Climbing Classroom Session: All About Anchors

OVERVIEW

This workshop will step through a holistic approach to designing, building, and evaluating anchors. It will have a rock climbing focus, but these principles are also extremely helpful for applications in rappelling, canyoneering, search and rescue (SAR), etc. Note that we will touch briefly on multi-point trad anchors, but the majority of the time will focus on two-point sport and natural anchors (unless there is a specific request for a trad focus, in which case I’ll make sure we spend more time on it).

There are no pre-requisites for this course, and anyone may sign up. However, participants will benefit most from this information if they are already familiar with outdoor climbing, the role of the anchor, and sport (lead) climbing. I expect participants to have existing proficiency with the following knots, as we will not spend much time reviewing them:
– Double figure 8
– Fisherman’s
– Double Fisherman’s
– Barrel
– Yosemite finish
– Overhand

In this session (All About Anchors), we will learn the underlying principles behind what makes a good anchor. We will also practice building several different types of anchors. Topics include:
– New gear and new knots (clove hitch and figure 9, for those who want to study ahead)
– Hard and soft components
– Anchor anatomy
– SERENE-A/EARNEST
– Central point anchors (quickdraws, overhand, sliding x, equalette, quad, etc.)
– Natural anchors (wrap 3 pull 2, tensionless hitch, etc.)
– Practice evaluating anchors
– Risks

The session will be a casual/conversational workshop with intermixed discussing and doing (assuming people have materials to practice with). This is the most participation-centric of these workshops, so come prepared to speak and engage if possible.

If you have any of the following materials, it would be helpful to have them handy if you want to build each anchor yourself:
– Anchor materials (cordelette (6-10m of 6-8mm cord), slings (120cm), etc.)
– Spare locking biners
– Spare rope/practice rope (even an old shoelace would be good; folks have recently used drawstrings and headphones too, so feel free to get creative)

Note that this is a virtual session. I will email out a Google Meet link the day of the workshop.