The deadly ATC

Jim Titt wrote: The maximum slippage through a GriGri I´ve ever seen recorded is about 8", far from the danger level which is considered to be around 4 to 5 feet after which rope burns will mean the belayer will probably lose control of the rope. The maximum permitted slippage in the drop test for locking assisted braking devices (GriGri) is 1.5m to be certified for EN15151. Any rope burns mean by definition that the belayer is injured which is counted as a failure with safety equipment, it isn´t just the faller that is considered. There are a few reports of foreign objects jamming GriGri´s and preventing them locking, at least one was a piece of rock and another the belayers clothing. You can also defeat the locking by holding the climber-side rope too hard, they require a positive tug to engage.

Thanks for that Jim. :)

Question for RGold, who has been climbing a longer time than even me. In say your first thirty years of climbing, to recall ANYONE being dropped? I remember Eddie Stawski telling me his bowline around a tree fell apart while belaying Bill Shaniman on something in the Gunks, but even that did not result in a deck.

I can't think of a single instance personally.

climber pat wrote: In my playing with my grigri 2, it rarely auto locks with a mammut serenity 8.9 mm rope with the dry treatment. The device is brand new and not worn out. The spec for the device is 8.9-11mm and petzl indicates an ideal range of 9.4-10.3mm. I believe their speced range is too optimistic for the 'auto lock' to work. It works fine with a hand on the belay strand. As a side note my 4 year old climbing technologies alpine up often auto locks on the same rope. The alpine up's spec is for 8.6-10.5 mm ropes.

Which brings up a good point (probably addressed elsewhere by Jim Titt or Rich) that dry treatments probably make many of these devices considerably less safe.

Given your own experience I might suggest a thicker rope with no dry treatment for "regular" climbing and a different way of belaying for that rope with the dry treatment?

"Dry" treatments make belay device performance so poor and erratic that the first thing I do is destroy them as well as possible before testing. Various testers have noted 20 to 40% less braking force first time out which is a problem if testing is done with new ropes since the values aren´t consistent with what most climbers are actually using which are ropes of varying age. The treatments vary cosiderably as well which makes device comparison difficult.
All one can say is to add to the warnings the rope manufacturers give and say the braking performance will be reduced, often more than would think since ones gripping ability on a rope covered in slimy gunk is nearly nil.
Currently it´s a continous battle between belay device manufacturers and the slimy gunk sellers with wild claims about rope life and lower impact forces on one side and solid, safe stops on the other.
If I have to use a new rope for testing it gets an hour in a cement mixer with a load of sand and then washed three times in the washing machine to remove as much slippery shit as possible.

Jim Titt wrote:"Dry" treatments make belay device performance so poor and erratic that the first thing I do is destroy them as well as possible before testing. Various testers have noted 20 to 40% less braking force first time out which is a problem if testing is done with new ropes since the values aren´t consistent with what most climbers are actually using which are ropes of varying age. The treatments vary cosiderably as well which makes device comparison difficult. All one can say is to add to the warnings the rope manufacturers give and say the braking performance will be reduced, often more than would think since ones gripping ability on a rope covered in slimy gunk is nearly nil. Currently it´s a continous battle between belay device manufacturers and the slimy gunk sellers with wild claims about rope life and lower impact forces on one side and solid, safe stops on the other. If I have to use a new rope for testing it gets an hour in a cement mixer with a load of sand and then washed three times in the washing machine to remove as much slippery shit as possible.

Which brings up something I have felt for years: Dry treatments may be worth it for that Alpine snow slog or 45 degree couloir where a frozen rope can be a real hazard, but it quickly wears and is useless for general climbing. Taking a new dry rope on a regular rock climb is just plain dangerous, in my experience.

Tom Stryker wrote:Question for RGold, who has been climbing a longer time than even me. In say your first thirty years of climbing, to recall ANYONE being dropped? I remember Eddie Stawski telling me his bowline around a tree fell apart while belaying Bill Shaniman on something in the Gunks, but even that did not result in a deck. I can't think of a single instance personally.

Tom, for the first twenty years I never heard of anyone being dropped, although I do know of several heroic stops, including other factor 2 falls being held.

Ironically, if you do a hip belay with the leader's rope directed through a carabiner on the harness, there is really nothing that can go wrong, and my sense is that the amount of available friction (remembering however that ropes were fatter BITD) was equal to and in some cases probably greater than one you get from modern devices.

Add to this another point. As I've said several times, it was conventional BITD to practice catching hard falls. Even if this didn't increase belayer skill (which in my experience it absolutely did), it gave people some memorable samples of what big impacts are like, something the majority of modern climbers, including those with a lot of "experience," have no clue about. The sense of how bad things can be almost certainly made people take the entire belaying process more seriously than is commonplace now, since a downside of automation is to make everything about belaying seem less consequential.

On the other hand, the absolute number of climbers a half-century ago was smaller, which would have resulted in fewer dropping occurrences even if the failure rate was not less, and the reporting of incidents, especially non-fatal ones, was almost non-existent beyond word of mouth and whatever made it into the AAC accident reports.

Moreover, the typical at-the-base belay that is now the top-roping norm did not exist. The belayer was positioned at the top of the pitch, not at the bottom, and it was exceptionally rare that a climber would be lowered. Furthermore, there was usually no one else up there with the belayer, making for far fewer opportunities for distraction. So far less lowering, a guaranteed amount of rope to lower with, and a more focused belayer together eliminated one of the now-common source of dropping incidents.

So it could be that the perceived lack of dropping incidents is just an artifact of different practices, lower climbing population density, and highly restricted incident reporting. I have no idea how to tell for sure.

Sometime in the seventies, the Sticht plate showed up and climbers began the transition to belay devices, giving up on the belay practice sessions that were typical in the hip belay era. The stringent concepts of trad-climbing that eschewed pre-inspection kept top-roping down for a while, so the possibilities for that type of dropping probably only increased gradually.

^^^The voice of experience and well said. A lot got done on fat ropes. I still use them in sharp rock areas as well as on rock fall possibility sites.

rgold wrote:A second problem with ATC-style devices is that in a factor-two fall, if the brake hand is in the now-standard palm-down position, there will be little or no engagement of the device, and I'd guess in this case that a total loss of control is inevitable. All the semiautomatic devices have the same problem, by the way. One needs a palm-up position with the braking hand at chest level.

I'm not following this. Can you elaborate?

Yeah, Rich... clarification would be nice, especially since this is such an important topic. I'm picturing the problem being when a belayer has to switch from an upward pull (normal lead fall) to a hard downward pull similar to a top belay as the climber falls past the belay. Having top-belayed someone off my harness, I can only imagine how hard this would be to catch a violent dynamic fall...

Noah Yetter wrote: I'm not following this. Can you elaborate?

I think he's pointing out that on a FF2 fall, your belay device would invert because the climber fell below you. Then, the palm down brake hand would be in a poor position to hold the fall. (obviously Rgold can speak for himself, but I gave it a shot!)

Noah - As I understand the problem, in normal lead or top rope belaying when the climber falls, the belayer pulls the brake strand down and back toward his thigh/butt. Doing this with a palm down is anatomically stronger/more efficient than doing it palm up.

For a fall factor 2 belay scenario where the climber fall past the belayer, the belayer needs to pull the brake strand up (towards his chest) rather than down to thigh area. Pulling up toward your chest is anatomically stronger with a palm up hand position.

Yeah...your hand would end up upside down with your palm pointing in. So in a situation where a FF2 is anticipated (climber moving off the deck, holding your brake strand upside down would be advisable until the leader gets a piece in.

FrankPS wrote: I think he's pointing out that on a FF2 fall, your belay device would invert because the climber fell below you. Then, the palm down brake hand would be in a poor position to hold the fall. (obviously Rgold can speak for himself, but I gave it a shot!)

Interesting link to another frequently asked mountain project question. Namely do you attach your belay device to your belay loop or through your harness tie in points. If you use the harness tie in points the device will be a couple of inches closer to your body. What difference does this make? Well if your belay hand is off to the side then when clipped directly to the tie in points the belay side of the rope runs across your pants leg at a more acute angle than when clipped to the belay loop. This helps add some additional friction to the system. When lowering a climber on a new skinny rope the difference is quite noticeable.

^^^Good point!

Emil Briggs wrote: Interesting link to another frequently asked mountain project question. Namely do you attach your belay device to your belay loop or through your harness tie in points. If you use the harness tie in points the device will be a couple of inches closer to your body. What difference does this make? Well if your belay hand is off to the side then when clipped directly to the tie in points the belay side of the rope runs across your pants leg at a more acute angle than when clipped to the belay loop. This helps add some additional friction to the system. When lowering a climber on a new skinny rope the difference is quite noticeable.

Belay device goes on the belay loop. Where it's supposed to.

Redundancy is an important concept. Just the "loop" is not that. Back it up.

FrankPS wrote: Belay device goes on the belay loop. Where it's supposed to.

I'm not surprised my post drew that quite predictable response. But you might consider that some harness's don't have belay loops.

Old lady H wrote: No disrespect at all to you or your friend, but were they really, really inexperienced belaying with an ATC? Belaying palm up, or something like that? Using their hand, and not the ATC to control the speed? Yes, what you offer might have helped, but it seems even to my noob self to be an inexperienced belay, and all of it, except the "save", easy to deal with if you understand an ATC. Best, Helen I love the climbing shot you have for your pic, by the way!

The brevity of my post made it easy to come to the conclusions you did. So here are the answers to your post.

The belayer has climbed for nearly 30 years. He climbs sport, traditional and gym and is experienced with a variety of belay devices. He has never dropped anyone. In my post, it showed that he valued the climber’s safety over his own well-being and was experienced and quick-witted enough to save the climber in a most unusual situation that had a high potential for serious injury.

I wasn’t there so that I can’t say exactly what happened, but the belayer has belayed me dozens of times and has always caught my falls without incident. When using an ATC, I have never seen him do anything remotely resembling “not [using] the ATC to control the speed.”

There have been several posts in the last few months about belayers dropping climbers. My post was different. It was about a belayer facing a rare situation (I don’t know of anyone else who has had a tangled ball of rope knock their brake hand off the rope) and who reacted with alacrity and courage to save the climber.

Cheers,
Rob.calm

To the palm up vs palm down discussion: if climber is below me and I have palm up, I only engaging elbow (bicep) to arrest a fall. With palm down, I can engage elbow and shoulder (bicep and large shoulder and scapula adductors along back). While I do not have data to support, anatomically it seems more muscle mass, therefore more force generated with palm down, even if climber below me. Also, with factor 2, if paying attention, I see and react to the fall when they are above me and start engage the device in an upright position. Only advantage I see to palm up grib, once climber beneath me, is force of rope against palm instead of fingers.
As I have never caught a factor 2, I may not be correctly imagining.

rob.calm wrote: The brevity of my post made it easy to come to the conclusions you did. So here are the answers to your post. The belayer has climbed for nearly 30 years. He climbs sport, traditional and gym and is experienced with a variety of belay devices. He has never dropped anyone. In my post, it showed that he valued the climber’s safety over his own well-being and was experienced and quick-witted enough to save the climber in a most unusual situation that had a high potential for serious injury. I wasn’t there so that I can’t say exactly what happened, but the belayer has belayed me dozens of times and has always caught my falls without incident. When using an ATC, I have never seen him do anything remotely resembling “not [using] the ATC to control the speed.” There have been several posts in the last few months about belayers dropping climbers. My post was different. It was about a belayer facing a rare situation (I don’t know of anyone else who has had a tangled ball of rope knock their brake hand off the rope) and who reacted with alacrity and courage to save the climber. Cheers, Rob.calm

Thanks, sir!