Bailing on trad gear

Gloweringwrote:

I’ll go beyond saying you’re shouldn’t be embarrassed and say you should be proud..

Even further.

I find the challenge of recovering the bail gear can be an adventure in itself. And the also rewarding to later be back at camp or at home, to feel good about recovering bail gear and thinking about / researching / discussing what you’ll try next time you return to the route or find yourself at a similar conundrum.

Central to it all is knowing when your placements are good for the intended purpose. 

Your life, Priceless.

Your gear, no so much.

William Givenswrote:

Anyone know of resources on when to bail and how to bail? From my research it seems like most people just do not ever bail on trad.

you don't really need resources for that, it's actually pretty simple: you bail when you get that gut feeling that you need to bail and you leave behind as much gear as you feel is necessary to get you down in one piece.  note that these are very individual thresholds.  no resource is going to teach you that, but it's good to think about what is going to happen if things go sideways (ie you keep going, your bailing system fails, etc.).

i wholeheartedly agree with the early comment about living and learning and if you've never bailed on trad there's a good chance you haven't done a whole bunch of trad...  

William Givenswrote:

^thanks for the reply!

Slightly more context - I’m getting into trad and mostly with a friend who’s equally inexperienced. I get opportunities to climb with very experienced climbers, but not every time I go climbing. We have tried easing into trad, but I’m bored with 5.3-5.6. Felt good about this 5.8- route bc I climb TR much higher and had climbed the 5.8- route that the story is about on TR before with no issues.

Ended up setting up TR to collect my gear in the rain.

Anyone know of resources on when to bail and how to bail? From my research it seems like most people just do not ever bail on trad.

Keep in mind a 5.8 crack climb will tend to feel sandbagged as hell for someone who climbs way higher sport grades but is fairly new to crack technique.  I've had to down lead on 5.8 trad (it was a squeeze chimney) before early in my trad life when I was easily onsighting 11 sport climbs that were overhung crimpy limestone.  I think you did about the best you could with a bail considering the situation.  Funny now that I think about it the last time I bailed was on a 5.10 squeeze chimney last year.  I got to the first squeeze crux which I later found out I was just small enough to fit into and I ended up blocking myself by placing a gold big bro.  I had to bail on the big bro (on a less than ideal placement lol) and then we climbed a 5.8 next to it to setup the top rope and retrieve the bro and try it on top rope.

Mark Hudonwrote:

Your life, Priceless.

Your gear, no so much.

Inb4 someone with a Silent Partner comments lol.

Sort of mentioned already, but "down leading", or my preferred way of "down aiding" is the simplest way to bail on a route and get all of your pieces back. Just lower to your last piece, clip in direct, clean your last piece, repeat. Use the prusik method if there's significant runout between pieces so you don't risk a major fall. Check out Beta Climber on YouTube if you cant picture how to use a prusik like this, he just put out a video with this technique. Down aiding is a good skill to have. If the route's easy enough, down leading is the same, just saves some time.

If you're "hmmmm"ing about this, you're either a troll, are so good you've never need to bail off a route, or never tried anything above you're limit. It's the most basic concept of all time.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

Sort of mentioned already, but "down leading", or my preferred way of "down aiding" is the simplest way to bail on a route and get all of your pieces back. Just lower to your last piece, clip in direct, clean your last piece, repeat. Use the prusik method if there's significant runout between pieces so you don't risk a major fall. Check out Beta Climber on YouTube if you cant picture how to use a prusik like this, he just put out a video with this technique. Down aiding is a good skill to have. If the route's easy enough, down leading is the same, just saves some time.

Hmmm....

William Givenswrote:

^thanks for the reply!

Slightly more context - I’m getting into trad and mostly with a friend who’s equally inexperienced. I get opportunities to climb with very experienced climbers, but not every time I go climbing. We have tried easing into trad, but I’m bored with 5.3-5.6. Felt good about this 5.8- route bc I climb TR much higher and had climbed the 5.8- route that the story is about on TR before with no issues.

Ended up setting up TR to collect my gear in the rain.

Anyone know of resources on when to bail and how to bail? From my research it seems like most people just do not ever bail on trad.

Learn to downclimb. Practice downclimbing boulders, and learn to down climb to rest stances when on lead. You can down climb an entire pitch if you need to, cleaning as you go and sometimes if you hit a crux that you can’t downclimb, you can clip into a piece and makeshift down-aid a couple moves. It isn’t as hard as it sounds. Makes life easier when you need to bail. 

Mark Dwrote:

The gods were smiling upon them that day. They didn’t tick their failed attempt on MP, so I guess I’ll never know if their brashness catches up with them. I returned said nut to them later that day, and they were poor camp counselors, so I’m sure that factored into their decision making.

I’m gonna guess they were fairly experienced and knew that nut was in a nice bottle neck. If you know that piece is so bomber and never coming out the only thing u have to worry about is your equipment failing.

William Givenswrote:

Fairly embarrassed to share my story but I’m struggling to find literature on what to do in my situation.

Long story short, I was going for a new trad grade and placed way too much at the bottom and was missing gear I needed when I got to the crux. Didn’t want to whip micronuts, and it began raining. I was too pumped to build an anchor but I placed an additional nut just below my previous placement, and asked for a slow and stable lower while I grabbed big jugs on the way down.

Is this the right move? Is it common to bail on trad mid route?

I would have taken the time to equalize at least two solid pieces. If the pro you leave are in series, blown gear may shock load.

The time to hang and build an anchor or equalized gear is when you have the rest of the pro below you before they're cleaned. I'd also leave a locking carabiner or two non-locking opposite and opposed.

You'd want a smooth lower-- jerky lowering could shift weight/direction and shift the pro above you. I'd hold onto the jugs in-so-far it'd allow that and not disturb the gear above me.

Absolutely-- right move. Like someone else mentioned, if you're pushing yourself and doing interesting climbing, you'd have to bail from time-to-time. Practicing bailing and risk assessment is a part of trad.

I would just mention that hopefully you had checked the weather before the climb and started climbing knowing there was a chance of rain and accepted that risk in climbing and with some sort of a backup/bail plan. If not, then this is good feedback for better planning next time. :)

James Jenwrote:

 I'd also leave a locking carabiner or two non-locking opposite and opposed.

I mean this isn't bad - but if you're just getting lowered, there's little reason to insist on a locker or opposed biner. Say, just when building gear anchor for instance, one often clips just the biner from a cam directly/clove hitch it directly and that's considered fine (even thought the use of the anchor is less standard/predictable than that of bail pieces, where you won't move around/go above).

Franck Veewrote:

I mean this isn't bad - but if you're just getting lowered, there's little reason to insist on a locker or opposed biner. Say, just when building gear anchor for instance, one often clips just the biner from a cam directly/clove hitch it directly and that's considered fine (even thought the use of the anchor is less standard/predictable than that of bail pieces, where you won't move around/go above).

You're probably right-- but I personally haven't been enough bail scenarios to be able to foresee everything that could happen and know for sure things won't shift and ropes won't run out of the carabiner.

Bail situations happens so infrequently and the consequence of a loose rope from the high point is so great that to me, this is worth the extra cost/effort of a additional non-locking or use of a locking carabiner. For me, the peace of mind and the gained safety is worth the extra $10 of gear.

James Jenwrote:

I would have taken the time to equalize at least two solid pieces. If the pro you leave are in series, blown gear may shock load.

The time to hang and build an anchor or equalized gear is when you have the rest of the pro below you before they're cleaned. I'd also leave a locking carabiner or two non-locking opposite and opposed.

You'd want a smooth lower-- jerky lowering could shift weight/direction and shift the pro above you. I'd hold onto the jugs in-so-far it'd allow that and not disturb the gear above me.

Absolutely-- right move. Like someone else mentioned, if you're pushing yourself and doing interesting climbing, you'd have to bail from time-to-time. Practicing bailing and risk assessment is a part of trad.

I would just mention that hopefully you had checked the weather before the climb and started climbing knowing there was a chance of rain and accepted that risk in climbing and with some sort of a backup/bail plan. If not, then this is good feedback for better planning next time. :)

I like this approach.  It means more mountain booty!

Gumby Kingwrote:

I like this approach.  It means more mountain booty!

And less dead bodies.

Just aid your way down. Theres no reason why someone couldn't get back to the ground with all of their pieces if they know how to go in direct to their gear.

Matthew Jaggerswrote:

Just aid your way down. Theres no reason why someone couldn't get back to the ground with all of their pieces if they know how to go in direct to their gear.

This is impossible on many, many, many! trad routes.

Furthermore, if there are "jugs" to grab onto, just downclimb the damn thing.  

Downleading a route you just led can be so instructive.  If it feels super scary or sketchy, it could be a sign that you didn't place enough gear on the way up.  You'll be able to observe how your placements react as the rope pulls against them, and if you used an appropriate number of slings, etc.  You might notice features that you could have hit in a fall, or something like an awkward pendulum, that wasn't obvious on the way up.  

Alexander Blumwrote:

This is impossible on many, many, many! trad routes.

If you know how to jug a rope, boink, and pull on gear, I dont know how it would be "impossible". I do place, and bring a lot of gear though. Maybe those runout types of folks won't know how to do what im describing because they are already sketch as hell and can't go back down the way they came.

James Jenwrote:

I would have taken the time to equalize at least two solid pieces. If the pro you leave are in series, blown gear may shock load.

The time to hang and build an anchor or equalized gear is when you have the rest of the pro below you before they're cleaned. I'd also leave a locking carabiner or two non-locking opposite and opposed.

You'd want a smooth lower-- jerky lowering could shift weight/direction and shift the pro above you. I'd hold onto the jugs in-so-far it'd allow that and not disturb the gear above me.

I would say if you are concerned about taking a TR fall or a jerky lower causing your gear to blow you need to improve your gear placement abilities. 

Why would you lead something you might not onsight if you think your gear can only hold bodyweight+. You should practice bounce testing and aiding on gear more to get more trust in the gear before you get in this situation.

As for the lockers vs non lockers, a continuously weighted biner will rarely if ever have the rope jump out. Another way of saving some gear is to throw some climbing tape around the gate to secure it closed. Ghetto locker :).

@Matthew

Would you down-lead these routes? None of these are sketchy to lead, at all.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105989353/vascular-disaster

Starts with a V3/V4 campus problem. I wouldn't be thrilled to try reversing it.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106777987/do-or-dive

Reversing a runout 10a crux? Maybe if I had to, but would strongly prefer not to.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106361123/stab-in-the-dark

Finishes on extremely runout 5.8. Easy enough to downclimb, but if you're sketched enough (or weather is coming, etc) I would personally much rather lower.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106890310/the-will-to-power

Scary, but safe lead. Nothing sketchy about it. Clean falls. No way in hell would I down-lead this route. Stuff like this is common everywhere.

Being able to back off by downclimbing is an important skill. I should practice it more - we probably all should! It's different than bailing though, and appropriate in different situations. If I am bailing there is either inclement weather incoming, or the route has totally wigged me out, or I am totally exhausted and demoralized. I am not down-leading in any of those situations.