Does It Really Matter Which Way Your Quickdraws Face?

You may have heard the maxim “Face your quickdraws away from your direction of travel.” That is, if you clip a bolt and the sequence heads left, both your bolt-side and rope-side carabiner gates should face right. Perhaps you’ve heard this about draws clipped to pitons, too, as well as to traditional pro. But why should this be? Want more than the reasoning of, “This is just how it’s done”? Since we haven’t seen a rash of accidents from climbers facing their draws the wrong way, we decided to dig a bit deeper.

The right way to clip quickdraws to bolts

Which way should the quickdraw’s bolt-side carabiner face?

According to Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills (Ninth Edition), we clip quickdraws with the top carabiner gate facing away from the direction of travel so that this carabiner doesn’t rotate on the bolt hanger as you climb past—at which point, the rope applies tension to the draw, possibly reorienting the carabiner such that the gate contacts the hanger. “In the case of a sudden fall, the gate can then open and potentially unclip …” the authors write.

Jeff Jaramillo, Head of Gear Education and Outreach at WeighMyRack, has never seen this happen on lead—nor have I—but he did witness it once while someone was slingshot toproping a pitch. The climber was on the clipped-in side of the rope. As the belayer took in slack, the tension on the toprope caused a draw’s top gate to open against a hanger.

Another reason to clip the draw’s top carabiner facing away from the direction you’re going is to avoid “nose-clipping” (aka “nose-hooking”). Per the American Alpine Institute, nose-clipping can happen when “the nose of the carabiner gets stuck on the bolt with the gate holding it in place.” If you fall, you load the carabiner along its minor axis—its weakest orientation—potentially leading to catastrophic failure. Again, Jaramillo says this is rare, given that modern bolt hangers are made of thicker metal that reduces the chance of the carabiner’s nose sticking, compared to the skinny old hangers from the 1980s. But it can happen, especially with spinner bolts. On a route at the Red River Gorge, a friend of Jaramillo’s had clipped correctly, but the loose hanger rotated the carabiner into a nose-clipped scenario.

Which way should the quickdraw’s rope-side carabiner face?

We face the rope-side carabiner away from our direction of travel to avoid a back-clipping situation. As anyone who’s taken an (anxiety-inducing) gym lead test recalls, back-clipping occurs when, per Freedom of the Hills, “…the leader’s end of the rope is clipped so that it travels behind—rather than in front of—the carabiner.” With back-clipping, the rope can form a twisted byte that can then unclip itself in a fall. Instead, you want your side of the rope coming up and out of the carabiner away from the rock, which is promoted by orienting your rope-side clipper away from your direction of travel.

Do both carabiners in a quickdraw need to face the same way?

In an informative video (below) from former Black Diamond Director of Quality Kolin Powick he shows why you should rig your draws with both the bolt-side and rope-side carabiners facing the same way. Primarily, doing so helps avoid the inevitable, fumble-pumped confusion when you pull a draw off your harness and the gates are facing opposite directions: Opposed carabiners introduce the completely avoidable potentiality of accidentally nose-clipping or back-clipping.

What about draws clipped to pitons and traditional protection?

Pitons: The same rules apply—face the gates away from your direction of travel; also, beware any sort of funky interaction between the piton and the carabiner, such as a fat carabiner acting like a lever on the pin or a tiny clipper getting nose-clippedIf using a “trad draw” or “alpine draw”—a shoulder sling plus two carabiners—face the piton-side carabiner away from your direction of travel. Meanwhile, with old ring pitons, the carabiner will likely move around on the ring; do your best.

Traditional protection: Almost all cams come pre-slung, and nylon is pliable. The play that slings introduce into the system makes it unlikely you’ll experience either nose-clipping or back-clipping. However, if using a draw to clip directly into a cam’s cable loop or a nut’s wire, try to clip correctly given the added stiffness in the system.

One final thing to be aware of with either a quickdraw or alpine draw? Jaramillo cautions that the top (protection-side) carabiner can get pinned against the edge of a crack and open. “But this is easily avoidable,” he says. “Just extend the sling in a different way, move the piece, or place a second piece”

Drawing conclusions

In the end, carabiner-gate management comes down to situational awareness, both from the climber and the belayer. This holds especially true on traversing climbs. “There’s so much on the belayer to be watching out and be ready for the next thing that’s going to happen,” says Jaramillo.

So, if that top carabiner nose-clips or the bottom one self-unclips, what’s the plan?

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