I am returning to climbing after 10 year absence, I'm going to start top roping to get back into the swing of things before I start anything to Big. my questions is should I use maillions or carabineers to attach slings to the anchor? any advice would be appreciated.
Maillons are cheaper to buy but carabiners are usually pre-owned by most climbers (no extra cost as opposed to buying maillons) but carabiners are multi-purpose and the extra cost is mitigated whereas most people will have no other use for their rigging maillons. It’s also much faster to rig with a carabiner that the gate takes seconds to open and close whereas a maillons takes much longer using a spanner. You could use maillons and threading/re-thread knots but you will compromise on versatility and hence efficiency. Some centres use pre-tied bottom-rope rigs (for known locations) but it’s not ideal.
There is one small advantage actually. There have been recent cases of passers by removing karabiners from fixed ropes that were in use by cavers in the dales.
It is now recommended practice in our club to use maillons for the top anchors that are accessible to anyone passing. A half-turn with the spanner stops them being removed easily, plus they don’t have the same appeal to light fingered types although probably make better key-rings.
They're not much use to deter anchor tampering if your anchor is a sling around a boulder, or thread, or virtually any other combination of typical trad anchor though. If I were worried about the possibility of someone nicking my krab, I'd be equally if not more worried about the possibility of the same cretin nicking my [cams/nuts/slings].
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