Falls on pro - lessons learned?

Well placed gear is bomb proof, even the really tiny stuff.

Clearly you haven't fallen on enough really tiny stuff. At some point the rock or the tiny stuff will break, and then you will go for a ride, hopefully not the longest ride. Having 2 pieces between you and the ground counts double for the tiny stuff... 

Unfortunately the routes that require the tiny stuff are frequently the ones where its hard to hang out and place it.

Well placed gear holds, poorly placed gear doesn't. And you'll know most of the time either way.

Alexander K wrote:

Clearly you haven't fallen on enough really tiny stuff. At some point the rock or the tiny stuff will break, and then you will go for a ride, hopefully not the longest ride. Having 2 pieces between you and the ground counts double for the tiny stuff... 

Unfortunately the routes that require the tiny stuff are frequently the ones where its hard to hang out and place it.

I have fallen on tiny shit. It's surprisingly bomber if placed well. A 000 C3 comes to mind, took a good winger on one once. However, like stated before, this is all anecdotal.

The best advice for gear is, use your brain, think ahead. If it looks like shit, it probably is!

My best lessons have already been detailed here:

1. gear works

2. rope drag sucks

3. always bring the blue TCU

Placing blind gear in a lieback can be hazardous to your health.

If you're not willing to take a clean fall on a good piece in good rock, go aid climbing or take mock-lead practice whippers until you trust your gear.

I climb like a chicken on gear.  If I can't get good gear, I abort.  I've fallen, but always on good stuff, so I've not had to learn any lessons there.  Talking to friends who climb really push grades on gear...every blown piece on good rock has come down to "I knew that was a bad placement" or "I should have extended it".  

Tristan Bradford wrote:

Well placed gear holds, poorly placed gear doesn't. And you'll know most of the time either way.

Yeah, with a few exceptions, even a total newbie can look at a piece and see that it's either bomber as a top piece or...less good.  An expert just A) has a better sense for where the cutoff point is, B) is going to be able to find a better placement to begin with and C) will have a MUCH better sense for how the piece will behave when it's gone from being a top piece to being in the middle of the system.  

I think a good habit for single pitch cragging is to make sure you weight the rope as hard as you can at the top, so the whole system goes taught.  Evaluate your pieces when you lower/rap down.  That's the best indication you'll get of the orientation they'd be in if your top piece blew.  Would they have still held if the direction of pull was suddenly changed?  

Pavel Burov wrote:

Don't fall too hard on offset nuts if your second is not that good in fishing out nuts.

How does one not fall on gear to hard? Flap ones arms whilst falling,like a bird?

I have learnt a few lessons, not that I have fallen on a lot of gear:

1) Even if you are climbing a beautiful vertical face, that ledge or slab you came from might be closer than you think. Place lots of gear when you are not far off the deck.

2) Place good gear, not mental pro. If you fished in that nut up high and you can't really see if its good or not, you probably don't want to be bold and take a fall on it. I have seen people do this a few times and it just ended up in a bolder head, but a much worse fall than would have otherwise been expected. The situation was still safe, but the "mental" pro put everyone at more risk than they were at with just the lower piece of pro! You aren't top roping!

the big mistake that i see a lot of beginner to moderately experienced climbers make is just not placing enough pro in the first place.  i can't count how many times i have seen these folks fall in situations where they basically had 1 piece between them and disasterville, then continue upwards without placing anything extra, often into certain groundfall terrain.  usually they like to yell down to their belayer "yo man, i really ran that section out".  i think that they are convinced that it makes them look pretty badass, but they just kind of look like morons.  painful to watch....

Thank you all again for sharing your experience. While each post is an n = 1, I am finding value in shared direct experience as compared to speculation. Some great trends are appearing that I am finding to be helpful take-aways.

slim wrote:

the big mistake that i see a lot of beginner to moderately experienced climbers make is just not placing enough pro in the first place.  i can't count how many times i have seen these folks fall in situations where they basically had 1 piece between them and disasterville, then continue upwards without placing anything extra, often into certain groundfall terrain.  usually they like to yell down to their belayer "yo man, i really ran that section out".  i think that they are convinced that it makes them look pretty badass, but they just kind of look like morons.  painful to watch....

Noobs tend to place too much gear, they run out of the appropriate size and instead of bailing they run it out. Place gear when you need it and save as much as possible for what comes ahead.

Place early, place often. 

Tradiban wrote:

Noobs tend to place too much gear, they run out of the appropriate size and instead of bailing they run it out. Place gear when you need it and save as much as possible for what comes ahead.

Still a noob, but on my first few trad leads I would climb up to a stance, look down, and be really surprised how far down was my last piece and how close the ground was. If you want to keep two pieces of gear between you and broken bones (or even just one solid piece), I find I need to place more than I think down low.

Tradiban wrote:

Noobs tend to place too much gear, they run out of the appropriate size and instead of bailing they run it out. Place gear when you need it and save as much as possible for what comes ahead.

I think this is exacerbated by the fact that beginners often don't own enough gear. I never understood the advice I hear on these boards and elsewhere to just buy a couple cams and some nuts and then, "see what you need" in addition to that. F*ck no. I think it's great when beginners overbuy and have too much gear for the route. At least they'll be placing enough gear instead of saving that one precious #1 C4 for some critical moment they're anticipating instead of just when they need it, which is whenever it protects them NOW.

Offset cams are for free climbing too and will save your ass just like your offset nuts. 

Don't lower off of a single piece, especially true if it is a small piece.  

AndrewArroz wrote:

I think this is exacerbated by the fact that beginners often don't own enough gear. I never understood the advice I hear on these boards and elsewhere to just buy a couple cams and some nuts and then, "see what you need" in addition to that. F*ck no. I think it's great when beginners overbuy and have too much gear for the route. At least they'll be placing enough gear instead of saving that one precious #1 C4 for some critical moment they're anticipating instead of just when they need it, which is whenever it protects them NOW.

I think that the problem with owning (or carrying) too much gear is that it can prevent you from using the gear that you already have or to be creative with it.  A common example would be passive gear...if a new climber goes out and buys a triple rack, they might never learn to place passive pro nor spot good placements, and thus blow through all of their cams in the manner Nick described.  Sure, you might have a great looking #1 placement, but what ELSE do you have?  Is that your only #1?  

Climbing with a restricted rack is obviously important to do on easy climbs well below your max where falling is not a high possibility and you have plenty of comfortable stances to tinker.

Ted Pinson wrote:

 easy climbs well below your max where falling is not a high possibility

Ted, I'm hijacking your words, out of context.

This, from my view as a belayer, is a mistake made by even quite accomplished climbers.

Yes, I do get the reasoning, but I have been party to a near ground fall where the (newer to rock) climber thought they were fine, and, watched an accomplished climber on an easy route with only one piece between them and decking.

Even great climbers are capable of falling. "Easy terrain, I won't be falling" seems like it could be a mistake waiting to happen, just IMO.

Best, Helen

I've only had one real one. Some stiffer-than-expected 5.8+ crack climb in Joshua Tree many years ago. Pumped out near the top, shoved in a cam carelessly, and took on it. Next thing I know, I'm hanging several feet above a very, very pointy rock. 

Lessons learned? 1) Don't place gear blindly and expect it to hold (duh!), 2) Gear placed carefully does (at least sometimes) hold, and can (literally) save your ass.

Bryce Adamson wrote:

Still a noob, but on my first few trad leads I would climb up to a stance, look down, and be really surprised how far down was my last piece and how close the ground was. If you want to keep two pieces of gear between you and broken bones (or even just one solid piece), I find I need to place more than I think down low.

"2 pieces between you and broken bones" is bunk advice in practice. This isn't really something a person can accurately assess while on route. Either trust your last placement or trust that you won't fall on the upcoming moves....or just take.