Accident Report and Analysis after a 30ft trad fall including a broken wire and two ripped pieces.

Marc Hwrote:

So you’re saying that a climber hanging by a rope clipped through a piece of gear (standard lead setup), is putting twice his weight in force on said piece? Am I understanding this correctly?

Do things change if you’re staticly hanging from a no-stretch sling off of a piece of gear? Is the climber putting twice his weight in force on the sling, ‘biner, piece of pro?

Actually, the peak load could be four times bodyweight.  The reason is that when the rope is loaded, it stretches and then recovers.  At maximum stretch the rope tension is twice bodyweight, so that makes a peak load of four times bodyweight on the piece.   When the rope recovers, the load goes back down to twice body weight or somewhat less, as friction over the top carabiner insulates some of the load from the belay side.

Here's another thing:  if the belayer isn't continually short-roping the leader, there's likely to be three feet of slack in the system.  So being six feet above the piece might result in  a fall height of 15 feet, not 12 feet.  The more rope in the system, the less this matters, but it could be significant lower down.

When you start protecting with tiny nuts, you need two or three together or a short distance apart to have much certainty that something will work.

climbing hard on micro gear is not a good place to fall.  I have had my own gear rippers from that sillyness. fourtunatly never got hurt badly.  Micro gear  can be truck but it has to be placed absolutely perfectly to be truck and then if there is not enough rope in the system it can simply break.  I have had  a huge fall stopped by a perfectly placed #2 Chiounard soldered wire after the #3 wire ripped. I have  had a huge fall stopped by a #13 stopper after a #0 purple TCU  and a #6 stopper ripped. Bigger is better... 

Kyle, I am glad you posted. I have had micro-cams hold my falls so I have to admit I have been getting too comfortable. I think I will think a bit harder after reading this. Luckily I don’t weight as much as you (short girl factor). I hope you heal soon. 

Thanks for the honest self assessment.  I'm amazed that you rationalized not wearing your helmet while leading a trad route.  Generally, I'm bewildered by climbers deciding when to wear a helmet and rationalizing not wearing them for all kinds of reasons.  Just put the thing on when you put your harness on.  If it is always on, it will be on when you take a bad fall or something weird happens.

Another consideration here is that the 0.3 was in a horizontal. I've whipped in 0.3 BD/blue metolius lots of times and I trust those pieces when placed well, I don't think of those as "aid pieces" like micro stoppers. Horizontal placements can be totally bomber, but they involve additional factors when considering their quality. This video does a good job explaining: 

https://youtu.be/hp6upPAj4nQ

Edit to add: these factors can be exacerbated by rigid stems (as with, say, the BD ultralight camalots). In fact, there is an old Sharp End Podcast episode of a climber ripping gear out of a horizontal and decking from of The Evictor in Eldo. The climber in question implicates the rigid stems in part of his analysis, and I agree. 

Dave Aliewrote:Edit to add: these factors can be exacerbated by rigid stems (as with, say, the BD ultralight camalots). In fact, there is an old Sharp End Podcast episode of a climber ripping gear out of a horizontal and decking from of The Evictor in Eldo. The climber in question implicates the rigid stems in part of his analysis, and I agree. 

IMO - the Evictor placements failed due to trusting a flaring placement.  He cited cams larger than everyone else uses to get a more secure placement in a constriction further back in the crack.  These kinds of placements should be aid only, if that. 

James Wwrote:

IMO - the Evictor placements failed due to trusting a flaring placement.  He cited cams larger than everyone else uses to get a more secure placement in a constriction further back in the crack.  These kinds of placements should be aid only, if that. 

IIRC, they are not really horizontal placements either. The stem would be pointing mostly down for those placements.

ScoJowrote:

IIRC, they are not really horizontal placements either. The stem would be pointing mostly down for those placements.

I think my comment is confusing as written, I'll try to clarify what I meant. It's true, they're not horizontal as in the gunk's example given; I assumed the climber was talking about that eyebrow/hood below the crack (but could be wrong). 

In the video, it is pointed out that the double axle design moves the lobes with respect to the rock. This can be made worse if a rigid stem levers the cam head up and toward one side of the crack such that one set of lobes is retracted and the other side expanded slightly. While the effect described in the video takes advantage of the double axle, I'm describing an adjacent phenomenon of translating (rather than rotating) the center of the cam head from being centered between the two walls, to pushed over toward one side in a way that produces a similar effect. It's not literally the same mechanism, however. This is a possibility in placements that are off to one side or are in some way atypical even if they aren't strictly horizontal. 

I agree with the posters that it's not the central cause of the failure in the Evictor case, and in retrospect it was a bad example on my part because it's muddied my point. It came to mind because it was a higher profile (relatively) case of this aspect of placement quality being discussed. I only meant to point out that the climber is smart to consider it while making an exhaustive list of possible contributing factors. He's not wrong that the stiff stems can introduce unwanted force vectors in a fall where the stem encounters rock in some way near the edge of the crack (or on in inside wall) and can contribute to a failure. Was that the case on the Evictor? Very possibly not as there's other reasons to be dubious, particularly the flare. But I rarely hear it discussed with beginners that some placements in non-splitter locations have to be evaluated by more than just "what is the degree or retraction here/ is this the right size cam for this crack." Since as the video mentions, both the #1 and #2 can be yanked out of the shallow Gunks horizontal even though at first glance they look like they "fit."

You guys are over thinking it. small cams and nuts that are not absolutely perfectly placed stand a great chance of failing. the hows and whys of it really don't matter beyond  the fact that its micro gear and needs to be perfect to hold an actual fall. If the crack is flared or the rock is soft or it was the wrong size piece or anything else YGD all day long. .  is what it is.  just because you were lucky and good a few times and micro gear held a big whip for you is no guarantee that if you treat the stuff like it's a bolt  you won't eventually get burned.  In my experience It's almost certain that if you huck big on micro gear regularly you will eventually get burned. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

You guys are over thinking it.

Ha! Definitely. 

As to your main point that small gear is going to fail some small but not insignificant portion of the time, I 100% agree. I've had improbable gear hold a fall, and I've had them rip out. this is to your point: micro is as micro does. As far as distilling it down to an actionable principle you might weave into an in-the-moment decision making process, your framing of it is exactly how folks should think: assess the placement to the best of your ability, but be aware of the holding power of small pieces, assume that it is a real possibility that your micro piece could fail anyway, and adjust accordingly. 

However when micro gear does fail, it fails for a reason. Maybe the reasons are too hard to parse given small margins and things you maybe can't see, and thus this aren't really helpful (and would be egregious overthinking in the moment). But in the very different setting of the forums, stuck at home, some of us enjoy those particulars either because it's just an interesting engineering problem or because the fact if the discussions encourages critical thinking about the issues at play and deepens our understanding of the systems we build and rely on. I've learned loads of stuff from forum conversations over the years and I hope new climbers continue to educate themselves and adopt safer practicers through this resource. It's why we post accident reports like this in the first place, after all. 

Dave. I completely understand the why of the conversation. I do however feel that its rather unproductive to try and analyze the mode of failure beyond the fact that its micro gear.  Without close up frame by frame analysis from HD slow mo video it is all just speculation. The KISS principal applies rather well here. Its micro gear, treat it like a bolt and sooner or later it will fail because it is not a bolt.  It is micro gear.  Even if you are highly skilled and paying attention  if you huck on enough micro gear at some point it will fail  because its micro gear. Is what it is. If you are not highly skilled it will fail sooner rather than later.  The only thing that will determine if you get hurt and how bad will be luck and  how many eggs you had in that basket.   BTW I love my Micro gear I just don't fall on it anymore..  I am almost 60 and hopefully getting smarter :)  I used to go in cycles of getting more and more comfortable falling on tiny shit and then getting burned about once every two years. Only reason I never got mangled was luck and placing enough pieces that eventually something held before I went splat. 

This is a pretty good point.

For 25 years I’ve been climbing routes with micro gear. For me, I’ll say that’s stuff smaller than .3.

I’ve made dozens or hundreds of shady placements.

This isn’t to say that I implicitly trust that size.

Fact is, very seldom have I fallen on that size. So seldom that I can vividly remember most of the falls I’ve had on the teeny stuff. That number might be 10 falls. Most have held, some have ripped. In both cases I have tried to backup the pieces if I can, get more gear in ASAP, and do my best not to fall.

What’s next, whipping all willy nilly on ice screws?

Black totems are smaller than .3 and incredibly reliable (when placed properly). The hyperbole is well deserved.

That same size is also protected pretty well with a red c3

Ignoring aid sizes; .2 and .1 are where I like to nest, examine the placement on TR (if it’s an important placement), and or treat it like leader must not fall scenario.

I've taken or caught 8 falls on gear smaller than a BD 0.3. Blue TCU, purple TCU, green C3, etc. 

2/8 ripped out. Both of the failed placements were by experienced leaders.

Eric. that is exactly what I am getting at. that stuff can be absolutely truck until its not.....   best to not put all the eggs in that one basket...   If you routinely put yourself in situations where the only thing keeping you off  a ledge or the deck is a single piece of micro gear sooner or later you will get mangled. 

Personally i only feel happy when the micro gear is above a constriction, anything else is highly suspect. 

Back that shit up.

Adam Burch wrote:

Lol!

I'm the best.

Indeed you are Adam, if I had to backpay you for everytime over the many years you've been around and have made me laugh, my bank account would be much smaller. HOWEVER....there are times where you push right up to that "cringe line" where the reader of your post cringes or winces. That usually occurs in these accident threads. Shrugs...jus' sayin' is all. 

We all get out and get at it, and bad shit could occur to even the most experienced of us. Sometimes folks sharing their bad misfortune are trying to assist in the education for those who have not yet  met said misfortune, and those folks could use some sympathy and a hug. 

Best to you Adam, and especially to both Kyles. Hopefully they get back at it and stay healthy and happy.   

An interesting short story from Kyle- https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-me-bounce-back

When sport climbers think trad climbing is just sport climbing with gear: the thread.

I wonder how OP feels knowing he was just soloing all those easy trad routes.

The Sharp End put out an episode on this subject. 

https://soundcloud.com/the_sharp_end/pulling-pieces-in-california-ep-72

Haven't listened to it myself.