Your ATC is unsafe

Cosmiccragsman AKA Dwain wroteEspecially if her piece pulled

Yes. True, Dwain. And good there was that backup piece nearby. :)

Julian H wrote: Grigri saved her ass

I'm not even a little bit interested in the debate in general, but that isn't a bad fall in terms of impact---the belayer barely budges---and anyone who was awake and paying attention would have caught it with any method, all the way back to a hip belay.  Meanwhile, it looks like she pulled a piece, which could have been a consequence of the static behavior of the Grigri, exacerbated by the belayer's reaction to yard in slack.  But on the other hand, the flake she stopped just above was a good reason not to allow the fall to be longer.

As an aside, at the beginning of the video the belayer had far too much slack in the system.  And better make sure he never uses anything but a Grigri, because the way he shoots his brake hand up above the device to yard in slack will virtually eliminate the braking effect of an ATC.  So yes, the Grigri saved her ass from this belayer.

Gives me chills ... not about this belayer, but where 100% use of BA devices takes us.

the weekend whipper is back and rgold is spot on. not much for surprises here.  

TR Fellhung wrote: lol, there's nothing spot on about that.

The piece pulled because it was not placed properly. There are plenty of solid placement opportunities under that roof. Even suggesting the belayer's choice of device had anything to do with the piece failing is ridiculous.

Pieces fail because the load applied to them is greater than their holding power.  Compared to ATC-type devices, Grigris increase the peak load applied to the top piece.

 The Grigri may or may not have been the cause of the failure, but mentioning it as a possible contributing factor is far from ridiculous.

I’m going to weigh in here with what I’m sure will be a controversial post.

I know only a few people who can belay well with a gri-gri. And if you have it down like they do, then this device is very good for sport climbs. What most people can’t do well is feed out rope fast for a hard clip, or feed out some slack to reduce the impact of swinging back into the wall during a fall. Of course the latter is a rare skill with any device, but it is next to impossible to do it a measured way with the gri-gri.

On multi-pitch free climbs the gri-gri is not acceptable to me. First off, if you have to rap off, it only works on a single rope, which means that to have your options open to retreat you need to carry a second device (unless you have enough free oval ‘biners to build a carabiner brake and have a clue how to do so.)

Secondly it’s heavy. Add that to the need to carry a second device, and the space available on your choice of racking systems. Personally I don’t care to load up the loops on my harness, or a normal over the shoulder rack, with a bunch of stuff that gets in my way when I’m looking for the right piece of gear for a placement in the middle of hard moves.

Third, a competent climber has no problem with an ATC or similar device. But OMG, what happens if you need to lock off the belay device to escape the belay? You tie a bight of rope and let it slide up against the device. Then you can escape the belay and set about the business of helping your injured leader. Of course this business of escaping the belay, an essential skill if your leader has passed the half mark in the rope (and therefore cannot be lowered back to the belay,) is beyond the skill set of most new trad climbers.

Which brings me to my final point; learn the important skills and quit arguing about gear. Then you will figure out what is the best gear for you.

TR Fellhung wrote:

When there are bomber placements available and your placement fails it has nothing to do with the belay device. If the placement was so bad as to be dependent on the belay device then that's the problem: the placement was that bad. 

But that's the whole point isn't it?  Bad gear that fails at a moderate load might not fail at a lower load?  That's a "ridiculous" statement?

Nobody should choose their belay device based on what they see in this video. 

Whoa.  I never said anything about choosing a belay device.

There are reasons not to like the grigri but nobody climbing the moderate trade routes in Yos should be avoiding a gri gri out of fear of gear popping. It is a ridiculous concern and ridiculous to mention.

It is a factor to consider and come to a conclusion about.  I personally respect any outcome of that consideration that takes the advantages and risks into account and arrives at a personally acceptable solution.   But is it really rational to completely ignore the potential effects of higher loads?  If the gear fails, is it automatically a failure of placing skills?

Oh, I see you added a chart with French words so I guess that changes everything, lol. That fall was probably not even a "Facteur 0,3" 

The chart is from Petzl, the Grigri manufacturer.  They originally recommended the Grigri only be used for sport climbing, i.e. with bolts.

Well, that's that then, the eradication of force as the determining quantity in gear failure.

As is often the case on MP, the discussion digresses into absurdities.  Mind you, you're probably right that the placement stunk and would have been extracted by any belay technique---at least I'm prepared to accept your judgement on that since you seem to know the climb and I most certainly do not.  My only quarrel is with the idea that causing higher loads is a ridiculous reason for gear failure.

rgold wrote:

Pieces fail because the load applied to them is greater than their holding power.  Compared to ATC-type devices, Grigris increase the peak load applied to the top piece.

 The Grigri may or may not have been the cause of the failure, but mentioning it as a possible contributing factor is far from ridiculous.

Although it is true that the grigri slips much less, if any amount, compared to a tube device, I think it would not be a contributing factor in this case since there is a lot of friction in this case.

The experiments that produced those graphs seem to have been done without any kind of friction in the system (drag, rope bends at carabiners, etc). Source: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Influence-of-the-belay-device

And I think that friction in the system will reduce the force on the belayer to a point where the difference in peak loads between devices does not matter . Source:
https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Consequences-of-poor-rope-drag-management-in-a-common-fall?

TR Fellhung wrote:

If the gear fails on that climb at that spot it is automatically a failure of placing skills. 

If placement skills are poor, we all agree that the primary issue is generally with the leader.

Still, in such a case, a Gri-Gri can amplify the issue no less than when the leader is competent and the choices for placements are actually poor. And the route ‘chooses’ where that point may occur, whether right off the belay or after some torturous run of gear placements.

Fran M wrote:

Although it is true that the grigri slips much less, if any amount, compared to a tube device, I think it would not be a contributing factor in this case since there is a lot of friction in this case.

The experiments that produced those graphs seem to have been done without any kind of friction in the system (drag, rope bends at carabiners, etc). Source: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Influence-of-the-belay-device

And I think that friction in the system will reduce the force on the belayer to a point where the difference in peak loads between devices does not matter . Source:
https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Consequences-of-poor-rope-drag-management-in-a-common-fall?

This is probably right, the point being that there might not be any ameliorating slippage even with an ATC.  But note that the same friction that makes life easy for the belayer increases the "effective" fall factor and so results in higher than expected loads on the gear.

"GriGris are bad because they will catch a falling climber even with poor hand placement, which reinforces bad habits"

"ATCs are good because they will catch a falling climber even with poor protection placement, which provides an extra margin of safety"

Personally, I never said "Grigri's are bad."  Many, perhaps now most of my friends use them for trad.  I climb with half ropes, so a Grigri is out, but I use an assisted braking device with the same issues when it comes to loading the gear.  It is obvious that most gear most of the time is up to whatever extra loads Grigris impose.

My particular ABD can be easily switched over to non-locking mode (the leader does have to go off belay for a few seconds).  If I'm faced with moves that are hard for me with very small gear for protection, then if possible we switch over to non-locking mode, and make sure the belayer keeps their brake hand as far from the device as possible so that two feet or so of rope can run through the device under tentsion without any slippage through the brake hand.  This is the trad version of the much-celebrated "soft catch" in sport climbing, and the modern version of the old-school dynamic belay.

If the climb in question is outfitted with bolted belay stations, then I think that evidence is accumulating that the best belay of all is a Munter hitch directly on the anchor..

Kristian Solem wrote: I’m going to weigh in here with what I’m sure will be a controversial post.

I know only a few people who can belay well with a gri-gri. And if you have it down like they do, then this device is very good for sport climbs. What most people can’t do well is feed out rope fast for a hard clip, or feed out some slack to reduce the impact of swinging back into the wall during a fall. Of course the latter is a rare skill with any device, but it is next to impossible to do it a measured way with the gri-gri.

On multi-pitch free climbs the gri-gri is not acceptable to me. First off, if you have to rap off, it only works on a single rope, which means that to have your options open to retreat you need to carry a second device (unless you have enough free oval ‘biners to build a carabiner brake and have a clue how to do so.)

Secondly it’s heavy. Add that to the need to carry a second device, and the space available on your choice of racking systems. Personally I don’t care to load up the loops on my harness, or a normal over the shoulder rack, with a bunch of stuff that gets in my way when I’m looking for the right piece of gear for a placement in the middle of hard moves.

Third, a competent climber has no problem with an ATC or similar device. But OMG, what happens if you need to lock off the belay device to escape the belay? You tie a bight of rope and let it slide up against the device. Then you can escape the belay and set about the business of helping your injured leader. Of course this business of escaping the belay, an essential skill if your leader has passed the half mark in the rope (and therefore cannot be lowered back to the belay,) is beyond the skill set of most new trad climbers.

Which brings me to my final point; learn the important skills and quit arguing about gear. Then you will figure out what is the best gear for you.

Not controversial at all but definitely lacking the full understanding of how a biner block combined with a grigri or any other single rope device works. Are you a new climber as well?

m Mobes wrote:

Are you a new climber as well?

Kris? LOL. He was climbing 5.13 decades ago. 

phylp wrote:

Kris? LOL. He was climbing 5.13 decades ago. 

OK, but that doesn't mean he's right all the time.  I disagree with his contention that most people who use Grigris can't throw out slack fast enough.  If that's been his experience, he's been climbing with people who just don't know how to use Grigris, which is not particularly hard, but also is not intuitive.  If you follow Petzl's recommended technique for fast feeding, it's smoother, easier, and (IMO) safer than any other device I've used, and I've used a bunch (many types of standard tubes, Click Up, Click Up+, ATC Pilot, Megajul, Smart 2.0, Munter).

To put it another way, go somewhere populated mostly by experienced sport climbers.  You will see vast majority using Grigris, and vast majority don't seem to have any problem throwing rope out. 

The fact that someone doesn't know many people who can properly use a device doesn't say anything about the device.

You could go to any of the bigger climbing gyms on a weekday night and find at least a few people competently using a grigri for lead belaying.

I know Kris is an accomplished climber but that grigri rant had some noobish claims.

pfwein wrote:

OK, but that doesn't mean he's right all the time.  I disagree with his contention that most people who use Grigris can't throw out slack fast enough.  If that's been his experience, he's been climbing with people who just don't know how to use Grigris, which is not particularly hard, but also is not intuitive.  If you follow Petzl's recommended technique for fast feeding, it's smoother, easier, and (IMO) safer than any other device I've used, and I've used a bunch (many types of standard tubes, Click Up, Click Up+, ATC Pilot, Megajul, Smart 2.0, Munter).

To put it another way, go somewhere populated mostly by experienced sport climbers.  You will see vast majority using Grigris, and vast majority don't seem to have any problem throwing rope out. 

I agree that the grigri can feed quickly using the recommended method. I do see however poor use where the device is locked open and held that way all the time......ok the device will mostly work as long as the death grip is not engaged. This observation relates to long time climbers.

I love that random weirdos are so confident they are right and don't realize they are arguing with guys who have been on the cutting edge for longer than they have been alive... Please keep it up.

Thank you rgold and others who keep it civil and share real life anecdotes.

Jon Hillis wrote: I love that random weirdos are so confident they are right and don't realize they are arguing with guys who have been on the cutting edge for longer than they have been alive... Please keep it up.

Thank you rgold and others who keep it civil and share real life anecdotes.

Not sure what "arguing" you're referring to, but if it has to with whether it's easy or hard to pay out slack with a Grigri, there's really not much to argue about it.  Simply get a Grigri, watch Petzl's instructional video, and try it.  It does take a little practice, and like anything else, some people pick it up more quickly than others.

When you get the hang of it, congratulations, you can belay like the vast majority of people who frequently sport climb in the modern era.  This isn't really something you have to take other people's word on.  (But if it was, I wouldn't pay too much attention to random weirdos either, I'd instead look at what the majority of active, accomplished sport climbers do.)