Textbook Bad GriGri belay puts comp climber in hospital

Khoiwrote:

You don't think there are people who collect belay devices, and have used all of them?

But have they used this one?

grug gwrote:

Nice. I think you are implying that with a glance you are prepared to understand how every belay device works. Which I am calling out as a lie. You are not an expert in every device - no one is. 

Of all the "bullshit" devices you listed, I can pretty easily tell if they were installed correctly and if the belayer's brake hand has a firm grip on the brake side of the rope.  If it's a device that I'm not familiar with, I could just ask how it works before being belayed by it. It's really not as difficult as you make it out to be.

Philippe Wagnerwrote:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WBGkKqLhM8Y&pp=ygUMaGFyZCBpcyBlYXN5 In depth analysis of the accident by „Hard is Easy“. I have to say I initially misjudged the situation. The belayer was very experienced and I can see now how this sort of thing can happen to someone who is experienced and thinks they can get away with not following best practices. It also changes what I expect my belayer to do. Up to now I was OK with experienced climbers just doing their thing when belaying me. I think in the future I will correct the person if they are doing sth unsafe/ have a conversation with them, no matter how long they have been belaying this way. 

I’m curious if this also changed your thinking on what best practices look like. In the instructions for the GriGri, Petzl states: “The other technique [the three finger grip], for occasional and short-term use, requires different hand positioning for a very limited time. Your hands must immediately return to the primary belaying position [full hand on the brake and not touching the device].”

It’s also true that using the three-finger grip as the primary belay position is good enough 99.999% of the time. Many climbers use it without incident, I have personally used it and caught falls with it, and it may be well within the risk-tolerance of a climber and their belayer. It’s a personal choice, but it’s not best practice, and it’s not recommended by Petzl.

To me, the primary value of the method recommended by Petzl is that it guards against complacency with experience. If we look at the belay style shown in the video, it seems much harder to end up there if you are starting with the recommended method than it would be if you are constantly in the three-finger grip. 

J W wrote:

If I can match your misreading, you think having used a device makes you an expert?

How much of an expert do you have to be to recognize that a belay device is not being used properly?

The vast majority of climbers do not understand the intricacies of the Grigri to the level that Ben from Hard Is Easy does, but how many of them do you think cannot recognize a Grigri being used improperly?

Now, whether or not they feel comfortable raising the issue with the belayer, that's another matter.

BTW, thanks for drawing attention to Grug's moving of goalposts.

From: "have no idea if their technique or set up is sound."

To: "expert"

Collin Hwrote:

I’m curious if this also changed your thinking on what best practices look like. In the instructions for the GriGri, Petzl states: “The other technique [the three finger grip], for occasional and short-term use, requires different hand positioning for a very limited time. Your hands must immediately return to the primary belaying position [full hand on the brake and not touching the device].”

It’s also true that using the three-finger grip as the primary belay position is good enough 99.999% of the time. Many climbers use it without incident, I have personally used it and caught falls with it, and it may be well within the risk-tolerance of a climber and their belayer. It’s a personal choice, but it’s not best practice, and it’s not recommended by Petzl.

To me, the primary value of the method recommended by Petzl is that it guards against complacency with experience. If we look at the belay style shown in the video, it seems much harder to end up there if you are starting with the recommended method than it would be if you are constantly in the three-finger grip. 

You are making a good point there. Definitely open to trying it, maybe I‘ll get a new rope or try a Neox. I feel like using the 3 finger method (instead of gripping the Grigri with the whole hand) is no inconvenience. Using the method recommended by Petz however (no permanent contact with the Grigri) kinda sucks if you have a thicker/fuzzy rope and need to disable the cam every time you give slack. I was always very happy with the Grigri but I have to say, if you are not supposed to touch the Grigri for a prolonged time during belaying but its design really tempts you to do so, that might be somewhat of a design flaw. 

Brandon Rwrote:

Of all the "bullshit" devices you listed, I can pretty easily tell if they were installed correctly and if the belayer's brake hand has a firm grip on the brake side of the rope.  If it's a device that I'm not familiar with, I could just ask how it works before being belayed by it. It's really not as difficult as you make it out to be.

Very nice - I guess you are ready to be belayed by anyone with any device. Climb on. 

I still would prefer people to use a grigri. Too many confidently incorrect climbers out there - like the clown in the original post video. 

Are we sure this was a grigri? Definitely a Petzl device, you can see it in the hard-is-easy video during a partner check. 

Another guy is walking around with a Neox.

Years of shitty gri-gri technique, used on a Neox? Meat-pawing the device like an idiot would stop the wheel from tipping up to even start acting like a cam. Could be a factor in how an "experienced belayer" had his terrible technique finally catch up to him.

------------------------------

Edit: Nope, I am wrong. White shirt guy has a Neox for sure. Belayer did not. 

Scurvy Davewrote:

Are we sure this was a grigri? Definitely a Petzl device, you can see it in the hard-is-easy video during a partner check. 

Another guy is walking around with a Neox.

Years of shitty gri-gri technique, used on a Neox? Meat-pawing the device like an idiot would stop the wheel from tipping up to even start acting like a cam. Could be a factor in how an "experienced belayer" had his terrible technique finally catch up to him.

I think you are on to something here. I bet that belayer is super experienced with grigris

Scurvy Davewrote:

Are we sure this was a grigri? Definitely a Petzl device, you can see it in the hard-is-easy video during a partner check. 

Another guy is walking around with a Neox.

Years of shitty gri-gri technique, used on a Neox? Meat-pawing the device like an idiot would stop the wheel from tipping up to even start acting like a cam. Could be a factor in how an "experienced belayer" had his terrible technique finally catch up to him.

The link to the Hard Is Easy YouTube clip posted above. Ben says he upscaled the video and watched it frame by frame.

The device used is stated to be a Grigri

You know what, you could be right. Looks like the black annodized Neox with the semi-circle cut outs around the wheel. Did Petzl make the grigri in black annodized?

Neox feeds much faster with almost no resistance even without holding the cam. I have at least one friend who won't use a Neox because it feels much less in control. I don't know why the belayer would have held down the cam. It's almost impossible to lock a Neox with an ATC-style belay, which IMO is its main advantage over the grigri, for folks who are really concerned with avoiding short-roping.

Edit - oh I read that too fast. You're saying that second photo is a Neox, but that's a different person. 

L Kapwrote:

You know what, you could be right. Looks like the black annodized Neox with the semi-circle cut outs around the wheel. Did Petzl make the grigri in black annodized?

Yes, Petzl did make a Grigri in black.

Scroll up a bit and you can see a photo of one of them.

Looks like I was wrong. Hard-is-easy clarified that there is footage not shown in his video where you can see that it is a gri-gri. 

The other device shown is certainly a Neox. Regardless of color, it has cutouts that only a Neox has.

When was the accident? It sounded like (Ben’s video) she was about four months into rehab. Did I hear that correctly?

I’m going to start speaking up… I see pretty crazy stuff around here all the time. Maybe I’ll carry a little flyer to pass out with the video links to Ben’s Grigri videos as well as Petzl’s video. Just hand off a flyer, rather than a long conversation, maybe…?

Daniel Joderwrote:

When was the accident?

According to the post on the Instagram -

On the second day of the training comp in France for IFSC World Cup in Korea

The cup was October 2-6, 2024

Video was posted, roughly, Feb 23, 2025

Bb Cc wrote:

I have tried belaying with a Neox a friend has, was able to short rope quite effectively due to years of hurriedly feeding 1/2-arm-of- slack for high clips.

Distressing to watch the fall.

agreed after using the neox a dozen times. it is very possible to short rope really any abrupt motion, if theres little to no slack in the system and the climber goes for a high clip and yanks rope up quickly / desperately - YUP it locks right up. tested this a bunch in the last few months.

Its 1000% possible to short rope, even with the wheel in a neox

Re: Hard is Easy video, and yeah I know it's YouTube, but there are so many comments saying it's somehow the climber's fault that I wonder if some weird instruction thing is going on here in gyms where saying "falling" is normalized as a safety requirement or something like it. I really appreciate seeing the earlier comments in this thread emphasizing the belayer's absolute no-exceptions duty to safeguard the climber at all times and am puzzled by some of the comments here that seem to push back against this. While there are situations where climber negligence almost ensures a bad fall, the classic being falling while clipping with an armload of slack close to the ground, there remains the absolute commandment that the belayer never lets go of the rope or lets it slide during a fall. This is fundamental and not open to negotiation.

Finally regarding the GriGri, I have been using one for over 30 years and have definitely come around to the ATC method. I still have a GriGri 1 which makes feeding smoother but even GriGri 2s work fine this way with a reasonable diameter newer rope. I am not sold on the Neox yet and I am sure it will be reworked by Petzl in a year or two given the overall lack of usage of the Neox that I am seeing in my home gym. Personally I think that Petzl should revisit the 2 and update it to be more like the 1 to reflect new paradigms in belaying where the auto-lock feature is primarily a back-up to conventional belaying technique, not a replacement for it.

Absolutely the belayers fault but this does ( in no means do I blame the climber) remind everyone to communicate between climber and belayer. I’ve been climbing with the same people for close to 20 years and I still look down and say, “take” when I’m at the top and make sure my belayer heard. Same with sport outside and same with multi pitch routes, when I’m off belay and have my follower on belay.  I don’t have to because my friends are watching me but it’s how I was taught and it’s worked so far. Awful video to see.  I hope the climber is healing and can get back at it. 

Not as entirely egregious as the original post, and no accident as a result, but some pretty poor belaying on the first few bolts of this send from Janja Garnbret. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DG6C2QPs0R6/?igsh=OWdodGwwNWQ3ZTU5

Is it just complacency at the higher levels that can allow this? I've seen clips of Ondra using questionable belay technique, Honnold got dropped, and I'm sure there's more... 

Paul Lwrote:

Not as entirely egregious as the original post, and no accident as a result, but some pretty poor belaying on the first few bolts of this send from Janja Garnbret. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DG6C2QPs0R6/?igsh=OWdodGwwNWQ3ZTU5

Is it just complacency at the higher levels that can allow this? I've seen clips of Ondra using questionable belay technique, Honnold got dropped, and I'm sure there's more... 

I'd take this technique over most folks who keep their hand/thumb in fast feed position 100% of the time. 

M Mwrote:

I'd take this technique over most folks who keep their hand/thumb in fast feed position 100% of the time. 

Belayer appears to be right handed - mostly he is feeding the rope using left hand, combination of ATC style and "almost tunnel" - lets go of the rope with his right hand to remove slack.
The outrageous part - he puts his left hand over GG overriding the cam, and then he yards out  a couple of armfuls with his right. I would consider this way worse than the original incident video - Janja is so close to the ground that there is not enough time to react even though she has belayer's complete attention.