How often do you enter the “No Fall Zone”

The last time for me was highball bouldering. I wasn't feeling the last move so I climbed back down. It was confirmed in the no fall zone by my buddy who fell afterwards, swung, missed the pad and had to be carried back down with a broken ankle. Good times!

Big Redwrote:

 I've definitely found myself running things out on purpose on easy terrain because I find some excuse not to place (rope drag, time, etc) when the truth is it's more exciting to run it out - not a habit I'm proud of.

I don’t see anything wrong with this unless you have people who care about you 

Every route before you place your first piece. And many sketchy low terrain stuff. I still will push myself to climb knowing I might fall if the terrain is vertical and the piece is good. I don’t do it because I want to climb harder. I just enjoy climbing at my physical limit. Obviously when I climb sport and fall is clean I will also do that, but we seem to be mostly talking about gear leads here. 

This thread isn’t that fun with the loose definition of no fall zone. Everybody is talking about the ‘it would really suck to fall zone’. Maybe we need a new thread about the actual/death/total dismemberment no fall zone

Bryanwrote:

This thread isn’t that fun with the loose definition of no fall zone. Everybody is talking about the ‘it would really suck to fall zone’. Maybe we need a new thread about the actual/death/total dismemberment no fall zone

Start a new thread then? 

My answer would still be the same. 

Chad Millerwrote:

Start a new thread then? 

My answer would still be the same. 

Well, that's kind of odd.

I'd say I enter the "break an ankle" zone fairly frequently on easy sections, maybe 1 in 3 pitches on sport, and more frequently on trad. But the "death" zone I very rarely enter, except maybe on a literal hike where the chances of me falling are almost nonexistent.

Depends where you climb I guess?  

The first 20-30 feet of a trad climb are typically the most dangerous. A ground fall in that range can kill you rather easily.   

Bryanwrote:

This thread isn’t that fun with the loose definition of no fall zone. Everybody is talking about the ‘it would really suck to fall zone’. Maybe we need a new thread about the actual/death/total dismemberment no fall zone

A "No Fall Zone" is the zone where if you fall it will end the climbing day.

Okay, but your answer, which you said would not change if we were talking about potential death falls only, was...

Chad Millerwrote:

Every time I lead I’m in the no fall zone. 

Where the hell are you climbing that that there's never any protection between 20 and 30 feet that would keep you off the ground?

In the beginning, I got it in my head that you never ever fall, for any reason. It's been a hard thought to reverse.

I've been climbing single pitch trad for a month and I've probably entered the no fall zone 15 times, but probably all but 2 were voluntary run-outs. 

We just climbed a week of easy 5.6 ish trad in  Maine. I have a back injury so really took it easy. Every single climb had serious consequences of a fall in more than one place..  

David Kwrote:

Okay, but your answer, which you said would not change if we were talking about potential death falls only, was...

Where the hell are you climbing that that there's never any protection between 20 and 30 feet that would keep you off the ground?

First off - a no fall zone is where a fall would end your climbing day. This could be serious injury or death.

Second - I climb a lot places with no fall zones and little to no pro for the first 20-30 feet.

Needles, SD
North Shore, MN
Unaweep Canyon, CO
Escalante Canyon, CO
Devils Lake, WI

Chad Millerwrote:

First off - a no fall zone is where a fall would end your climbing day. This could be serious injury or death.

Second - I climb a lot places with no fall zones and little to no pro for the first 20-30 feet.

Needles, SD
North Shore, MN
Unaweep Canyon, CO
Escalante Canyon, CO
Devils Lake, WI

Ok, now you've piqued my curiosity. What routes you have led in Escalante and Unaweep recently that have little to no pro in the first 20-30 feet? It appears that your MP ticklist hasn't been updated in a while. 

F r i t zwrote:

Ok, now you've piqued my curiosity. What routes you have led in Escalante and Unaweep recently that have little to no pro in the first 20-30 feet? It appears that your MP ticklist hasn't been updated in a while. 

Sorry for the confusion about this. I didn’t mean say there wasn’t any pro for the first 20-30 feet in all of those areas. Well, except for the areas of the Needles and DL.  I meant to write no fall zone and / or no pro in the first 30 feet.  

As you’re aware the first 20 - 30 feet have a high ground fall potential.  Certain moderate areas in Uni and Escalante have tricky pro in those first 30 feet.

 Below are a few of the climbs I’ve done this season where I’d say the first 30 are a no fall zone.  Please note this doesn’t mean you’ll die if you fall.  Your climbing will be done for the day (or season) if you do.  Stronger climbers opinions may differ  

Uni

Undocumented, Banditos, and Daisy Bottoms

Escalante 

Unnamed 1,2, and 3

I'll show you mine if you show me yours! 

Thanks for whipping it out!

I think that many people are clueless of the actual consequences of a fall.  My experience is that most falls are no big deal and often not as bad as you thought they might be but that some falls that you thought were going to be no big deal end up being a big deal. 

I'd wager 95% of the machismo on this thread is young guys without children whose minds haven't wandered far enough down the reward/risk road to imagine the real-life difference between:  1) Topping out/cheering/success/pride... versus.... 2) Months recovering from injury/Spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair/Dying. But it's understandable. The latest research is saying that men's brains, in particular, don't/can't conjure the reality of consequences until mid to late 20's.  Some judges are even factoring this into their thinking when faced with young offenders who take seemingly ridiculous risks, because in the kids' minds, there was no risk evaluation -- there was only desire.

M Mwrote:

I'll show you mine if you show me yours! 

Thanks for whipping it out!

I don’t climb harder than a .10 so there isn’t much for me to whip out.   

The macho folks who say you need 70m ropes on everything so you can run pitches together and be super cool seem to have no grasp of what that means if you take what you think is going to be a 6t fall when you have 65m of rope in the system or what it means if the 2nd falls shortly after leaving the belay on a long pitch like that. .