using any carabiners in the anchor if it's avoidable, and instead taking the extra time to untie one of your double runners or cordelette, threading it through or around things, adding a rap ring (to avoid dangerous nylon-on-nylon friction) and then tying permanent knots to close the loop and make it SERENE. (If it's a Basic climb, consider asking a Basic student to donate a runner or two for each anchor so you aren't always bearing the full cost.)
Read this page: http://www.summitpost.org/rappel-anchors-a-few-thoughts/846367
And watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dycbg16qtb4
It'll be your job to throw the ropes too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQHDGrcdymw
Advice on leaving minimal gear, but staying safe: http://www.climbing.com/skills/improvised-rappel-anchors/
Top picture: An anchor on R&D in Leavenworth, with a Mammut Smart set up to belay two separate followers, 8/31/2013