overheard at the crag: post it

slimwrote:

In both cases the employee said "you can't say on belay until after you clip the first piece." Calling this the 100% best practice?. ..  Hmmm.... Picture scrambling up to an exposed ledge with a belay bolt, your belayer clips in, and you ask " on belay?"  " no can do my friend, but i can spot you until you claw your way up to that first piece.. " lolz...

First, you should be letting your partner know that, yeah, you are ready to belay and they can climb. Second, this doesn't translate well to multipitch climbing or climbing a first pitch in an exposed situation.  Why complicate things by trying to create unnecessary situational variations.

it's the difference between "in practice" vs in gym proficiency testing settings at the end of the day, as goofy as it may be

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/121866761/what-do-you-mean-when-you-say-on-belay

Move it over to the new thread. Thanks.

Isaac Mann-Silvermanwrote:

Pedantry is the purpose of the internet.

The internet is for porn. Pedantry is just a very popular kink.

Ryan Woodwrote:

Classic. Took a buddy of mine out to Joshua Tree. He sends up to 5.12+ in the gym. Couldn’t muster anything above 5.7 at Josh.

His final comment as we sat at Pie for the People after: “Outdoor climbing is fucking dumb, the gym is so much better.”

wait im confused, do people actually think like this? i havent climbed in joshua tree or gunks so im sure i would definitely be humbled if i went there, but ive sent a few 11- inside and got my first 10a onsight this week, and have led multiple tens outside. not saying theyve been pretty or theyve all been clean, but ive gotten up them. i thought it was pretty much just the same for everyone else ? like you’re probably not climbing at your max indoor grade but that makes sense. 

Not my story but was told by a friend. Watching someone come off a dog draw and back onto the rope, loudly:

"I'm coming on you" 

Mary Elizabeth Beckwithwrote:

wait im confused, do people actually think like this? i havent climbed in joshua tree or gunks so im sure i would definitely be humbled if i went there, but ive sent a few 11- inside and got my first 10a onsight this week, and have led multiple tens outside. not saying theyve been pretty or theyve all been clean, but ive gotten up them. i thought it was pretty much just the same for everyone else ? like you’re probably not climbing at your max indoor grade but that makes sense. 

Depends on the gyms, the climbs, the grades. Who cares. Sometimes people get spanked when they first climb outside if they are used to the gym but a lot of people like to puff up their chest and over emphasize the difference. I've seen this be especially common with people that climb exclusively moderates outside in areas with weird styles (jtree, voo, Seneca, anything with lots of friction).

Fwiw I climb 3-4 letter grades harder outside than inside. 

“where are the jugs???!!!” 

said by me, on a 10a that the final section going to the anchors was more like 10d. was losing my shit but still made it to the anchors after a couple whips

"I'm kind of hung over and i had a BANG energy on an empty stomach so I probably won't send this" - 30 seconds after approaching a 5.9 wit da squad 

Overheard at the [gym]:

“Yo dude gimme a minute just need to warm up real quick”

Proceeds to all out sprint on the treadmill for 30s and then throw wild punches into the hanging bag for 60s before walking over to the boulder cave.

L Kapwrote:

If your belayer is anchored to the wall by a belay bolt, then you have an anchor in the system and the belay is on as soon as your belayer is set up and ready. The rope and belay device are actually protecting you from the start of the pitch in this scenario. They're protecting you from the long fall off the exposed ledge. The same is true in a multi-pitch situation where the belayer is on the anchor.  

The context here is that someone overheard this during what I assume was a lead belay test at a gym, and thought it was a ridiculous thing to teach. However, it is long-established practice. It's what I was taught 20 years ago by mentors and at my gym, and what many climbing schools and gyms continue to teach today. If it doesn't work for you, that's your business. The point is to be able to evaluate whether the rope and belay are doing anything for your safety. If you are clipped into nothing, the answer is always resoundingly no. 

and from the other thread...  "Being on belay requires an anchor in the system. The anchor can be a bolt, piton, removable pro, tree, etc. or even your own body properly braced in some circumstances (belaying from above or maybe a traverse on easy terrain), but there needs to be some kind of anchor in a configuration that is capable of arresting the belayed climber's fall. "

you mean like when you are just belaying from the ground using your own body at the base of the first pitch?  hmmm....

LOLZ, so you are basically saying it isn't "100% the best practice".  Nice tap dancing (and a lot of tap dancing it has been...), duely noted.

Brett Harriswrote:

Overheard at the [gym]:

“Yo dude gimme a minute just need to warm up real quick”

Proceeds to all out sprint on the treadmill for 30s and then throw wild punches into the hanging bag for 60s before walking over to the boulder cave.

Better than my typical warmup...

Gumby leader of group of even bigger gumbies after being unable to make it to the top of the easiest route at the crag "My fingers are really weak today, it's because I got a new mouse at work yesterday"

slimwrote:

and from the other thread...  "Being on belay requires an anchor in the system. The anchor can be a bolt, piton, removable pro, tree, etc. or even your own body properly braced in some circumstances (belaying from above or maybe a traverse on easy terrain), but there needs to be some kind of anchor in a configuration that is capable of arresting the belayed climber's fall. "

you mean like when you are just belaying from the ground using your own body at the base of the first pitch?  hmmm....

No, that is not at all what I'm saying, and there has been no tap dancing.  

LOLZ, so you are basically saying it isn't "100% the best practice".  Nice tap dancing (and a lot of tap dancing it has been...), duely noted.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that many climbers don't understand the mechanics of what is actually keeping you safe in a belay.

"Your own body properly braced in some circumstances" is only for very narrow and specialized applications. It is not applicable at all on a typical first pitch scenario belaying a leader from the ground. You cannot use your body as the sole anchor when you are belaying a climber who is ABOVE you (do you understand that they will simply fall on or next to you and splat?), unless the only function you're providing is to prevent them from falling past you down a slope or off a ledge, and even then trying to use your body as the anchor is rarely advisable because they will more than likely pull you off with them as they fall. In fact, sometimes it's advisable not to load up your belay device at all until after the leader has clipped something, if there is no option to anchor the belayer and there's a risk the leader could pull you off.

Using only your own body properly braced as the anchor - e.g. you're sitting in a pothole on a dome with your legs braced against the potential fall force -- has some utility in belaying a follower up to you after you lead the pitch, or belaying a partner through a traverse, typically in gentle slabby or 4th class terrain. It is not something you'd ever do in the vast majority of lead belay scenarios because your body would not provide utility as a functional anchor. 

@slim- a gym employee said it so it must be best practice. And if a gym employee tells you to jump off a cliff, then I guess there’s no disagreeing

Brett Harriswrote:

Overheard at the [gym]:

“Yo dude gimme a minute just need to warm up real quick”

Proceeds to all out sprint on the treadmill for 30s and then throw wild punches into the hanging bag for 60s before walking over to the boulder cave.

Did you tell him to save some ladies for the rest of us?

"Rappel me down now" said by my friend at the top of a pitch

Let's keep this thread dedicated to funny stories overheard at the crag. Thanking you, and you, and you

Ryan Bowenwrote:

Did you tell him to save some ladies for the rest of us?

+1 if he did the all out sprint in gym rentals.

+2 if he did it in TC pros

• A guy doing the approach back to the car, in sunglasses, at night, with his phone as a flashlight in one hand. He was wearing prescription sunglasses and forgot to bring his normal glasses. That guy is me, on probably at least 15 separate occasions at this point.
• Walking back from Wall of the 90s at night, the person behind me on the way back to the car suddenly cannonballs into a talus field and yells. Apparently they had seen a rattlesnake start chasing them and followed their natural instincts of flinging themselves towards injury rather than just hustling down trail.
• Climber at Wall of the 90s whose power scream was their own name (apparently this front range climber has also been seen at G1. If you're on here, hit me up - I have a lot of friends who want to climb with you).
• I didn't personally see it but I have seen videos of a climber who has a tendency to projectile vomit when they get more than a few feet off the ground on a trad lead

I spent a few days climbing a Joshua Tree over the holidays. I'm a newer climber and time and time again I would top out, build an anchor, bring my partner up, and then immediately the horde of climbers waiting to solo what we had just done would fly up it. I'm from the midwest and was starting to feel like I would never catch up to climbers who have access to that much climbing in their backyard. That is, I felt that way right up to the moment someone ran after me on an approach trail to ask me to teach them how to tie a figure 8. It had been a few years since he had been climbing and his sister asked him to take her and he "thought it would just all come back once he got there".

L Kapwrote:

No, that is not at all what I'm saying, and there has been no tap dancing.  

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that many climbers don't understand the mechanics of what is actually keeping you safe in a belay.

"Your own body properly braced in some circumstances" is only for very narrow and specialized applications. It is not applicable at all on a typical first pitch scenario belaying a leader from the ground. You cannot use your body as the sole anchor when you are belaying a climber who is ABOVE you (do you understand that they will simply fall on or next to you and splat?), unless the only function you're providing is to prevent them from falling past you down a slope or off a ledge, and even then trying to use your body as the anchor is rarely advisable because they will more than likely pull you off with them as they fall. In fact, sometimes it's advisable not to load up your belay device at all until after the leader has clipped something, if there is no option to anchor the belayer and there's a risk the leader could pull you off.

Using only your own body properly braced as the anchor - e.g. you're sitting in a pothole on a dome with your legs braced against the potential fall force -- has some utility in belaying a follower up to you after you lead the pitch, or belaying a partner through a traverse, typically in gentle slabby or 4th class terrain. It is not something you'd ever do in the vast majority of lead belay scenarios because your body would not provide utility as a functional anchor. 

and the tap dancing continues.  first rule when you have dug yourself down into a hole is to just stop digging...  you really don't understand any of this at all do you?  do you seriously not have your body properly braced during typical ground level belaying - isn't it applicable in every situation of belaying?  i sure as shit am braced/positioned to react to getting thrown forward, sideways, wherever.  how is your body not the anchor when you are ground level belaying?  if your body wasn't there, what would hold the belay device down?  your lack of understanding in all of this is pretty scary.