Cable anchors: Love 'em or leave 'em?

I for one am not a fan. Is it stronger and more durable than a bunch of tat? Sure, it's plenty strong. Is it stronger and more durable than the tree it's around? In my mind it is a death sentence to the tree. Although I'll say any tree used to rappel repeatedly has a death sentence. It just seems somehow harsher, to my untrained eyes.

But the cables are freaking everywhere. I mean beating along the cliff top you will stumble onto them.

A lot of effort went into putting these here by someone with the best of intentions I'm sure but I am not sure these anchors are suitable for such a high use climbing area...

I don't like them. They are semi-permanent, violating the traditional idea that anyone can place anchors and anyone can remove them. This means that someone makes a decision for all users and the Preserve itself about how the land will be used.

Although the cables probably last for a very long time, I don't know any way of forming an opinion about how reliable they are, and the ones encased in garden hose hide most of the cable away from evaluating eyes.

When they are installed someplace like the top of Betty, where there really shouldn't be a funnel channeling everyone back down that route, it becomes clear that the judgement of the installers can be poor; nonetheless the difficulty of removing the cable forces everyone else to live with it.

The one thing I doubt is that the cable is any more damaging to the tree than slings are. The real culprit is soil compaction, but to the extent that the cable draws more rappellers to the location, it might still be responsible for hastening the demise of the tree.

"You forgot your socket wrench? "

Yeah, I know, its one of the ten essentials, and I didn't have it with me. My bad.

But even with one, I'd be really hesitant to tamper with a cable, because I'd be really afraid of not being able to get it off (bolts rusted, for example) but yet somehow weakening it or otherwise making it less reliable.

The right type of cable cutter is very expensive and doesn't exactly fit in a chalk bag. I actually spent some time checking that out.

I hadn't even thought of these anchors in the light of your first point till now. I've never installed or dismantled one of these things. Who has? I'm pretty mechanically inclined so I know I can but it's really forcing the issue. Like do I need a tool bag? Big ol choppers? Blowtorch?

Soil compaction is indeed the real death sentence of any tree used to rap, whether it is webbing, cable. The cable that has gotten me all huffy on the internet is at a point where the tree has outgrown it's cable. I wonder how that will affect the tree, and if it will speed it's demise.

I guess if you botch the job you can tie in some webbing.

If the cable (or slings) are tight on the tree, it (they) will kill it. If installed loosely, there will, of course, be intermittent pressure on a small arc at the back of the tree when the anchor is loaded, but most of the bark should be unaffected and so the tree should be ok.

Did anyone ever find out / talk to the person installing the cables? Julie mentioned talking to a guide named Jason(?) who knew who was installing them. Can anyone track them down and reach out for a discussion? Maybe they really have been insulated from anybody disagreeing about how great the cables are. Or maybe they just aren't bothered by the dissent.

Nut on Bonnies wasn't there yesterday. Pretty sure everyone just thinks it's left or "can't get it out" fixed and cleans it. There is a .75 C4 spot right next to the piton so i don't think it is worth people putting a nut back in the crack

there were cables on Baby P2 these were threaded through some webbing so it was less obvious it was cable.

If it was Jason, a guide, then this should be easy. As far as I know there is only one Jason guiding (legally, anyway) at the Gunks, and I am certain some regular on gunks.com knows him well enough to verify and get further details.

Perhaps just pointing out Preserve policy:
"Leave only rock-colored slings at rappel stations."
Neither cables nor garden hose would seem to qualify...