Lucky SOB

I don’t know how to embed a video from the Friday whipper, but boy oh boy was this guy lucky 

https://www.climbing.com/videos/weekend-whipper-gear-ripping-trad-climbing-fall/?utm_campaign&utm_content&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=Rock+and+Ice+magazine-facebook&fbclid=IwAR3H634vTMXohOmJNFVhA5MGrPD5SJtmE0UVOT47JT86WT6yq9l_gXqriwc

The lost art of nutcraft. Zipper! Lucky indeed.

Wow! Wonder if the belayer still has all their parts intact??

belayer too far away from cliff...  and don't fall on your first trad lead..

There’s no need to insult his mother. Unless his mother was belaying him. 

Wow.  That was bad.  A bottom-up zipper.  Not sure I've seen that before.  Not like that, anyway.  Yikes.

This is why I get so concerned when I see the way that some gyms teach to lead belay. Obviously, on bolts it’s a different story, but just assuming you can stand 10ft away from the wall and pay out slack to belay is such a horrible practice. As a climber you fall, that one was on the belayer. 

I have seen this several times. 

Yes and no on the belayer, the leader obviously didn’t place an upward or outward facing first piece to keep the pro from pulling out.  Yes, and the belayer could have been standing closer to the  base.  Saw a similar fall in the Gunks many years ago.  Classic beginner trad leading mistake.

 Ward. seen that on Holderness corner several times. Obviously, the  nature of that route  both puts the belayer  far away from the climbing line and  attracts novice  gear leaders.  Many times i have asked my belayer to stand as close to the cliff as possible. Many times I have had a piece slide down the rope  without even a fall. Most often on climbs where I was just going through the motions. When the climbing gets hard enough to be concerning I tend to pay attention, cross my T's and dot my i's...  ;)  Outward pull piece is not always an option and if the belayer is close enough to the rock its almost a non issue.  Almost.. ;) 

Fehim Hasecicwrote:

I don’t know how to embed a video from the Friday whipper, but boy oh boy was this guy lucky 

https://www.climbing.com/videos/weekend-whipper-gear-ripping-trad-climbing-fall/?utm_campaign&utm_content&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=Rock+and+Ice+magazine-facebook&fbclid=IwAR3H634vTMXohOmJNFVhA5MGrPD5SJtmE0UVOT47JT86WT6yq9l_gXqriwc

Can't see the bottom of the route so we can't say if the belayor was forced to stand that far away or not. Regardless, the climber is responsible for setting good, multi-directional gear.

Good multi directional gear is not always available. belayer is responsible to position themselves accordingly. Shooting the breeze while idly playing out rope often while sitting in a crazy creek chair checking your twitter feed may be the norm these days but it's still not the correct way to do the job.  Naturally its the leaders responsibility to put the belayer where they want them to  and occasionally whine and cry enough that the belayer stays awake. 

Chronically Injuredwrote:

This is why I get so concerned when I see the way that some gyms teach to lead belay. Obviously, on bolts it’s a different story, but just assuming you can stand 10ft away from the wall and pay out slack to belay is such a horrible practice. As a climber you fall, that one was on the belayer. 

The climber didn't notice where the belayer was when they started climbing???? Sorry, climber doesn't know what they're doing either, or they would have corrected the belayer before leaving the ground. Hopefully they grasp how close this was!

It's a partnership, both parts of that partnership need to understand what's up. Even noobs can be told, quickly, what's what and why. Too many glorious leaders just shove a belay device in the hands of anything close to opposable thumbs and ambulatory, call it good, and launch.

It was on a sport climb, as it happens, but, I basically rope soloed myself up on top of a big boulder, after the climber got the rope to the first clip. Spotted them for that bouldery start, then moved the belay. 

If you don't give belayers equal credence for your send? That's on you.

Best, Helen

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Good multi directional gear is not always available. belayer is responsible to position themselves accordingly. Shooting the breeze while idly playing out rope often while sitting in a crazy creek chair checking your twitter feed may be the norm these days but it's still not the correct way to do the job.  Naturally its the leaders responsibility to put the belayer where they want them to  and occasionally whine and cry enough that the belayer stays awake.

Without knowing why the belayor was standing where they were standing, and it wasn't that far out anyway, it's all on the climber. 

In this case, I'm sure the climber could have placed better gear to prevent three pieces from ripping. Probably had three poorly placed nuts to a cam from the looks of it.

If you watch @ 6 secs in, you see that the angle between the 1st piece and the belayer is pretty large. The belayer would have been standing quite some ways away from the cliff.

There's no good reason for him to do so, as this is the base of the route. Hard to get an easier belay stance than that:

(Got it from here, name of route mentioned in description):

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/hobson_moor_quarry-151/crews_route-15024

You can even see where he put his first piece - @6 seconds in the video, there's a bit of an gap in the arrete, sort of above & right of the graffiti thing. Decent height to put a first piece in, and no obvious need for it to be super multi-directional (other than outrageously far away belayer). Of course as a climber, having an eye on where you belayers stands, at least when you leave, probably isn't a bad idea. Shared fault imo, but mostly belayer.

Old lady Hwrote:

The climber didn't notice where the belayer was when they started climbing???? Sorry, climber doesn't know what they're doing either, or they would have corrected the belayer before leaving the ground. Hopefully they grasp how close this was!

It's a partnership, both parts of that partnership need to understand what's up. Even noobs can be told, quickly, what's what and why. Too many glorious leaders just shove a belay device in the hands of anything close to opposable thumbs and ambulatory, call it good, and launch.

It was on a sport climb, as it happens, but, I basically rope soloed myself up on top of a big boulder, after the climber got the rope to the first clip. Spotted them for that bouldery start, then moved the belay. 

If you don't give belayers equal credence for your send? That's on you.

Best, Helen

Agree with most what you said, but to be fair, the belayer might have moved away as the climber got higher. Some belayers do tend to do that, since it's easier to see your climber/less uncomfortable.

Some years back there was a fatal fall very similar to this in the Gunks. If the belayer had to be that far back, then a solid directional is mandatory, as in this lead ain’t happen‘ without that placement.  Sure, as Nick says, we can’t always arrange such directionals (although nowadays if you can place one cam you can usually place two opposed—and no you cannot count on a cam to rotate through a big angle and stay in).  If you’re in a place where doing the next pitch is mandatory, then you have to carry on as best as you can, but a small crag with the belayer on the ground? Either get the belayer up against the rock, get in a totally solid directional, or else move on to something else or declare the arrival of beer-thirty.

There’s a big difference between making a conscious decision to take a calculated risk as opposed to blindly advancing into a danger zone without realizing it.

One of the (many) nice things about climbing at the Gunks is that is it often very easy to get an early multi-directional piece due to the many horizontals. But yeah, how often do we see climbers equalizing that first nut placement so it can be multidirectional these days ?  It seems much less prevalent than it was 20-30 years ago.

Ward Smithwrote:

Yes and no on the belayer, the leader obviously didn’t place an upward or outward facing first piece to keep the pro from pulling out.  Yes, and the belayer could have been standing closer to the  base.  Saw a similar fall in the Gunks many years ago.  Classic beginner trad leading mistake.

Same here. Leader fell at the crux of Ant's Line and pulled all the pieces in the corner, with only a #3 Friend under the overlap keeping him off the ground 60' below.

Franck Veewrote:

If you watch @ 6 secs in, you see that the angle between the 1st piece and the belayer is pretty large. The belayer would have been standing quite some ways away from the cliff.

There's no good reason for him to do so, as this is the base of the route. Hard to get an easier belay stance than that:

(Got it from here, name of route mentioned in description):

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/hobson_moor_quarry-151/crews_route-15024

You can even see where he put his first piece - @6 seconds in the video, there's a bit of an gap in the arrete, sort of above & right of the graffiti thing. Decent height to put a first piece in, and no obvious need for it to be super multi-directional (other than outrageously far away belayer). Of course as a climber, having an eye on where you belayers stands, at least when you leave, probably isn't a bad idea. Shared fault imo, but mostly belayer.

Thank you for your due diligence but this is still on the climber, the first piece should always be a solid multi-directional.

Tradibanwrote:

Thank you for your due diligence but this is still on the climber, the first piece should always be a solid multi-directional.

I think it’s 50/50. Unless this was belayers first time climbing as well he/she should have said something. I wouldn’t want my belayer let slide any mistakes I make in the first 10-15 feet where he can still see what I’m doing.
Maybe this is one of those new age things where  leader clippes first piece and so it’s “on belay” and after that belayer is out of equation.