New and experienced climbers over 50 #30

S. Neohwrote:

Instructions found on REI website -

PBUS (Pull, Brake, Under, Slide) Technique

When you're belaying a top-rope climber, most of your time is spent taking in slack as the person climbs. The PBUS method is a simple, effective way to do this:

• Pull: Pull your guide hand downward while also lifting the firmly gripped brake rope out and up. This takes in slack as your partner climbs.
• Brake: When the guide hand nears the belay device, flip the brake rope back down to lock the rope in the device.
• Under: Move the guide hand to the brake rope, placing it underneath the brake hand. Grip the rope firmly to create a new temporary brake hand.
• Slide: Loosen the grip, but don't unwrap the fingers of your original brake hand. Slide it up to its original position, six inches below the belay device, and grip the rope firmly.
• Repeat: Move your guide hand back to its original position and you're ready to go again. Generally, short quick PBUS sequences work best.

Note: Only for belaying TR climber.  Since I often look to do all-lead sessions with my gym partners, I am 'exempted' from this technique most of the time.  I belay quite similarly for TR and lead using the tube method with a Gri-Gri.  I figured consistency and repeatability will pay off if I stick to just one way of belaying for both types of climbing, 

Agree. The only caveat is at a gym where liability is an issue.

Honestly, I don’t see how other methods are so much more advantageous as to purposefully not use PBUS method when required to do so? If something should happen, the first thing someone would ask is “were the climbers using the prescribed method for belay”?

Belaying with a GriGri in the gym mitigates the need for PBUS, from that standpoint because Petzl prescribes the method.

Outdoors, is different. Do whatever you like, just don’t lose partners please.

M Mwrote:

I saw an older guy in Massachusetts using a tube and he kept both hands 2 feet above the device the whole time. He was warned about this and became defiant,  he said this was the way

Defiant, yet authoritative. Sounds like an “old guy”   

About half my days out hiking I pass by the Sphinx.  Lately it’s become kind of a contemplative monument for me. But there’s also a route that Bob put up called Cleopatra 11b.  I’m not an 11b climber but also now I’m a little bit reverential toward this rock.  I’m not sure how I feel about climbing it.  Maybe one day I can give it a go.

Also, I’m not sure I heard this right. Did John Long attempt something on the face?  (Bob?)

So I took a picture of the Spinx in June and later saw this.  

I mean, who is this?  

I have no doubt that there are fairies and gnomes throughout this park.  Once in a while, you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

Yesterday I decided to see if I could create a workout circuit for the days that I hike.  If you don’t mind traipsing through shrubbery and possible snakes to get to your next workout formation, it could possibly work. (this is a good mantling rock aka “triceps”). 

The thing about being completely undisciplined and distractible is that nothing really gets done.    Halfway through my new “workout routine“ I glanced up to see welcome to Joshua Tree and bottle in front of me and that just stopped the show for a while. All I could think was OMG, I climbed that?

 

Obviously that scramble is a little dicey right now because this is where I have found all my snakes. But if you’re careful…

No sooner did I get distracted by those routes then I remembered I was going to check out Cerro Torres Tower.  It’s pretty prominent but the closer I got the more questions I have. How do you get to the base?  And is it worth it?

So another day of goofing around and accomplishing nothing but having a really good time.

BTW… thank you John for the link to that Joshua Tree monument guide. I’m just wondering, was there not a road that went completely through the park? Why would anyone be walking from hidden Valley campground to distant places? And then all the other comments… Was this a “backwater“ place?

Lori Milaswrote:

So another day of goofing around and accomplishing nothing but having a really good time.

The seeming disconnect between these words made me smile. At this point in your life what could you accomplish that would matter more than having a really good time? And obviously you understand this at a basic level - you purposefully go out to wander and, if your posts are any indication, you always have that really good time.

My version of this near-to-home wandering invariably involves two small, gorgeous retrievers. And our local "ditch" system that delivers our county's water. Or, sometimes, one of the local, dismantled logging railroad beds. No purpose but joy.

Li Huwrote:

Belaying with a GriGri in the gym mitigates the need for PBUS, from that standpoint because Petzl prescribes the method.

Outdoors, is different. Do whatever you like, just don’t lose partners please.

Unfortunately, no.  More than once, I was told, by gym employees (all lacking the weathering and developed forearms Phylp had alluded to), to use PBUS technique even when using a Gri-Gri for TR belaying.

Let's face it, objectively, outdoors requires much more attention. There are just more ways things can (and have) gone sideways. Gym-to-crag is way more complicated and consequential than crag-to-gym.

Brad Youngwrote:

My version of this near-to-home wandering invariably involves two small, gorgeous retrievers. And our local "ditch" system that delivers our county's water. Or, sometimes, one of the local, dismantled logging railroad beds. No purpose but joy.

Jean, my brother and I spent 3 days this past week redoing the kitchen and mud room floors. Had to take all the appliances out, remove all the trim (and labelled over 40 pieces to go back in), take out washing machine, washing machine tub, toilet and vanity. Took all the doors off and used an oscillating tool to cut all the door frames so that the tile cut fit under them.

I took out all the nails out of trim to reuse the trim. Jean patched any holes in the trim, sanded them and repainted them. Since we did not want to pull up the existing sheet good floor, we had to put down 2 coats of patch. We were afraid of the pattern showing through.

Nothing was square so we had to use the Pythagorean theorem to figure out where we should start to lay the tile. Did multiple chalk lines before the adhesive was put down. Did not want to have to do a very small cut on the edges.

 Jean had one of our climbing friends that does cabinet making made a large 2-piece China cabinet. The problem was that the top would not come off. Even empty the sucker weighed a ton. It was too tall to move into the family room. This caused use multiple headaches as we had to slowly move it around constantly. Also, did not want to damage any area of what we patched or new tile as we moved it.

Years ago, my brother and I did all the red oak hardwood floors. They were a lot easier than this tile job. There was a lot of cussing and swearing doing this. Taking out all the existing traps for the vanity and wash machine tub was a lot easier that putting in the new ones. Especially when one set of traps was defective and we could not stop it from leaking. After wasting a lot of time trying so get it to stop leaking, I purchased another one.  So far, no leaks yet.

Jean picked out the tile (1 foot x 2 foot pieces), new vanity top and faucets. Bottom line is that Jean is happy. Here is some of the pictures of the work involved.

Old floor.

2nd coat of patching the sheet good floor.

Laying adhesive. Hated moving that China cabinet around.

Putting the floor in. We staggered it.

Finished

John

I cannot call Jean the old lady until next year since I am as old as she. Both of us are 71.

We decided to go climb very early this morning. Did 3 laps on a slightly over hanging 5.8. Too hot and too humid. Jean said let’s go home. On the way home she says that the drive way needs to be weed wacked. So guess what I did in the sun. I weed wacked the drive way which is over 220 feet long, around bushes, the pool and the garden.

Since I was already dirty and sweaty, I then cleaned the pool. After that, I went swimming by myself.

Going to see make dinner for my dad later today. He is a little over 93 ½.  Hopefully next birthday will be cooler and easier.

 If anyone is in the area, please feel free to contact me to climb at Ralph Stover and swim later. Hopefully, we will leave the end of August to head out west for 2 months of climbing.

John

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

is the the dumb ass thing I always see people do when they pull the brake hand up and pinch that strand to the strand above the  belay device? every time I see that crap I cringe... al

This discredited technique dates all the way back to the hip belay, where it made perfect sense. When plates first came on the scene, I think most of us continued with the hand motions ingrained from hip belaying, until it dawned on us that we were creating a vulnerable moment when there was very little braking power. But people weren't being dropped left and right because the belayer could almost always react in time to invoke braking (and average belayer attentiveness was at a higher level). Someone mentioned seeing an "old guy" doing the two-strand pinch method. Some old folks seem to think practices from a half-century ago don't need updating because "it always worked fine for me."

Nowadays I use three different hand sequences, one of which is PBUS.  When taking in slack in very small increments, I just slide a loosened brake hand down the rope (horrors!). When having to take in a lot of slack I alternate both hands as brake hands, and most of the time I use the good ol' PBUS.  I haven't been chastised in the gym yet, but I imagine the day is coming. 

Actually---full confession---when belaying with half ropes using an Alpine Up, I often do use the discredited pinch method, as it allows better control of individual strands, and I've found it super fast and easy to activate braking from the theoretically vulnerable position.  This is at least partially because braking is invoked when the brake strands are perpendicular to the load strands; it isn't necessary to drop the brake hand all the way to the hip as we'd have to do with a plaquette.  Do feel free to accuse me of being the old guy I just heaped scorn upon.

Note that a standard hand sequence in the UK, especially when giving an upper belay from the harness (an increasingly rare activity in most of the world), is for the feeling hand to grab the brake strand above the brake hand, after which the belayer lets go with the original brake hand and regrasps above the feeling hand, which is acting as as temporary brake hand.

Just took a belay test at a local gym yesterday and I think they called the pinch method 'Pull Slap Slide' which they didn't like as much as PBUS, but said it was acceptable with a brake assisted device.

S. Neohwrote:

Unfortunately, no.  More than once, I was told, by gym employees (all lacking the weathering and developed forearms Phylp had alluded to), to use PBUS technique even when using a Gri-Gri for TR belaying.

Let's face it, objectively, outdoors requires much more attention. There are just more ways things can (and have) gone sideways. Gym-to-crag is way more complicated and consequential than crag-to-gym.

Wow, okay. Still better than the cringeworthy belay Nick alluded to. That may be why they require it?

Survival of the species depends upon cringe worthy things to thin the herd, I suppose…

Victor Creazziwrote:

Just took a belay test at a local gym yesterday and I think they called the pinch method 'Pull Slap Slide' which they didn't like as much as PBUS, but said it was acceptable with a brake assisted device.

Interesting they actually have a name for it.

One gym didn’t really care, Rockreation, but most newbie’s wouldn’t get past the first couple moves anyway.   

'Slip Slap Slide', in fact. As rgold mentioned, it's a relic of the hip belay era.

Edit to below: Agree, 100%- no intent to diminish its value.

apogeewrote:

'Slip Slap Slide', in fact. As rgold mentioned, it's a relic of the hip belay era.

Despite the advantages of belay devices, knowing how to hip belay is still a valuable basic skill.

I stand corrected Slip Slap Slide is correct. I saw it on the sign at the test station with the comment Accepted, but not preferred, or something to that effect, and asked for it to be demonstrated. I was told that I had used a combination of SSS and PBUS though I thought that I had done all PBUS..

Perhaps a better way to state it is that SSS has its roots in the traditional hip belay method- as plate (and eventually tube) type devices came along, the belay technique came along, too (and then later refined and changed). The hip belay still has great value in mountaineering (or even short roping at the crags) where a partner needs a quick belay moving across exposed terrain, and relatively lower forces are anticipated.

apogeewrote:

Perhaps a better way to state it is that SSS has its roots in the traditional hip belay method- as plate (and eventually tube) type devices came along, the belay technique came along, too (and then later refined and changed). The hip belay still has great value in mountaineering (or even short roping at the crags) where a partner needs a quick belay moving across exposed terrain, and relatively lower forces are anticipated.

Yep, used one that way multiple times. Also very useful for snow and easy (and maybe not-so-easy) ice climbing--it is hard to get wet/frozen ropes into belay devices and most such devices don't function well with ropes in those conditions.

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

is the the dumb ass thing I always see people do when they pull the brake hand up and pinch that strand to the strand above the  belay device? every time I see that crap I cringe... 

This cringeworthy method was the first belay method I was taught. In a gym, no less!  I think it was on my first trip to Yosemite that I was castigated for using it. I was defensive, partly out of respect for the mentor who had taught it to me, and partly as I thought "it has worked for me for several years, how can it be wrong?" 

But I know I can be wrong, so I opened my eyes and looked around. It wasn't long before I saw that my method truly was dangerous, especially for new belayers, who, when their climber fell, gripped hard with both hands instinctively, preventing the belay hand from dropping to the braking position. I actually saw someone get dropped when this happened. The proof was in the rope burn on the non-belay hand. 

I silently thanked the climber in Yosemite who set me on the right path. I was grateful for all the other things I'd learned from my first mentor, but left the belay method behind.

GO

Li Huwrote:

You are more than welcome to climb however you feel comfortable. In fact, you should.

Seeing bad advice sometimes is a trigger for some folks, myself included. 

Gabe, you picked a hot weekend to visit Downeast Maine! We had two days in the 90s in June that was nastier than this but man o man Maine keeps getting hotter every year. I fully chilled in the ocean today, a first for me here, usually it's lakes that are acceptable temps for me. Hopefully you found some shade, it wasn't too humid today.

Oldtradguywrote:

Jean, my brother and I spent 3 days this past week redoing the kitchen and mud room floors. Had to take all the appliances out, remove all the trim (and labelled over 40 pieces to go back in), take out washing machine, washing machine tub, toilet and vanity. Took all the doors off and used an oscillating tool to cut all the door frames so that the tile cut fit under them.

I took out all the nails out of trim to reuse the trim. Jean patched any holes in the trim, sanded them and repainted them. Since we did not want to pull up the existing sheet good floor, we had to put down 2 coats of patch. We were afraid of the pattern showing through.

Nothing was square so we had to use the Pythagorean theorem to figure out where we should start to lay the tile. Did multiple chalk lines before the adhesive was put down. Did not want to have to do a very small cut on the edges.

 Jean had one of our climbing friends that does cabinet making made a large 2-piece China cabinet. The problem was that the top would not come off. Even empty the sucker weighed a ton. It was too tall to move into the family room. This caused use multiple headaches as we had to slowly move it around constantly. Also, did not want to damage any area of what we patched or new tile as we moved it.

Years ago, my brother and I did all the red oak hardwood floors. They were a lot easier than this tile job. There was a lot of cussing and swearing doing this. Taking out all the existing traps for the vanity and wash machine tub was a lot easier that putting in the new ones. Especially when one set of traps was defective and we could not stop it from leaking. After wasting a lot of time trying so get it to stop leaking, I purchased another one.  So far, no leaks yet.

Jean picked out the tile (1 foot x 2 foot pieces), new vanity top and faucets. Bottom line is that Jean is happy. Here is some of the pictures of the work involved.

Old floor.

2nd coat of patching the sheet good floor.

Laying adhesive. Hated moving that China cabinet around.

Putting the floor in. We staggered it.

Finished

John

Great job John, Jean, and your brother. Looks great!!!! Clearly a lot of work but good result.

I will be in your area mid-August for a few days, but, as usual, family focused. If there is any climbing time, it will likely be a brief session at Reach. But I'll let you know if that changes.

Alan

M Mwrote:

Seeing bad advice sometimes is a trigger for some folks, myself included. 

Gabe, you picked a hot weekend to visit Downeast Maine! We had two days in the 90s in June that was nastier than this but man o man Maine keeps getting hotter every year. I fully chilled in the ocean today, a first for me here, usually it's lakes that are acceptable temps for me. Hopefully you found some shade, it wasn't too humid today.

Same here!  Are you on the island?  From Ellsworth the best beach today was Newbury Neck. It would be crazy if you were there too!  Anyway, it was lovely. Was amazed at how warm the water was. I could see where Perry's wharf used to be. 

Alan, I mentioned the restaurant you suggested to Allison. She knew it already. I think the two of us would enjoy it, but maybe not the rest. We went to Crazy Sumo, also in downtown Ellsworth. Entertaining, especially for my daughter. 

GO

RG I usualy use the last method that you described so always have at least one hand acting as a full brake hand.  I belayed off the harness from the top of my chimny pitch today as it was the best method for the stance.  the pitch I led with the hanging belay from bolts I belayed off the anchor.  On an interesting side note my harness fell off in a squeeze chimny 130ft off the deck today... I was considering trying to wrap a sling around my waist and clove into that but could not get situated to pull that off so just cranked one more move and then was able to deal with it properly.  I have no hips..  I was making a conscious effort to keep my legs bent at the knees and catch it with my claves so I would not lose the whole sheebang but it was a bit dicy for a min or two. Finally got to a stance and was able to free up my hands and get the thing back up and tightened to finish the pitch. It was sagging a bit at the start of the pitch but I didnt think enough of it to attend to it.  lesson learned.