Belay Device Survey

Kim K wrote: Another reason to not buy a Grigri over using an ATC: needing another device or method of rappeling from routes. I would certainly forget I only had a Grigi and would be totally stuck at the top of routes!

And what if you drop your ATC?

Regardless of which device you bring up, it's a good idea to be able to rappel without it in some way...

like a biner brake:

Eli W wrote:

And what if you drop your ATC?

Regardless of which device you bring up, it's a good idea to be able to rappel without it in some way...

like a biner brake:

or a munter:

Thanks for the illustrations, hopefully don't need to use it except in an emergency situation.

I F wrote: You can rappel with a grigri...

Is this how you would do it? Is this something that is typical? Seems annoying for multi-pitch climbs, do you ever have trouble retrieving your rope?

That is how I do it yes. Typically I've used it for cleaning routes of dirt and loose rock and hardware maintenance on single pitches. It's not ideal if you have any large features, trees, etc that the knot and biner could catch on. It's just worth noting that you can indeed rappel on a gri gri without fixing the rope.

Kim K wrote:

Is this how you would do it? Is this something that is typical? Seems annoying for multi-pitch climbs, do you ever have trouble retrieving your rope?

That is a pretty standard way of doing it. It is a bit annoying and certainly makes your rope more likely to get stuck. I have a Pivot and a GriGri and pretty much exclusively reach for the atc for belaying, unless it is casual top roping. Gri is nice to have for rigging and other random stuff for sure, such as sport climbing where you know your partner will likely be hanging for a bit. 

Interesting thanks. To the OP, I will probably stick with my guide ATC because of ease of use and rappelling (and my being accustomed with it). So if the survey is for an engineering class that is something that could be a consideration.

@Noah and I F, interesting and I might look into this for other use cases like photography, thanks for sharing.

To the OP, awesome idea for a project and totally support you gathering data...

but...

I've been climbing for about 10 years and I honestly am not sure that this "hand pinching" thing is a thing. Like...it's never happened to me. I've never heard of it happening to any of my climbing partners. Is this a real problem we're solving for?

I've see hair get caught in ATCs more than once...I've seen people set up GriGris backwards more than once (despite the fact that they stamp a diagram prominently into the device lol!)...I've seen poor catches and technique using ATCs, Juls, GriGris, etc...I've seen people bring ATCs and GriGris up on multi-pitches, which is redundant (good!) but also heavy and maybe a little strange (bad!)...

Hate to say it, but my vote: hand pinching? Not a real thing. Sorry.

Jonathan Brown wrote:

I'll be the first to say that mine was a case of carelessness.  A once-in-a-million situation that I like to think I learned from & won't let it happen again.

Lesson learned. Carelessness is also behind "human error" grigri accidents that seem to result in ground falls with such frequency. People say they like grigris because it frees up the brake hand, and you have to pay much closer attention with an ATC, but I see "forces close attention" as a feature, not a flaw...

Jonathan Brown wrote:

I'll be the first to say that mine was a case of carelessness.  A once-in-a-million situation that I like to think I learned from & won't let it happen again.

Not many people can admit that.   And you're not alone... no one can truthfully say that they haven't zoned-out once or twice while belaying/climbing all day long. It happens and I guess i'm not such a GriGri hater when thinking of it in that way... more of a fail safe for those long, tiring 15+ pitch kind of days.