Alpine & Mountaineering: 13. Snow Anchors - Creating a Ballard | Climbing Tech Tips

A bollard is a snow or ice anchor, most often used for rappelling when you're presented with no other anchor options. The consideration with bollards is that they can be time consuming to build, however with bollards you have the distinct advantage of not leaving any equipment behind. That said, if given the option to instead rappel from a V-thread in good ice or rock protection, or a tree, or a decent chalk stone, I would probably choose one of these other methods. A bollard takes the form of a teardrop and the size is dependent on the firmness of the snow that you're building it in. The softer the snow, the bigger the bollard needs to be. It's important to build a good lip to avoid the rope slipping off the top of the bollard. In loose, unconsolidated, or faceted snow, the bollard would not have enough strength to be used as an anchor. When multiple people are wrapping off, it is advisable to back up the bollard with a secondary anchor, perhaps having the heavier partner go first and letting the last person clean the backup anchor once the bollard has already been field tested. Include your knowledge of bollards with your understanding of other snow anchors as shown in our climbingtechtips.com alpine video series.