How often do you enter the “No Fall Zone”

Depends. Depends. Depends. Most the time I avoid it. If I have already pooped my pants then I have nothing to lose by climbing more. If I wear some depends, then all day baby!!!

I’d say on every pitch that isn’t overhung sport with a stick clipped first bolt I enter a DFU zone at least once. Ledges, bad fall dynamics possible, small gear (I’m a bigger human ~200lbs), slabs, runouts, “historic” pins/bolts, the list goes on.

I’m a pretty cautious climber though. A day not getting injured is better than a month or more of recovery from an injury in my mind.

This all assumes a competent belayer. 

To get on subject here, I treat basically anything where I'm on slab and I'm more than 5' above my last piece of protection (bolt or gear) as a no fall zone.  So far I've never fallen in that zone and of course, I always am quite a bit below my red point grade when doing those.  The thought of cheese grating is one of the scariest things for me.

One thing should be said about climbing grades:

Nutcraker's first pitch is 5.7, yet right next door is After Seven 5.8, which I would say is easier than Nutcraker.  

After Six is 5.7, but I would say that is harder than Nutcracker. All of these routes were put up in the 1960's

Bruh, every single time I go climbing I enter the DFU zone. It's not a point of pride; often there just aren't placements available and the resulting fall is near or at ledge/ground fall territory, or maybe a big pendulum into a rock face. 

I don't make as many placements on easy terrain to save gear and limit rope drag. But I still place gear occasionally because folks biff it for no reason at all. In particular, there's a route I've climbed many times and could do it blindfolded, I still place "Rob's Nut" because he took a nasty fall there and almost died. Not to mention the embarrassment when all your friends find out you died punting off 5.3 and being described in the local paper as a "hiker".

Cory Nwrote:

The comment was meant in Jest, as if it didn't exist.

Alas, humor doesn't always come across on the net in written text.

Anyway, I enjoy my time in the NFZ. Love some heads up climbing. It's pretty common for me to run it out on easier terrain.

I've loved it and hated it - it all depends on the route and the situation.

Joseph Brodywrote:

I took my first whipper on Nutcracker in Yosemite yesterday.   I guess it was a 25ft fall, but maybe more and I was lucky to miss the tree trunk that is about halfway up the pitch.  That section was too hard to stop to place pro for me.  I have only been climbing casually cracks for about a year, so I still feel inexperienced with crack.  

That pitch has an infamous bulge on pitch 5, that has shattered ankles since it's a vertical fall onto a very low angle slab without good protection. The bulge move is much easier than the finger layback that is semi-polished and semi-overhang on pitch 1. 

IIRC, there are three ways to start Nutcracker, from left to R, an easy fifth class start, a 5.6/5.7 start, and the direct start, which is 5.9.  It kind of sounds like you did the 5.9 start, which explains why it felt harder than the 5.8 bulge move.

 I always treated any gear route as a no fall mentality.  I have fallen on pro, and it was good, but I never really wanted to test my gear with big falls.  Most of Eldorado canyon is a "really rather not fall" zone.

TBlomwrote:

 I always treated any gear route as a no fall mentality.  I have fallen on pro, and it was good, but I never really wanted to test my gear with big falls.  Most of Eldorado canyon is a "really rather not fall" zone.

That's just a perceived no fall zone as long as you are climbing something with good gear, not an actual one. 

Connor Dobsonwrote:

That's just a perceived no fall zone as long as you are climbing something with good gear, not an actual one. 

Yep, but most moderates are littered with no fall zones.  Ledges, rotten bands, high first gear,  easy long runouts... the mentality becomes 'no fall' even though there are places you can and places you can't.

Definitely more skiing than climbing. I have noticed that  some of the "classics" that I climbed 30 years ago  are really loose and badly protected,  I wouldn't lead them now.  Mistakenly got on a pitch last year that had only 2 pieces of gear.  But that's why I solo occasionally,   so I can keep my head cool because at least I have a rope.  I started climbing  when we still said that the leader should not fall.  Definitely need to be aware of rope stretch on  top rope or following long pitches. 

I've asked my badass rope gun partners to rope me up on both an approach and a descent. I've been on super fun super easy stuff (again, thank you rope guns!) with pretty much no gear for the leader getting the rope up. All, not great outcomes if anyone peeled off.

Best, H.

phylp phylpwrote:

IIRC, there are three ways to start Nutcracker, from left to R, an easy fifth class start, a 5.6/5.7 start, and the direct start, which is 5.9.  It kind of sounds like you did the 5.9 start, which explains why it felt harder than the 5.8 bulge move.

I did the 5.7 starts in the middle.  It's a left-facing corner that gets hard because it's a finger crack layback, that is a bit polished and overhang.  It's clearly marked on MP.  Its hard for me because I'm newish to crack and layback.  I think slabby laybacks are more awkward.  

More often than I should, if you asked my mom   Most of my gear climbing is at Seneca, which is notorious for interspersed ledges. I do my best to sew things up after each ledge to try and dodge ankle-break territory, but sometimes its unavoidable on easy terrain. Otherwise when I'm climbing in North Carolina is varies by crag. Pretty much all of Stone Mountain is a no-fall zone.

With respect to risk, I feel as though I obviously spend more time in no-fall zones when I'm climbing at a place like Stone Mountain. My way of "managing" this risk in particular is just to limit my exposure to it, which really just means going to Stone once a year to sate my hunger, and sticking to less hard-man crags for the remainder of the year. That, or climbing well below my limit when I can't avoid no-fall zones.

Most of my outdoor climbing in the last 65 years has been trad.  I'd say that almost all of the climbs I've done have no-fall zones, usually---but by no means always---on ground considerably easier than the cruxes.

On our way into a popular DWS area, a passing park ranger informed us that "climbing is allowed but falling is not allowed; you must downclimb". So apparently Gravity isn't the only force capable of establishing no fall zones :)

Every time my knot is 12" above the last bolt

Almost every time I climb outdoors. Lots of run outs and lots of protruding ledges/rocks you'll clip on the way down during a whip.

Anytime I rope up because I still haven’t fallen on my gear.

A lot.  Probably.