How bad was this multipitch belaying mistake?

Hi all,

My partner and I have been climbing together about 2 years. One of us made a mistake on a multipitch recently and we disagree on the severity of it... I am curious to see what the rest of the community thinks.

Our system on multipitch is: the leader leads, gets to the top, puts in their personal anchor, gets off belay, then sets up a top belay using a Grigri off of an anchor. Once the top belay is set they say "belay is on" (we have walkie talkies in case of being out of line of sound), then the follower tests the system by having the top do a hard take and weighing the rope. Once it is tested they climb. The follower says "climbing" and the leader says "climb on" but we have been inconsistent about whether we do this right after belay is on, or only after testing the system - but before the follower starts climbing there is the "climbing" and "climb on" exchange.

What happened was: the leader led the pitch, got off belay, set up the top belay, and said "belay is on". A few seconds later (before any further exchange) they realized the Grigri was in backwards so they said "cancel that, belay is off, do you copy?" the follower confirmed that they acknowledged. The top then fixed the system and said "ok belay is now on", and the follow proceeded smoothly from there.

The follower was very shaken up by the mistake. They think it is a mistake that could have been fatal in other circumstances and they lost a lot of confidence in the leader (though we continued and finished the 5-pitch climb regardless). The follower stresses this kind of mistake can't happen, demands more focus from the leader, and says that if this kind of mistake happens again they will seriously reconsider climbing and/or stop climbing with leader.

Leader apologized for the mistake and acknowledged that more focus was needed, but thinks the mistake was not so severe. Leader agrees mistake should have been caught before saying "belay is on" instead of after, but says that they caught it quickly, and that the mistake was within tolerance of our system as when follower did the pull test the mistake would have been caught then if not earlier. Leader said that doing something hundreds of times, there are bound to be mistakes, and this is the purpose of the follower's pull test, to catch them when they happen.

What do you guys think - was it indeed a severe and serious and potentially fatal mistake, or a not-so-bad mistake that nevertheless shouldn't have happened with more focus on the climb? Or somewhere in between?

Stuff that may or may not be relevant:
* Neither of us was aware at the time what it means to belay from a Grigri that is in backwards from the top. We would be curious to find this out. We are not sure if it's equivalent to not being belay at all, or whether belay was still on albeit not ideally.
* This was the first pitch of the climb - follower was on the ground.
* No mistake like this has happened on any other of our climbs together.
* We will revise our verbal acknowledgement system to instead be: "LEAD: belay is on" --> "FOLLOWER: testing" --> "FOLLOWER: ok system is good, climbing" --> "LEADER: climb on" (and only now follower climbs)

Also open to getting any links to materials to read for stuff that may be lacking in our system, be it obvious gaps (hopefully not!) or more subtle stuff.

If this happened to me, I would ask myself which category my leader fits into:

1. They are careless and will make other mistakes when the consequences are higher

Or

2. They learn from their mistakes and are more vigilant in the future.

That is why the "system check" verbal methodology is in place.

NASA does the same thing with a high success rate.

Your partner (or you) is just being super touchy - like one of you is afraid to die or something haha 

Although you shouldn't make the mistake of threading your Gri backwards, error recognition is something to encourage with your partner.

Isn't the point of your two-person "pull test" to catch this kind of mistake? It sounds like the leader caught the mistake before the test, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Leader shouldn't have said "on-belay" before doing their own pull test on the climber side of the rope to make sure the cam of the gri-gri engages, but according to your protocol you had like 6 more exchanges before the follower was going to climb anyway so IMO the danger here was basically nil.

Seems like the belayer should be the one to verify that the follower is actually on belay as there isn't any way for the follower to actually verify anything (assuming they were out of sight) other than there is some sort of tension on the rope which can be caused by other things besides the rope pulling on the anchor.

Cam wont activate in a grigri that is loaded backwards, meaning if your second fell you better have some strong-ass hands... that being said, mistakes happen. A lot of the time with climbing, those kinds of mistakes are the ones you only make ONCE. Because I'm sure the prospect of your second careening to the ground is not something that makes you feel super comfortable, I guarantee this was a learning experience for you (or the leader, whatever).

You recognized the mistake in a timely manner, that is lucky. What would you have done if you hadn't noticed until your climber was 15 ft up the pitch (there would have been several ways to do this)? The important part is having enough skills to be able to mitigate risk when mistakes do happen.

That being said... always double, triple, quadrupel check. Complacency is one of the main reasons people get hurt. And / or die.

That's my two-cents. 

Not a big deal. Mistake was caught by the belayer before follower climbed,

The real question is why are you using a PAS when climbing? Tie yourself into the anchor with the rope. Save the PAS for rappeling (sorry for the digression).

Edit: When I used an assisted-braking device like the Gri-Gri, I give it a yank test before the follower or leader climbs to make sure it locks up. This would have caught the mistake, also.

Testing the way you are describing is strange to me. There is a reason it isn't part of the standard belay routine (at least in the US). The leader is responsible for correctly setting up a belay, be it placing good pieces and building a good anchor, or making sure the belay device is set up correctly. In this case the leader can test by pulling on the climber's end of the rope to test the grigri orientation before calling on belay.

My partner and I have an this system.  It has worked when wind blocked our voices.  Leader always sets up belay before pulling rope and loading device, so follower knows within 10 seconds of rope being tight, he should be on belay.  Follower has 2 tests, sit on rope to see if it catches and climb a little bit and see if belayer is pulling rope up.  I think you guys should get rid of the walkie talkies and build up a good fundamental system before using them again.

edit: and leader always yanks to check.

If by the grigri being "backwards," you mean that the leader just unclipped it from the anchor and spun it around to orient it that's fine. The follower was still on belay, it might have been awkward to haul up slack or manage the brake though. If by "backwards" you mean that the wrong end of the rope was feeding into the grigri, the follower was not on belay.

If I were in this situation, I'd probably react in a mix between the two. I'd remember that my safety is my own responsibility. I'd keep climbing with them, but I'd be reminding them for the rest of the day to make sure they are double checking everything. If they get pissed that I'm nagging them about safety, I'd fuck off and find someone else. Humans make mistakes, which is why we double check everything, every time.

PS - this being the first pitch is irrelevant, same thing could've happened three hundred feet up.

So I assume you were the leader.  What I would say is that, in situations like this, your opinion doesn’t really matter.  Your job in this situation is to ensure the safety of your second and to ensure that they feel safe; this means that you should treat the mistake as serious, if not more, as they treat it.  Gaslighting or being defensive will only make them trust you less.

As far as the mistake...yes, it was serious.  Holding a person’s weight during a top belay is much harder than in a slingshot belay toprope where the belayer is on the ground.  Had your climber climbed up and either fallen or hanged, you might not have been able to hold them.  The friction on a Grigri is much lower than an ATC, which is why it is crucial to load it properly.  That said you caught it in your partner checks, but in a multipitch scenario, you won’t always be in clear communication with your partner.  While the radios seem like a nice idea in theory, you should not rely on them so much.  What if your signal goes out or a battery dies?

Mel on wrote: If by the grigri being "backwards," you mean that the leader just unclipped it from the anchor and spun it around to orient it that's fine. The follower was still on belay,

In the scenario described above, the follower is not on belay. "Unclipping it from the anchor" = NOT ON BEALY. 

in my multipitch tean after "on belay" there are also the "climbing" and "climb on" commands to allow for a final check before climbing. 

a mistake can happen at any point, for any reason. the question is how your system mitigates the consequence of the mistake when it happens.

if you didn't allow for a double check - then you will be as safe as your last mistake.

if you did allow for it - then do you think it is sufficient, and do you trust that it is also sufficient for your partner.

FrankPS wrote: The real question is why are you using a PAS when climbing? 

The real question is how the belayer can give the mandatory soft catch.

The leader, not the follower, should be testing the system. Any system "check" should be done in a way that's safe, not that's going to result in death or injury (in which case it's not a check.) Seems like the leader did catch the mistake, which is great. In the future I'd lose the whole thing of having the 2nd weight the rope. That just seems awkward and accomplishes nothing. 

Ted Pinson wrote: So I assume you were the leader.  What I would say is that, in situations like this, your opinion doesn’t really matter.  Your job in this situation is to ensure the safety of your second and to ensure that they feel safe; this means that you should treat the mistake as serious, if not more, as they treat it.  Gaslighting or being defensive will only make them trust you less.

This. There are two issues here. It's up to the follower to decide if the technical error alone is a dealbraker with this partner. It's also up to both parties to decide if they can move forward and remain compatible climbing partners. The GriGri error seems like a secondary issue here. It appears that the leader failed to acknowledge the follower's feelings that arose from the leader's mistake. I suspect the follower would have been OK if the leader had reacted differently to the follower's concerns instead of minimizing the error. The technical error was a mental lapse, but the leader did everything possible to fix the situation quickly. Mental lapses can happen to anyone and are part of the risk all climbers take. 

Because this is ultimately about trust and communication, I think everyone can just cut and paste their responses from the "is my husband cheating with his partner" thread.

Can't believe this hasn't been said yet, but yer gonna die.

every climber has close calls, it's how you learn from it that matters.

Leader shouldn’t be calling “on belay” just because the device is on the rope. Leader should put the device on the rope, then double check that the biner is locked and the device is loaded properly, then they can call “belay is on”. You can both check each other’s knots before anyone leaves the ground, so once belay is on for the follower, the leader should be pulling slack to keep the rope snug unless they hear otherwise