Improper Gri Gri Use

The Gri Gri is my favorite to lead belay with.
I honestly don't care what people belaying me use, I just don't want to feel responsible for dropping someone.

With the Gri Gri I wrap the brake hand rope back and around next to the lever holding it with my right hand, and have my thumb holding down the lever, while feeding the rope. That way if anyone was to fall, break hand ready, and I enjoy the flight.

ATC's are always good fun, but annoying if someone is working a route for endless minutes.

I can't say much about the Cinch, never used it for lead belaying, on top rope belaying at the gym on their 100mm ropes, they fed horribly and took about 5 minutes to lower my friend.

I used an ATC for about the first 8 years of climbing so the Cinch was a strange change, but once I got use to it (and I do think there are nuances to it to be learned!), I love it. I wouldn't take it on a multipitch but use it for all single pitch and gym climbs. Feeding rope is super smooth and holding a hang dogger is a breeze. It does have a problem lowering on fat gym TR ropes; I sometimes switch back to an ATC for that.

I see a lot belaying issues in the gym as well. With gri gri's, I commonly see no hand on the brake side of the rope. But I just as frequently, if not more, see noobs who don't brake on an ATC they hold both the guide and brake hand out straight from their bodies! I have on occasion mentioned it. Other times I am reluctant (people have funny reactions to being told how their technique is poor or not right); sometimes I don't want to distract the noob because they are actually belaying someone on lead! In those cases I pray for the best and blame the leader for putting their life in bad belayer's hands.

I think the important message is that you need to pay attention to your belayer and keep them ON BELAY. Any device can be defeated. The best one is generally the one you are most confident and comfortable using.

Regarding the "new grigri technique" I think it is a great idea to teach people this method when they are starting. It is not the only way to use the grigri safely though. You can give a very safe belay holding the cam down with pinky and ring finger while your index and middle finger and thumb still are wrapped around the rope while feeding out slack. The key is to only do this while the leader is clipping, the rest of the time your fingers are off the device and all are wrapped around the rope. You should be able to throw out two arm lengths of slack in about a second and a half all the while having both hands on the rope.

My favorite grigri belay technique is when the guy has his right hand squeezing the cam and his left hand on his hip while watching some other climber on a nearby route and his leader is pumping out. When I mentioned his questionable technique ( he happened to be a high profile climbing trainer) he gave me a look like I was the idiot. Classic.

D@n wrote:Anyone want to admit using the sh*tty technique of 'Holding the Gri Gri with the hand around the device and fingers over the cam lever and no brake hand..'? Okay, I'll be the first.. But I'm know I'm not the only one. Honestly, I read the petzl sign demonstrating the new technique and it looked great. But I just haven't gotten around to switching to it. It's on my list.. really.. That said, my experience with the crap technique has been 100% successful. I've belayed hundreds and maybe thousands of climbs using this technique and it's never failed. When the leader falls, the belay device pops out of my hand and locks automatically and I can grab the brake strand. I've also tried to get the system to fail using 'test dummies' similar to what tzilla did. What I found was if you're more than 10 feet off the ground, the leader was always caught safely. I know it's a crap technique and we should always keep our mitts on the brake strand but it always works. Anyone want to comment on that?

Gri-gri:

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13284&hilit=belayer+dog

Cinch:

redriverclimbing.com/viewto…;t=12793&hilit=mike+tucker

Learn how to use your belay device by keeping a hand on the brake end, then never take your hand off the brake end.

D@n wrote: If the technique is really as bad as what everyone is saying, why aren't we seeing hundreds or thousands of Gri Gri related accidents every season? Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Good question- my guess is that since most climbers don't fall most of the time, bad technique could occur for a while without actually resulting in an accident. It's one thing to catch someone who you have some idea might be about to fall and another to catch someone who comes off without warning, maybe at the same time you're distracted for an instant.... disasters usually require more than one thing going wrong at a time.

D@n wrote: What about this guy saying he sees the improper technique all the time yet all we have is this one report of the a bad fall? If the technique is really as bad as what everyone is saying, why aren't we seeing hundreds or thousands of Gri Gri related accidents every season? Anyone want to hazard a guess?

There has been one reported accident on Mountain Project, but this does not suggest that there have not been more. I witnessed a similar sort of mistake that almost resulted in an accident at a gym the other day. The climber fell about 30 feet and had to lift his legs to keep them from hitting the ground. I also know of one other accident that happened at a different gym about a year ago from the same sort of improper technique, but I was not there to witness it.

There are probably many more near misses than accidents. There is one question you must always ask yourself about belaying. If there is a better way, why am I not doing it? If you are taking your hand off the rope, grabbing the cam of the GriGri and holding it open to feed out slack, there is a better way to belay and you should adopt it.

D@n wrote: If the technique is really as bad as what everyone is saying, why aren't we seeing hundreds or thousands of Gri Gri related accidents every season? Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Im sure there were a lot of climbers who felt perfectly comfortable with a hip belay at one point, and would swear that their perfect safety record is reason enough to believe the method is sound.

And I have heard and witnessed several instances of gri gri misuse resulting in ground falls.

You are of course free to belay however you would like, but know that I am not alone when I say that I avoid belayers like yourself like the plague in every climbing situation. (That was not meant to be an insult, just an honest opinion)

Tzilla Rapdrilla wrote:I observed one climber . . . firmly grasp the Gri Gri with their hand holding the cam lever down, never touching the rope with their brake hand & pulling out slack for the leader as they climbed . . . So, after making these observations I decided to do some testing. . . . I sent the youngster [the poster's 11-year-old son] up to the first clip and then had him downclimb to the point he was willing to jump to the floor. I then held the Gri Gri in various approved and not recommended positions and had him let go. The results of the tests are as follows: [ . . .] Holding the Gri Gri with the hand around the device and fingers over the cam lever and no brake hand resulted in the climber DECKING EVERY TIME.

Thank you for performing this test (using your 11-year-old son as guinea pig), which confirms that if the belayer prevents the locking mechanism of an autolocking belay device from locking, the locking mechanism will not lock.

Tzilla Rapdrilla wrote:Next time I think I'll mess around with my ATC in a similar fashion . . .

Excellent idea. After all, the question of what would happen if a belayer using an ATC were to let go with his brake hand while his partner fell has never, to my knowledge, been tested in a well-controlled experiment.

Jay

@Jay-

Simmer down man. The original post stated that "I sent the youngster up to the first clip and then had him downclimb to the point he was willing to jump to the floor." The gym likely had padded floors. So clearly there was no safety danger whatsoever to his son. No need for biting cynicism.

Dave R. wrote:@Jay- Simmer down man. The original post stated that "I sent the youngster up to the first clip and then had him downclimb to the point he was willing to jump to the floor." The gym likely had padded floors. So clearly there was no safety danger whatsoever to his son. No need for biting cynicism.

_*whoosh*_

Jay Tanzman wrote: Thank you for performing this test, using your 11-year-old son as guinea pig, which confirms that if the belayer prevents the locking mechanism of an autolocking belay device from locking, the locking mechanism will not lock. Excellent idea. After all, the question of what would happen if a belayer using an ATC were to let go with his brake hand while his partner fell has never, to my knowledge, been tested in a well-controlled experiment. Jay

ZING!!!!!!

Jay Tanzman wrote: ... Excellent idea. After all, the question of what would happen if a belayer using an ATC were to let go with his brake hand while his partner fell has never, to my knowledge, been tested in a well-controlled experiment. Jay

Ah not true. I had happened to run this with a gent at the crag. He seemed pretty solid jaunting up lines without much effort. I had asked him about testing out my trusty ATC to see if indeed it was fail-safe.

He had been hitting the crown royal a wee bit, so he blurts out: "Son, not only will I prove your device to be fail-safe, I'll bet you a hundred friggin dollars I can pop off, you let go, and I'll just shoot right back up to the anchor with the thermal updraft."

Well, a hundred bucks, yea, it sucks to deck the guy, but a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks. So I think sure let's do it.

So this guy gets up about fifty or so feet, I say okay, you sure about this.

No Problem

He pops off, I let go...zing the rope screams. I'm thinking, yea, not such a good idea. But holy crap, I'll be..he stops mid-air and goes back up & to the anchor.

Anyway he raps down, gets his stuff & chats with his partner "Did you see me get that guy?"

Partner says "Superman, you're such an asshole when you're drunk."....

(I just took 2 minutes & you'll never get it back)

Looks like I've been getting flack for using my 11-year old as guinea pig. Well, he does like to jump off of things - probably the result of seeing Dan Osman videos too much when growing up. Obviously dropping 5 feet to the padded gym floor ready to land was something I thought about ahead of time, um duh.

If it's so clear that holding thr Gri Gri firmly open results in complete failure of the device, then why do so many people still do it? The thing I was really after was to see how well it worked in what can best be described as in between situations, not exactly Petzl perfect, but not fully locked open. In most of those situations the rope did slip a ways and it was interesting to feel the cam pulled from my grasp too. Understanding how a belay device works and doesn't in all sorts of positions in a benign test situation I thought was informative. A better test would be to lob a pack off something taller, but I have been too busy climbing & stuff to fool with that.

Tzilla Rapdrilla wrote:Looks like I've been getting flack for using my 11-year old as guinea pig.

No. Mainly you've been getting flack for not understanding that you don't have to perform a formal experiment to figure out what will happen if you hold a grigri open with no brake hand on the rope and the climber falls.

Tzilla Rapdrilla wrote:If it's so clear that holding thr Gri Gri firmly open results in complete failure of the device, then why do so many people still do it?

As someone said upthread, they plan to remove their hand from the device in the event of a fall. Whether they can reliably do that is another question.

Jay

Jay Tanzman wrote: As someone said upthread, they plan to remove their hand from the device in the event of a fall. Whether they can reliably do that is another question. Jay

I think this gets to the point that many improper GriGri users are missing.
Even if they do remove their hand from the device, it iis no guarantee that the climber won't deck. I've witnessed someone decking twice from improper use of a GriGri. The first occurance was caused by holding the cam open. The second was when the belayer removed their hand from the device. In this instance the fall was arrested...until the belayer got pulled into the wall. At that point the GriGri was pressed into the wall, closing the cam and allowing the climber to drop further.
In neither case was the climber injured, thankfully. Please keep your brake hand on the rope, folks.

Tom R wrote: I think this gets to the point that many improper GriGri users are missing. Even if they do remove their hand from the device, it iis no guarantee that the climber won't deck. ... Please keep your brake hand on the rope, folks.

I also think that this is the main point.

Not only is it safer to flip the belay strand back around your grigri like petzl recommends you will give a better, smoother belay everytime. it is amazing how many people dont know how/ refuse to belay with a grigri. as a climber you can always feel the difference I don't care how good someone claims to be at feeding rope through an atc.

ejucate yo self courtesy of the folks at petzl which is to say straight from the horses mouth: petzl.com/files/all/technic…

I have used a grigri for over 10 years indoors and out, belaying sport and trad, with many falls (more than 50 less than 100). Last year I was belaying my regular climbing buddy Marcel Wolf in the gym. He pitched off and I could not stop him until he was 4 ft off the floor. I ended up with rope burns on both hands. It happened so fast I still am not certain what happened, but I think clamping down on the rope with both hands kept a slack loop running through the grigri and kept the cam from engaging. I have climbed since 1969 and am very familiar with a grigri without other incident. I felt it a safe device and discounted stories of belay failure while using grigris until this happened. I still use a grigri for belaying sport routes because it's still the best alternative for belaying a leader working a route, but I now use the new technique using the thumb of my brake hand to hold the lever while feeding, but in a fall only use my brake hand on te rope. It's a great device until it isnt, and almost dropping someone is a sobering and disturbing experience.
Additional facts:
1. We were practicing falls, so I was paying very close attention, but couldnt see Marcel since he was above an overhang and I was below it.
2. He was about half way up a 42 ft gym wall. If he was 5 ft above the last draw the impact would have started in 10 ft, or less than 1/3 of a second. No time to think. Actions have to be automatic and error free. With a maximum of 20 ft to the ground (I used up 16 ft) the whole experience was over in 1/2 second.
3. I probably circumvented the grigri by clamping down with both hands, reducing the force nesessary to trip the cam and making a nice slack loop through the device. The cam only tripped when his acceleration was faster than my hands could hold, and the cam tripped. That is my speculation since it happens really fast and is hard to figure out the details after the fact.

I've seen a leader deck in a gym with a belayer holding a Gri Gri in his left hand and a loose right hand letting slack feed through on the brake side. The leader made his last clip through the anchors and popped off the wall. He fell 35 feet to the ground and his legs buckled under him on the rubber flooring. The belayer tried to catch the fall with his brake hand but didn't let go of the Gri Gri. The belayers' brake hand had some amazing burns across his fingers. He'd caught many falls previous with the same device. The fall was fast. Really fast. Somehow the leader walked away from it. Between the flooring and rope drag off the route and his belayers skin and his legs folding up under him he was fine.