"The belayer didn't feel like using the ATC Guide in guide mode so he used the ATC cable as a part of the anchor through which the belay was redirected. Not a great idea."

Wow. Words fail me.

I guess it's an example of how a little knowledge (i.e., "biner on biner is bad") can be a dangerous thing (so let's separate those biners with anything that comes to hand!).

I think it was just thoughtless. He decided to belay off his harness, and instead of taking the ATC Guide out of the system, he just grabbed the biner attached to it and ran the rope through it.

The guys who posted the photo realize it was a lapse-- I'm starting to feel bad now about posting it, so please don't be too hard on them. Here's the page it came from, and the people who did it posted comments about their mistake:

link

I met these guys on High E - they are solid, don't rush to judgments. I'm pretty sure it was some lapse at the end of a long climbing day. They were visiting from one of the Dakotas on a 5-day climbing trip - probably traveling and so much climbing put the brains backwards.

Unfortunately that's how people get killed and others have to clean up. In remarkably few other endeavors does a single "lapse" have the propensity to escalate exponentially.

Just a bit of a jerk and they'd both be heading for the deck. These folks may be great climbers and wonderful people, but you can't, on a ordinary cragging day in the gunks, redirect a belay (thereby roughly doubling the load) via the belay device keeper wire and be called "solid."

I agree with Rich. End of day, middle of day, midnight, redirect through a biner directly into the sling/anchor. Doesn't matter how tired you are basic safety is basic safety and there is not a whole lot of thought involved in this one. It's not like something got confused in a complicated anchor setup.

Why didn't they just clip that biner to the webbing and eliminate the ATC all together.

Check out the open biner w/ the clove hitch later in the album.

I feel like this album is a "find whats wrong" test

They removed the ATC link up photo but have left the classic open biner clove hitch shot

rats !