Відео

The rope would be going through your belay device on your harness the whole time. You would feed slack towards the munter as the climber progresses.

​@@gimmepowderthat's not what he says and does twice in a video. He literally just recommends to live the leader on 2 quick draws and a God blessing.

@@MrBarnichka Just watched it again. He says to put rope through belay device on harness with a few metres slack going to munter on anchor.

I do not believe that these plate-style devices are intended to be used for lead belaying. They can be set up on an anchor to belay a follower after the pitch has been led but are not meant to belay the lead climber when starting up the next pitch.

@@canamventures thanks

One reason that an ATC-style belay device is preferred is that it allows some small amount of rope slippage and therefore reduces the forces in the system, providing a softer catch for the climber. The grigri can be too good at what it does (locking the rope) and since the belayer cannot provide a soft catch to begin with using a FPLB, a grigri would cause the forces to increase on both the climber and the anchor. The other issue that would be encountered using a grigri or any other type of assisted breaking belay device is that they generally require you to have your hands directly on the device to feed out slack, so in the situation where your climber would take a fall, it could easily be ripped from your hands. An assisted breaking device can be used when you are belaying a follower from an anchor on top rope, but I am not familiar with a way to belay a lead climber off of the anchor with one.

You are correct. It is definitely not stable, and it is not covered in Petzl documentation, and the latter is because of the former.

what about it doesn't petzl recommend?

There are definitely anchor configurations that can be better suited for the fixed point lead belay, be sure to check out my other video which covers other methods as well: ua-cam.com/video/5YImHmAuLf8/v-deo.html. Climbing is a numbers game, and while it is true that in a rare circumstance where there happened to be a factor 2 fall that caused the first bolt to fail, and shock load the other, the odds of this catestrophic failure is incredibly small on good quality rock. Again, this setup is just one option. There are other options that can be better suited for different circumstances. If I had even the smallest concern about the integrity of the bolts, or a high chance of a factor 2 fall, I would not belay with this method. Is this method safe to use in the right circumstances? Yes. Is it the best method for all multipitch belays? No. I would not go as far as to say it is "totally wrong" but I do appreciate your feedback and hearing your thoughts!

50% of the time? How so?

DAV have done lots of tests with this as it is a common set up

When trad climbing, I would be more likely to belay directly off of my harness. If I had to belay off of the anchor, I would use a Munter hitch as opposed to the ATC because of that risk. Thanks for clarifying that!

Glad you found it helpful!

Good question! When you have the belay tube in guide mode, It is not as easy to feed out slack for the leader since it has a sort of "auto locking" function in that orientation (which is why guide mode is not often used for belaying a leader). When the belay tube is setup in the orientation showed in the video, it is much easier to feed out slack for the lead climber. Guide mode is generally best used for belaying a follower up to the anchor in a top rope fashion (there is another video on my channel for this setup).

I do agree that the chances of injuring your finger are slightly higher when passing you figer through the gate, but this will only become an issue on the chance you fall while clipping (which shouldn't happen). Passing your finger through with the rope is a relatively common technique and with practice can be done quick enough to mitigate the danger, but now that I have looked into it more, I would agree that it is best to stick with the other techniques and not add that slight risk of injury. Thanks for pointing this out!

@@canamventures Yeah you make a good point! I think people put their finger through the gate all the time and it is seldom that you hear accidents of people getting degloved for example. And getting clipped in properly is most important I guess!

I do agree that it is easier to manage the belay off of the bowline on a bight, but what is it about the belay off of the quad that you don't like as much? Always love to hear other's thought so thanks for the comment!

@@canamventures Thanks for your willingness to engage in a discussion. The fixed point belay originated in Europe where vertically aligned bolts are more common. The way the bowline on a bight is used there, the bowline is clipped to the lower bolt and serves as the main anchor/belay point. The higher bolt is connected by the sling as a backup anchor point but not completely taut. If the lower bolt is to fail under a FF2 fall, then the load is taken by the higher bolt with minimal extension. In North America where horizontally align bolts are more common, the bowline on a bight can still be used, but the failure of one bolt will mean a swing/pendulum onto the other bolt. Not ideal but still acceptable. The way you use the quad, you only have one leg of the quad clipped (not the shelf, which would be clipping two strands from each leg of the quad). If the bolt fails in a FF2 fall, then you will have an extension and much larger drop to the other bolt. This is much worse than the bowline set up. One can argue that to use the fixed point belay, the assumption is that both anchor points are totally bomb proof and will not fail. But if that's the assumption, then why use the quad? The biggest benefit of the quad is that it share the load between anchor points with some self-equalizing quality. If we assume the bolts will not fail, then it's not necessary to have a self-equalizing anchor. Besides, the middle of the V in the quad is where the equalizing happens, and in your set up, you're only putting the belayer's body weight (arguably the lowest load) at the self-equalizing point. While the highest potential load under a FF2 fall is placed only on a single anchor point. It just doesn't strike me as an optimal use of the quad. BTW I do use the fixed point belay and quad when I climb multi-pitch, just not at the same time.

@@polaristhebestdog Thanks for the background on that! I always love discussing the many different tactics and questioning my own reasoning for what I do in different scinerios! I completely agree that the bowline is almost always the best choice on vertically stacked anchors and will have quite a bit less extension if the bolt were to fail. I personally have some favoritism towards the quad because of how much easier I find it to keep my belay station organized. I believe it to be one of its greatest benefits since efficiency is often important on multi-pitch climbs (not to say that things will be unorganized with the bowline, I just find it easier with the quad). When I am am belaying a follower I tend to use the self equalizing section, then move the belay setup up to the shelf for the FLPB. One thing I do if I think there is a reasonable chance of a FF2 on the next pitch is a "plus clip" (assuming we are swapping leads) which will almost guarantee there will not be a FF2 (more on that here: www.alpinesavvy.com/blog/3-ways-to-avoid-factor-2-falls-on-multipitch-routes ). At the end of the day, I do completely agree that a FPLB is the most bomber using the bowline (which is why I covered it first in this video) but again, my anchor of choice often depends on the situation and all things being equal (and bomber), I prefer the quad slightly more because of the organization, therefore decreasing the chance of any human error since the majority of climbing accidents are due to human error. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! I really appreciate it!

@@canamventures I used to guide, so I teach climbers how to be efficient on multi-pitch. Efficiency is important, but it shouldn't come before building a safe anchor. Be it SERENE, ERNEST, NERDSS, no matter which anchoring principle/acronym you go by, "No Extension" (NE) is a basic anchoring principle in every one of them and should be an essential characteristic of any anchor. The quad is a perfectly safe method of anchoring, I use it myself all the time. It's perfectly fine if you love to use it and use it correctly. But the way you use it in this video violates the No Extension principle and is just not how the quad should to be used. You still think you're clipping the fixed point belay into the "shelf" of the quad, so I want to re-emphasize the point I made earlier that you're NOT clipping into the "shelf", you're clipping into a single leg of the quad. It doesn't matter for fixed point belay or anchoring yourself / your climbing partner, you simply shouldn't use the quad that way. Imagine instead of the quad, you equalize the two anchor points with a sling and tie an overhand/figure-8 as a mater point. To clip the shelf of this master point, you'd clip a single strand of sling going to each of the two bolts. If you simply clip into one leg of the sling, ie one strand in the loop going to a single bolt, that's NOT the shelf. With the quad, that's essentially what you're doing, clipping into one leg of the quad, NOT the shelf. And you will have a large extension if one of the anchor points fails. Nobody in a guiding/instructional role will teach people to clip a live load to a quad like that. The only thing you should there is a pack or extra gear to keep the belay station organized, not yourself or another person.

​@@polaristhebestdog I understand what you are saying with the no extension and now understand what you mean by saying the one leg of the quad and that is completely valid. Again I would not use the quad here if my anchor points were not completely bombproof or if there was any reasonable chance of a FF2. Yes if there was a FF2 and the bolt were to fail, there would be some extension. If the bolt were to fail on a normal lead fall (extremely unlikely if it was inspected to be bomb-proof) then the extension would still be minimal before my clove hitch tether on the anchor masterpoint would take some of the force. I learned this technique from an alpine guide and saw it used by a rock guide as well. I have also had discussions with other guides specifically about the FPLB off of a quad like this. I would never post anything on here that I did not learn from a guide and have practiced myself and found to be safe when used correctly and in the right situations. I again want to re-emphasize that if I felt that the bolts were not bomber or if there was a chance of a FF2 with the leader falling back down past the anchor, I would not be belaying off the quad like this. If the start of the next pitch looks challenging, I would either used the bowline anchor for the FPLB and/or do a "plus clip" to mitigate the risks of a potential FF2. Thank you for this discussion though as it gets me to question my methods and reassess the factors in deciding what anchor I choose to build.

Yes, if for some reason one of the bolts were to fail and you had the master point carabiner clipped over all of the strands, it would just slide off the sling entirely. You could in theory make a sliding X using all of the stands, but being clipped through at least 2 strands will almost always be strong enough. In most multipitch scenarios, I like to leave those other stands for my climbing partner to clove hitch into in order to keep the whole belay station organized. Does that make sense? Thanks for the comment!

Glad you found it helpful! Will be making more similar videos soon. Are there any other skills or processes you are interested in learning more about? Always looking for more video ideas.

Matt Hill I could probably find a way to do a curling one haha.

It was, but it was also a ton of fun

Very cold, but defiantly worth it