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It's better for me to lower because I am a lazy sport climber.

It's better for the anchors if I would rappel.

I hate rappelling because it takes extra time to set up and I have to carry a belay device while climbing and it reminds me of trad climbing and it is impossible to clean super steep routes while on rappel without endangering your life and looking like a total gumby.

I suppose I'm coming in on this already beaten-to-death-dead-horse thread too late for anybody to read it...but, just in case someone does.

If you are interested in safely getting off of a route, here are a few ideas that I've learned from folks over the years:

When you are the belayer, and your climber insists on rapping, don't wander off as soon as they say, "In direct", or whatever the latest phrase is--stay there and keep a hand on the rope so you can stop them from falling if something happens like a wasp sting to the hand, or a sudden TIA.

Rappelling is dangerous and complicated, like Lurk said (paraphrased, with liberties). If you are concerned with safety: lower, and here are a couple of ideas to make that even safer:

Tim Powers told me years ago not to trust any bolt in this sandstone. And I don't--I've had them pull en route. He didn't say it, but if you look at most top anchors in The Red, they are parallel. This would be fine in granite, or even limestone, but, unfortunately, with the very friable sandstone strata here, it means both bolts are more likely to be on the same potential fracture line. It'd be better to offset them vertically, as well as horizontally.

Part of Tim's solution for toproping safety was to always leave the last draw before the anchors. It's also smart to have that as a backup when you are twiddling around trying to get yourself off a route.

Given that, there is a better way to set up the lower. It's not my idea, either. I volunteered to be an all-day belay slave when Paul Piana (shameless name drop) was here once, and I noticed he was getting down awfully fast. So I asked him what the heck he was doing.

He chained the normal way, got some slack, fed a bight through the anchors, tied an overhand, hooked it to his harness with a locker, unchained, untied the original knot, and lowered.

It was beautiful.
Never off belay.
No chance of dropping the rope.
Simple.
<b>SAFE!</b>

You know...anchors can be replaced.
My life can't.

Sure, it doesn't work all the time...if you're using some old 13mm, fuzzy, manky rope you've had for 15 years, trying to thread it through some equally old, manky, narrow-holed anchors...well...maybe you should get a new rope?

poser wrote: Given that, there is a better way to set up the lower. It's not my idea, either. I volunteered to be an all-day belay slave when Paul Piana (shameless name drop) was here once, and I noticed he was getting down awfully fast. So I asked him what the heck he was doing.

He chained the normal way, got some slack, fed a bight through the anchors, tied an overhand, hooked it to his harness with a locker, unchained, untied the original knot, and lowered.

It was beautiful.
Never off belay.
No chance of dropping the rope.
Simple.
<b>SAFE!</b>

You know...anchors can be replaced.
My life can't.

Sure, it doesn't work all the time...if you're using some old 13mm, fuzzy, manky rope you've had for 15 years, trying to thread it through some equally old, manky, narrow-holed anchors...well...maybe you should get a new rope?

Word. Thats the way I teach, and the way I practice.

That's the certified Team Suck cleaning procedures as well when you're not rapping (except a bowline on bight instead of overhand).

Figure eight on a bight works well.

I agree that is a good way to clean anchors. But that is exactly the way I was lowered off the end of the rope by a very experienced belayer. It was mostly my fault though.

I was the last of four people to climb Blue Man Group at Oil Crag. All three people lowered no problem. I cleaned the anchors the way you described. So I had a bit of a tail. I cleaned the route and was pretty close to the ground. And the next thing I knew I was rolling around in the bushes. It was super confusing and embarrasing. I was like. What the hell did I do? I didn't get hurt but it taught me a little lesson on how much rope is used in that method of cleaning.

Word to that.

OK my turn to beat this dead horse. The certified Team Suck cleaning procedure is great but it never stuck with me because back in the day with small "cold shuts" at the New, you couldn't fit the rope through with the biners taking up most of the space...now I am stuck in *my* ways, which as Hugh has stated is a good thing.

Next, I like to deal in reality and experience. I've been sport climbing about 15 years(maybe only 13 because I have been more of a wanna-be the last 2 years) and sport climbing at the Red for about 13. I have probably rappde off a sport climb about 3 times in 13 years. Ha, I do remember a time that I was intending on rapping off Mr. Bungle but I dropped my atc and then had to lower. Have I contributed to anchor wear? Yep and proud of it and i have also replaced worn gear as I saw fit (I still have the old draw I replaced off Ressurection at the lode the season I RP'd it...just a "keep-sake" to remind me of my glory days) Also in those 15 years, I have never seen nor heard of any anchors failing due to wear - hell I have only ever heard of one bolt failing at the Red.

Now to the solution - RULES lots of RULES. It's our American model that when something bad could happen or has happened that we should appy RULES to fix the situation and protect people from themselves. And if we can agree on some simple "moral" RULES then we need to ban all climbing!

Can we move onto a Dogs Suck thread now? Those are my favorite.

Well thanks for clearing up that I'm not a complete ass for lowering most of the time or abnormally lazy.