Giga Jul Initial Impressions

Jim Titt wrote:

I'd guess the Italian hitch direct off the anchor has been around since the 60's, there are older single pitch routes in my area with bolts at knee height for belaying this way.

Russian climbers from the 30's. I'd imagine attaching the belay device to the "harness" was the innovation back there.

Kevin Shon wrote:

Mark,  fair question.  When we were dropping an 80kg mass using various MBDs and ABDs at Petzl during the annual meeting,  we did swap rope ends.  This rope was used,  not new,  and received multiple falls. Was not official/ scientific/ "testing" really at all.  I understand that ropes can take up to hours to reset from their "memory" caused by kinks or twists or excessive stretching. This rope was not afforded any rest. 

What absolutely obliterated the rope was an Ohm belay device being used as a direct belay ABD. The rope appeared to try and dissipate energy through slippage, and the Ohm captured the rope in a way where this slippage couldn't occur.  The (old and multiple fail experiencing ) rope shredded through the core when this specific belay device was used in a way that is contradictory to manufacturer specifications.

To my point: there's lots of info out there related to the belay graphics above about the fixed point belay. In no way am i fear mongering,  AND this technique may be more likely to be misapplied, if not thoroughly understood by new users.  

That was my main take away message: this notion of energy dissipation through a holistic security system and all of its components (rope, falling climber,  belay device,  friction,  gravity,  kilonewtons, pro placements in network with belay device and anchor, etc. - all of these variables are always at play with a falling climber,  and even many trained,  certified professionals don't clearly understand how all of these variables interact in X situation with Y device.  

Direct belaying absolutely has its place,  and a misapplication could be catastrophic- but no more than any other misapplied system. We need to really know these systems more clearly before anyone new to these belay systems uses then broadly.  That's all.

This certainly seems like fear mongering to me.  You performed an extremely harsh drop multiple times on a 2 pieces of rope an unknow multiple of times and the rope eventually failed.  That is to be expected.   It is just coincidence that you were using a maga jul or ohm at the time instead of some other belay device.

Ropes are actually damaged in harsh falls and no amount of resting will fix that.

I apologise for being harsh but this 'testing' is complete crap and does not mean anything with respect to the mega jul or the ohm.  We don't know anything.

Furthermore your statements about impact force and belaying off the anchor are also meaningless because of the lack rope management in these 'tests'.

climber pat wrote:

This certainly seems like fear mongering to me.  You performed an extremely harsh drop multiple times on a 2 pieces of rope an unknow multiple of times and the rope eventually failed.  That is to be expected.   It is just coincidence that you were using a maga jul or ohm at the time instead of some other belay device.

Ropes are actually damaged in harsh falls and no amount of resting will fix that.

I apologise for being harsh but this 'testing' is complete crap and does not mean anything with respect to the mega jul or the ohm.  We don't know anything.

Furthermore your statements about impact force and belaying off the anchor are also meaningless because of the lack rope management in these 'tests'.

It certainly would be useful if someone could give a concise, clear account of what was actually tested, how and with what results.

rgold wrote:  ....If you've got a modern bolted anchor and aren't using half-rope technique, belay the leader with a Munter on the anchor.

What rgold said...

Climb safe,Mal

climber pat wrote:

This certainly seems like fear mongering to me.  You performed an extremely harsh drop multiple times on a 2 pieces of rope an unknow multiple of times and the rope eventually failed.  That is to be expected.   It is just coincidence that you were using a maga jul or ohm at the time instead of some other belay device.

Ropes are actually damaged in harsh falls and no amount of resting will fix that.

I apologise for being harsh but this 'testing' is complete crap and does not mean anything with respect to the mega jul or the ohm.  We don't know anything.

Furthermore your statements about impact force and belaying off the anchor are also meaningless because of the lack rope management in these 'tests'.

a bit harsh- yes.  Par for MP.
Your conjecture at fear mongering - you're entitled to your opinion, and carry forth... I'm not here to argue on MP. I will say I was astonished at how easily a misapplied tool could really harm a rope with a fall simulating a lead fall with climber approximately with shins at their last piece of gear, weighing 80Kg.

This was not formal "testing". The rope used in these informal drops employed a used rope section- yes.

To speak to the concise explanation of testing:

!) This was a workshop at a guide's conference to play around with different belay devices in a "fixed point belay" application with a digital force meter in the system, to get a sense of how many Kn were actually being experienced in a system as we simulated a lead fall with a fixed point belay. No lab coats, no calculators; not science.

2) The falls observed utilized an 80kg mass and a rope that has been used prior in some way - its exact history unknown to me. We had scaffolding with an anchor attached and a workshop participant climbed up, and belayed this mass with different tools: munter, atc guide in redirected plate mode, a megajul, and an Ohm. We did this to observe what type of forces were exerted on the rope and entire system per belay method.

3) None of this was following the scientific process - it was in my own words "advanced garage math". A bunch of guides trying to wrap their heads around how the fixed point belay works, and under what variables and conditions loads might change, etc.

4) If I recall correctly - it's been a few weeks... we dropped this 80kg mass and the forces we consistently saw on the force meter in this informal observation were in the ballpark of between 4 and 6 Kn. in some cases, the belay application held the fall sufficiently: Munter, redirected ATC held the fall really well.

My point still stands - this method of belaying is used in many other countries. There are a handful of caveats to using this technique. Not just any belay device will do in any situation - so I am simply saying it should be used with discretion.

https://vimeo.com/44869774

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r7hIZREJoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqZQnCGl24A

Not many have "tested" this belay system. Instead of hating on MP, I encourage us to seek the papers that ARE out there on actual scientific testing and contribute here. Again - apologies for not having my facts sorted prior to firing off my initial response. 

Kevin Shon wrote:

a bit harsh- yes.  Par for MP.
Your conjecture at fear mongering - you're entitled to your opinion, and carry forth... I'm not here to argue on MP. I will say I was astonished at how easily a misapplied tool could really harm a rope with a fall simulating a lead fall with climber approximately with shins at their last piece of gear, weighing 80Kg.

This was not formal "testing". The rope used in these informal drops employed a used rope section- yes.

To speak to the concise explanation of testing:

!) This was a workshop at a guide's conference to play around with different belay devices in a "fixed point belay" application with a digital force meter in the system, to get a sense of how many Kn were actually being experienced in a system as we simulated a lead fall with a fixed point belay. No lab coats, no calculators; not science.

2) The falls observed utilized an 80kg mass and a rope that has been used prior in some way - its exact history unknown to me. We had scaffolding with an anchor attached and a workshop participant climbed up, and belayed this mass with different tools: munter, atc guide in redirected plate mode, a megajul, and an Ohm. We did this to observe what type of forces were exerted on the rope and entire system per belay method.

3) None of this was following the scientific process - it was in my own words "advanced garage math". A bunch of guides trying to wrap their heads around how the fixed point belay works, and under what variables and conditions loads might change, etc.

4) If I recall correctly - it's been a few weeks... we dropped this 80kg mass and the forces we consistently saw on the force meter in this informal observation were in the ballpark of between 4 and 6 Kn. in some cases, the belay application held the fall sufficiently: Munter, redirected ATC held the fall really well.

My point still stands - this method of belaying is used in many other countries. There are a handful of caveats to using this technique. Not just any belay device will do in any situation - so I am simply saying it should be used with discretion.

https://vimeo.com/44869774

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r7hIZREJoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqZQnCGl24A

Not many have "tested" this belay system. Instead of hating on MP, I encourage us to seek the papers that ARE out there on actual scientific testing and contribute here. Again - apologies for not having my facts sorted prior to firing off my initial response. 

Although internet backlash is quite often severe, I really appreciate the courage it takes for you to speak up and  add information that you saw during your tests at the Petzl facility to the overall collective. I also appreciate you coming back to follow up on the questions that you've been hit with. 

I hope this incident doesn't deter you from doing so again in the future as I think your experience is quite valuable as I don't have the luxury to go and test devices and materials under such extreme conditions. Some people on MP may, but I would say the majority of us do not. 

A few additional words on testing.  You need multiple trials if you are trying to get a good idea about average performance and are concerned that your results might be an artifact of bias in your samples that can and does happen even when random sampling techniques are followed.  There's a whole battery of hypothesis-testing techniques to help out here, and the precision of your final conclusions does depend on your sample size.

On the other hand, worst-case scenario behavior is rather different.  If something really bad happens at all, on any single trial, that's significant.  (This is just a variation on Jim's remarks earlier.)  Lots of trials (and I do mean lots) could help you to predict how likely a worst-case observation is, but the fact that the worst case can happen is a result of a single trial.  

The question still remains whether that trial was  "realistic" as far as regular climbing situations go, and that is probably going to be something left to individual judgements and risk tolerances, and at some point one does have to rely on the sophistication of the consumer of the information.  

I suspect that all the ABD devices that rely on a loaded carabiner jamming the rope into the end of a slot will either damage the rope if the load is high enough, or else will show a decline in braking performance at high loads because the designers have in some way limited the travel of the carabiner and so limited its pinching ability.  (Jim has at least some information about this).  Rather than rejecting the informal and not entirely clear results mentioned here, I would be inclined to think that there is probably rope-damage potential when any ABD device is used directly on an anchor to hold a high fall-factor load, and if not, then the trade-off might be weak braking performance at high loads.

The genius of the Munter hitch is that it slips and dissipates energy while spreading the load over more than a single contact point, and that---judging from the CAI videos---the amount of slippage is consistently within the ability of normal people to control. (Note that you want the brake hand to be far enough from the Munter so that the slippage can do its thing before the brake hand collides with the knot.)

Kevin Shon wrote: 

a bit harsh- yes.  Par for MP.
Your conjecture at fear mongering - you're entitled to your opinion, and carry forth... I'm not here to argue on MP. I will say I was astonished at how easily a misapplied tool could really harm a rope with a fall simulating a lead fall with climber approximately with shins at their last piece of gear, weighing 80Kg.

This was not formal "testing". The rope used in these informal drops employed a used rope section- yes.

To speak to the concise explanation of testing:

!) This was a workshop at a guide's conference to play around with different belay devices in a "fixed point belay" application with a digital force meter in the system, to get a sense of how many Kn were actually being experienced in a system as we simulated a lead fall with a fixed point belay. No lab coats, no calculators; not science.

2) The falls observed utilized an 80kg mass and a rope that has been used prior in some way - its exact history unknown to me. We had scaffolding with an anchor attached and a workshop participant climbed up, and belayed this mass with different tools: munter, atc guide in redirected plate mode, a megajul, and an Ohm. We did this to observe what type of forces were exerted on the rope and entire system per belay method.

3) None of this was following the scientific process - it was in my own words "advanced garage math". A bunch of guides trying to wrap their heads around how the fixed point belay works, and under what variables and conditions loads might change, etc.

4) If I recall correctly - it's been a few weeks... we dropped this 80kg mass and the forces we consistently saw on the force meter in this informal observation were in the ballpark of between 4 and 6 Kn. in some cases, the belay application held the fall sufficiently: Munter, redirected ATC held the fall really well.

My point still stands - this method of belaying is used in many other countries. There are a handful of caveats to using this technique. Not just any belay device will do in any situation - so I am simply saying it should be used with discretion.

https://vimeo.com/44869774

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r7hIZREJoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqZQnCGl24A

Not many have "tested" this belay system. Instead of hating on MP, I encourage us to seek the papers that ARE out there on actual scientific testing and contribute here. Again - apologies for not having my facts sorted prior to firing off my initial response. 

I don't mean to be rude, but I do feel it important to put forth really good information if at all possible and I had asked about the rope previous to my reply.  In any case I am happy that you are willing to clarify what happened.

I still am unable to determine if you had several drops on the same section of rope before the sheath was damaged and core exposed of just one drop on a used rope.  If more than one drop do you have any idea how many?  What other devices where used in previous drops?  Where the knots untied and retied?  What brand/model of rope was used?  Was this somebody's rope who was willing to donate it to the cause because it was worn out or did Petzl pony up a new rope?  It is easy to imagine a test scenario which would give a very bad and potentially false impression of the giga jul.  For example test 3 times on a ATC, the 3 times on a muntner, then start testing with the giga jul with 6 fall factor 2 falls already on the section of rope.

In summary:

1. Was the rope new?
2. What brand/model rope?
3. If the rope was previously used, how much use?  (days climbing, very fuzzy, ready for retirement, looked good,...)
4. Was a different section of rope used for each device?
5. If the same section was used for multiple devices which devices were tested before the giga jul and how many drops for each device.
6. If a new section was used for the giga jul how many test falls before it failed.
7. Were the the giga jul and ohm tested 1st therefor being tested on the ends of a used rope?
8. It appears the fall length was about 10 feet (twice the fall from the anchor at a leaders shins)?

I have never even seen a giga jul so I don't have any real knowledge about it.  I ordered one today so I can play with one and form my own impression.  I have both the micro and mega jul but I thought both were finicky and gave up using them after looking at Jim Tritt's graphs on their holding power.

I had seen the 1st and 3rd video you linked above and find the technique intriguing especially using a munter hitch to belay.   I prototyped the ATC version of the fixed point belay a couple of years ago and was not very satisfied with it and have not tried it in a real climbing situation.

I have been working on building my own drop tower to test this and other scenarios that seem under evaluated or not even addressed by most UIAA/CE or vendor testing.  I have the measurement electronics and release mechanism worked out; I still need to get a winch to lift the weight and actually build the tower.  I have been testing by dropping small weights off of a ladder.  My long term plan is to make this an open source tower in the sense that I will, for free, drop stuff for people who supply the items to be tested.  I will document the process and measurements for free as long at the documentation and measurements are available to anyone wanting to look at it.  

So many questions, so little data.

Dan Daugherty wrote: I just abandoned my GigaJul and went back to a GriGri because it just doesn't pay out slack smoothly at all on ABD mode on any rope I've tried. It's neat, but they haven't ironed out all the kinks yet, IMO.

Personal preference. First getting used to the megajul and then using the grigri; I just want my megajul back :P

For me, the Jul's are very good for sport, but useless in the mountains. The Gigajul does fix the guide mode problems of the mega, but it does not brake a thin (8,5mm) halvrope on lead. (It "locks", but there is just not eanogh force, same problem as the smart alpine.) 

Olav Grøttveit wrote:

Personal preference. First getting used to the megajul and then using the grigri; I just want my megajul back :P

For me, the Jul's are very good for sport, but useless in the mountains. The Gigajul does fix the guide mode problems of the mega, but it does not brake a thin (8,5mm) halvrope on lead. (It "locks", but there is just not eanogh force, same problem as the smart alpine.) 

i've caught falls on 8.5 halves fine on the gigajul. though i was in atc mode cause i can't stand the auto mode for halves.

Chris Blatchley wrote:

i've caught falls on 8.5 halves fine on the gigajul. though i was in atc mode cause i can't stand the auto mode for halves.

I have caught falls with my left hand that is on the leader-rope due to rope drag (the forces never made it to the atc :p ) but thats not something I am going to count on for later ... 

Try a high factor fall on a skinny half-rope with your giga in a controlled enviroment. After I did that, I dont use the old atc, nor the giga jul for those situations anymore. ATC Alpine guide was the only one that actually provides good controll in that situations.. (of the ones I tested)

hey rich----direct belaying is being taught by both the AMGA and ACMG at present. it'll start to filter into the practice.....

MalD! (whatup, buddy?!) The hesitation with trad anchors/direct belay is the rigging, in part.....asking a relatively new climber to build an anchor to manage that upward pull is another step up in complexity, don't you think? and the consequences of the anchor failing upwards and the direct-belay carabiner launching skyward.....well, you and i probably have a similar guess as to what would happen!

as for testing: i don't think a single test is going to definitively prove much. not even several.....i get the outlier event, but let's imagine Test X results in a completely severed rope and we all take that as conclusive. What if, though, tests 2-10 all resulted in a glazed rope, but nothing more severe? So, do we go with the single severe test or the 9/10 tests? Maybe it's my utterly horrific sense of stats/math/etc.....but a single test about much of anything doesn't seem convincing....reproducible results in large-batch testing seems like you can draw conclusions from it.....but maybe I'm being dense (likely).

and now this!!!!----

https://www.climbing.com/gear/review-edelrid-giga-jul-belay-device/

MalD! (whatup, buddy?!) The hesitation with trad anchors/direct belay is the rigging, in part.....asking a relatively new climber to build an anchor to manage that upward pull is another step up in complexity, don't you think? and the consequences of the anchor failing upwards and the direct-belay carabiner launching skyward.....well, you and i probably have a similar guess as to what would happen!

Rob, the snow is looking good over there. Sign me up. My current advocacy for the direct belay replaced my advocacy for the need to emphasize the importance of multidirectional anchors at belays. I think this is a topic that is glossed over in SERNE anchor classes and instruction books. I learned trad climbing when it was just “climbing” and I believe that even Robbins’ books emphasized the need for multidirectional anchors. Remember then that we had just shaken off the piton and hammer hangover and were new at slotting nuts. Our big concern was having them pull out when the load came from an unexpected direction and the old articles and books all had lots of advice on how to rig for a multidirectional. Hell, I don’t remember whether it was Lowe Alpine or Latok, but one of those companies even made a little bungee thing to tension two nuts in opposition. About ten years ago I did a deep dive into ANAM to find out just how many Belay Anchor Failures there had been: It was only two, and both of those had occurred in SERNE systems and both had occurred when an unexpected lateral load had pulled the gear out. That’s when I climbed up on my high horse and starting shouting. I forget which of the MP gurus it was (rgold?) but the best anchor advice I ever heard was...”Place strong anchors and tie yourself to them.” 

All that said, I’m a big fan of placing anchors for upward pull regardless of whether you’re doing a harness belay or a direct belay. That said, because of the possibility of of a high factor load in an upward direction I still think that direct belays are best left to bomber bolted belays and ice belays.

"Place strong anchors and tie yourself to them.”  That was Jim Titt.

Rob, my main point has not been about direct belays per se, where I agree with Mal that using them with trad anchors is problematic, but what I see as suboptimal implementations in the bolted anchor case using belay devices rather than a Munter hitch.

Moreover, the main focus of direct belaying has been isolating the belayer from the motion imposed by belay catches.  But the ENSA data suggests that lowering the the maximum load to protection and falling climber is also a benefit, and this compared to contemporary soft-catch techniques which aren't even practical outside of the single-pitch sport context, and are subject, I suspect, to enormous variations in effect because of the timing aspect of belayer jumps.  These results are interesting for both ice and rock in view of the ongoing failure of testing to confirm much if any benefit to screamer usage.

I think the belay method should depend more on the nature of the route (high factor falls, long run outs, no clean path-of-flight for the belayer, friction and drag) than on the type of anchor.

The fixed-point belay is meant for anchors with at least one solid anchor point (bolt, thread, tree)
The central-point belay for gear anchors.

Both methods need multi-directional anchors. They are not more difficult to make than a downwards-pull-only anchor.

rgold wrote: "Place strong anchors and tie yourself to them.”  That was Jim Titt.

One of my favorite quotes.  Once I followed a pitch to discover that my partner, who was generally very safe, had indeed built a strong anchor but forgot to clip in.  :(

Rich, I’m with you, I prefer the Munter to a plaquette in direct belay....variation: I see some guys rig a hybrid by starting the pitch taking a direct belay on a munter, but then a plaquette pre-rigged on the belayer’s harness as far up the rope as you need to so when he starts belaying you off of it, you’ve got good gear in....then he drops the Munter off the anchor...

 and great Jim t quote! 
Mal—agreed Too. I see a ton of really poor belaying, from gym to sport to trad to alpine...and almost invariably we « get away with it » only because we rarely get the big surprise. And that big surprise seems like it usually comes from a failure to analyze how an impending load will affect belayer/anchor. FF2 or violent pull up or out.
Further on that load thing: almost every source I’ve ever seen shows a SERENE/NERDSS/ERNST anchor built atop a pitch as if the follower(s) are the anticipated load. As all of you know, even two followers barely stress the anchor—-leaders should build the top anchor for the next pitch and its  demands...not the followers hanging on 25m of rope running thru carabiners and over rock. 
Third belay on Rewritten is a great example. I see most folks build an anchor out towards the traverse crack, then sit back in the pod, with the anchor in front of them and slightly below. Then, as the leader, if you’re trying to give your follower a better eventual belay, you don’t place gear in the latter half of the traverse and run it out a bit in the vertical crack; now they have a great top rope as they traverse...problem is, a leader fall while foregoing this gear would absolutely nuke the belayer, and he’d pivot around his anchor and slam into the wall somewhere out on the traverse. It would be a bloodbath! And he’d drop the leader, almost undoubtedly. Anyway, rabbit hole. Hope you’re all great in Btown! 

Oh, and rich...recall that lowered peak forces in the ensa testing was allowing the rope to run thru the Munter a bit/slippage, not sure if they’d get the same result if somebody gave a hard catch w the Munter...they call it out as an “expert” technique...

coppolillo wrote: Oh, and rich...recall that lowered peak forces in the ensa testing was allowing the rope to run thru the Munter a bit/slippage, not sure if they’d get the same result if somebody gave a hard catch w the Munter...they call it out as an “expert” technique...

No, they wouldn't get the same result, but controllable slippage (together with effectiveness in a factor 2 situation) is what makes the Munter good.  As for the "expertise" required, the belayer basically has to position their hand  about two feet from the knot and allow the rope tension to pull the hand to the knot under resistance.  Practice in how much to resist in different scenarios would be appropriate, but let's not forget that the soft-catch obtained by jumping requires practice too, and is, in my opinion, almost certain to be less consistent in effectiveness than the Munter, as well as having little or no applicability to multipitch rock and ice, being pointless for big leader falls and irrelevant in a factor 2 situation.

The idea that one might consciously allow some rope slippage is déja vu for old-timers like me, who came of age in a time when it was common to practice controlled rope slippage as a part of leader fall arresting.  It was pretty hard to do this well and consistently with a hip belay, but the Munter on an anchor resurrects the idea while eliminating almost all its historical downsides.