Falling on gear success stories! (Where the rock didn't completely blow out)

scared to climb over bad pro? maybe your'e just scared to climb.
I'm out of beer

30 footer onto my .5 the other weekend! I love you bd

I feel like as climbers we always exaggerate the size of our falls. It's amazing how many people took 30-footers right around the time this was posted!

I actually just took an 80-footer onto a copperhead about ten minutes ago.

I fell from like two feet above a purple C4 the other day. First fall on gear! Whooo!

I like Toby.

I placed a stopper in a small flake last weekend, just before the crux of the route. As I climbed by, I thought, "just don't kick the stopper out on your way by". I then proceeded to do just that. In haste, I placed another stopper in front of me. It wasn't a great placement. You know, the kind that sets on 2 points of the stopper and allows it to rotate easily. I didn't think it was very good, but I had a good cam about 10 ft below the previous stopper and it was a fairly clean steep face, so I kept climbing. As the questionable stopper was at my feet, I came off. I was somewhat expecting it to pull and to go for a longer ride, but the stopper held fine and it ended up being a short fall with gear around my feet.

took my 3rd fall the other day on the first pitch of pear buttress at Lumpy learning to crack climb (first crack ever) took a 10'er on a .75 c4. fun times and I love granite.

Humans fail infinitely more than our gear. Address the real threat, not what we create as "untrustworthy". The system is designed to work, and it does, assuming there's no pilot error that is.

I'm going out to practice falling on gear this evening. I've never fallen in the 6 months I've been doing this, and I climb 5.10. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Took what I was hoping to be a 10 foot fall onto a tipped out #1 power cam that ended up being a 20 footer onto a #4 powercam. Didn't need courtesy slack after that, feet were on the ground. Gosh, that #4 held like a dream.

took a good one on a slung chockstone, solid 2 body lengths above it when i fell.
i thought the webbing was white, after a closer inspection, a light pink.
then after the fall and a bit of scrutiny i realized it was originally red.

Grey TCU held after a 20 footer in Cochamo...but then I was dumb enough to try it again and it didn't hold the second time.

Just took my first "real" whipper, of about 20-25 feet on an orange #3 i think rock empire cam, and came about three feet from decking. besides some rope burns and my right shin rashhed up a bit,and my anke a bit sore, I was fine, it held great. I was above it a good 6 or so feet trying to clip into another cam I had placed really high above me, all wile having bad feet and and my tips in a tiny crack with my forearm pasted(so I thought) in a big flaring crack. Well devil's lake quartzite doesnt adhere well to sweat, so I popped out and fell. Great time, especially since I didnt deck and walked away.
Other than that Ive taken a few shorter falls on my smaller cams. they have all held. Sure gald too, since it always seems to be my first peice, a ways up the rock to the only placement! thank god, or yvon chouinard and the other gear inventors! It had to be scary climbing old school on actual nuts slung with cord. or imagine climbing on gear made of cord and webbing tied in knots!!!!!

The thing I've always wondered is how many people get back the nuts that they whipped on? Most of the placements I make feel as if a whip would weld them pretty good. Maybe my second just doesn't like cleaning them...

(First post!)

ZANE wrote:The thing I've always wondered is how many people get back the nuts that they whipped on? Most of the placements I make feel as if a whip would weld them pretty good. Maybe my second just doesn't like cleaning them... (First post!)

I use the biggest cam I have as a hammer against the nut tool.

Scott O wrote: I use the biggest cam I have as a hammer against the nut tool.

Some people weld their gear in even without falling on it. I used to carry a #9 hex along with the nut tool.

I took 2 falls on a blue tcu, #1, about 8 feet, on some queen creek dacite tuff. Held just fine, got a good catch from the wife, just a little freaky on small gear on some ash tuff.

Three years ago I was attempting to onsite the 1st pitch of Rosy Crucifixion . I got past the bolts and immediately placed a gray and a yellow Zero. I fiddled with the gear too long. (While I was hanging out there I equalized the two pieces with a sliding 'x'!) Definitely the wrong approach to protecting that climb since there are several cam placements to the lower right. I got tunnel vision and made a bee-line for the anchor without placing any more gear. Went way too high and was about to lose it when I grabbed the nylon and started to Fred Flintstone up the rock. Couldn't hang on. My pendulum fall took me all the way back to smack my heel on the slope below the belay.
Those little cams held.

Anatomy of a 40 footer:

Staring up at my belayer from below, I replay the fall in my mind.

Ah. Rosy. Hersey and others have soloed you. I was clearly not ready for you. A blue alien held my first 15 foot pendulum. Gaining the traverse, I brought my belayer over to the shit-infested belay. Up two more pitches and the adrenaline would the dissipate. On lead again. 5.9 never felt so hard. Cruised to the crux, only a coupla pieces placed. The pump starts, I weight my gold link-cam.

It holds.

Sigh of relief.

Try again at the crux. NO GEAR!!!

The pump overwhelms, the last piece is far out.

downclimb.

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Foot Slips
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Launched airborne. My descent slows. I watch as my weighted link-cam flies from it's home.

Acceleration resumes.

The next piece is 6 feet down, despite the plentitude of protection below the formerly lodged link-cam.

The rope grows tense. The yellow alien holds, my belayer flies by.

I hang in space and look above at my work, a link cam dangles from my belay knot.

Thanks for the catch Simone!

I fell ~15ft on a 100% pumped-out & blind nut placement on the Sword pitch on the Grand Wall in Squamish. That was exciting, but it held just fine.