Post Other (Not Awesome) Trad Videos Here

7:35 - "I think the best thing to do is stop being so scared and get some friends to help climb with you"  This is really telling.

I watched some other videos of this guy recently and although opinionated, I didn't get the feeling he was sketchy. Just mostly TRS stuff. Pretty locale, though. Ah, Fall.

To me the biggest mistake was no knots, then to make it worse, stacking the rope on the ledge while his last piece was way below him. This prevents the brake-side rope from providing weight for braking. It completely disregards the dynamics and could result in a grounder. When I've rope soloed with a grigri, the first defense is weight on the brake side, which you really start to pick up once you're 20-30 feet up. Knots are a backup if that fails.

Edited for clarity.

Also like to add that I don't lead solo any more. Too many risks, the main one - being alone.

TBH I don't think I've ever seen a lead solo video that wasn't somewhat sketchy. The reality of lead solo is that it's a huge amount of rope work to make it even close to as safe as leading with a partner. You're either spending more time faffing with ropes than climbing, or you're taking shortcuts (like not tying backup knots) that drastically increase the level of risk. If Pete Whittaker spent the time to dutifully tie backup knots in every five feet of his rope before each of Freerider's 30 pitches, he'd have passed his 24 hour deadline on rope work alone--I just don't believe that's what he did. Ultimately, if you're going to lead rope solo, you've got to either accept those risks, or relegate yourself to objectives that are small or not time-constrained.

Greg Miller wrote:

I’ve done a good bit of rope soloing, using both the silent partner and the edelrid eddy (with rope in backpack) which is my preferred method for multiple reason... no loops hanging off of you to get hung up, you can rap with the eddy to clean pitches, and it’s easy to take or do a lower off with it. I generally tie a back up knot when I’m stacking the rope but for the most part accept the risk of not having one every 20ft... the guy in this video is just down right sketchy and is putting himself in a dangerous situation From the start. Yes there are risks involved for any climbing, for rope soloing I take very calculated ones, and could probably do 2 pitches up in down in the time it took this guy to do one. Lead soloing is extremely rewarding and can be done efficiently to bad there are turds out there like this guy.

Have you taken any falls on this system?

With the weight of the rope supported by the backpack, there's some concern that there won't be enough force on the brake strand to lock the device. For this reason some folks keep out a loop of a few meters to give weight that acts as a "brake hand".

I've no skin in the game at this point--I long ago decided the time/safety tradeoffs were such that I'd rather boulder by myself when I don't have a partner.

I'm gonna try to make a comprehensive list of the things this guy did wrong.  Granted, some of these are subjective and open to argument; this is my take though:

1) Improper knot on ground anchor

2) Gri gri set up free-hanging off belay loop, no chest harness to orient the device, so no ability for device to auto feed

3) No precautions taken to prevent crossloading of the gri gri on its carabiner

4) No backup knots

5) No use of cache loop, so again no way for the device to auto feed as he climbed

6) Giant loop of excess slack on the ground, no use of knot or other technique to take up slack between ground anchor and 1st piece, I bet he would have decked from anywhere above his 1st piece until he clipped the second piece

7) Rope flaked upside down on ledges

8) No extension on a rather critical nut which he has to traverse left above

9) Started the climb without a plan for how he would reach the top anchor or clean his gear.  He tied off to his top anchor without understanding why.  With the description he gave, it sounds like his plan A was to build a natural anchor at the tree, clip through it, and then lower himself to the ground (with the whole strand tensioned between the ground anchor and the top).  Think about this for 5 seconds and you'll see there's no good way to clean the pitch this way.

10) No awareness/precautions against back feeding of the rope as you get high on a pitch

11) Doesn't know how to hand jam

12) Is oblivious to almost all these errors

13) Posted the video despite #12

14) Left the video up despite people pointing these things out in the comments section

Add any I forgot.

Greg Miller wrote:

David i've taken a falls on both the silent partner and eddy. As you climb with the eddy you do have a bit of a loop out so it feeds smoothly, the bonus of it is it is easy to grab the brake strand in a fall, which i have been able to do everytime, its also easier to pull in slack and take if needed. The silent partner you would always take a long fall. I will say it is all route dependent too, if something is runout at the start or harder, i may tie a back up knot at like 20 and 40ft, also while were on the subject, i also clean the pitches on the way down and then use one jumar with the brake strand redirected to the clip in point of it, then its a quick ascent up.

I took a few (intentional) falls on the Silent Partner back when I was trying out lead solo and it caught pretty fast.

One of my worries with all these systems is that they're so rope-dependent.

This is a real gem. I don't think it has been posted before. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztyw0l-O9EA&t=383s 

Brendan Thomaswrote:

This is a real gem. I don't think it has been posted before. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztyw0l-O9EA&t=383s 

I don’t know. That just looked like a very nervous new leader figuring things out and getting it done. Sure he made lots of mistakes along the way but we were all new at some point. Good for him. Though that was an astonishing number of tricams...

Agreed on most of it. It was the tri-cams that got me. As well as the ending where he goes above the bolts on the second pitch and belays off the trees. 

Aw, leave the poor dude alone. He's just a beginner and that climb is totally appropriate for his skill level. I did get a chuckle out of the giant tricams, but given the cost of cams and the locale, that's a perfectly reasonable beginner rack.

I hope that dude is still climbing and got swole since then.

The music plus maybe the anchor junk show and a 3 foot long tie-in knot (2:00)?

T Legowrote:

The music plus maybe the anchor junk show and a 3 foot long tie-in knot (2:00)?

Truly horrid.

wow this one's a real nightmare

T Legowrote:

The music plus maybe the anchor junk show and a 3 foot long tie-in knot (2:00)?

if they are trying to be funny then they are climbing comedic geniuses 

Derek Doucetwrote:

I don’t know. That just looked like a very nervous new leader figuring things out and getting it done. Sure he made lots of mistakes along the way but we were all new at some point. Good for him. Though that was an astonishing number of tricams...

Holy Tricam! I dunno, I have mixed feelings about this. If the 5.3 is so exciting-- including lead falls!-- I'm not sure you should really be on it. I was worried that the leader did not seem to appreciate the ledge-fall possibilities at many of the places where he seemed to be at his limit. And the incessant chit-chat & unnecessary belay commands were super irritating; he needs to learn to stop that shit. On the other hand his gear looked good and he seemed fine after his fall so maybe I'm overthinking it. I've actually never done that chimney pitch on Betty! Might give it a try... could be a good on-sight for me. 

https://youtu.be/jD9BFcDvutQ

Made a short edit of my ascent of the first flat iron. It’s a short edit and I’m really just getting started in the realm of video making. I will not be accepting any flak for not free soloing this. 

SethGwrote:

Holy Tricam! I dunno, I have mixed feelings about this. If the 5.3 is so exciting-- including lead falls!-- I'm not sure you should really be on it. I was worried that the leader did not seem to appreciate the ledge-fall possibilities at many of the places where he seemed to be at his limit. And the incessant chit-chat & unnecessary belay commands were super irritating; he needs to learn to stop that shit. On the other hand his gear looked good and he seemed fine after his fall so maybe I'm overthinking it. I've actually never done that chimney pitch on Betty! Might give it a try... could be a good on-sight for me. 

Completely agree. If you need to take a breather in the middle of the first pitch of this climb, you don’t have the bare minimum of climbing efficiency/endurance needed to be leading trad. I climbed this recently as a brand new leader/gunks climber, and didn’t find the chimney particularly strenuous. What if you find yourself off route, which is easy at the gunks and almost happened? If you don’t have any reserve, you can get into trouble quickly. The lack of climbing skill puzzles me, because he seems to know how to place gear and manage his rope ok.

Also, there is a perfect gear anchor on the belay ledge, the chains they use (and I think he clips the rappel rings?) are the rappel route and it would be super annoying for anyone coming down. 

Pieter Beerepootwrote:

Completely agree. If you need to take a breather in the middle of the first pitch of this climb, you don’t have the bare minimum of climbing efficiency/endurance needed to be leading trad. I climbed this recently as a brand new leader/gunks climber, and didn’t find the chimney particularly strenuous. 

FWIW, this was also one of my first outdoor leads, and at the time I did find the chimney very strenuous, because my gym climbing had never taught me how to stem. I've seen a lot of beginners flail on that section. If you don't stem, you're essentially pulling a roof there. That section is 5.0 if you stem, though.

That's one of the things that makes this route a good learning experience for beginners. You can learn to think about footwork on lead with bomber gear above you.

What if you find yourself off route, which is easy at the gunks and almost happened?

It has happened to me numerous times in the Gunks. As long as you're climbing conservatively and placing a lot of gear, it's fine. It doesn't seem like he's pulling any moves that are hard for him without a good piece above him, so I don't really see a problem.

The amount of hand-wringing here is kind of amusing. Do you guys even climb trad? I don't see how you ever moved beyond top roping with your level of risk-aversion.

David Kwrote:

FWIW, this was also one of my first outdoor leads, and at the time I did find the chimney very strenuous, because my gym climbing had never taught me how to stem. I've seen a lot of beginners flail on that section. If you don't stem, you're essentially pulling a roof there. That section is 5.0 if you stem, though.

That's one of the things that makes this route a good learning experience for beginners. You can learn to think about footwork on lead with bomber gear above you.

It has happened to me numerous times in the Gunks. As long as you're climbing conservatively and placing a lot of gear, it's fine. It doesn't seem like he's pulling any moves that are hard for him without a good piece above him, so I don't really see a problem.

The amount of hand-wringing here is kind of amusing. Do you guys even climb trad? I don't see how you ever moved beyond top roping with your level of risk-aversion.

I see your point, but there is a lot of room between gym climbing and leading trad. You can top rope, follow trad, or even lead sport to get competent climbing basic stuff outdoors.  I think that as a new leader with a presumably inexperienced partner, you should be climbing stuff comfortably within your technical ability, but perhaps that makes me too risk averse and obviously that’s up to each individual climber. 

That being said, isn’t the handwringing kind of the point of this thread? He made an effort to record and post this publicly, giving us opportunity to judge and discuss for our entertainment.