Redundancy at anchors with a tether
Want to clip to two bolts with any sort of a PAS or 120 cm sling with a few knots? Here's a simple way you can do it.
If you're a redundancy fan, being connected to more than one anchor point probably gives you a warm fuzzy feeling - whether you're rappelling or in most any other situation.
Clip the end of your tether to one bolt
Clip a quickdraw to the second bolt
Clip the bottom of the quick draw into one of the middle loops on your PAS. Bang, instant redundancy, while maintaining the full length of your PAS.
You can’t really do this with a tether made from a single length of cord, such as the Petzl Connect Adjust. (Well, I suppose you could, but you'd have to tie a clove hitch or something in the middle of it, and that's not quite as elegant.)
If the bolts are solid, and you're standing on a nice ledge, then you may not need to do this. But if you're at a hanging belay, and one or more bolts is less than ideal? You probably want to be clipped to both bolts.
(For the Redundancy Polizei: yes, this is technically not 110% redundant, because you are on one tether instead of two. This is more a quick fix for when you encounter a substandard bolt or two.)
Note: if you're rappelling with your partner, this is probably not a great method. Reason: If they do the same thing, you’ll have quite a mess of different quickdraws and tethers crossing each other.
Another option when rappelling is to build an actual anchor with your own gear at the rappel station, and clip your tether to that anchor. Hopefully this anchor is:
Somewhat equalized
Attaches you to both bolts
Gives your partner(s) a good place to clip when they arrive
Gives you enough elbow room to thread and pull the rope.
A quad anchor usually does this nicely.
I'm going to cover this topic in an upcoming longer article, so watch for that.