I recently climbed with a partner who has lots of experience spanning many decades, mountain ranges, and continents.

He built fast and simple anchors using the climbing rope. For example, he placed two good pieces of protection and clove hitched the rope to each piece.

Of course, this kind of anchor is not secure, equalized, redundant, and so on, but it seems like it would be useful when low on gear, short on time, in an alpine setting, and so on. A good skill to have in the bag of tricks.

I have never seen these kind of anchors treated in detail. Anybody have any advice about building anchors with the climbing rope?

Thanks.

Rope is a fantastic way to rig an anchor. Most of my anchors are rope anchors and they are SRENE. (but not this fancy dynamic equalisation bullshit that violates KISS)

Agreed on all points. Definately get your buddy to teach how to do this, it's a great skill to have under your belt.

I recently climbed with a partner who has lots of experience spanning many decades, mountain ranges, and continents.

He built fast and simple anchors using the climbing rope. For example, he placed two good pieces of protection and clove hitched the rope to each piece.

Of course, this kind of anchor is not secure, equalized, redundant, and so on, but it seems like it would be useful when low on gear, short on time, in an alpine setting, and so on. A good skill to have in the bag of tricks.

I have never seen these kind of anchors treated in detail. Anybody have any advice about building anchors with the climbing rope?

Thanks.

I clove hitch into my quick draws on anchors. Is it unsafe to clove two opposed biners? I wouldn't think so. Any one else?

Of course, this kind of anchor is not secure, equalized, redundant, and so on, but it seems like it would be useful when low on gear, short on time, in an alpine setting, and so on. A good skill to have in the bag of tricks.

But only safe and quick if you're swapping leads with your partner on multipitch stuff. If not, then you have to deal with tomfoolery of untying in places you probobly shouldn't untie.

I disagree. When the second arrives, if they're not leading the next pitch, they duplicate with their rope end what the leader did in constructing the anchor (or they use slings to duplicate) and clip in underneath the leader's rope anchor or use separate biners. No need for any untying nonsense.
The better the leader is at keeping things simple and not creating a clusterf*ck of an anchor, the easier this is to implement.

One big advantage of using the rope that no one has mentioned yet is that it gives you a dynamic attachment to the anchor, a good thing

One of the dangers of untying things is not when the second arrives, but when the leader is ready to take off. The possibility exists of untying the belayer instead of the leader (unless, of course, you have a dual pattern/color rope to make distinguishing who is who easier). It's something you have to pay attention to being careful about.

Very true!

Basically, think of your stance (feet braced, low center of gravity like sitting with your ass in a depression, rope may be running over a gentle edge even as added friction) as the first and most important part of the belay system and something which, when awesomely good, will mean you need no pieces to hold a falling climber.

I always have some kind of story about climbers and CF anchor so, 5-6 years ago, party of three very experienced climbers head up to do multi pitch climb in yosemite. Up on pitch 3 anchor, lead climber, belays the second and waits for the third member to take his turn. once second reaches the anchor, she becomes ready to lead the next pitch while leader belayes the third. once third reaches the anchor, leader disconnects the link for the second so she could lead but then third drops several hunderd meters to his death.

Now, somehow both leader and the second lost their memory ( as usual) and could not recall what went wrong but they confirmed that the leader did anchor the third and third did anchor himself with a sling as well but third was found at the base with sling attach to his harness with a biner at the end of it.

I always have some kind of story about climbers and CF anchor so, 5-6 years ago, party of three very experienced climbers head up to do multi pitch climb in yosemite. Up on pitch 3 anchor, lead climber, belays the second and waits for the third member to take his turn. once second reaches the anchor, she becomes ready to lead the next pitch while leader belayes the third. once third reaches the anchor, leader disconnects the link for the second so she could lead but then third drops several hunderd meters to his death.

Now, somehow both leader and the second lost their memory ( as usual) and could not recall what went wrong but they confirmed that the leader did anchor the third and third did anchor himself with a sling as well but third was found at the base with sling attach to his harness with a biner at the end of it.

No, third was connected to anchor at some point but somehow, leader DC the third instead of DCing second while second was about to lead. also, you can be tied in to rope but what good is that going to do if the rope is not in the belay device nor its clove hitched to an anchor ?

Bruno, one more thing which your partner probably is evaluating is the stance which he has vis a vis rock quality, your skills, time left on route, weather and pitch difficulty. Old timers can go on for hours about this. There are a lot of issues and nuances which you could get from your buddy. It's something which use to be discussed till the cows came home, but now seems to be overlooked and ignored in the gym climbing mentality world. Basically, think of your stance (feet braced, low center of gravity like sitting with your ass in a depression, rope may be running over a gentle edge even as added friction) as the first and most important part of the belay system and something which, when awesomely good, will mean you need no pieces to hold a falling climber.

[shock]!!

I'm not advocating not using pro for a belay, but suggesting that one of the best pieces of pro and the thing you should start thinking of first in evaluating the belay system, is your body position as it relates to where you are and what you are doing. Ask your buddy. I suspect that given what you say about him, that he is most likely nailing a perfect anchor when he's out with you. I suspect that he's setting up a belay so fast he isn't stopping and thinking of all this, but if he's been climbing as long as you say, he learned it and it's hard wired. He shows up at the stance and bangs out a belay in under a min. which most likely incorporates all of this fliff-flaff I'm suggesting.

Your partner sounds like a keeper BTW, learn all you can from him.

And, all the stuff about being secure that applied there is still applicable. Although a lot more people belay standing up nowadays.

you see, CF anchor with few people on the ledge is a perfect recipe for climbing disaster.

The other end is supposed to be tied into something. Not saying that it wouldn't have been catastrophic, with possibly the same outcome for the third, but at most, he should have gone no further than the length of the rope - not all the way to the deck.