Rock Climbing: Cleaning a Top Rope Anchor

What goes up must come down. Cleaning an anchor isn't a complicated process, but the transition from climbing to repelling can be a dangerous one because you lose the security of the belayer. When it's time to break down your anchor, being careful and staying redundant is essential. You may see people top roping or being lowered with the rope running directly through the fixed gear. That's bad etiquette because when a weighted rope slides back and forth through the chains, it wears down the links, which is bad, and can damage your rope, which is worse. To avoid these issues, you'll want to repel after you clean the anchor. Check out our How to Repel video to learn how to get back to the ground. This video is going to cover getting prepared at the top, breaking down the anchor, and preparing the rope for your repel. Before you can break down your top rope anchor, you'll need to connect yourself directly to the Just like you did when you set up the anchor, clip yourself into both sides with locking carabiners. Once you've shifted your weight to your personal tether, tell your belayer that you're off belay. Now you can break down your anchor. Keep the gear organized on your harness and your bulky cord toward the back as you clean. You don't want anything getting in the way of either your repel device or your feet when you're With the anchor gone, it's time to get the rope ready for your repel. Pull up a bunch of rope. Then tie off the slack and clip it to your harness. This way, if you drop the rope while you're working, you won't lose it. That would be very bad. Untie your figure eight and thread the rope through the chains. Now, and this is extremely important, always, always close the system. Tie a stopper knot in the end of the rope to make sure you can't repel off the ends. Before you left the ground, you should have already tied a stopper knot on the other end of the rope. Once the system is closed, you can unclip the slack from your harness and pull the rope through the chains until you reach the middle. Then call rope. Throw the slack down the wall and have your partner confirm that both knots are on the ground. When you finish cleaning the anchor, you can get ready to repel. To learn more, check out these videos or click here to find an REI class near you.