Sword of Gideon.

Yesterday myself and Chris still didn't have any work so after a late night the night before we decided on an alpine start and to have a crack at a route we've both had our eyes on for a while now. Sword of Gideon is a 4 pitch, 3 star, VS 4c and was supposed to have some of the most immaculate rock in the area! So with this in mind we left at the crack of noon... ok well probably closer to 1pm but still! Unfortunately rather than take the normal approach from the road directly below the climb we decided to make a longer day of it and park at the top of the pass, follow the ridge down then descend to the climb. This was all going fairly well until we go to an awkward down climb in one of the descent gullies. We'd only taken one pack between us to save the leader carrying anything on the climb and it was my turn to carry it. Feeling slightly uneasy with the downclimb with the big pack i had a brain-storm! 'I know, i'll just drop it a meter or so onto that grassy flattening... Perhaps not by best idea... About 200m later it finally stopped bouncing and cartwheeling down the gully when it careered into a boulder filed and came to an abrupt stop. Thankfully we'd taken my rucsac (a POD Black Ice) which was lovingly made in Sheffield and can take anything you could throw at it! From its ordeal all it shows was a muddy smear on the front and a tiny pinprick hole on one side. (lets see your Berghaus Arete do that! lol ) Unfortunately my Sigg didn't come off so well and despite still being watertight is probably about half the volume it was at the beginning of the day! And as for Chris' tangerine... well lets just say it wasn't pretty!

So perhaps not the best start to the day, made worse by the onset of increasingly persistent showers but we pressed onto the bottom of the climb, kitted up and the heaviest shower yet started just as Chris began the 1st pitch! Pitch one involves a short vertical wall (only about 4-5 meters) and then scrambling along easy ground to the base of the climb proper. Seconding him up this i began to have serious doubts about leading this in the rain as the sloping ledges of this pitch were sodden. Arriving at the belay however i was pleasantly surprised to find that the headwall was steep enough to have dodged the showers completely! And even better the sun was coming out! Result!

Looking up Pitch 2

Feeling a lot happier geared up for my lead (the crux of the route, a 15m 4c crack) and set off up the beautiful, rough sandstone cliff. The gear was good, the holds even better! Lovely! A brief moment spent convincing myself to commit to a few thinner mover to better holds and a delicate traverse and the belay! Not quite the luxury belay ledges we had on the Cioch, more a small foot square of flat rock to perch on but all good! Chris follows me up, cursing the rucsac that seems determined to drag him backwards off the crag but still manages to second it in good style.

Just past the crux

Swapping lead and gear He makes quick work of the 3rd pitch and then its my turn to swear at the rucsac whilst seconding.

Chris finding good gear on P3

 From here we unroped and soloed the final easy pitch over broken ground before heading to the crest of the ridge and back to the car in beautiful sunshine!

Another great day and another classic route!

End of the day!

Cioch Nose at last!

Today myself and Chris had a day off from our hectic work schedule... Oh if only! Actually its been rather quiet on the Applecross peninsula this last week or so which has meant very little work and a lot of waiting around! So today me and Chris took advantage of the fine weather (which made a nice change!) and headed for the Cioch Nose, a classic four star Severe.

The weather was clear and warm, with a slight breeze to keep the midgies away. We parked at the top of the pass and headed to the radio mast before dropping into the corrie and along to the foot of the climb itself. Chris took the 1st pitch up a large flake with some interesting moves, to the belay from where i took over for pitch 2.

Chris on P1

Here i lead up a shallow and somewhat awkward chimney to a 'magnificent ledge' where we belayed. Chris took the next pitch which makes beautifully exposed moves over a huge drop to the corrie floor. The holds and gear are both good and we were soon at the last belay.

Whatever you do don't look down! (view down P3)

Here i lead up the final pitch of broken ground to the top of the Cioch itself.

What do you mean stop mucking around?!

Its possible to escape from here back to the corrie floor via a south facing gully which looks decidedly unappealing. We opted to continue along the ridge, which involved  a rather intimidating looking scramble up a steep broken headwall to a final pitch of Vdiff followed some fine scrambling and awkward downward steps before returning back to the mast at the top of the pass and a short walk down to the car. This last section was surprisingly good and reminded me of a mini Aonach Eagach and made for an excellent day out!

Back to work!

After several weeks of relative inactivity I've finally packed up and left Fort William for the time being! I'm now based up on the remote peninsula of Applecross working for Mountain and Sea Guides. The weather so far has been pretty variable but generally better than its been over the last month or so. I've been keeping myself busy running sea kayaking sessions in and around Applecross Bay and down the surrounding coast lines and working behind the bar on the local campsite in the evenings. I'll try to get some photos over the next few days as last year i failed completely to get even a single one, but most probably will only update the blog once a week or so to save too much repetition.
Today i was running the morning session for a full day course (2 of the participants are with us for a full 5 days) and look to have the afternoon off for now.

Secretaries Super Direct & Precious Cargo

On Thursday myself and G headed up Glen Nevis after work. I had my eye on a route called Secretaries Super Direct HVS 4c,5a*** This was my first HVS lead of the year, and only my second HVS lead at all. G jumped on the 1st pitch (4c) and cruised up it without even thinking. This psyched me up nicely for getting on the lead on the crux pitch. This is a beautiful slab with some very delicate climbing and some rather spaced out gear. The difficulties start as soon as you leave the belay, with a high step over a ledge to get off the ground. From here it was delicate footwork and small hand holds for some way to reach the next ledge. From here it eased off, with the holds getting bigger and the gear more closely spaced. A lovely route which deserves over one of its 3 stars.

Me on the Crux (photo by G)

After this we headed down to Scimitar Buttress where G has been working a route called Precious Cargo (E5 6a*). We slung a toprope down it and G jumped on to see how it was feeling. After a few practices, working the harder moves and scoping out the gear (1 size 0 cam 9m up!) he decided he'd better get on the lead before it got too dark. He made smooth work out of the route, making it look easy! There was 1 heart in the mouth moment when a foot popped just before he clipped the gear at 9m but he quickly composed himself, clipped the gear and got it done! Good work fella!
I had a wee play on the route and got most of the moves sussed before by fingers finally gave out halfway through the final crux. Nice route but don't think i'll be leading it for a while yet!

Sunshine on Phantom

Today myself, Kev and Hue headed back up the Glen for a quick few hours climbing as the weather was so nice.
Kev was wanting to get on the lead on something a little trickier and i was hoping to get another VS tick in so the best option seemed to be combining Pandora (Severe) and Phantom Slab (VS).
These were both new routes to us all which was nice for a change! Kev lead up the 1st two pitches of Pandora which involved an easy slab climb on the 1st pitch and a slightly trickier, very exposed 2nd pitch to gain a good belay ledge.

Kev leaving the 1st belay

From here i took the lead, heading up Phantom Slab. This gave beautiful, delicate slab climbing in a nicely exposed setting, with enough gear on it to stop it being overly worrying.

Phantom Slab

To finish the day off Hue lead us up Pinnacle Ridge (Severe)

Hue on Pinnacle Ridge

Back to basics

On Saturday myself and Nick headed up the Glen after work to have a play about. Nick is a pretty experienced climber but hasn't done much outdoors so the evening was largely spent going over the basics of placing anchors, rigging different belay setups and such like. To get things going i lead up Pinnacle Ridge (Severe), explaining the principles behind the different belay setups used as we climbed before heading back down to ground level to let Nick have a go at setting things up himself.

He picked it all up surprisingly quickly and was soon looking pretty slick with a lot of the setups. Hopefully most of it sticks!

All Things Equal? Musings on Equalising Anchor Systems...

Last night i managed to get myself into a discussion about the usefulness of a piece of climbing equipment know as an Alpine Equalizer which is made by the American company Trango (demo video from Trango here). Simply put the Alpine Equalizer (AE) allows a climber to quickly equalise a 3 point anchor system at a belay stance. Its potential advantage over conventional belay set ups is that it allows for dynamic equalisation between anchors, meaning that if a climber should fall in a direction the belay is not rigged for then the AE automatically readjusts the lengths of each leg to equalise the belay and distribute the forces between each anchor as evenly as possible.

 All very nice but the major flaw i see in this design is that the only way to make each anchor point independent, and thus remove the possibility of shock loading the whole system should 1 anchor fail is to clove hitch the sling to each anchor, which means it can no longer readjust the equalisation and acts in the same way as the set up would if rigged with a standard sling.

At first I dismissed the AE as a useful piece of equipment for these reasons but some of the points brought up in the discussion made me begin to question this, so i did a little research of my own. From the day i started climbing i was taught, as i'm sure most people were that anchors for a belay should be Independent, Equalised and at the right angle (i.e under 90degrees) but some of the reading i've done is making me question this.

Its particularly the Equalised part which i'm questioning. Not so much the need for all your anchors to be equalised but the best way to do this. For equalising 3 anchors using a sling my first reaction would be to link all three anchors with a long sling, bring all the arms together and tie an overhand (Fig. 1). This gives independent anchors and i always assumed fairly evenly equalised ones.

Fig. 1

A lot of the reading i've done however suggests that this system doesn't distribute the load to the 3 anchors nearly as evenly as you might think. Indeed a report entitled 'Multi-Point Pre-Equalised Anchor Systems' (available here) shows that the forces on the center arm of this set up will be almost double that of either of the side anchors. Unfortunately the copy of this article i have is read only so i cannot copy their results into here but they're easy enough to find in the article.

Their findings also suggest that the length of each arm of the sling is inversely proportional to the forces exerted on it. E.g. if the middle leg in Fig. 1 was shortened to half its length, the forces exerted on it compared to the side anchors would double. I've attempted to demonstrate this in Fig. 2 but i'm not sure how clear i've made it. Imagen the side anchors are in solid rock set back from the belay and the yellow sling represents another piece of rock protruding between them, thus the middle leg is considerably shorted... Make sense?

Fig. 2

So if the usual systems used by climbers don't actually equalise the anchors nearly as well as we though then is it time to consider a new approach? Perhaps.

A report titled 'A Look at Load-Distributing and Load-Sharing Anchor Systems' published in 2007 looked at this (available here), studying the load distribution between different Load Distributing (Alpine Equaliser style setups) and Load Sharing (normal setups as shown above) setups and the forces experienced when one leg of the system should fail. Their results are interesting to say the least. They experimented with 7 different load distributing setups, using different materials and rigs and one standard load sharing setup.

Their results show that the different materials used to rig the load distributing anchors have a great impact on how evenly the forces are distributed between the anchors.For load testing onto all three anchors, seemingly the less friction there is in the system the more evenly a load distributing anchor will spread the forces. The systems which used higher friction materials such as 1" nylon tubular webbing result in significantly higher forces being exerted on the center anchor than either of the side anchors. Slicker materials seem to be able to very nearly evenly distribute the force, although a slightly higher force is always exerted on the center anchor.
The Load Sharing anchor on the other hand, experiences higher forces on the center anchor than all but the highest friction Load Distributing systems. Fig.3 is, as far as i can tell, the Load Distributing setup used in this report, although the diagrams a a little hard to decipher so it may not be an exact replica. Mine in made using 5mm dynamic chord.

Fig.3

The conclusions which can be drawn form this are that if rigging a belay with 3 or more questionable anchors then, while it seems impossible to truly equalise them in the real world, a Load Distributing setup as shown above could almost certainly distribute the load most evenly, thus reducing the chances of any one anchor failing.

Fig.4 & 5 show another 2 options for Load Distributing belay setups.

Fig. 4

Fig.5

Fig.4 is my attempt at creating a Load Distributing setup which would minimise the shock load on the other anchors should one fail. In practice if the center anchor fails then a very small shock load results but if either of the side anchors fail you are still left with a large shock load as the system readjusts.
Fig.5 is essentially a home made Alpine Equaliser. 2 crabs could also be used (one for either strand of the sling in the center) which might reduce friction in the system. Using a DMM Revolver style crab would also help.

Coming back to the original point however, none of these systems manage to create a belay which is both equalised and independent, meaning while they reduce the chances of any of the anchors failing if one does, the rest of the system is shock loaded.
'A Look at Load-Distributing and Load-Sharing Anchor Systems' explores what exactly happens should this situation arise.

Obviously the Load Sharing system comes out of this study best as no shock load occurs when one anchor fail and the force is shared fairly evenly between the other 2 anchors. The results for the Load Distributing systems is more interesting however.

When one of the side anchors failed all of the Load Distributing anchors experienced high Maximum Arrest Forces and poor equalisation, i.e larger forces are transfered onto one of the two remaining anchors. Interestingly it seems to be the higher friction systems which equalise worst under normal circumstances which equalise best when a side anchor rips.
When the center anchors rips the forces are shared far more evenly between the remaining 2 anchors but the Load Distributing anchors still experience much higher forces than the Load Sharing system.


My Conclusions?
It seems to me that you have three options.
1) use a Load Sharing anchor system, knowing that it will most probably exert disproportionate loads through some of your anchors but also that should one anchor fail it will exert the least force on the remaining anchors. It is however, worth remembering that when setting up a Load Sharing system that keeping the length of each leg of the system equal will help to minimise the differences in force being exerted on the anchors.

2) use a low friction Load Distributing system to truly distribute the forces as evenly as possible and thus minimise the possibility of any one anchor failing but accept that if one does your other anchors will be subjected to greater forces than if any other system were used.

3) use a high friction Load Distributing system. This will share the loads between anchors better than a  Load Sharing system but not as well as a low friction Load Distributing system. Its will also exert more even forces on the remaining anchors should one anchor fail than a low friction Load Distributing system but still subject them to a much greater force than if a Load Sharing system was used.

So which system should be used where? As with so many things in climbing i think there are too many variables to really come up with a defiant answer for this. It each system has its pros and cons and argument could be made for and against each on a number of situation.


Thoughts on setting up low and high friction Load Distributing systems:

DISLAIMER: This part is largely based on my own experiences and a healthy chunk of guess work.

It seems to me that the most important factors influencing the total friction of a Load Distributing systems will be the material used to join the anchors and the crabs used. This of course excludes the idea of adding additional equipment such as fig8s for simplicity of setup.
From the results it appears that thiner, slicker materials create less friction. As such i would imagen that narrow dyneema slings or webbing would be best for reducing friction and wider, stiffer sling (nylon tubing for example) would create a higher friction system.
As for the crabs i would assume that large diamiter, round topped crabs would cause less friction, or even better a DMM Revolver with integrated pully. While conversly smaller crabs which would result in sharper angles being crated in the webbing should produce a higher friction system.


For some more reading Will Gadd has a few thoughts on it as well which are worth reading. These can be found here, here and here.

These are my personal opinions on the matter based on what i have found through a little research. If anyone has any comments on anything i have said please feel free to say. Also if anyone has come across anything along related lines please let me know! Every days a school day after all!