RRC Archives

pigsteak wrote:and one biner and one gri gri?

and one belayer?

There will be single points of failure in any system. Worry about the one that is most likely to fail...

michaelarmand wrote: Worry about the one that is most likely to fail...

Which is probably the forearm.

Awe yes the belay loop.

Let see, so first of all it is redundant. It is a piece of webbing that is wound around itself. It is also sewn around on each side as well as bar tacked. We have tested some of these by just duck-taping them together. The start to disassemble around 3000 lbs. of force. (slow pull)

Belay loops are the strongest part of the climbing system. Even the weakest belay loops we have tested blow at about 8000 lbs. of force.

After the Todd Skinner accident there was much testing on belay loops done. One test in particular was cutting the belay loop 90% of the way through and then pull testing to failure. It was holding around 700 lbs of force.

I see people all the time putting this extra cord to "back up" their belay loop. The problem with this is that it is cluttering up your "work space". I have seen someone accidentally clip into their "backup" cord only. To put this in perspective a 6 millimeter cord can only hold around 1500 lbs of force. This is only twice what a 90% cut through belay loop can hold; so not really nessasary and can cause more problems than it could ever help.

As for backing up the Figure 8. There is no need. This actually has been found to cause more problems than it could prevent as well.

The reason that we only use one carabiner to belay is that it is right in front of us and easy to inspect. You can use 2 with an atc, this just adds friction.
Same for the rope (unless you are using doubles) we should be inspecting this as we belay.

Take every thing off your harness at the end of the day and inspect those belay loops and you should have no worries!

yeah, what everyone else said...

a cam would pull out or even a bolt before your loop would break

Just check, double-check and triple-check.

It's all mental. And so long as your gear is in working order, it will be a human mistake that will lead to the accident.

Listen to kdelap.

Two words: Todd Skinner

Huggybone wrote:Two words: Todd Skinner

Todd's belay loop was visibly damaged before it failed and if I remember correctly he was aware but though he could use it just a few more times.

heath wrote:

From their website: "Two belay/rappel loops make setting up for rappels and multi-pitch belays easier"

They don't give you two because you're supposed to use both when belaying. They aren't trying to make it redundant!