Not Mindbender final anchor warning

[ratagonia]

from one of my correspondants:

The last anchor in NMB was a collage of webbing. There were two
chockstone anchors (brown, army green), one commercial nut in a
crack (purple), one webbing knot in a crack (green), and some looped
webbing and a piece of sm dia. rope on the ground to bring the
quicklink to the edge. Hmm..., looked at it, thought a bit, pulled
at it. Seemed okay. Looked pretty busy. Used it. R*** said
nothing moved when I weighted it.
C

Often, people come to an anchor that is a complex of possibly good
pieces, tied together with a menagerie of webbing and rope. May I
suggest that pulling the whole thing apart, removing the not so good
parts and building new parts, if needed, and leaving neat and clean
is a smarter, more-long-term-safe solution than testing the mess,
and rapping of it if it does not wiggle too much?

Comments??

Tom

[Don]

Makes sense to me, but then I'm an anchor-nazi; I don't like to go down unless I built and tied the knots. My friends sometimes think I don't trust their knots. (Their right; Im paranoid maybe.)

[millsclimber]

I've always thought that's a good way to go. But it seems so many of us (and I include myself on more occasions than I can count) can't seem to part with $5 in webbing to replace some worn out gear. It never ceases to amaze me that we are willing to drop hundreds of dollars on gear for ourselves but have a hard time dropping a new bit of webbing on an old, shaky looking anchor.

I think you have the right idea. And I - along with others - need to start belonging to the canyon/climbing "community" and not just to myself. Thanks for the question. This one got me thinking a bit.

[qedcook]

Why not place a couple of bolts and stop the rope burn/unnecessary risk/rock moving/beating up the canyon with workarounds? I've never been to the canyon, so I'm probably not in a position to talk, but I've heard about all the techniques used and they sound like they'd beat up the canyon and cause rope burn(especially a deadman and forcing chokestones into cracks). I've seen canyons like Big Horn and Tierdrop with HUGE rope burns that could be solved with a couple of bolts. Which does more damage to a canyon?

I won't win too many friends with this post, but Tom wanted to discuss RISK! What's the technique in Not Mindbender that would provide the least amount of risk? I'm going to have to say in this situation, bolts are the least risky, but as I've said, I've never been to the canyon so I don't know how solid the pseudo natural anchors are.

[FOX]

Often, people come to an anchor that is a complex of possibly good
pieces, tied together with a menagerie of webbing and rope. May I
suggest that pulling the whole thing apart, removing the not so good
parts and building new parts, if needed, and leaving neat and clean
is a smarter, more-long-term-safe solution than testing the mess,
and rapping of it if it does not wiggle too much?

Comments??

Tom

Yes, I completely agree! Specifically I think it's time to replace or clean up the mess that the last Not Mindbender anchor has become. Especially for the future safety of all canyoneers. When Justin and I rolled up on it some years back we couldn't believe the webbing nightmare. We should have cleaned it then and wanted to but didn't have the resources with us at the time. It very much seemed like overkill to us. I personally feel that anchors like that one create an almost false sense of security and perhaps makes us more apt to trust it. In our case, we tugged and yanked on it, examined the webbing and the knots, shrugged our shoulders and went for it....like most of those who have done the canyon before us and since.

My last trip out, I had a natural anchor blow out on me and I fell 20 feet to the ground. Fortunately, and to the amazement of those I was with, I wasn't hurt but it could've been so much worse. I was lucky. The embarrassing fact is that all of us questioned the anchor before anyone rapped off of it. We even backed it up with a body instead of taking the time to sling a more stable option. We gambled. Wrong thing to do. We all knew better but how many times do we come across existing anchors, look at them, tug on them and then deem them safe to dangle off of? It's drilled into our heads to check and double check but now and then I think we get lazy and take for granted the fact that because someone succesfully rapped off the anchor before us, it should be fine to do it again, right? Usually it is but this time proved different. Lesson learned. I will never again trust an existing anchor without thouroughly checking it over, testing it and/or replacing the webbing or the anchor itself. This applies to bolts as well as I've allowed myself to trust far too many sketchy ones over the years.

[rockgremlin]

My last trip out, I had a natural anchor blow out on me and I fell 20 feet to the ground. Fortunately, and to the amazement of those I was with, I wasn't hurt but it could've been so much worse.

YIKES! You need to email me the specifics of that one. See what happens when you cheat on me?

[FOX]

Sent you a PM

[Alex]

Sent you a PM

For another trip???

*hint* send me one too!

[snatch]

I'm not a Jew but I believe in circumcision. Cut the excess and bury a damn rock w/ some webbing.