Cleaning the Anchors

©Copyrighted 2006
By Rick Weber

Purpose

This tutorial is prepared primarily for persons climbing sport routes in the Red River
Gorge Region of Eastern Kentucky (RRG). It’s purpose is to teach a climber how to
safely clean a top anchor after finishing a climb. “Cleaning” in this context refers to the
removal of one’s removable climbing gear from a top anchor system and setting up a
means to safely lower one’s self back to the ground.

Red River Gorge Region Sport Climbs

In the RRG, almost all climbs are of one pitch and are approached from the bottom. Most
sport routes here consist of several hanger brackets bolted somewhat in line up a rock
face, spaced from about four to twelve feet apart, and ending at a pair of bolted brackets,
called a “top anchor.” All hardware bolted to the rock, such as hanger brackets, chains,
rings, and quicklinks, should be regarded to be permanent and should never be removed
by a climber for any reason except to replace worn components. And, this should only be
done by experts who have been authorized to do so.

A top anchor can consist simply of two rappel brackets. Or, it can include a variety of
hardware including chains, quicklinks, rings, and cable leaders. Regardless of the type of
hardware on a particular route, you should take care not to place any unnecessary stress
or wear on it by your rope and/or climbing gear.

One common cause of unnecessary wear is by the rope running, under load, through the
anchor system. A climber being lowered to the ground creates a significant load on the
anchor system, as opposed to an unweighted rope being pulled through the system. In the
RRG, the bases of the sandstone cliffs consists of the stuff that erodes off the rock –
namely sand. It is picked up and held in the weave of the rope. When the rope is pulled
under load over a surface of the hardware, it literally grinds away the metal. On popular
routes, a steel quicklink can be worn away to 50% of its thickness in a couple climbing
seasons.

The two most common acts by climbers that grind away at the hardware are top roping
directly through the top anchor system and lowering off through the top anchor system.
To avoid wear, top roping should be done through the climbers’ removable gear, such as
quickdraws, and not the fixed hardware of the top anchor system. The other way to
reduce top anchor wear is for the climber to rappel off the top anchor system when
finished with the climb, rather than being lowered through the top anchor.

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Cleaning Differences in Leading and Top Roping

On most sport climbs here in the RRG, you will be climbing in either one of two ways –
leading or top roping. When you lead a climb, you ascend up to a top anchor that is
devoid of removable gear, such as quickdraws. When you top rope a climb, you ascend
up to a top anchor that includes removable pieces of gear, such as quickdraws. Your
climbing rope passes through the lower carabiner of each quickdraw. Each quickdraw is
clipped, via its upper carabiner, onto a separate ring or quicklink of the top anchor
system.

Cleaning the top anchor is slightly different depending on whether you are approaching
the top anchor on lead or on a top rope through removable protection. For purpose of this
tutorial, assume that you are top roping up to a pair of quickdraws connected to two rings
of a top anchor system. To change this to a lead climb scenario, simply replace the term
“quickdraws” in Steps 8 and 9 with “rings” and disregard Step 10.

There are many variations to the top anchor cleaning technique presented here. Although
the techniques and gear used for this example are widely used throughout the RRG, this
tutorial is, by no means, the “gospel” on cleaning top anchors. Regardless of the methods
and gear you use, play it safe. Use high quality gear in good condition. Focus on your
cleaning; don’t become distracted. And, back up the critical (if this fails, you die)
components.

Prior to Climbing:

1. Take all the gear you will need to clean the anchors with you when you climb up
to the anchors. This should include:
a. A belay/rappel device, such as an ATC or Reverso, that is capable of
allowing rappelling on two ropes.
b. A locking carabiner properly sized to the belay/rappel device.
c. Two tethers. There are several types of tethers you can use, including
quickdraws. For this tutorial, our tethers are two 24-inch slings, each of
which is girth hitched to a locking carabiner.
d. A prusik loop. This loop is made by joining the two ends of a 32-inch
length of 5 mm accessory cord with a double fisherman knot.
e. A locking carabiner to attach the prusik loop to a harness leg loop.
2. Clip your belay/rappel device to a gear loop of your harness with a locking
carabiner.
3. Girth hitch both tethers to your belay loop. Each tether has a locking carabiner
girth hitched to one end. Clip one of these two locking carabiners to a gear loop
on the left side of your harness and the other to a gear loop on the right side. This
will keep the tethers out of the way during your ascent to the anchors.
4. Clip your prusik loop through a locking carabiner attached to one of your harness
leg loops.

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Cleaning the Top Anchor

5. After you have climbed the route and reached the top anchor, try to find relatively
solid footholds and assume a comfortable stance, as you will be here for a couple
minutes.
6. Clip the tether on your right side to the right ring or quicklink and the tether on
your left to the left ring. Be sure to lock both carabiners. See Figures 5 and 6.

Figure 5 Figure 6

7. You are now off belay. Call down to your belayer, “[belayer’s name], belay off.”
The words you use to communicate this message are your choice. This example
uses the “Freedom of the Hills” standard. Regardless of how you tell your belayer
that you are off his belay and into the top anchors direct, it is important to use the
belayer’s name – especially at a crowded wall.
8. After receiving a confirmation from your belayer that he has taken you off his
belay device, grasp the rope between the knot on your harness and the quickdraws

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 and pull about 20 feet of rope through the quickdraws, allowing the loop to pay
out below your stance. See Figure 6.
9. Tie an overhand knot on a bight of the rope exiting the quickdraws and clip this
knot onto a locking carabiner attached to a leg loop. Lock the carabiner. Farther
on in this tutorial, you will see why the climber in the photos chose to put the
carabiner on his right leg loop. See Figure 7.

Figure 7 Figure 8

10. Remove the quickdraws from the top anchor system and clip them to your
harness. It is important to do this now to remove unnecessary gear that can get in
the way when you finish cleaning this anchor system.
11. Now, untie the knot that connects the end of the rope to your harness. See Figure
8.

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12. Feed the free end of the rope through both of the rings (or quicklinks) of the top
anchor system until the free end protrudes about three feet . See Figures 9 and 10.

Figure 9 Figure 10

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13. Tie a stopper knot, such as an overhand on a bight, on the end of the rope you just
pulled through. This will keep the rope from inadvertently exiting the top anchor.
See Figure 11.

Figure 11 Figure 12

14. Hold onto the short end of the rope that you were pulling through in the previous
step, and untie and unclip the overhand knot. This will allow you to continue to
pull rope through the rings. See Figure 12.
15. Continue to pull rope through until you can see the end descend all the way to the
ground. It is a good idea for your belayer to stay in the area, even though he has
taken you off belay, to confirm that the end of the rope you pulled through is,
indeed, on the ground. If you fail to feed your rope all the way to the ground, you
risk rappelling off the short end and free falling.

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16. Tie an autoblock friction hitch around the two sides of the rope coming from the
rings. Clip the autoblock into the carabiner attached to your leg loop. See Figures
13 and 14.

Figure 13 Figure 14

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17. Grasp both sides of the climbing rope above the autoblock friction hitch and pull
up about 16 inches of the rope. Now, the autoblock will hold the weight of the
rope and make it easy to thread the upper part through a belay/rappel device. See
Figure 15.

Figure 15 Figure 16

18. Feed the rope into your belay/rappel device in proper configuration for the device
you are using. Figure 16 here shows the proper threading of a rope into an ATC
device. (When using an ATC, it is very important to thread both loops – one from
each side of the rope -- through the carabiner along with the ATC’s retainer
wire. Figures 17 and 18 shows an incompletely threaded ATC. If this device were
loaded, the unattached loop would pop out and allow the climber to free fall.
Several climbers have died in this manner. Don’t add yourself to the list.)

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 Figure 17 Figure 18

19. Visually check carefully to verify that the climbing rope comes from the ground,
through both rings and back down to the ground. Verify that both ends of the rope
are properly threaded through your belay/rappel device and that the autoblock
hitch is grasping both sides of the rope and is secured by a locked carabiner on
your harness’ leg loop. Some climbers use the “finger trace” method to check
their system by running their finger along the rope as it snakes in and out of the
gear as they visually inspect the correctness of their rappel setup.

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20. After you are confident that your setup is correct, pull up on the brake side of the
rope to move the belay/rappel device up toward the anchor until tension is
removed from the two tethers. At this point you should be fully weighting the
rope via your belay/rappel device. This serves as a final check of your setup. If
something would have been amiss and your setup failed to hold you, the tethers
would still keep you safely “attached” to the top anchor. See Figure 19.
21. Now that tension has been removed from the tethers, remove each one and clip
the carabiners back onto your harness gear loops to get them out of your way
during the rappel. See Figure 20.

Figure 19 Figure 20

22. Call down to your belayer, “Rappelling.”

23. Grasp the autoblock hitch with your brake hand and slowly pull it toward the
carabiner, allowing the climbing rope to slide through it. This will allow you to
start rappelling. If you begin to descend too fast, simply ease up on your grasp of

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 the autoblock hitch and it will grab onto the climbing rope and stop your descent.
See Figure 21.
24. When you reach the ground, take yourself off rappel, untie the stopper knot at the
end of the rope, and pull the rope through the top anchor system to retrieve it.
25. Be sure to warn others in the area that the rope will be falling from the top anchor
by calling out, “rope!”

Figure 21

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