GriGri goes "POP" after TRS fall

I had a weird and concerning experience today while TRS on a GriGri (>2019 version). I'm relatively new to the practice of TRS. My normal setup is a microtraxion + spok with the Avant Climbing lanyard to keep the devices apart on the rope. 

Today I was working a particular sequence at my home crag, and was getting annoyed by having to transition off of my two TRS devices to the GriGri to practice the few moves that were giving me trouble. Since I had more than half my rope + a nearly full water bottle in my rope bag suspended off the ground below me to keep the devices feeding smoothly, I figured it was enough weight to go ahead and just TRS with the GriGri alone. 

My setup was working fine, with the GriGri auto-feeding (albeit with quite a bit of resistance--I viewed it as an opportunity to get stronger practicing the crux moves lol) with the 10+ lbs of weight below the device, and I took multiple falls on it with no issues, catching every time. I had stopped using the Avant Climbing lanyard as it didn't help keep the GriGri up and rather just stretched out the lanyard with no real benefit. I got a bit more trusting with each catch and started to focus on the moves when all of a sudden I fell and heard a loud "POP" from the GriGri. It did catch me without any noticeable slippage, but the sound certainly freaked me out a bit. I threw my personal into the nearest bolt, attached my normal TRS setup, and removed the GriGri and locking biner for inspection. Nothing seemed amiss, but nevertheless I skipped over the crux section and finished the route on my typical TRS setup and packed it up to head home. 

On further reflection, I remembered getting up to the point where I had re-fixed the rope below a ledge with an alpine butterfly, and found the knot incredibly tight--it took me like 30min to loosen. I have never had an alpine butterfly do this to me, so maybe I took a bigger fall than I thought? Additionally I am wondering if having such a heavy weight below the GriGri could have been an issue? Google AI reports that GriGris can make a popping noise under normal fall forces, but didn't find any sort of source or other forums talking about this to back it up.

Wondering if this is perfectly within normal expectation for GriGris or if I need to go replace mine. Any advice is appreciated.

EDIT: I was using a Mammut 9.8mm dynamic rope.

I think your GriGri was telling you to stop using it as a sole device in your system. I’d prolly listen to it.

Is your grigri held in a position that it can't rotate around the carabiner? Might've been it pulling into the loaded orientation rapidly

Mason Clarkwrote:

I had a weird and concerning experience today while TRS on a GriGri (>2019 version). I'm relatively new to the practice of TRS. My normal setup is a microtraxion + spok with the Avant Climbing lanyard to keep the devices apart on the rope. 

Today I was working a particular sequence at my home crag, and was getting annoyed by having to transition off of my two TRS devices to the GriGri to practice the few moves that were giving me trouble. Since I had more than half my rope + a nearly full water bottle in my rope bag suspended off the ground below me to keep the devices feeding smoothly, I figured it was enough weight to go ahead and just TRS with the GriGri alone. 

My setup was working fine, with the GriGri auto-feeding (albeit with quite a bit of resistance--I viewed it as an opportunity to get stronger practicing the crux moves lol) with the 10+ lbs of weight below the device, and I took multiple falls on it with no issues, catching every time. I had stopped using the Avant Climbing lanyard as it didn't help keep the GriGri up and rather just stretched out the lanyard with no real benefit. I got a bit more trusting with each catch and started to focus on the moves when all of a sudden I fell and heard a loud "POP" from the GriGri. It did catch me without any noticeable slippage, but the sound certainly freaked me out a bit. I threw my personal into the nearest bolt, attached my normal TRS setup, and removed the GriGri and locking biner for inspection. Nothing seemed amiss, but nevertheless I skipped over the crux section and finished the route on my typical TRS setup and packed it up to head home. 

On further reflection, I remembered getting up to the point where I had re-fixed the rope below a ledge with an alpine butterfly, and found the knot incredibly tight--it took me like 30min to loosen. I have never had an alpine butterfly do this to me, so maybe I took a bigger fall than I thought? Additionally I am wondering if having such a heavy weight below the GriGri could have been an issue? Google AI reports that GriGris can make a popping noise under normal fall forces, but didn't find any sort of source or other forums talking about this to back it up.

Wondering if this is perfectly within normal expectation for GriGris or if I need to go replace mine. Any advice is appreciated.

EDIT: I was using a Mammut 9.8mm dynamic rope.

1. You should not be listening to Google AI under the safety of your life

2. I have never heard a grigri pop under any scenario, might be best to retire that grigri and change your TRS method

3. Petzl I believe has condemned the act of using a grigri for TRS (not that it has stopped any of us), so I wouldn't expect to find any official information regarding this issue, only side conversations and likely equally as sketchy feedback

4. I personally carry the rope with me so I wouldn't have anything helpful for you but I thought the most pressing issue being PLEASE DO NOT TRUST A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL WITH YOUR LIFE

James Leewrote:

Is your grigri held in a position that it can't rotate around the carabiner? Might've been it pulling into the loaded orientation rapidly

I could see that being the case. Should I expect to retire the grigri after such a fall?

Mason Clarkwrote:

I could see that being the case. Should I expect to retire the grigri after such a fall?

One of the biggest TRS issues is making sure your grigri is held in the right orientation, else it won't catch you or may take the force wrong. 

However I imagine if you had it rotated wrong you would have just decked rather than it popping and catching

Jared Kohliwrote:

1. You should not be listening to Google AI under the safety of your life

2. I have never heard a grigri pop under any scenario, might be best to retire that grigri and change your TRS method

3. Petzl I believe has condemned the act of using a grigri for TRS (not that it has stopped any of us), so I wouldn't expect to find any official information regarding this issue, only side conversations and likely equally as sketchy feedback

4. I personally carry the rope with me so I wouldn't have anything helpful for you but I thought the most pressing issue being PLEASE DO NOT TRUST A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL WITH YOUR LIFE

I 100% agree. I wouldn't trust Google with my life which is why I'm doing further research including making this post. Also planning to stop by a climbing shop to see what their professional opinion is. I just mentioned it because it was kind of my first hit when doing initial research, but as I mentioned there wasn't a source listed--was hoping it might lead to a Petzl site, but as you mentioned it isn't really a suggested use from petzl so I'm not sure what the source was that indicated it could be normal. 

If nothing is visibly deformed and the cam still has good spring tension it doesn’t seem necessary to retire your grigri. It’s hard to imagine a TRS fall generating enough force to retire a grigri. If the pop sounded like metal it was probably the carabiner+grigri shifting orientation as listed above. If there was any slack building up it’s possible the rope was getting caught on something but that would sound different.

Mike J wrote:

I did a test a while back after discussions on the dangers of someone applying their weight on the rope below you while you're rapping on a grigri.

Curious on this, would you please share your findings? Seems like weight beneath the device would just be additional breaking force.

P Bwrote:

Curious on this, would you please share your findings? Seems like weight beneath the device would just be additional breaking force.

In this discussion, it’s important to differentiate between braking force and breaking force. 

The most common source of popping sounds is biners catching slightly crossloaded and then straightening out.  That's why I started using a toggled soft shackle on my grigri instead of a hard 'biner.  That solved that problem.

Mike J wrote:

I did a test a while back after discussions on the dangers of someone applying their weight on the rope below you while you're rapping on a grigri.

Had a big guy weight the rope below me and the grigri made a loud "pop". I figure it was from the plastic middle being squeezed out between the metal side plates, it made almost like a finger snap sound. As soon as I unweighted it, the plastic resettled itself in the middle and the grigri works fine.

Maybe something like that happened when you fell and had weight on the rope below?

I actually found your post discussing this in the other thread. I don't think it applies to my situation since I believe this occurs only when the brake strand is weighted by a heavier load than your own weight. I don't think this was the case since my weight on the brake strand couldn't have been more than 20lbs. Nevertheless, a pretty interesting and important thing to keep in the back of my mind.

The discussion of a weighted brake strand alludes to another Petzl warning note which may be (partially?)* at play here -- the warning against stacked rappels / fireman's belays while using a Grigri. Alpinesavvy discusses it in this article. 

*I say partially because the weight you have applied (<20 lbs?) is hefty, but much less than that of a second climber dangling from your brake strand. Perhaps the weight isn't enough to trigger an outright failure, but pushes the device into a funky-enough orientation where other weird behavior arises?

As for poor AI performance, maybe it has something to do with the prevalence of iconography-based safety instructions for climbing gear -- can't scrape any knowledge until someone writes an article explaining what a hand highlighted in orange with a skull and crossbones does and does not mean.

Personally, I never solo at my limit.

Grigri has been known to crack carabiner if it gets hung up on the spine.  The DMM rhino and the gridlock rigged upside down prevent this, otherwise some bomber soft connection or maybe a mallion.

Rope solo is the pits, I'd rather boulder. 

My vote is also that it was probably the caribener catching cross loaded at first and straightening out. I've messed arround a lot with a grigri in trs configurations, and it's real easy to cross load a normal caribener. I personaly went to using a quick link when I was doing anything where I might fall on a slack grigri, but any solution that keeps a caribener from cross loading could also work. 

You could always for ex. Wrap electrical tape arround it, but that kinda ruins the whole easy on/off the rope perk.

Doesn't avant have an anti cross loading rubber clip thing? That could be an option. 

The grigri is not meant to be used to solo. In years past people would modify their grigri in what was known as the "Death Mod" by drilling holes in it and attempt to prevent it from capsizing. You can find posts on this forum or others that date back 20 years on this. I could imagine the noise you heard may have been the device reorienting over a carabiner to the "upward" position. 

If you're going to use the grigri to solo, use a backup or understand that there can be severe consequences without. You're using a device made mostly of aluminum and plastic for something it is not intended for. There's a reason why people who have done TRS or LRS for some time use multiple devices, steel carabiners etc.

Knots cost you nothing and could save you everything. Keep learning and be careful. 

The anti-soloing and 'devices weren't approved for that' sentiments here are valid but not helpful in this conversation. We all have our own risk tolerance level. If folks want to talk about why people shouldn't solo, please can you start your own thread?

My issue with the gri gri for TRS (as opposed to a gri gri + for LRS - which is whole different scenario) is slack management. I suspect there was probably too much slack at the moment the OP fell despite the weight, likely leading to increased forces and the gear reorienting. I like the trax+another similar device b/c they feed way better (at least for me).

OP - were you using a dynamic, semi-static, or static rope?

Anthony Awrote:

The anti-soloing and 'devices weren't approved for that' sentiments here are valid but not helpful in this conversation. We all have our own risk tolerance level. If folks want to talk about why people shouldn't solo, please can you start your own thread?

Yes, absolutely. Allow Recreational Darwinism to progress as it was intended.

Edit: To be clear, I TRS all the time- I'm a big fan, using two devices that are specifically designed for that purpose.

It is one of the most idiotic phenomenon of human nature that people can't absorb the learnings of others in the past and integrate them into their future actions. In this case, the well-known risks of using a single device to TRS (and a device the manufacturer specifically does not recommend for this purpose). But hey, man...you do you.

Tone Locwrote:

My issue with the gri gri for TRS (as opposed to a gri gri + for LRS - which is whole different scenario) is slack management. I suspect there was probably too much slack at the moment the OP fell despite the weight, likely leading to increased forces and the gear reorienting. I like the trax+another similar device b/c they feed way better (at least for me).

OP - were you using a dynamic, semi-static, or static rope?

Op said he was using a redirect off a bolt, so the fall factor might have been substantial.  I agree with you about slack management with a grigri, I'd take an atc in guide mode over the grigri every time - at least it holds the tension you give it.  

Anthony Awrote:

If folks want to talk about why people shouldn't solo, please can you start your own thread?

I think you missed my point. Specifically the following:

If you're going to use the grigri to solo, use a backup or understand that there can be severe consequences without. You're using a device made mostly of aluminum and plastic for something it is not intended for. 

 Keep learning and be careful. 

The Grigri has multiple failure modes and has many ways it could have made that noise, especially in a top rope solo situation. Without a time machine we aren't going to know what caused it here. Nearly all of these possibilities have already been pointed out above;

• The rope can get fully or partially stuck behind the brake point of the Grigri
• The Grigri can be in a non-upright condition
• There could have been some slack in the line
• The carabiner could have been partially crossloaded
  
  Overall the most important things are unchanged, knowledge and safety. If someone is going to use exclusively a GriGri to solo, fine, just know what you are getting into. Make no assumptions and be at the specific safety level you desire, and understand that things can still go wrong. As we all know, people are hurt or killed every year climbing while assuming what they are doing is safe or the recommended method. If you want to venture out of the guidelines, that's your choice, you just need to understand the risk before assuming it has none. That is why I advised the GriGri is not meant for soloing and that people have had the same problem and have been trying to solve it for literal decades now.
  
  Lastly - food for thought - I have used the GriGri by itself before. This isn't me on my high horse, this is a reminder to be careful and know what you are getting into.