To backclip or not to backclip

You're not back clipped.

The first pic looks like it, but the belayer being to your right, the climber biner turned clockwise towards you.

The first and last pic match. You're fine dude.

You're belayer could use some work though, take in slack instead of leaving you with a dick load, as in the second pic.

On my quick draws, both biners face the same way.
Depending on which hand I'm using to clip, i face the biner the opposite way for easier rope clipping. Get in the habit of knowing your own system so you don't have to question yourself.

Sadly you also forgot to put your helmet on. Between that and your belayer, a fall surely would have ended badly back clipped or not.

But at least your rope, draws, and shirt are all color matched.

Corsan wrote:Sadly you also forgot to put your helmet on.

But, in two out of three of the photo's, he doesn't appear to have a head...

Cheers, and, welcome to the 'proj!

It looks like you may not be backclipped (the rope is going from the rock out) but the biner gate is facing in the wrong direction in the first photo. Remember "spine towards the line." You are traversing left and the gate is facing left. This can unclip.

Brian wrote:It looks like you may not be backclipped (the rope is going from the rock out) but the biner gate is facing in the wrong direction in the first photo. Remember "spine towards the line." You are traversing left and the gate is facing left. This can unclip.

Cite an example.

Answers:

No on the honor thing.

Yes, the chalkbag is defintiely backclipped.

Yes, your pants are too long.

You are what we call a first bolt backclipper.

My guess is that you took so long huffing up that five seven that the rope fell out of the quickdraw, then back into the quickdraw, all and just before you could hit the sixth bolt and your mom could snap another picture.

Test it out. Find a route with a nice high bolt, backclip it--err, i mean just clip it like you do, then take a nice little fall on it. You'll figure it out soon enough.

You are guilty of backclipping. . . . and wearing horrible pants.
You are hereby sentenced to climb that same lump of choss for the rest of your life.

It looks like from the photos the first two bolts are useless since you would deck. No harm no foul. What climb is this?

England wrote:It looks like from the photos the first two bolts are useless since you would deck. No harm no foul. What climb is this?

Route name is: Long Walk Off Of a Short Pier 5.9+ (Definitely not a 5.9 though, more along the lines of 5.8)

NV : Red Rock : Sandstone Quarry : The Pier

All the worry if you are back clipped or not...and you're not worried about the lack of a helmet?

Ben Cassedy wrote: Cite an example.

Ben,

What do you mean cite an example? Of someone becoming unclipped or of someone else also saying this? Many climbing instruction books and websites warns against doing this. I know trad climbers who flip their bottom biner upside down as a quick fix against this.

Here are a couple of examples from a quick Google search:

ehow.com/how_2109215_clip-q…

abc-of-rockclimbing.com/how…

Brian

Brian wrote: Ben, What do you mean cite an example? Of someone becoming unclipped or of someone else also saying this? Many climbing instruction books and websites warns against doing this. I know trad climbers who flip their bottom biner upside down as a quick fix against this. Here are a couple of examples from a quick Google search: ehow.com/how_2109215_clip-q… abc-of-rockclimbing.com/how… Brian

Brian's right, listen to him. Of lesser concern is that the gate side of the bolt biner seems to be facing the hanger's nut. It is possible, especially with wiregates, for the bolt biner to get unclipped by the bolt in this orientation, but this is something that I have never heard of actually happening in real life.