I watched every Weekend Whipper and...

Nick Goldsmith wrote: helmet is a no brainer... 

Actually, I would say *not* wearing a helmet is a no brainer, in terms of outcomes...

Mike you must just be better than everyone else...    one of my less graceful upside down 30ft gear rippers  my hands greased out of an iced up crack  but my foot jam held for a bit...   just a bit... 

i have seen a fair number of falls where people have been flipped, and in a handful of case cracked their heads open.  the common theme in almost all of them was a lack of awareness of where the rope was running (ie behind or around their leg).  when i see people with the rope behind their leg, i always bring it up - and with clockwork regularity they always say "its no big deal, i won't fall here".

you don't practice keeping the rope out of your legs for cases where you fall on easy ground.  you practice it so that it is completely second nature when you are climbing harder stuff and don't have the extra brain capacity to spare for this task.

the only inverted fall i have ever seen that wasn't a rope-behind-the-leg case was belaying a partner who was on a big inversion OW roof.  totally upside down, wall slamming, #5 camalot tattoo to the back rib cage sort of deal.

I've inverted a couple times.

I used to wear my harness too loose, now I cinch it up around my waist. That fixed the casual ones.

The last time was when I was going for it with a heel hook and my hands went first.

I'd like to believe that being cautious as hell keeps me from ever smacking my skull into rock. Of course after many many years of not wearing a helmet i wear one now almost every time just because of odds. 

I flipped upside down once when I was on runout terrain and placed a shitty ballnut, thought it was good and gave it a good yank for reassurance and it popped out and the force from me pulling outwards on it flipped me upside down. Twas scary

Wes Martin wrote: I flipped upside down once when I was on runout terrain and placed a shitty ballnut, thought it was good and gave it a good yank for reassurance and it popped out and the force of my pulling on it flipped me upside down. It was scary

I’ve done this same shit trying to set a 000 C3. I’m much more conservative when I test my small gear these days. It’s often mental pro anyways.

I flipped upside down another time when I was pulling hard outwards on a weirdly balanced move and the hold broke - the outward force flipped me again. Don't pull outwards I guess?

Wow just remembered ANOTHER time I flipped during a fall. On Sinestra in the creek, I ended up basically leaping at the crux to the side trying to do some kind of fucked up hand jam dyno (definitely not the right beta fyi). Not even close to sticking it, the swinging pull being from like 8 feet to the right combined with no balance from jumping I flipped again.
Guess I need to get my shit together haha

its simply not practical to have the rope in a perfect place all the time especially if you are getting in trouble and can't switch your feet . its not a perfect world. 

I flipped once on a big fall onto a slab, tried to run backwards, which worked for a few steps, but eventually went upside down.

One element not discussed (and impossible to know just looking at videos) is how many of the climbers you observed actually practiced falling, especially in a trad environment. (I’m guessing few of the gym falls in your survey were horizontal or inverted.) Even a little practice and discussion regarding awareness about how to fall can make a climber safer when the time comes. Look at the falls of really good climbers (how many falls are show in The Dawn Wall?). Most are clean. That’s probably, to a large degree, because really good climbers who are pushing their limits have fallen a lot.

I applaud you for your post, and the math ;)