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New anchors at Araps - What do you reckon? 10-Jan-2017 At 12:19:24 PM Wendy

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On 10/01/2017 Eduardo Slabofvic wrote:

>
>That would be one of the places that I would use as an example of what
>not to do. There are 5 anchors within spitting distance of each other.
> Even given that traffic down the Alis descent, 5 is way over the top.

Sorry Ed, I'm going to horrify you a bit more. There's actually about 10 between Alis and Firedance. Although I think only maybe 3 of them
> are overkill.

>Plus, there are way more anchors, lower offs and rap stations than you
>mention in your earlier post. Way way way more.
>
>E.g. (not the definitive list) 2 on top of Castle Crag.
That's about 5 now. I'd probably only really object to 1 of them.

2 on top of Coming
>on chris. Why do we need two in these locations?

This one is pretty special. I think Gordy might be responsible. Can I be a fly on the
wall when you go tell him what you think of it?

>>Some areas are so heavily used that the single rap station becomes a
>choke
>>point and risk (eg Preludes Wall)
>>
>>> and that rap station
>>>shouldn't place the fall line over another route that someone might
>be
>>>on.
>>In practice very difficult to achieve. If you look around there's not
>>that many raps at Arapiles that meet this brief. One of the ironies is
>>that putting a rap station above a piece of rock that people rarely climb
>>can change that situation (eg Skylark)
>
>No so difficult to achieve. Routes aren't that close together. Step
>left 2m. The rap off of the top of Preludes wall could have been moved
>2m left and avoided being over the top of that route and still been easy
>to access.

I"m not sure which came first, the route or the rap. I'm also not sure why it wasn't put over where the old chain was.
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>Plus rap stations, not anchors - as they're different things.

I suspect that one reason for the proliferation of anchors is the difference in expectations of an anchor. A lot of the original anchors were placed as belay then rap stations. Or just placed where the old sling stations were. And in all honesty, plenty of them were pretty crap. That one on top of Sandpiper is a classic example. It's in a great place to sit on the ledge but pretty crap for rapping and really crap for lowering. Loads of drag over the edge and it usually pulls into the crack. An anchor up and right of the top of the crack would run freely. It's only used for Sandpiper and I don't see why a top belay anchor is preferable to a lowerable one there.