When to step in?

I was enjoying a nice weekday climb this past week at a popular boulder canyon crag. This crag happens to sit directly above another. After a little while a groupe of about 5 college age kids came up dropping f-boms right and left and immeadatly light up a bowl right next to us. When they were finished smoking the ring leader set off up a mixed route with only a rack of draws. (I thought maybe he was just a badass) He made it up about 3/4 of the way and all of a sudden got worried that he would not have enough rope to lower. He started yelling at his friends to find the center of the rope. They had no clue what he was talking about. Once he got across (with mostly f-bombs) that they were looking for the mark his belayer took both hads off the rope to find it (while the rest of them just watched.) At this point I ran over and told the kid to get his hands back on the belay, and explained that they just needed to tie a stopper knot in the end of the rope.

The ring leader decided to lower anyway and then the rest of them top-roped it off of one bolt. All the while they were all running and jumping all over the exposed ledge we were on (with another crag directly below it.) After they had all toproped it they tried a variation. They made a point when lowering to jump sideways over an edge because it was "fun". (Think pendulum across a knife.)

While were were packing up one kid knocked a bowling ball size rock off towards the crag below. Thank god it was a weekday and no one was there.

Just as we were leading the ring leader was going to go back up and clean the route. Just before he started up he said he didn't remeber how to rappel but "what the hell," why not.

We hightailed it out of there so as not to have to hall his body down to the road.

My question is at what point to you as a responsable climber step in and say somthing or even take it a step farther?

I mean we were all beginners once, I'm still learning every day, but I certainly was never that dumb and never put anyone else in danger.

Also, more stories of those who will soon end up in the Darwin awards are good too!

Let me guess, the guy went up the mixed line on the lower tier of Avalon. Correct?

I'd say step in when people are not being made aware of the dangers that their leader is putting them in, or if a party or the leader is putting others in danger who cannot consent to it. (People on the crag below, unknowing party members who don't know any better)

If he was alone/with an equally incompetent partner, and the crag was empty he would have merely been disrespecting the environment and being an ass.

But the fact that there were others there, and could have been people in the crag below was irresponsible and unacceptable at all times, regardless of company. His friends might not have even known that he was an absolutely incompetent leader and was putting them at a terrible risk.

Bottom line it's good that you helped them out, but such irresponsible people should not be within miles of any crag.

Any time between taking a puff off their peace pipe and before they killed themselves would be the proper time to give them a little advice.

I say step in early and often. If you are nice about it most people will, at worst, ignore you. If they think you are a d*ck for saying something, they'll probably either eventually kill themselves with their shenanigans and you'll never have to see them again or they will keep climbing, grow up and get some knowledge and eventually realize THEY were the d*ck.

I saw a guy belaying his wife with an atc-xp with the friction grooves pointed the wrong way once. I let him know he would get a little more stopping power pointed the other way. He informed me that he had a special belay device that could also be used for rappel. It was new. I probably didn't know about it. Everyone at his gym does it this way. Did he think I was an idiot? Absolutely. Does it bother me? No.

So I did the right thing, and I get a silly story out of it.

+1 to Alicia.

If you tell them, you may save their life or someone else's.

They will either thank you, ask you for clarification, or tell you to go f yourself.

Whatever they decide, at that point my side of the street is clean, and I did what I could.

Not to take anything away from the overall discussion, the belay devices with the teeth from BD can be used either way and still be safe, depending; yes one config gives you more over the other, you may or may not want it, but either way doesn't necessarily make the situation unsafe.

Mark Nelson wrote:Not to take anything away from the overall discussion, the belay devices with the teeth from BD can be used either way and still be safe, depending; yes one config gives you more over the other, you may or may not want it, but either way doesn't necessarily make the situation unsafe.

Yeah, I have the ATC-XP and in certain situations I flip it over on purpose so that there's less friction. Crappy, fat ropes come to mind. Nothing wrong with using it backwards. It basically becomes their cheaper ATC version if you do it like that, since on the regular ATC neither side has grooves. Granted, if you told me I had my ATC backwards I would give this reason as to why, instead of saying that it was also a rappel device too, haha. [/end-derail]

I'm just waiting for the day I see a gym-born climber outside with two of these to be able to rappel.

Stich wrote:I'm just waiting for the day I see a gym-born climber outside with two of these to be able to rappel.

Is that photoshop trickery, or is that thing real?

It's real.

Back to topic please?

Hell if know what the right thing to do is. You tried to be an ambassador of the sport, show them a safety trick, and they persisted in extreme douchetardedness. The best answer I can arrive at is to do what you did and truck off down the road to more pleasant pastures. For all this talk of body bags though, dumbasses seem to enjoy a higher rate of survival than we'd all like to believe.

You should step in and say something only if you're the type to stick around and help mop up body fluids and bone fragments in the event of an accident. Opening your mouth is a lot easier.

Of course commenting to someone that they are using their belay device incorrectly (when they are most certainly using it as intended by the manufacture, as stated on the product info when you buy it) may be kind of douchey.

blackdiamondequipment.com/u…

& there it is, yet another word use for douche. (2 of them, actually)

It's like spam. goes with anything or by itself

Mark Nelson wrote:& there it is, yet another word use for douche. (2 of them, actually) It's like spam. goes with anything or by itself

douche: the other white expletive

You are really only responsible for the safety of your partners and yourself.

You can attempt to give advice once but if the jerks continue to be jerks just run away.

Let Darwin take over"

I'm with Jack on this one.

I almost always step in. Who cares if you come across like an asshole? At least you aren't standing by watching someone die. I've been in a situation where I coulda prevented a death and didn't. It doesn't feel great. Rescuing a yahoo or preventing an injury feels a lot better even if they can't appreciate what you've done for then.

I step in pretty often, usually early. Most of the time people listen and thank me, sometimes they blow me off and sometimes they get angry.

There are loads of ways to help someone understand that what they are doing is dangerous and incorrect, but I find that when said in the correct tone and after some good instruction, the following statement has a pretty large impact:

"Climbing is about staying safe and having fun. Your way might have worked so far, but many experienced climbers have been doing it THIS way for much longer than either of us have been climbing, and it's been determined that THIS is the best way. Anything can happen, it's best to leave nothing up to chance. By doing things the wrong way, or even the second or third best way, you are only increasing the probability that you are going to get really hurt or dead, or cause someone else to get really hurt or dead. I didn't come out here today to scrape you off the ground, and neither did your friends. So please ask any questions that you want and when you get home, look for someone who can give you some proper instruction. If you don't, you are probably going to go splat at some point."

I find that the phrases "scrape you off the ground" and "go splat" tend to have a pretty large impact. I think a lot of people go climbing without actually thinking about the fact that a mistake could lead to their death. If you politely remind them that they are close to smashing the ground, and that you really don't want to clean them up, then they usually listen.

Dani wrote: Is that photoshop trickery, or is that thing real?

I think you can see what side of the nOOb fence BD is sitting. And this is on topic. By the sighting of this device out at a crag, you will know ahead of time what disasters may later occur if a rappel is attempted. But you could in fact do a double rope rappel with two devices and that would be a glorious day to see that, especially if two were purchased for that reason.

You obviously have to speak up. I usually just try to be diplomatic and start out with something like " Hey asshole..." or "Where'd you guys get your brains?"