Personal Anchors

A personal anchor (PAS) is a short length of rope/webbing that clips you to the anchor like at the top of a climb.

It keeps you secure while you go off belay, sort gear, or rig a rappel. Anyone climbing multi-pitch or cleaning their own sport anchors needs one.

Some personal anchors are made with dynamic rope, allowing them to absorb energy from falls whilst others are made from static material which don't strech.

Best rule of thumb is to treat any personal anchor as something to stay below and keep constantly weighted, not something to fall on.

An adjustable lanyard means you can change the length without having to attach or remove anything else. You clip the anchor, then pull yourself snug or loosen off away from the anchor. One lanyard then covers a tight clip-in through to a full rappel extension, and hanging belays get more comfortable.

Fixed length like chains or slings, require you to use an additional carabiner or knot to shorten it which can make it tricky if you need to quickly change positions or have your hands full.

They all shorten and lengthen, but usually have one tradeoff.

You can have an anchor that shortens easier, but under full-body weight load, is very trick to extend. Petzl Connect Adjust falls in this category.

You've also got anchors which are harder to pull in, but are easier to extend under load. Ocun SBEA Adjust is an example of this.

A single arm covers most climbing. A twin or Y lanyard adds a second, shorter arm which can be used as an additional point for a range of applications like:

• Extending the rappel
• Secondary point of safety for redundancy
• Rescue situations