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Back in the day we’d make “dad draws”—quickdraws with lockers on either end. We used these for toproping sport routes or for first bolts with tough moves over bad landings where, if the rope should somehow unclip itself from a regular carabiner, a fall would be catastrophic. Of course, now that I am a dad, I use dad draws without irony. The goal is always to come home to my kids, even if they probably broke something in the house (again) while I was out climbing and likely aren’t even sorry.
Metolius has come up with a commercial dad draw, the Anchor ‘Draw, that puts lockers on both sides of a 7″ dogbone in a smart, well-designed way that makes dad draws both sexy and fun to use. The smart comes from the “captured-eye carabiners,” special screwgates with a threading eye that keep the lockers oriented vertically—with the load along their strongest, major axis. This they did 100 percent reliably, and I quickly made them my go-to anchor draws for sport climbing and bolting, where you fix a static line to the anchors. Meanwhile, the well-designed comes from the lockers’ (and draws’) sleek, low-profile feel. These are not clunky, old dad draws but are instead the size of your standard draw, and at a relatively light 3.8 ounces (compared, say, to the 2.9 ounces for Metolius’s Inferno II draw), they are easy to rack and carry.
I’ve been using them for months now, and they’ve held up extremely well to repeated use: The purple carabiner, which I’ve been running the rope through, has some wear to the blue anodized paint but is not the least bit grooved in the basket. The hanger-side carabiner has no signs of nicks or cuts. All of the screwgates are still as smooth as ever. And the dogbone still looks great, despite repeated toprope and bolting sessions. Basically, if you’re going to be toproping off sport anchors, you’d be remiss not to carry these—they’re light, low-profile, and save wear on your regular quickdraws and on anchor hardware.
Basics
The Metolius Anchor ‘Draw is an anchor and first-bolt quickdraw that incorporates two screwgate locking carabiners on either end of a 7″ nylon dogbone. The lockers are kept oriented vertically through their “captured eye” technology—essentially a hole in the carabiner the sling has been passed through before being bartacked down. The draws are CE/UIAA certified and hold 22 kN (4,950 lbf) of force.
Pros
- Light and easy to carry at 3.8 ounces—they don’t weigh much more or take up much more space than a regular quickdraw
- Screwgates are big and easy to use
- Hard wearing and built to last
- Give major peace of mind when toproping or for hard climbing at the first or second clips
Cons
Not sure what happens if/when you need to resling a new dogbone through the captured eye—maybe you can send them back to Metolius? I wasn’t sure which end was for the rope and which was for the hangers, so I ended up going with purple for the rope, using the mnemonic “Red is for rope”—red is pretty close to purple, right?
Our Thoughts
At only $30 each, the Anchor ‘Draw is a no-brainer investment for safety and peace of mind when toproping off sport anchors or on routes with hard climbing down low, where you want the added security of a locker on your gear and on the rope. They carry light and sleek, and are easy to bring up on your harness, even for onsight burns.