Falls on pro - lessons learned?

AndrewArroz wrote:

Thanks for actually making my point. You're stuck on theory. I'm talking about the real world.

I think you're confused. In science, theory is something that HAS been corroborated to experimental (real world) results, and can be repeated. What you're thinking of is Hypothesis - which is exactly what your idea is: a conjecture that is unproven.

So, my challenge to you: show me scientific evidence of your position, which contradicts the standard, accepted model.

ubu wrote:

Um....how about a 20 ft fall with 100 ft of rope out?  I'm really not sure what you're getting at here.

It is terrible advice to claim that there is some set of magical second-order effects that invalidates the fall factor model for anything but the most extreme circumstances.  Helping a beginning trad leader (or belayer!) understand that, all things being equal, she is better off taking a 40 ft FF0.5 whipper than a 4 ft FF0.9 drop on a questionable piece of protection is extremely valuable.  This is not obvious or intuitive to most people, so being able to accept the math and understand the consequences of different fall scenarios is important.

Look, nobody is claiming that all FFx falls are "equal".  Depending on the terrain, longer falls can obviously be more dangerous, and nobody is saying otherwise.  But recognizing that fall factor is the key parameter that defines the peak force acting on the climber, the belayer, and the system is pretty damn important.

This

Look, no one is running the math while leading - don't fall before you get a first piece in and preferably a second one. Beyond knowing that the math is irrelevant.

Xam wrote:

If you are saying that longer falls are worse because you have higher chance of hitting a moose on the way down, you will get no disagreement from me...

Glad we can agree on that. Bears too, you know.
http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201214054/Bear-Attack

cassondra long wrote:

I have learned that if the rock is bad, place more gear. It is surprising what will hold. I took a 20 foot whipper from about 8 feet above my last piece when a block i pulled on flew out. My partner cleaned the gear (which did not pull out) and exclaimed to me and the other team member, "I can't believe you were climbing on that dog sh*t!"...Also, cam placements in flares are likely to pull out if falllen on.....Additionally it is good for a belayer to keep an eye on the climber in unfamiliar territory, as large, seemingly fixed boulders can in reality be perched precariously and fall towards the belayer when being pulled over for the first time. There is nothing quite like the sight of a golf cart size rock hurtling towards you to make you glad that you weren't looking at the ground or other features of the scenery and missing the chance to jump out of the way ( and discovering when the dust settled that the leader was still on belay, and none of the gear pulled, and the rope was still intact between the belay device and the leader despite being severed at the ground.)

Holy crap. Sounds like a huge amount of luck!

Best, OLH

Healyje wrote:

My partner once took a 110' fall. Got to the bottom of all the rope stretch and then got a nasty scratch on his thumb on the way back up - otherwise uninjured, said the fall was really soft.

Healyje, could you elaborate? That's a fall I think most of us would rather learn about from someone else's experience!

Best, OLH

ubu wrote:

It is terrible advice to claim that there is some set of magical second-order effects that invalidates the fall factor model for anything but the most extreme circumstances.  Helping a beginning trad leader (or belayer!) understand that, all things being equal, she is better off taking a 40 ft FF0.5 whipper than a 4 ft FF0.9 drop on a questionable piece of protection is extremely valuable.  This is not obvious or intuitive to most people, so being able to accept the math and understand the consequences of different fall scenarios is important.

Look, nobody is claiming that all FFx falls are "equal".  Depending on the terrain, longer falls can obviously be more dangerous, and nobody is saying otherwise.  But recognizing that fall factor is the key parameter that defines the peak force acting on the climber, the belayer, and the system is pretty damn important.

Just to be clear. I'm not claiming there are magical second-order effects. Nor am I claiming FF isn't USEFUL. and I agree, that assuming 40 feet of clear free falling space available it's better for to take a 40 foot FFO.5 fall than a 4 foot FFO.9 on a questionable piece of gear. But where I'm disagreeing that that this knowledge rooted in FF is particularly helpful in the context of beginners asking questions about placing pro. Is it really a case where we ever have the choice between taking a 40 foot whipper vs. a higher-fall factor 4 footer? The real choice is about practical behavior: Try not to fall directly on your anchors. Put in a Jesus piece right away. Place lots of gear. Don't run shit out. Etc. Not, "Hey, wait until you have 100 feet of rope out and then take whatever fall you think is cool." Because there are a lot of other reasons beginners might want to avoid taking a 40 foot whipper. First one that occurs to me is that beginners usually aren't on overhanging terrain with a clean 40 foot drop. The other one would be that unless you are straight over your last piece a 40 foot whipper has the potential to create a lot of pendulum and smash you right in the wall, even if it's slightly overhanging. 

The point is actually the opposite of what you keep saying. No one here is advocating taking large falls. And it's pretty inherently obvious you shouldn't. The lesson, however, is that a SHORT fall, with the same fall factor, is just as bad (not inherently obvious).

The only thing fall factor talks about is the force and load on the system. Other, 2nd order effects of taking a long fall are outside of that particular discussion point. Like hitting a moose on the way down ;-)

And honestly, you're kind of changing your argument here. You started talking about long falls being bad because of extra energy/velocity vs short falls, and  have now decided your argument is actually something else.

Thread gold..

Old lady H wrote:

Healyje, could you elaborate? That's a fall I think most of us would rather learn about from someone else's experience!

Any aspect in particular you'd like elaborated on?

Healyje wrote:

Any aspect in particular you'd like elaborated on?

How did a fall of 110' come about? That's a heck of a lot of rope out. How was the catch for the belayer?

Best, H.

Sounds like climbing too fast on toprope to me

eli poss wrote:

Depends on the situation. In theory, doing this brings the fall factor closer to 1. So if you're looking at a FF 1.5 fall and the fall is totally clean, extra slack would reduce the fall factor being beneficial. But in most cases, doing this would increase the fall factor and increase the odds of hitting something on the way down. 

Last time I'm going to chime in here. Really responding to Brian's post above that "No one here is advocating taking large falls" but Eli's post above is what started the entire FF debate and it is what I was reacting to. Unless I misunderstand the above quoted comment, Eli is very much saying that leaving a bunch of slack in the system and therefore increasing the LENGTH of the fall could somehow reduce the fall factor. Now, help me if I misunderstand the math, but inserting additional slack (and fall) doesn't meaningfully change the FF calculation. because if you add, say, 10 additional feed of slack into what was going to be a 20 foot fall you now have a 30 foot fall, therefore cancelling out any "advantage" of said additional rope in the system. It's a 1 for 1 transaction: 1 foot of slack = 1 additional foot of fall. Since FF is fall height/rope length it doesn't change the calculation that I can see. And, as we all agree, including Eli, there are other reasons not to fall farther than needed, namely running into things. 

Old lady H wrote:

How did a fall of 110' come about? That's a heck of a lot of rope out. How was the catch for the belayer?

Best, H.

I'm curious about this, too. Sounds spooky. Glad he's okay.

Old lady H wrote:

How did a fall of 110' come about? That's a heck of a lot of rope out. How was the catch for the belayer?

Didn't he explain all that on the previous page?

Marc801 C wrote:

Didn't he explain all that on the previous page?

You are correct, sir, I missed that.

OLH

AndrewArroz wrote:

Last time I'm going to chime in here. Really responding to Brian's post above that "No one here is advocating taking large falls" but Eli's post above is what started the entire FF debate and it is what I was reacting to. Unless I misunderstand the above quoted comment, Eli is very much saying that leaving a bunch of slack in the system and therefore increasing the LENGTH of the fall could somehow reduce the fall factor. Now, help me if I misunderstand the math, but inserting additional slack (and fall) doesn't meaningfully change the FF calculation. because if you add, say, 10 additional feed of slack into what was going to be a 20 foot fall you now have a 30 foot fall, therefore cancelling out any "advantage" of said additional rope in the system. It's a 1 for 1 transaction: 1 foot of slack = 1 additional foot of fall. Since FF is fall height/rope length it doesn't change the calculation that I can see. And, as we all agree, including Eli, there are other reasons not to fall farther than needed, namely running into things. 

Okay let's try this:

4 ft out and 8 ft fall is a factor 2. Now we add a foot of slack out making it 5 ft out and 9 ft fall. 9/5 is 1.8, which is 0.2 less than before. Essentially, adding slack just brings the fall factor closer to 1. In most falls, it increases the fall factor because most falls are less than FF1

eli poss wrote:

Okay let's try this:

4 ft out and 8 ft fall is a factor 2. Now we add a foot of slack out making it 5 ft out and 9 ft fall. 9/5 is 1.8, which is 0.2 less than before. Essentially, adding slack just brings the fall factor closer to 1. In most falls, it increases the fall factor because most falls are less than FF1

Thanks for that. Makes sense. 

eli poss wrote:

Okay let's try this:

4 ft out and 8 ft fall is a factor 2. Now we add a foot of slack out making it 5 ft out and 9 ft fall. 9/5 is 1.8, which is 0.2 less than before. Essentially, adding slack just brings the fall factor closer to 1. In most falls, it increases the fall factor because most falls are less than FF1

Thanks for spelling that out, Eli.  I was having trouble picturing how it would be any different in a FF2 scenario, but that math does make sense.  Of course, whether or not this would still be a good idea (FF 1.8 still sucks) is questionable.

Nick Niebuhr wrote:

I took a fall out of a steeper section above a wandering slab, when my feet hit the ground of the slab I went over backwards (was also wearing a pack with bivy gear, easy to get pulled over backwards). I smacked my head hard. It was in the alpine so I was wearing a helmet anyway, but it certainly made thing about cragging. When you barn door out of a move it's pretty easy to smack the side of your body on the wall, this goes for sport also. Even leading steep sport with good rock I still wear my helmet also.

This brings up another good note for trad, keep the rope in front of your leg! I constantly see people jamming cracks not paying any attention to the rope. Try to get your foot in behind the rope before you get your toes in the crack. If you can't get your hips away from the wall this can be pretty hard (say .5 cracks for me, not the most secure size so it's hard to lean back out of).