Common placement mistakes made by even experienced trad leaders

OP,  what thread are you referring to and what were the observations relevant to your topic noted in it?

anotherclimber wrote:

I wonder if this issue is fueled by a lot of trad climbers hatred for hexes? This then gets schooled to new trad leaders such that they might not know there is a better solution? This type of placement is perfect for a hex. If you have to spend a lot of time with your cam placement in this scenario trying to get the best you can and hoping it doesn't umbrella when you climb above it, you could have already placed a bomber hex and been climbing again in less time. 

Very good point! I don't own any hexes...

losbill wrote:

OP,  what thread are you referring to and what were the observations relevant to your topic noted in it?

It was a subthread on Reddit, and there were only two observations: 1. Undercamming, 2. Not anticipating the direction of load.

Ted Pinson wrote:

-Placing in/between detached boulders (a chockstone in a crack often makes very enticing, albeit useless, small crack placements), and/or otherwise suspect rock.

-tipping out cams/placing too shallow: a lot of people are more concerned with losing gear than their lives, and place gear so that it is easy to extract.  In particular, small cams are VERY easy to place tipped out without realizing it, as the range is rather small.

-over/underextending: this can happen if you're route-finding on the fly and don't realize you're about to traverse/go over a roof.

-not placing adequate pro for second: most people place pro for themselves as leaders, but there are many situations (e.g: traverses, roofs) where the second will need pro where the leader did not.

Re: extending: I tend to only not extend 1. In early placements, or 2. in later placements when a) the piece is a cam, and b) I can see that the route goes on a relatively straight line between the previous placement, the current placement, and the next placement opportunity, i.e. there isn't much route wandering. I see some people extend every placement though.

Re: placing pro for a second: to check my understanding: I think this is mainly a concern when the route is horizontal, i.e. a follow needs protection *after* the horizontal section, while the lead needs it before. Are there any other cases where I should be thinking of a placement for my follow, or any other strategies besides bookending placements before *and* after a horizontal section that I should be aware of?

Trusting small cams (and small pieces in general) too much as critical pieces. Something I know I still do from time to time. I've seen plenty of small gear hold falls, even in soft rock. But one day something is going to pull... Always impressed to watch those people who are efficient at building little nests of micro gear.

Also experienced leaders who set nuts really hard. Different mindset I guess but never fun to follow...

David Gibbs wrote:

Placing cams straight-in into a vertical (or near-vertical) crack.  

This is an interesting one and I feel like there's a lot of wrong information out there on this. I've been told that cams are multidirectional (especially in the context of initial placements to prevent zippering) but having seen them walk and turn I don't trust them to be multi-directional, and I treat cams as directional.

Assuming a perfectly vertical crack, what angle would you place the cam? 45 degrees? 30?

anotherclimber wrote:

I wonder if this issue is fueled by a lot of trad climbers hatred for hexes? This then gets schooled to new trad leaders such that they might not know there is a better solution? This type of placement is perfect for a hex. If you have to spend a lot of time with your cam placement in this scenario trying to get the best you can and hoping it doesn't umbrella when you climb above it, you could have already placed a bomber hex and been climbing again in less time. 

Yeah, a good example of this is the recent Weekend Whipper. A lot of people were talking about how the slippery calcite makes it hard to place cams, but it looks like where he fell there was a really good hex placement which would have made rock friction irrelevant (obviously it's a bit difficult to tell from the video).

Sometime flipping the cam can change a sketchy placement to a solid one or can even make a placement possible where it otherwise wouldn't be. 

David, don't think so much about "bookending" sections.  Just ask yourself if the second is going to take a dangerous swing.  It isn't necessarily the same thing.

Here's an example I got to enjoy from the business end, thanks to a excellent boulderer and 5.12 sport climber who  didn't understand trad basics.  The entire climb in question was 5.7, so not challenging for either of us technically.  But at the top of a pitch, the leader placed a piece to protect himself for some 5.6 moves, climbed up  fifteen feet or so to very easy ground, and then traversed twenty feet to the left to a belay without putting in anything else.  So I get to the start of the 5.6 move, have to remove the pro, and now am looking at a huge pendulum, with the rope already at a 45 degree angle, that would have resulted in hitting a ledge.  

Of course, the leader needed to put in something on the very easy vertical ground after the 5.6 section and before he traversed twenty feet off to the side.  And not just a single piece either; an anchor like that, whose failure in a fall would result in death or serious injury to the follower, should be a mini-belay anchor with two or three pieces.  

It was late and we had a ways to go, so I just soloed the 5.6,  which wasn't a big deal, but I was still plenty pissed that this guy was so clueless.  Made a mental note to never climb with him again, and I haven't.  

"Bookending" a horizontal traverse can leave the leader with a lot of rope drag and the second with a terrible pendulum, since the piece at the end of the traverse is off to the side but on the second's level.  If at all possible, the leader should climb up as far as possible after the traverse before placing anything, and if possible even traverse back a bit when higher to get the pro more directly over the second, so that the second gets a diagonal belay rather than a horizontal belay.  This type of problem is usually greatly mitigated if the party is using double ropes, but that's going to be a minority of today's climbers in the US.

Remember that the leader gets to choose the level of risk they are willing to confront, but the second has to live with the choices the leader makes for them.  This imposes a duty on the leader that is more critical than how they protect themselves. You absolutely have to do everything possible to make sure the second is protected, including climbing back if you realize you effed up.

There are climbs where a swing for the second is unavoidable of course, and on some of those climbs the second will end up hanging in space if they fall.  As second who is not fully capable of getting themselves out of that mess by prusiking up the rope should not be on such routes.

sDawg wrote:

 and is more likely to fail when it's overcammed.

Repeating this is another common mistake...

More difficult to clean yes, more likely to fail, no (with the possible exception of cams without a logarithmic spiral at their minimum expansion).

David Kerkeslager wrote:

Re: extending: I tend to only not extend 1. In early placements, or 2. in later placements when a) the piece is a cam, and b) I can see that the route goes on a relatively straight line between the previous placement, the current placement, and the next placement opportunity, i.e. there isn't much route wandering. I see some people extend every placement though.

Re: placing pro for a second: to check my understanding: I think this is mainly a concern when the route is horizontal, i.e. a follow needs protection *after* the horizontal section, while the lead needs it before. Are there any other cases where I should be thinking of a placement for my follow, or any other strategies besides bookending placements before *and* after a horizontal section that I should be aware of?

Same principle applies to roofs.  Think about it: you as a leader put a piece in before pulling the roof to protect that move.  What's going to happen when the second cleans that piece?

sDawg wrote:

I see overcamming as a more "experienced climber" mistake than undercamming. It's easy to set something overcammed and think "well, it will hold" and keep doing it. The only real check is you have a follower who gives good feedback. Of course, the cam functions as designed when it is not overcammed or undercammed and is more likely to fail when it's overcammed.

I didn't realize how bad a friend's partner was on this issue until she told my follower to yank hard on the cam to get it out. She was so used to cleaning overcammed gear that that seemed normal. You should not have to yank on a cam to remove it. It should come out easily when you pull the trigger. In the long run having your expensive cams cleaned by the follower needing to pull hard on them will shorten their lifetime.

More likely to fail? Wait you are telling me that if someone can't pull a cam out it is more likely to fail in a fall? If a cam is overcammed to the point it is stuck in the wall it isn't likely going to fail, those are the ones you see stuck there for years because noone can get them out.

Although anyone can overcam I would say it isn't an experienced climber's issue because more likely a newer climber who is scared of the cam coming out and wanting to make sure it is really jammed in there. When it comes to nuts they are so cheap I don't really care if one gets stuck so I normally will make sure it is set pretty hard but generally try to make sure my cams will come out easy unless I am in a run out situation and really don't want it to fail.

experienced (read: old) trad leaders make no mistakes. Just like "experienced" drivers... the key is never looking back or down

sDawg wrote:

I have cleaned a lot of overcammed cams and only left one behind. Just to clarify since I'm sure there are others who are interested in learning, a cam lobe is in a logarithmic spiral shape that is designed to force the cam further open as the axis is pulled out in a fall. The friction of the rock against the curve of the lobe pushes the lobe towards the open position and increases camming force. This is all static-it doesn't require that the lobe actually moves, it just describes how forces are transferred to increase the frictional force holding the cam in place. However, due to the physical metal on the axis of the lobe, the spiral can't continue all the way to the center. Overcamming a piece means that you have contracted the lobes beyond their camming range and the area that's contacting the rock is not part of the logarithmic spiral. It does not necessarily mean the piece is stuck or won't come out. It does mean that the piece won't work as active protection by expanding when the handle is pulled.

Umm.  No.  This is... I don't know what.  Wrong.  The first half was technically correct.  The second half not so much.

sDawg wrote:

 Overcamming a piece means that you have contracted the lobes beyond their camming range and the area that's contacting the rock is not part of the logarithmic spiral. It does not necessarily mean the piece is stuck or won't come out. It does mean that the piece won't work as active protection by expanding when the handle is pulled.

I'm not buying this.  I've never seen a camming unit where the last bit of lobe is no longer properly spiral'ed.  But then I've only owned/used BD, Metolius, CCH, Totem, HB, Trango, Wild Country, Rock Empire, OP, and Splitter Gear.

You might be old if: you've used Rock Empire cams lol.

Gunkiemike wrote:

Yup, very common.  Stems need to be in the direction of the expected load i.e. downwards.  Too many cams out there sticking straight out like tree branches.

Hmmm, when you place your cam, climb on for a bit then fall, the direction of pull on that gear is typically downwards. A complication arises however if you subsequently place another piece above the cam. In the event of a fall, the rope is always going to try and form a straight line between your highest and lowest bits of gear. This means that in reality, the direction of pull on 'intermediate' placements is often outwards or sideways, not downwards. And therein lies the conundrum: do you place a cam in the expectation that you're going to fall before you get your next bit of pro in, (in which case, place downwards) or do you assume you're going to get to the next placement without falling?!

Fraser33 wrote:

Hmmm, when you place your cam, climb on for a bit then fall, the direction of pull on that gear is typically downwards. A complication arises however if you subsequently place another piece above the cam. In the event of a fall, the rope is always going to try and form a straight line between your highest and lowest bits of gear. This means that in reality, the direction of pull on 'intermediate' placements is often outwards or sideways, not downwards. And therein lies the conundrum: do you place a cam in the expectation that you're going to fall before you get your next bit of pro in, (in which case, place downwards) or do you assume you're going to get to the next placement without falling?!

So your question is, "Do you place cams to catch you if you fall?"

I do. 

Fraser33 wrote:

Hmmm, when you place your cam, climb on for a bit then fall, the direction of pull on that gear is typically downwards. A complication arises however if you subsequently place another piece above the cam. In the event of a fall, the rope is always going to try and form a straight line between your highest and lowest bits of gear. This means that in reality, the direction of pull on 'intermediate' placements is often outwards or sideways, not downwards. And therein lies the conundrum: do you place a cam in the expectation that you're going to fall before you get your next bit of pro in, (in which case, place downwards) or do you assume you're going to get to the next placement without falling?!

That's one reason why we extend pieces.

Couple of thoughts: 

  1) One place where you DO want your first cam to stick out is when climbing a corner or crack that overhangs, or is vertical. Especially if the protectiuon that follows is nuts.  That first cam (if you use nuts make sure you use opposing nuts) must keep the rope "in", next to the rock otherwise during a fall the rope will run from the belayer to the first, 2nd, 3rd (etc) pieces and "pop" them out. Again, especially if the pieces are nuts.  The further away from the rock the belayer is, the most this effect occurs. (There's an excellent sketch of this in Robbin's Advanced Rockcraft.)   I once caught a fall on the 1st pitch of Bonnie's Roof at the Gunks. The leader fell just before reaching the traverse and popped 4 or 5 pieces. The fall was held by a #4 or 5 "Stopper" (nut), everthing below it had pulled. 

  2) Someone said : "What I still trip over (20+ years trad, some years, pretty hard and wild stuff) is wasting energy on a difficult section to place a piece, then realizing I was a move away from a really nice stance/lock/jam."  THIS is really hard to learn!  It is what makes your 2nd, 3rd, 4th time on a route so different from the first time.