Is it just me or does the last pic on the wonderwall article
http://www.climbing.co.za/article.asp?id=150 look a bit dodge?

Agreed.

Seems like they went to a lot of trouble to setup an excellent facility otherwise though.

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Live fast, die young & leave a good looking corpse

Steel and ally biners perform very differently. If the biner is steel, I *think* the 3-way load shouldn't matter.

Anybody with experience in the rigging industry care to comment?

Hi All,
I spoke to Wonderwall about the setup and the person who did the anchoring system is out of the country right now and will comment on the setup when he gets back.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

And is that just a single locking 'biner?

--A

I dont have science to back it up, but a steel locking biner like that will lift a good couple of ton without a problem, and about it being only one biner - I see that is the case on many routes overseas (from pictures) and then again we musn't forget that we fasten the rope to our harnesses with only one biner (which is aluminium) and is probably the weakest link in the system - food for thought

The difference is the biner you clip in with is (theoretically) checked every time you climb. The top biner is clipped once and then usually forgotten about until the rope is replaced. If the screw comes undone no-one will notice and the rope could unclip (although this is pretty unlikey during top roping)

*shrug* Was taught that all anchor components should be always be redundant, regardless of their apparent strength/safety.

Fair enough point about clipping in being non-redundant and the weakest point. Should really tie in even for top-roping. (Not that I do, but should.) Or at least clip in with 2 opposite & opposed biners. Easy to cross-load your 'biner, and even though a top-rope \"fall\" shouldn't generate enough force to exceed the cross loaded tolerance, a really loose belay might cause it.

--A

(Edit: You snuck in there Hector. Good point about the frequency of checking the top 'biner.)

Agreed on the original question, and I certainly agree that at two biners should be set-up at the top..

Next issue.. Are the chains welded or bolted to the flat bar at the top (its not clear from the pic)? If its welded to the flat bar and the bolts of the flat bar fail (theoretically speaking) then all the climbers on that particular wall are going down... Having said that, I'm sure everything was inspected by a structural engineer so they should have all the safety issues covered.

Why not use two oval maillons in steel? 2 has always been better than 1!

Cheaper and you can crank a 10mm maillon closed super tight with a 15mm spanner or a bees shifting spanner.

Last time I bought maillons in bulk they were about R20 each...

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Gustav
Roc 'n Rope Adventures
Waterval Boven
013 257 0363
rocrope dot com

One last thought...does the angle look a little wide? Anything over 30° means each anchor is taking more than half the load, actually increasing the load experienced by the anchors to greater than the weight on the rope.

--A