Backcountry.com employee Ben Sukow using a properly clipped daisy chain at an exposed belay on Hell Raiser (III 5.11)
Daisy chain safety isn’t exactly a new issue, but I still see people do it wrong often enough that I feel it’s worth the digital print space to revisit the concern. A lot of people use daisy chains on their harness for clipping into belays on the way up a multi-pitch route or at rappel anchors on the way down. There’s nothing wrong with it. You do it, I do it, Tommy Caldwell does it. The key is to do it right so you’re connected in a manner that maintains the sling’s strength.
About any daisy chain on the market holds well over 3,000 pounds when pulled end to end, but the bar stitching between the small loops only hold a couple hundred pounds. Even the lightest climbers can generate that kind of force with the smallest of shock loads. This video gives a pretty good visual of how easy it is to generate a couple thousand pounds of force by shock-loading a sling, so you can imagine how easy it is to create a couple hundred.
The Right Way
Let’s get down to it. How do you avoid accidentally clipping to your anchor in a way that can cost you your life? Well, there are a few ways to do it right …
#1) The simplest way is to use one carabiner and clip it through one loop. The key part of the phrase here being “through one loop.” Clipping two loops is how you get into trouble.
#2) What if you need to shorten your daisy chain to get in a better position? It happens. And remember, shock loading is bad, so getting the length right is pretty key. To shorten your daisy chain, clip a SECOND carabiner through the loop you wish to use, and clip that carabiner to the first carabiner, which is attached to the anchor. This ensures you stick to the one-carabiner-per-loop rule.
Visual
Thanks to Black Diamond for this simple, visual explanation on how to properly and improperly set up a daisy.
Other Considerations
There is a way to clip two loops with the same carabiner and not be clipped only through the bartacks, but it’s way too easy to screw up, so I’m not going to tell you how to do it. Just use the two-carabiner method. Some have speculated that falling on a daisy chain will rip the barstitching and act like a shock-absorbing runner. In theory it could work, but daisy chains aren’t designed or tested for this, so I highly recommend against it. As a final note the Metolius PAS serves the same purpose as a daisy chain when it comes to anchor attachment, but it’s made of individual loops, so everything is full strength, and you can’t really mess it up. It’s a little heavier than a regular daisy chain, but for many people the trade-off is definitely worth it.
Belaying
Remember, daisy chains are static, which makes them a bad anchor connection for belaying. If you’re belaying a climber, make sure the rope is your primary connection to the anchor. If you’re tied in with nothing but a daisy, and your partner takes a factor 2 fall onto the anchor, it could easily generate enough force to break the sling and send you both to the ground. Your daisy should be used only as a quick connection while you’re building the anchor, as a backup while you’re belaying, and as a quick connection to a rappel anchor. That’s it.
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Tags: belaying, climbing, sport climbing, trad climbing