Hit by blown cam...

Yes. I’ve had a .3 pop during a fall and was very surprised at the speed it whizzed down the cord and smacked the shIt out of my helmet.

If it had hit my eye or teeth, it would’ve taken them out. 

I wear a helmet on my 5.5 sport projects.

I could honestly care less if you wear a helmet or not.

But you sir are no Long, Bachar, Honnold..etc etc

Matt Pierce wrote:

You say youve only been climbing 2 years. So youre new and your gear placement sucked. Maybe just wear a helmet until youre more comfortable leading on gear. The climbers you mention werent or arent spraying stories like yours online.

^^^^ this

Also +1,000 on FrankPS' point about multi-pitch; do what you want on single pitch, it's your life to loose and I'd still belay you.

I'm not the helmet police and I couldn't give a shit if you set a bad example or cut your forehead open or whatever (and I half-agree with you about SAR knowing what they're getting into). My point was mainly don't come spraying your story on MP and then call people hypocrites when they chastise you for not wearing a helmet. If you would've worn one, you'd have to no story to tell.

Matt Pierce wrote:

You say youve only been climbing 2 years. So youre new and your gear placement sucked. Maybe just wear a helmet until youre more comfortable leading on gear. The climbers you mention werent or arent spraying stories like yours online.

I disagree. You can be very experienced and still be forced to make compromising placements on routes. you won’t always have the perfect piece and you may not always be on a route that has perfect protection. 

When a piece popped on me, I had plenty of experience and knew it wasn’t a perfect placement. The next piece was bomber though and it caught me. I still climb routes of all safety ratings and attempt to mitigate the risk in a conservative manner. 

WTF is up with 22 y/o's?

(aka OP's new partner)

Matt Pierce wrote:

You say youve only been climbing 2 years. So youre new and your gear placement sucked. Maybe just wear a helmet until youre more comfortable leading on gear. The climbers you mention werent or arent spraying stories like yours online.

This is quite an ignorant post considering you don’t know me, my climbing, placements, comfort leading, or what I meant when I asked about free soloist. 

I guess you can’t have constructive discourse with all the Mountain Project members though, now can you? 

Ryan Wood wrote:

This is quite an ignorant post considering you don’t know me, my climbing, placements, comfort leading, or what I meant when I asked about free soloist. 

I guess you can’t have constructive discourse with all the Mountain Project members though, now can you? 

No, he's right. Two years gives you pretty limited context for a well developed sense of and ability to implement high quality risk management in climbing... even if you climbed 200 days a year. Just the fact that you stated that a helmet conveys arbitrary and subjective risk mitigation tells me you don't appreciate the realities. 

Over the years I have worn a helmet sometimes a lot and sometimes less. I wear it more now than less. I usually always wear it for free soloing (which isn't that often anyway). I do think newer climbers should wear helmets most of the time as they log miles and figure shit out. I would include a time line of two years' experience and trying to lead 5.10 in the Valley as "probably should wear a helmet" type of newer climber.

I've never been hit by gear that pulled. I haven't had a lot of gear pull tbh, but I have fallen on plenty of my placements of all sizes. One time I was belaying a friend and about 4 nuts popped out and came screaming down 20+ feet of rope and hit my hand. I thought it was broken for a minute. I didn't notice them coming at me cause my eyes were on him, getting ready to catch a whip I could tell was coming. I had my non-brake hand lightly on the rope above my ATC because I was getting ready to yard in, and that's when they hit me. I can't say I wasn't pissed.

K Weber wrote:

Free Soloists and BASE jumpers that have kids, wives, dependents are utter selfish assholes.  The ol saying "He died doing what he loved" is a load of BS.  If you think that Bachar's son and any of the other fatherless kids are saying that, you would be wrong . They would rather have a regular ol dad.  I have said it peoples face and I would say it to Bachar, Osmand, Leary, Reardon and others.  How much money has Ammon stolen from taxes payers for his rescues and medical bills?

This. If you have people that are dependent on you, soloing is irresponsible. If you are a single guy/gal without kids, solo away.

Ryan Wood wrote:

This is quite an ignorant post considering you don’t know me, my climbing, placements, comfort leading, or what I meant when I asked about free soloist. 

I guess you can’t have constructive discourse with all the Mountain Project members though, now can you? 

OK, fair enough, I shouldnt assume some things but the fact remains that your post read like you're a newb who took a nasty whipper and you want to spray about a little blood loss so we will all be impressed. I got news for ya - you're story isn't epic and nobody cares. 

This whole thing reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ854rwQZUI

"Oh dude, you popped 3 pieces, nice!" when the guy nearly decked. But Brah - at least he had an epic video to spray on youtube!

Matt Pierce wrote:

OK, fair enough, I shouldnt assume some things but the fact remains that your post read like you're a newb who took a nasty whipper and you want to spray about a little blood loss so we will all be impressed. I got news for ya - you're story isn't epic and nobody cares. 

I agree, the story is not epic, and I doubt few actually care. My post was simply a question as to if this happens often, as I stated before, the folks in my climbing circle hadn’t heard of it, it was not to spray about blood loss or for people to care that I fell and had a cam pop, as I’ve fallen countless other times, with no pieces impacting my body or failing.

Also, for those that are missing the argument, I’m in no way saying that helmets are not safer to wear or arguing the merits of risk mitigation, I’m arguing risk tolerance and personal decision making after assessing said risks. 

And also, your logic is quite flawed @Aerili, I’d fully assert that if I’ve climbed 200 days in the last year,  which I have easily, considering I live on the road and climb full time (~100 outdoors and easily that many in gyms...), that amount of practice and experience would lend itself to someone being quite capable considering it takes some people 5 years to climb that many days outside. Additionally, I’ve spent multiple days solely on the ground focusing on anchoring, being guided by one of the top guiding companies/people in California, who I’m sure any experienced climber knows, as well as a large portion of my climbs being trad routes... Quality experience is still quality experience, regardless of if the timeframe is condensed or expanded. 

A flared pin scar is always going to be more marginal than a deep splitter crack, etc. etc. 

Also, your comment about people with 2 years leading 5.10 in The Valley and example of multiple-piece failure is quite baseless for the first and off-topic for the second, and just further cements the fact people aren’t grasping what I was originally saying about helmets, risk or judgement. 

As is often the case, posting on Mountain Project ultimately devolves into the majority of people bashing others baselessly and making comments based off misinterpreting or misreading comments, and of people’s own experiences extrapolated to the community as a whole... or just flat out being too stupid to grasp the actual message in a post. Solid reminder why I rarely post in the forums. 

So, apparently blown cams hitting people is quite common. Cool. Got the answer to my original question :)

Matt Pierce your posts read like a middle aged curmudgeon who barely climbs 5.10 getting off on being shitty online. Buhbye now.

master gumby wrote: Matt Pierce your posts read like a middle aged curmudgeon who barely climbs 5.10 getting off on being shitty online. Buhbye now.

Welcome back, master. If you are the OG master gumby I know!

Shelton Hatfield wrote: I've seen a couple variations of this. I think this type of thing is especially common aid climbing. Don't look at a piece while you bounce test! I'm glad you didn't lose any teeth :)

I once saw someone lose half a tooth cleaning a stopper. Keep that mouth closed!

This was the only reason I ever wore a helmet back in the 90’s

I’ve taken a few to the lid bounce testing.. you learn to look down pretty quick.. 
Oh-and #Hatfields 

master gumby wrote: Matt Pierce your posts read like a middle aged curmudgeon who barely climbs 5.10 

Guilty as charged

Ryan Wood wrote:

And also, your logic is quite flawed @Aerili, I’d fully assert that if I’ve climbed 200 days in the last year, which I have easily, considering I live on the road and climb full time (~100 outdoors and easily that many in gyms...), that amount of practice and experience would lend itself to someone being quite capable considering it takes some people 5 years to climb that many days outside. Additionally, I’ve spent multiple days solely on the ground focusing on anchoring, being guided by one of the top guiding companies/people in California, who I’m sure any experienced climber knows. Quality experience is still quality experience, regardless of if the timeframe is condensed or expanded. 

A flared pin scar is always going to be more marginal than a deep splitter crack, etc. etc. 

Also, your comment about people with 2 years leading 5.10 in The Valley and example of multiple-piece failure is quite baseless for the first and off-topic for the second, and just further cements the fact people aren’t grasping what I was originally saying about helmets, risk or judgement. 

As is often the case, posting on Mountain Project ultimately devolves into the majority of people bashing others baselessly and making comments based off misinterpreting or misreading comments, and of people’s own experiences extrapolated to the community as a whole... or just flat out being too stupid to grasp the actual message in a post. Solid reminder why I rarely post in the forums. 

Dude with less than 400 days climbing and some classes with a guide asserts he can possess quality of experience and knowledge equivalent to those with actual knowledge and experience . As someone with 17 years of climbing time, I would tell you 5 years of climbing is not even "that" experienced. Being strong and taking some classes isn't a substitute for both depth and breadth. 2 years on the road is just a start. You can't vastly accelerate everything in life. And you can backpedal all you want on your statements of the worth of risk mitigation, but I read what you wrote. 

It's not uncommon for climbers with a few years' experience to lack humility and consider their knowledge pretty profound. I was you, once.
 
P.S. People aren't bashing you for the most part. They are just making valid points. An experienced climber would know that.

Aerili wrote:

Dude with less than 400 days climbing and some classes with a guide asserts he can possess quality of experience and knowledge equivalent to those with actual knowledge and experience . As someone with 17 years of climbing time, I would tell you 5 years of climbing is not even "that" experienced. Being strong and taking some classes isn't a substitute for both depth and breadth. 2 years on the road is just a start. You can't vastly accelerate everything in life. And you can backpedal all you want on your statements of the worth of risk mitigation, but I read what you wrote. 

It's not uncommon for climbers with a few years' experience to lack humility and consider their knowledge pretty profound. I was you, once.
 
P.S. People aren't bashing you for the most part. They are just making valid points. An experienced climber would know that.

^^^

This, but not just for climbing, for life in general. Younger people doing the exact thing to me that I did to my elders, "Ok, Boomer".  I've been climbing 25+ years, but never got up anything harder than .11+.  Live in a flat state so I climb mostly single pitch crags and TR. Do a couple road trips a year.

But now that I'm older, I realize how stupid I was and how little I actually knew.  Just like all the millennials are doing to me now...

Aerili wrote:

Dude with less than 400 days climbing and some classes with a guide asserts he can possess quality of experience and knowledge equivalent to those with actual knowledge and experience . As someone with 17 years of climbing time, I would tell you 5 years of climbing is not even "that" experienced. Being strong and taking some classes isn't a substitute for both depth and breadth. 2 years on the road is just a start. You can't vastly accelerate everything in life. And you can backpedal all you want on your statements of the worth of risk mitigation, but I read what you wrote. 

It's not uncommon for climbers with a few years' experience to lack humility and consider their knowledge pretty profound. I was you, once.
 
P.S. People aren't bashing you for the most part. They are just making valid points. An experienced climber would know that.

Your response proves my point perfectly. Thank you.

Ryan Wood wrote:

Your response proves my point perfectly. Thank you.

And yours proves mine.   

abandon moderation wrote: I just want to point that in 'murica a 16 year old kid with no driving experience save what they did to get their license can go buy this, no questions asked: 

If you don't know what it is, it's a stupidly fast (dangerous) motorcycle that easily goes 190mph.

Now we know that the human brain doesn't stop developing until about 25. For a teenager, this bike is basically a death sentence.

Why do we (as a society) allow this? Because 'muricans value freedom to do what they want.

Hold on...does it really do 190mph without some absurd modifications??? I heard you had to install a new exhaust system, air intake, new fuel injector mods etc... So it will go 190 after it is heavily modified.

My Honda Interceptor VF1000F would do about 150mph at 10,000 rpm. The Ninja was actually a faster bike (Kawasaki), and I've never wanted to go faster. One mistake and you are dead. MN has a lot of deer.