Spring floods the trail when you leave it a mess for five years.

 

The tree on the right fell over more than five years ago. It pulled out the rock steps and the creek now tuns into the trail. NPS and PATC can't agree what to di so they have done nothing.

I know, I know, you paid a ton of money for these things, but this is not a good place for them. The rock breaks. Ask yourself how many of the thousands of stone buildings in Washington are built of this stone. If you don't believe that, google the guy at the Aid Box at Great Falls ripping all his gear out.

Missed it by THAT much.

Ran out of rope. The carabiner with gate down is sub-optimal and the clove hitch is just dangerous.

A really old, skinny alpine runner with a single wire gate carabiner.

The other anchor repeats the runner/carabiner combination.

 

Spring brings them out.

Everything comes down to one carabiner at lower right.

This single anchor is attached to rock that is known to move. If you also sling the second rock behind it, they don't move. The bowline has not tie off knot. The AMGA told people that a figure 8 didn't need a tie off, since then we've seen bowlines without the back up.

This mess comes down to one carabiner.

I found a group tied off to this today, they said their guide tied it. The guy said he works for a local gym and he thought this was a good anchor. I told him to move the anchor or I would take a picture and send it to his boss. He's out there, he had bunch of clients, this is insane.

 

Don't buy crap from Amazon.

 

The rotting stump is an interesting choice for an anchor.

Skinny rope, single bowline, no tie off knot, but Jeff Bezos is happy.

Had the place to themselves, had to do this.

 

It's not dead, it's just resting.

This isn't as bad as it looks, the tree bark has grown around the rock, not using the enormous tree is inexplicable.

Speechless.

 The spectra sling hitched to nylon is always a bad idea.

It only took one day.

 

NPS cut off the top of the dead tree, it only took one day for someone to anchor to it.