Clipping the rope with one hand

Don't want to sound like a troll but I was leading an ez beginner sport climb, (not ez for me) and when I got to a couple of the bolts I had no prob getting the quickdraw clipped but I had such a precarious stance that I needed one hand to hold on to the rock. I couldn't get the rope into the biner and blew my clean lead by grabbing the Qd with my other hand to steady me while I clipped.

I tried making a loop and using my thumb on the spine to support the biner wile I pushed the loop against the gate (it was bent gate)but I scrooed the pooch.

Any suggestions...I guess practice ..practice

Please take any advice I give with a grain of salt and heed at your own risk.

I'm about where you are, so know what you mean.

1 - don't be so frantic to clip the bolt that you do it from a crappy stance. be patient and find a stance first - if a bolt was set on lead, believe me, the person who drilled it had a good stance.

2 - it only takes a few minutes to put a handful of bolts in your residence - practice until you can do it out of the corner of your eye after holding your hands in icewater till they're numb.

and I'm sure someone who really knows something will respond with more meaningful info later on.

IMHO (FWIW)

Since it was a "beginner route" I'll assume the rock wasn't overhanging, i.e. the draw was resting against the rock and not naturally hanging away from it. If that's true, then the most important thing to do is relax and get a good stance. This means straightening the arm holding you to the rock, if possible; breathing deep and regular; don't overgrip the rock; keep your feet below your body, if you can. If you're calm and relaxed, you'll have no trouble clipping the draw.

As you get better and try more overhanging routes, you'll need to pay more attention to what you do with your clipping hand. As the routes overhang more, the draw naturally hangs from the rock into the air and it's harder to clip because of that. I like to use the middle finger of my clipping hand to steady the biner by hooking it around the bottom. This will keep it from moving. I'll grab the rope between my thumb and first finger to actually push the rope past the gate of the biner. You might find this useful in your beginner or moderate routes, but relaxing and getting a good stance is way more important in that arena. I didn't have to worry about the clipping hand much until climbing overhanging 5.10 or higher routes.

Hope that helps.

I was very nervous about blowing clips when I started leading. I hung a quick draw from the rear view mirror of my Ford Escort and practiced clipping while I was driving. This helped me a bunch, though now that I think about it, being distracted while driving was probably far more dangerous than botching a clip would have been.

Practice, Practice, Practice! You will get better. I found that orienting the gate towards you helps, only because I clip using my middle finger to control the caribiner, just by placing downward pressure. (Not much, just enough to stabilize) At the same time using my index finger and thumb to clip the rope into the biner. But it is practice that will make it all make since.

All good advice and much appreciated. Thanx bros

I have a question about this as well (noob alert!). When I watch the "pro's" in the video's, I notice that they kinda half-twist the rope first before clipping. Does that make it easier?

Depending on which hand holds the rope and whether the gate faces left or right, you have four situations (two symmetric pairs). You may want to make sure that you practice all of them.

The second page of this document has some diagrams illustrating common techniques.

Holy crap, I just spit krautburger on my screen!
jfox, you totally rock dude!! Damn, that picture is brilliant!
I haven't had a burst of laughter like that in far too long.
Thank you for the awesome picture brutha!

Re: topic.
If I'm off-balance I'll grab the biner loop with my ring finger, providing some (body) stability while I clip with my thumb and forefinger - the beauty here is that if you're around soem absolute purist (regarding hanging on gear), it's really hard to tell if your stabilization is benefiting from your clip. . . ha!

Next time you're on the couch, tie a rope to your belt loop. Then hold a draw out in front of you and clip with the other hand. Alternate hands and gate direction so you practice every combo with both hands. Experiment with different technique and find what works most efficiently. Once you get the muscle memory down, it makes it so easy on the rock. I did this after blowing clips when i first started. Next time out it was a no brainer. Plus its safe and you can waste a whole evening or two gettin it down.

-E

Ethics are for bar stools "Warren Harding". If your trying for the X games I can see where this might matter. As long as you are having fun and climbing, your doing OK in my book. I personally would rather grab the damn thing clip in two seconds and head up than spend minutes fiddling around trying to clip for some profound esthetical purpose. I guess at times I am impatient and just want to get on with the climb and am not too worried about the puriest matters of the sport. But practice would help. Put an eye screw in the ceiling over your couch and run a long sling down to a biner. That way you can sit on the couch while watching Oprah and practice cliping the rope in with one hand. After awhile you can clip fast in your sleep. Lying on the couch will prepare you for clipping under a roof (never tried this, but it would make good U-tube) Just make sure that you wash your hands with the beer your drinking so the oil from the thick crust pizza does not get exsorbed into the rope. Makes the line quite slippery and is no substitue for a dry treatment. :)
Cheers

The best advice I can offer is to climb with experienced people who can show how they do things and can correct you before bad things happen.

I see that you've climbed near Tucson and assume you live nearby. I live in Tucson and would be more happy to show you some basic stuff sometime. Just PM me.

Charlie Perry wrote:Ethics are for bar stools "Warren Harding".

Did Warren Harding say this ha ha.

Thanks again for more good ideas I'm going to log some couch time but now I can be productive too. That Petzl pdf was cool, I got a couple good ideas.

vegasstradguy wrote:
"""also, generally speaking, if the route is bolted properly, you should have a good stance or at least a really good hold to clip off of- this usually means the bolt will be at your waist for the clip. so, if the stance is precarious, it would be a good idea to look above to see if another move or two would put you in a better position to clip. this can be hard because the natural urge to clip as soon as possible can be overwhelming (especially if a ground-fall is possible) sometimes.""" so true...that is precisely what happened to me. I'm going to try again this weekend and get a grip on my nerves and look for a better stance.

Note: I too dont know how to do multiple quotes d'oh!

vegastradguy wrote:you should have a good stance or at least a really good hold to clip off of- this usually means the bolt will be at your waist for the clip. so, if the stance is precarious, it would be a good idea to look above to see if another move or two would put you in a better position to clip. this can be hard because the natural urge to clip as soon as possible can be overwhelming (especially if a ground-fall is possible) sometimes.

Vegastradguy brings up a good point. There was a discussion in one of these forums a while back about not blowing the clip when it's above you since all that additional rope you pull up makes you fall that x2 much further if you miss. (I'm not computer smart enough to find that forum discussion and post the link here.) I was belaying someone when this happened, at it scared the crap out of me.

*** wrote:...all that additional rope you pull up makes you fall that x2 much further if you miss...

Good point! I never thought of that.

*** wrote:all that additional rope you pull up makes you fall that x2 much further if you miss.

This is a common misconception. You fall twice the distance between the two anchors whether you are trying to clip above your head or at your waist. The real difference is that if you are trying to clip high you are closer to the ground and, by falling the same distance, you are more likely to hit the deck. On the other hand, if you are going to hit the deck regardless, you are better off falling from the lower stance.

brenta wrote:You fall twice the distance between the two anchors whether you are trying to clip above your head or at your waist.

Here's a scenario I envision which counters that statement: Two bolts are 8 feet apart. Let's assume you're half-way between the bolts - you're tie-in point at waist level is 4 feet above the last bolt you clipped.

A) If you reach up to clip the next bolt, you have 4 feet of rope above you but there is an additional 4 feet of slack since the rope must go up to the bolt and back down to you. If you blew the clip, there is 12 feet of slack in the system, allowing for a 24' fall.

B) Alternatively, you could climb up the 4 additional feet so you're waist is at the next bolt. Now, there is 8 feet of slack in the system. If you blew the clip, you'd be looking at a 16' fall.

If I'm missing something here please correct me.

*** wrote: Here's a scenario I envision which counters that statement: Two bolts are 8 feet apart. Let's assume you're half-way between the bolts - you're tie-in point at waist level is 4 feet above the last bolt you clipped. A) If you reach up to clip the next bolt, you have 4 feet of rope above you but there is an additional 4 feet of slack since the rope must go up to the bolt and back down to you. If you blew the clip, there is 12 feet of slack in the system, allowing for a 24' fall. B) Alternatively, you could climb up the 4 additional feet so you're waist is at the next bolt. Now, there is 8 feet of slack in the system. If you blew the clip, you'd be looking at a 16' fall. If I'm missing something here please correct me.

Kateri, the fall is 16' in both cases. While it is true that you have 12' of rope out in the former and 8' in the latter, the 4' difference in rope length is compensated by the different height from which you fall.

Think of it this way if you will. Ignoring rope stretch, when you come to rest after the fall, your tie-in point is 12' feet below the lower bolt if you clipped high, while it was 4' above the bolt before the fall. Distance traveled: 12' + 4' = 16'. Twice the distance between the bolts.

If you clip at waist's height, you end up 8' below the lower bolt, but you started 8' above it. Distance traveled: 8' + 8' = 16'. Again, twice the distance between the bolts.

Clearly, even though the falls are equally long, the consequences may be different, but the safest choice depends on the circumstances. If you are close enough to the deck that you'd hit it even from the higher stance, or if you are so far away from the deck that you would not hit it from the lower stance, clipping high has advantages.

Of course, if one stance is comfortable and the other is precarious, we all know what we should do.

Concerning rope stretch, there will be more stretch with more rope out. So, higher chance to hit the ground if you are sufficiently close, but also lower fall factor if you are sufficiently far from it.

My opinion is that climbers should get used to clip at waist's height by default, but should also learn to recognize situations in which it's safer to clip high.

JmH wrote:Note: I too dont know how to do multiple quotes d'oh!

Here's how you make a quote, for one person or for many.

If you hit the quote button on someone's post, you'll get a reply window with the quote already done for you. You'll notice at the beginning of the quote, it says: quote=username, between two carat symbols: Then at the end of the quote, it says: /quote, again between two carat symbols: I can't type it out just like the way you should do it, or the system treats it as an actual quote command.

If you want to quote a few times separately from one person's post, or several people's posts, in your reply, it's all the same. Hitting the quote button on the thread only does this for you once, for one person's post, but you can make your own quotes (or break up one quote) as many times as you like.

Here's how to do it. Just put in additional quote commands, including the carat symbols, for as many quotes as you want. You can break up one quote into different portions, if you're replying to several points the person made in one post; or you can put multiple quotes from different people in there. All you have to do is bracket the quote(s) with those quote commands. If you need to quote someone else in the same reply, then use these quote commands and copy-paste the actual quote from the person's post. Whatever you insert between the quote commands will show up as an actual quote, so make sure you put the right quote in between the commands. The Thread Review window is helpful for this when you're replying to a post, because it shows all the posts that have occurred before yours on that particular thread. You can grab multiple quotes from multiple people by copy-pasting from that Thread Review window.

Hope that helps. Spread the word, I keep seeing this question pop up.

Thanks Brenta. I had to draw this scenario out to see it clearly. You're right in both cases the leader would take a 16' fall. So missing the clip above your head you'd land 12' below the last bolt, while missing the clip at waist level you'd land 8' below the last bolt. Depending on how far down the ground or ledge is...

That instinct of wanting to clip above one's head is pretty strong for some of us.

Nate Oakes wrote: Here's how you make a quote, for one person or for many. If you hit the quote button on someone's post, you'll get a reply window with the quote already done for you. You'll notice at the beginning of the quote, it says: quote=username, between two carat symbols: Then at the end of the quote, it says: /quote, again between

Nate Oakes wrote: You can break up one quote into different portions, if you're replying to several points the person made in one post;

JmH wrote:Don't want to sound like a troll but I scrooed the pooch using my thumb on the spine.

soo goood ..Thanks Nate!