What's wrong with this picture?

Old lady Hwrote:

Watched most of the video. The screenshot is at 8:54.

There are other shots of further top belays. Clearly  (unless there's more stuff I'm not seeing), they know what they're doing, and from the discussion, this was a mistake.

Betcha anything, he fiddled with something else in the middle of setting up, and the brain decided it had completed the usual task in the usual way.

This isn't a noob mistake. To my eyes, its the much scarier type that anyone is capable of making. 

A question?

On popular climbs that will likely have other parties climbing? Are you better off staying a little closer, so you have the benefit of hearing "ice!"? I was struck by the courtesy George got, with that being repeated down to him, even "big ice" or "little ice". Or would you leave more distance and hope you see/hear it coming? 

This will never be me, ice cragger on top rope, at most, just curious.

H.

I have to disagree with you that this was not a noob mistake.  

Watching this video, I don't come to the conclusion that "they know what they're doing."   

I don't think that this was a situation where he was planning on using the Reverso in "guide mode" and then just forgot to do it.  

It looks to me more like he wanted to bring his second up on the Reverso without using the guide mode autoblock feature.  

Bringing a second up in guide mode involves a fair amount of friction.  It feels very different than non-guide mode belaying.   There's almost no way that you could bring a second up an entire rope length and not notice.  

Looks to me that he figured the climbing was easy enough not to need an autoblock, and went with a non-autoblocking set up to make taking in rope faster and easier.  

The leader's run outs, not protecting the belay with a "Jesus nut" (or screw in this case) were also not doing anything good for the team's safety.  

I've made a lot of mistakes in my climbing career.  Some of them should have killed me.  Some of them endangered my partner.  Some of them were careless.  Some of them were due to poor decisions or ignorance.  Luckily, I lived through them and never killed anyone.    

I had someone do that to me a couple months ago. They were newer to trad multi pitch, gave themselves a ton of rope drag, got flustered setting the anchor, and then clipped the keeper-wire instead of the metal loop to belay me up. Hard to overstate how serious a screw up that is. 

In the picture it's pretty scary that someone experienced enough for "full-value wintertime alpine mountaineering" made that mistake. there's a few sketchy things in that video, but the belay is definitely the worst. 

I like the part when he steps on the rope pile with his crampons like Rick James.

Maybe I am paranoid but if I’m belaying from above I make sure my belay is going to do something. Like I weight it with my hands and body. I didn’t watch the video but I think after belaying for a minute they would notice their mistake and fix it.

Complacency, complexity and failure to double check can kill. News at 11.

Second Climber: Glad ur alive bro.

Lead Climber: Time to come to Jesus (or your patron Deity of Choice).

Kai Larsonwrote:

Screen grab from a youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lldx1Ie0c_0

When I see this kind of thing at the crag I cringe and mood dulls. For some reason when I see it online I laugh out loud. I love that you picked this mistake out of running video Kai! I do it all the time.

Fabien Mwrote:

Not saying that.
Saying that either it was a unintentional mistake of a guy that didn't know what he was doing or it was an intentional mistake a a guy who knew he was wrong but did it anyway...
It would be wrong in both cases but, to me, not the same kind of "wrong".

I have another example:
I see many mountain guides belaying clients on multipitch with a microtraxion (I ll not go into details about why). Is it design for that? of course not
What to think of a newbie at the crag belaying his mate with a microtraxion?
I think they are both wrong but one, more than the other.

Belaying from above with a Micro Traxion is allowed by Petzl with limitations. Read the Trax's instrutions and you'll see for yourself. A guide will be aware of a Trax's limitations in this mode. I wouldn't worry.

When the first guide belay devices came out i saw this same thing several times.  scary.

Here's another Youtube example of how to belay your second up an ice climb.    

The difference is that this guy is French, so it's perfectly safe.  

Kai Larsonwrote:

The difference is that this guy is French, so it's perfectly safe. 

This is why they don't need snow pickets in the Alps.  

This thread just got kicked into overdrive. These recent finds have been terrifying. 

My video, I was seconding, I did not catch it at the belay, mistakes were made and shit happens. Fortunately no BAD shit happened this day. My partner and I have discussed it at length and both agree it should not have been rigged this way; I believe that is abundantly clear. Complacency kills but bad shit happens even when you get everything right; it's called risk mitigation, not risk elimination.

Regardless, there are no excuses; it's a good teaching point on what NOT to do and I'm all about the transfer of knowledge.

Jason Economoswrote:

My video, I was seconding, I did not catch it at the belay, mistakes were made and shit happens. Fortunately no BAD shit happened this day. My partner and I have discussed it at length and both agree it should not have been rigged this way; I believe that is abundantly clear. Complacency kills but bad shit happens even when you get everything right; it's called risk mitigation, not risk elimination.

Regardless, there are no excuses; it's a good teaching point on what NOT to do and I'm all about the transfer of knowledge.

Thank you! A post like this? As far as I'm concerned, this is a climber who is now safer.

Truly glad it worked out without incident. I really appreciated the courtesy of passing the "ice!" warnings down to the other guy. 

Best, Helen

Jason Economoswrote:

My video, I was seconding, I did not catch it at the belay, mistakes were made and shit happens. Fortunately no BAD shit happened this day. My partner and I have discussed it at length and both agree it should not have been rigged this way; I believe that is abundantly clear. Complacency kills but bad shit happens even when you get everything right; it's called risk mitigation, not risk elimination.

Regardless, there are no excuses; it's a good teaching point on what NOT to do and I'm all about the transfer of knowledge.

Shit doesn't just happen, you are in control of your destiny.

That's my monumental fuckup.  

Missing the belay ring, I would have expected the device and the biner to drop to my feet, or go whizzing down the pitch.  But, it looks like it caught the retention cable instead of just dropping free, and stayed in place as I expected it to ... but it stayed in place for the wrong reason.  

A visual check should have caught this, and I should have seen this after pocketing my eyeglasses.  Just prior to this, my glasses had iced over to uselessness.  Worse than useless if this was the utter garbage I had allowed myself to rig up by mistake.

Diving into my storage drives and looking at the other belays from that day, it looks like this was the only pitch where this happened.

In the intervening months, I pitched that belay device off into oblivion out in Wyoming, so it can never do that again.

Me, however, until I finally pitch off into oblivion, myself, there will always be the possibility of mis-rigging something, and thus, why a methodical check with a questioning attitude, not just going through motions, is always the order of the day.  

Kai Larsonwrote:

Looks to me that he figured the climbing was easy enough not to need an autoblock, and went with a non-autoblocking set up to make taking in rope faster and easier. 

My intention was to run it as an autoblock.  And as you said, that method would have created more drag on the rope, but it being a very short pitch, I never noticed.  If I had, I would have locked Jason off on a hitch, re-rigged, and continued the belay.

It wasn't an effort to save time.  It was a missed clip, and a failure to identify it as such.

The climbing was easy, yes, but the main risk was the slab cutting loose.  If that happens, there's no self arrest, and the whole load goes to the belay.  It wouldn't have been a big shock to the belay, but nonetheless, a load that retention cable was never intended for.  

Old lady Hwrote:

There are other shots of further top belays. Clearly  (unless there's more stuff I'm not seeing), they know what they're doing, and from the discussion, this was a mistake.

Note: This post is not directed to Old lady H in particular, but to anyone who would not be seriously pissed when seeing this setup after arriving at a belay station. 

A diver who only once a year forgets to check his tank pressure before a dive, is not called "knowing what he's doing". 

A parachutist who "misfolds" his parachute only once every other year is not called "knowing what he's doing". 

A paraglider who tangles his strings only once a year is not called "knowing what he's doing".

A race car driver who forgets to check his tire pressure only once every other year is not called "knowing what he's doing". 

...

Why is it that we climbers "get a pass" (from some people) when doing unacceptable things? There are some activities within climbing where fu**ing up will quickly kill you (or your partner). Still, there's a lot of "oh, shit happens", "ah, whatever, better luck next try", "not ideal", "could be done better", "noob mistake, LOL", "he's a better climber after this",  ... 

The "mistake tolerance level" appears a lot higher within the climbing community than in other high-risk sports. Why is this?

Kai Larsonwrote:

Looks to me that he figured the climbing was easy enough not to need an autoblock, and went with a non-autoblocking set up to make taking in rope faster and easier.  

What is a "non-autoblocking setup"? I don't seem to find it in the user manual.

Patrikwrote:

What is a "non-autoblocking setup"? I don't seem to find it in the user manual.

Using the Reverso in normal mode as opposed to guide mode.  It doesn't autoblock.  

Kai Larsonwrote:

Screen grab from a youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lldx1Ie0c_0

There is no Bernie creeping in the background