Overheard at the crag 2022 edition

Eshan Kingwrote:

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

Bruise Brothers…

This is where I stopped reading cause IYKYK

"I like Mountain Project. It has a lot of accurate and useful information." 

Was watching a guide get this child up a sport route. She wanted to put her fingers in a bolt, that got shot down, and didn't have the finger strength to pinch it. He tossed her a carabiner with a sling that she clipped to a bolt and then used the sling as a hand hold, then foot hold.  The rest of the family offered her encouragement and he was chatting to them. "yea, you don't really climb El Capitan, it's just a lot of shenanigans like this"

Just out at a typical sport crag.

There's a couple of euros down the end. One is cleaning an anchor while the other belays, sitting on the grigri. Suddenly, the rope zips through the system and belayer falls on their arse, hard.

"OW! Vat is this!? Vat happened? Is it ok!?"

"I am sorry, there vas slack, I don't know, it vas zee slack!"

Austin Donisanwrote:

Except for the belayer who is still eagerly belaying, staring at the climber wondering what the slack is for. It's a separate command for a reason.

Wait. What?  So you are saying the belayer might have to keep his/ her hand on the brake and remain attentive while the leader rests for a minute?  Brutal! 

Sam Mwrote:

"In direct" needs to die. It is useless and confusing. For cleaning a route all you need is "slack, tension and lower, or if rappelling a simple "off belay" will suffice.

If you know your belayer well enough though...

Me at top of route: ok

Belayer: ok

Me: ok

Belayer: ok *lowers*

So that reminds me of a funny story !

I was sport cragging with a partner for the 2nd or third time, but we did have a good amount of experience together (150+ pitches of mulitpitch / alpine rock) .

For context in my group of folks I crag with it pretty much goes without saying that you go back for the red point if you don’t send.

My friend fell on the crux, aided his way past it and then worked it a couple times during the lower, I pulled the rope, fell on the crux, tried it a couple more times before doing it and then climbed to the top.

Once at the anchor I clipped one of the two draws he had left and said "ok" he took in the slack and I sat down in my harness, I said "a bit of slack" which he paid out, I clipped the second draw and said "ok!"(I’m my mind "I have clipped the second draw and am ready to lower, because we are going to redpoint") He said "ok!"(In his mind "you are in direct so I locked my click-up in the paying out slack position and am actively giving slack so you can thread the rope, because we are cleaning and moving on"), I let go of the chain and fell 25ish feet, bounced off of a slab(slack already paid out +rope stretch) and then fell another 60ish feet through the air stopping at around the first bolt (rope sliding through the click up before my partner realized what was happening).

A shattered astragal was a good reminder that "if you know your belayer well enough" cannot be over emphasized and that even then, using commands that have actual concrete meaning isn’t such a bad idea.

Benj84wrote:

So that reminds me of a funny story !

I was sport cragging with a partner for the 2nd or third time, but we did have a good amount of experience together (150+ pitches of mulitpitch / alpine rock) .

For context in my group of folks I crag with it pretty much goes without saying that you go back for the red point if you don’t send.

My friend fell on the crux, aided his way past it and then worked it a couple times during the lower, I pulled the rope, fell on the crux, tried it a couple more times before doing it and then climbed to the top.

Once at the anchor I clipped one of the two draws he had left and said "ok" he took in the slack and I sat down in my harness, I said "a bit of slack" which he paid out, I clipped the second draw and said "ok!"(I’m my mind "I have clipped the second draw and am ready to lower, because we are going to redpoint") He said "ok!"(In his mind "you are in direct so I locked my click-up in the paying out slack position and am actively giving slack so you can thread the rope, because we are cleaning and moving on"), I let go of the chain and fell 25ish feet, bounced off of a slab(slack already paid out +rope stretch) and then fell another 60ish feet through the air stopping at around the first bolt (rope sliding through the click up before my partner realized what was happening).

A shattered astragal was a good reminder that "if you know your belayer well enough" cannot be over emphasized and that even then, using commands that have actual concrete meaning isn’t such a bad idea.

My takeaway is, for single pitch climbs, always discuss your plan before leaving the ground and stick to it for the whole climb. Of course, communicating going in direct and on/off belay is important too, but you should discuss with your partner if you are cleaning/lowering/rapping before leaving the ground.

Observed as 2 bros bailed off a sport route that started from a ledge:

Belayer: [lowers climber past the ledge to the ground]

Climber: [unties and threads a grigri with 3’ of slack on the brake side] “Ok, just tie yourself off and I’ll lower you.”

Belayer: “Ok, on you!” [weights the rope]

In a moment of weakness, I intervened at this point. Fortunately, they were open to my criticisms of their system. 

Eshan Kingwrote:

My takeaway is, for single pitch climbs, always discuss your plan before leaving the ground and stick to it for the whole climb. Of course, communicating going in direct and on/off belay is important too, but you should discuss with your partner if you are cleaning/lowering/rapping before leaving the ground.

I wanted to do a "TLDR" for my post but didn’t get around to it, if I had I’d like to think it would have looked a lot like like this

Got paired up at a redpointing clinic at RRG Rocktoberfest. Verbally agreed with new partner that we would clean on lower, not rappel (this should really go without saying at the Red, but I got a funny feeling about this guy.) He reached the anchor on the warmup and happily shouted down “Off Belay!” I did not take him off belay. He got lowered after some back-and-forth shouting and some concerned looks from our pro climber instructor, and I found another partner for the rest of the day.

Even if your partners are very experienced, they can have different communication patterns that can seem confusing to you.  Recently my friend was visiting on a long trip from the UK and at the top of the pitch when he was anchored in, he would say "on belay!".  I knew what he meant was that he was anchored in and safe, but everybody else I know says something like "off belay" or "safe" (they never say "in direct").  After his trip I spoke with one of my other partners who climbed with him and she said she was surprised about the same thing.

phylp phylpwrote:

Even if your partners are very experienced, they can have different communication patterns that can seem confusing to you.  Recently my friend was visiting on a long trip from the UK and at the top of the pitch when he was anchored in, he would say "on belay!".  I knew what he meant was that he was anchored in and safe, but everybody else I know says something like "off belay" or "safe" (they never say "in direct").  After his trip I spoke with one of my other partners who climbed with him and she said she was surprised about the same thing.

Talking to a new, very experienced, partner at the base of a route I said ‘I’ll lower’ which he interpreted as I would ‘lower myself’ - he’s Swedish. I’m glad he questioned what I meant rather than assuming I would go off belay and rap. He was used to ‘you’ll lower me’ as the phrase.

ErikaNWwrote:

Talking to a new, very experienced, partner at the base of a route I said ‘I’ll lower’ which he interpreted as I would ‘lower myself’ - he’s Swedish. I’m glad he questioned what I meant rather than assuming I would go off belay and rap. He was used to ‘you’ll lower me’ as the phrase.

That is a perfect example, Erika.  Really glad he checked!

I hear the craziest shit when I have the crag to myself and I'm rope soloing

Darren Mabewrote:

I hear the craziest shit when I have the crag to myself and I'm rope soloing

"Look at that fucker up there, he's been on that pitch for 2 hours"

I had a nice solo bouldering session at a tiny local crag that has both boulders and some mini bolted routes and top ropes. I finish up and start walking out.

I'm passing the taller sector where the roped climbs are and discover another party "leading". They are not using any quickdraws, somehow they have rethreaded the rope directly through the eye of the second ringbolt, and the climber is trying toprope up to it and then climb past it. But every time they try, the rope twists around the ringbolt and locks up on itself with rope drag, because they've climbed underneath the belay end.

 Additionally, the climber has tied in through the belay loop with a figure 8 with a HUGE loop, so when they try to "take" and rest on the bolt, there's like 2 feet between their harness and the top of the knot running hard up against the ringbolt.

It was late and I didn't have any energy for an argument so I'm ashamed to say I just nope'd out of there.

I showed up to a local crag without a partner and the only people there were some classes who I decided against asking for a belay. I soloed some easy routes to warm up and set up a tr solo on a harder route I wanted to try. The chattering class across the canyon had been watching the whole time, apparently... sitting down looking at my phone, I hear 'hey look the free climber is just like contemplating life now'

Lol

Me back at base camp discussing routes I had been on that day: blah blah blah sport climbing cool blah blah

Relatively new climber(somehow sponsored by soill): yeah but how many bolts was it?

Me:… what?

RNC(SSbSI): how many bolts did your project have? I did one today that had 11 bolts

Skyler Scruggswrote:

Me back at base camp discussing routes I had been on that day: blah blah blah sport climbing cool blah blah

Relatively new climber(somehow sponsored by soill): yeah but how many bolts was it?

Me:… what?

RNC(SSbSI): how many bolts did your project have? I did one today that had 11 bolts

I believe that makes his project 11b

Nick Thomaswrote:

I believe that makes his project 11b

This is pure genius and not just because I can now claim to onsight 13b

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106580228/boltergeist