September 2003
Derek and I found this anchor on a 6A climb on the left end of Comic Wall. Two things wrong with it - the angle puts
a lot of load on the bolt hangers and there is no redundancy in the event of the sling failing. (Ignore the kevlar
slings and dark grey carabiners on either bolt, they are Derek's back-up system and not part of the permanent anchor).
This is the new anchor set up by Derek. The angle is much smaller and although the knot at the bottom limits range within
which the system is equalized, it is important for redundancy. Should any part of this sling fail, the knot stops the
rappel ring (not seen here) from sliding right off.
This is the anchor for Braveheart (ignore the orange sling - not part of the permanent setup). The lower bolt hanger takes
the whole weight of the climber while the higher one provides backup through the sling (black and white). Not a bad top-rope
anchor except the sling is thin and worn. The fact that it is tied directly to the hanger doesn't help neither.
I forgot to take an 'after' pic of this anchor, but I added an extra sling made of 1-inch tubular webbing
(same stuff as the red one Derek used earlier) and connected it to the top hanger through an 8mm stainless steel quicklink
(to prevent the sling from getting cut by the fine edge of the hanger, should it come to that).
Later in the day, we saw this at Damai Wall. Um...this is not a good way to belay.
