“You call that an anchor?” Charlie Gray said when I offered him the master point of my cordelette anchor. He’d just followed me up the flaring butt-crack first pitch of Fat City at Lumpy Ridge in Colorado.

“What’s the problem with my anchor?” I said.

“Anchor? You’re using shoelaces!”

“It’s five millimeter Perlon. What’s the matter with that?” I countered.

Charlie snorted and clove-hitched into the master point then backed himself up to a rusty piton I had ignored.

I’d just arrived in Colorado from my home in Alaska, psyched for a summer of rock guiding and climbing. I knew it would be a crash course in current rock techniques. Since living in Alaska, my rock skills had mossed over while I obsessed about ski mountaineering. When ski mountaineering, weight is the primary concern – skinnier cords are lighter. Also, the forces on anchors from ski mountaineering created during sliding falls, crevasse rescue, and rappelling are less than a huge factor 2 rock climbing screamer. For ski mountaineering I began using skinnier, shorter, and lighter cordelette. However, these don’t fly in vertical rock terrain.

Anchor Basics
Trad rock climbers build anchors from three or more pieces of gear (active pro like cams and/or passive pro like nuts) to belay between pitches. These anchors ideally follow the acronym EARNEST: Each piece holds Equal weight, the Angle between pieces is less than 45 degrees, every part of the anchor is Redundant, the anchor’s master point has No Extension if one piece fails, the anchor is Solid enough to hold a truck, and the anchor is made from the most Timely option.

A slew of techniques are available to make individual gear pieces EARNEST, such as double shoulder-length slings, equalettes, webelette, and cordelettes. While it’s wise to have (and know how to properly use) a variety of these techniques, the cordelette stands out. It’s simple, fast, bombproof, multi-purpose, and cheap.

Cordelettes
Rock climbing cordelettes are made from 20-foot lengths of seven millimeter, semi-dynamic (low-stretch), Perlon accessory cord, such as made by Sterling (minimum breaking strength: 2788 pounds). Tie the length of cord into a huge loop with an in-line overhand (like a water knot) with three-inch tails. The in-line overhand is solid, yet easy to untie for rescue or threading around a boulder. The flat overhand (also known as the European Death Knot) and Flemish bend (re-woven figure 8) also work, but don’t use the double-fisherman’s knot because it welds shut. Also, avoid the techy skinny cords like Spectra, Dyneema, Kevlar or Technora that are static. You want some stretchiness for absorbing big shock loads.

To use a cordelette, clip the cordelette into non-locking biners at each individual piece of gear at the anchor; then pull down a loop between each piece to share the load between pieces. Next, tie one big figure-eight in the loops to create a master point. Use this master point to clove-hitch yourself into a locking biner. Alternatively, fix your auto-blocking device to the master point and clove-hitch yourself to a locker at the shelf, by clipping one strand from each piece above the master point knot. For a two-bolt anchor, where a double-shoulder length sling actually works best, you can double-up your cordelette to shorten the anchor. Store the cordelette by making a quadruple loop, then tie into a non-tensioned overhand knot. Clip all eight loops ends into a non-locker and onto your harness.

Cordelettes rule because they are multi-purpose – an essential characteristic for alpine climbing. Cordelettes are fundamental to most rock rescue scenarios. They work great for toprope anchors and can work for quick belays on mini-cruxes during the approach or descent. I sometimes rig my cordelette for glacier travel by making a 12-inch waist prussic loop at one end and daisy-chaining the rest, ready for a crevasse rescue load transfer. And the best part, cordelettes are cheap (around $12). Leaving one as a rap anchor won’t break the budget.

Cordelette Issues
The major complaint about cordelettes is they are mono-directional – if you shift the load’s direction, the individual pieces won’t stay equalized. Address this by carefully thinking through your load direction before tying the master point knot.

Another issue is sharing the load between the individual pieces of the anchor. Pieces closer to the master point – which have shorter cordelette legs – take more weight because they stretch less than longer legs. Solve this problem by making the legs roughly equal length by extending more distant pieces with a shoulder or double-shoulder length sling.

After rapping from Fat City, Charlie took me to the climbing shop and cut me some fatty rock climbing cordelettes. I grumbled when I saw the bulk. “Get used to it,” Charlie said. “You’re a Colorado rock climber now.”

Liked it? Share it!