Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

What is a "sling belay?"

+0
−0

Rock climbing topos have various standardized symbols, such as xx for a bolt anchor, or a dashed line for face climbing. In keys of symbols, I've sometimes seen SB defined as a "sling belay." What does this mean? Does it mean that there is a natural feature that you can throw a cordelette around and use as an anchor?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/9760. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

2 answers

+1
−0

The glossary section of Big Walls by John Long and John Middendorf defines a sling belay as:

A hanging belay with no stance; listed as SB on topos

From perusing forums, I suspect this term arose during the golden age of Yosemite climbing, but was soon subsumed by the term "hanging belay". A Google Ngrams comparison gives a good visual of this.

Google Ngrams chart showing "sling belay" being replaced by "hanging belay"

This seems to matter more for big wall climbs, as using a sling belay is considered to be "aid". To climb such a route "free" requires a longer rope or adjusting the pitches to end at hands-free stances from which to belay. (This is from a US perspective, those in Europe may take a more relaxed approach to what is allowed for a free ascent.)

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/9762. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

+0
−0

A sling belay is typically used to connect 2 points at an anchor.

enter image description here

An example belay sling from Edelrid.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »