Climbing Tips: Do THIS, not THAT (Part 9)
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In this article:
Horizontal ring anchor? Clip the rings
Treat your cams nicely - wrap with a sling or strap
Tree rappels: Don’t rap directly from the tree
Avoid girth hitching a sling to a Sterling HollowBlock
Use the Flemish bend, not the flat figure 8 bend
1 - Horizontal ring anchor? Clip the rings
The horizontal hanger with a welded ring is a nice minimalist approach to anchors, because the ring hangs perpendicular to the rock. This minimizes friction and rope twists when you pull your rope.
Apparently, there’s still debate as to where you should clip a horizontal ring anchor: the hanger, or the ring?
Clipping the ring is best practice. Why?
Clipping the ring is fast, convenient, and ensures your carabiner doesn't get twisted in some odd way.
The ring is absolutely strong enough. Typically these are 10 mm stainless steel; I've seen break testing on over 90 kn!
Your aluminum carabiners are never going to damage the much harder stainless steel ring. It's like using a plastic ice scraper to get snow off your car windshield; your windshield will never get scratched.
Clipping to the rings gives plenty of room above your carabiners for someone else who might be rappelling to use the anchor. If you clip the hanger, that often interferes with someone else who may need to rappel through you.
To be clear, if you do clip the hanger, and your carabiner is hanging properly without getting torqued in some weird way, there's nothing catastrophically wrong with it. Having said that, I want to point out that clipping the ring is considered best practice, and to counter the common objections.
The new style hanger/ring from Fixe can’t even fit a big carabiner!
Fixe, the Spanish company who is the main manufacturer of this flavor of anchor, recently (2025?) changed the design.
The new design has a hanger that can't even fit a larger carabiner. So . . . There’s only one place to clip, and that's the ring!
The manufacturer designed their product to pretty much force you to clip to the ring. What does that tell you?
Check out the photo below. The new version is on the right. As you can see, there's barely room to clip a carabiner in the hanger. (Smaller ones fit, larger ones don't.)
Yes, I do buy all this hardware to nerd out on it and give you the scoop so you don't have to wonder . . .
2 - Treat your cams nicely - wrap with a sling or strap
When you put cams in your pack, clip them to a long-ish sling, let them all hang down together, and then wrap either the sling around them (or my preference when I remember it) a ski strap.
The trigger wires are delicate, and can be damaged or even broken if you casually toss all of your rack into your pack and then cram more stuff on top of it.
3 - Tree rappels: Don’t rap directly from the tree
When rappelling from a tree, it’s usually best to use use cord or webbing for an anchor, rather than rapping directly from the tree.
Reasons:
The friction from the tree bark can make it very hard to pull your rope!
Pulling your rope can damage the tree.
If it’s a conifer tree, you might get tree sap on your rope, no fun.
In some situations, such as if you don't have any anchoring material, and/or the tree has smooth bark, it can be acceptable to rappel straight off the tree. But generally, it's not best practice.
Want to learn a specific caution from Sterling about clipping their HollowBlock?
What are the potential problems of using a flat figure 8 to join two rope ends? What are some situations when you might want to use a Flemish bend?
