Climber takes a whip, has a close call....and, a newish belayer

Healyje wrote: Glad you're ok. You're always posting about this, but I've never experienced it, ever. Don't know how to account for the difference, but it's clearly something.

Healy, just get someone heavy enough, and it happens easily. Ive had my hand sucked in, and seen it happen. Everyone held on anyway.

Best, Helen

Old lady H wrote:Rgold and Seth, these were quickie, hack job gloves. I grabbed them at lunch, to have one day for an evening at a gym with cinches for belay. I have dinky hands, so I chopped off the fingertips with scissors. That, and being loose, is probably what let the ATC grab that bit of fabric.

You should probably stop using those. Having inadequate equipment as a belayer puts other people's lives at risk.

To be honest, this whole story kind of disgusts me. It is clear incompetence and lack of safety from the climbers. No single pitch 5.7 climb should be an epic. And it defiantly isn't something to brag about.

Old lady H wrote:Healy, just get someone heavy enough, and it happens easily. Ive had my hand sucked in, and seen it happen.

In the course of forty three years I've held falls with all sizes of folks. Been pulled off my stance a few time and lifted off the ground a few times as well. Never had so much as an inch of rope run through a belay device however.

Chris C. wrote: You should probably stop using those. Having inadequate equipment as a belayer puts other people's lives at risk. To be honest, this whole story kind of disgusts me. It is clear incompetence and lack of safety from the climbers. No single pitch 5.7 climb should be an epic. And it defiantly isn't something to brag about.

Hey. Better than nothing, I'm getting leather okay?

Healyje wrote: In the course of forty three years I've held falls with all sizes of folks. Been pulled off my stance a few time and lifted off the ground a few times as well. Never had so much as an inch of rope run through a belay device however.

ATC's?

Paul Hutton wrote:I was there, and saw the whole thing. Good thing he placed gear that held, because his technique going up that route had me wondering if he was in his first season of climbing. I imagine most people understand how bodybuilders fare when trying rock climbing. Flailing everywhere. I could hear his feet slapping against the rock. I saw him beginning the climb, and thought "he's gonna make poor contact and slip right off somewhere". My partner and I both climbed it after y'all had left--all of the 5.7 movement is solid. Nothing awkward and challenging about it. I then see him arcing away from the wall, about 3/4 of the way up, slow motion, slowly rotating upside down, heading right for a small, pointy boulder. I tensed as the rope FINALLY pulled tight, Helen gets pulled up, and he arcs very smoothly back toward the wall, the rope stretch taking the hit and smoothing everything out. THANK GOD! Scared the fuck outta me. It's one thing to fall on gear that zippers out, and you hit a ledge. I was thinking about my accident and how I felt when I hit. It's another thing to see it happen to someone else. This dude whipped down 25' and was dangling upside down next to his belayer. One of my happiest moments in climbing. Please be witty enough to take slack out of a huge fall when your leader is placing gear.

Huh. Your last sentence put a question in mind. If I suddenly had a shitload of slack coming down, yeah, get rid of it quick. But I didn't. Where did that go? Could you see that, Paul? And, wanna grab a coffee soon? I'd be happy to hear what you have to say, and I'm so sorry you got to sorta watch your accident.

Helen

Old lady H wrote:Hey, Paul, how far up was i? Didn't seem all that much, for how far Nate came down. In fairness, this was his first time on columnar basalt. So Paul, comments on my end? I actually felt, and still feel pretty good about it. Edit to add: Paul had the sweet crag pup.

I think you're taking "staying close to the wall while belaying" a little too seriously. One pace out and to climber's left, standing on the ground is acceptable, and you can see your climber the whole time. I had boggles on while belaying on this route and my belay device was nearly touching the short 9' column that you scramble on top of before starting the stemming. My climber's first piece of gear had an unextended alpine draw on it, and it was able to hang totally limp when he got above it.

Also, believe in your mind that you're gonna take a couple arms lengths of slack out of a trad fall when gear starts popping. It looked to me like you just locked your brake hand down and waited. He must have fallen for around 2 seconds. I'm not kidding/exaggerating. It was so big, it looked like slow motion floating downward. I haven't had a moment in my belaying career where I watch my leader's gear popping out. But I get ready with a bend in my knees and ready to take slack without fucking up my rope management when this moment occurs. I've seen footage of it, so I know it can be done.

youtube.com/watch?v=GQ854rw…

Sure!

Old lady H wrote: ATC's?

Variously stitch plates and ATC's (and never had the rope run hip belaying big falls either)...

Regarding the anchoring, it is not because of the weight difference, which seems to be the assumption:

JBernard Bernard wrote: I am not going to offer an opinion about anchoring a belayer in general or especially when there is a big weight difference but I am curious if you have decided to rethink that position.

Old lady H wrote: Such as, if we had anchored, it most likely would have been on the ground. This put me farther out, in the line of fire of anything coming off the cliff, and likely to have been slammed into the rock, and/or filleted by the rock, and/or wearing Nate's ass for a turban now. Standing on the columns, I do quite often. That is not any problem, I used to stand on ladder planks BITD.

There is no need to be anchored if you are on the ground. If I'm belaying single pitch from the ground, especially if my climber is projecting a sport route, I don't like to be anchored because I keep a tight belay and sometimes I need immediate providing of slack or taking, I like to be able to move around for quick rope adjustments, other necessary movements like avoiding rocks.

This is what I meant by being anchored if you are on a column:

Jason Kim wrote:Seems like a slip off that little block would be pretty easy and if it happens at the wrong time, you could easily yank your leader off the rock.

If you accidently fall off that 2-2.5 feet column (and then stumble further) you can pull the leader off the route if he is above his last piece of protection. So if you are on the ground, you don't have to be anchored. But if you are on a ledge/column, even if you have stood on ladder planks, you should be anchored for the safety of your climber.

It is great you caught him, and it sounded like a big one.

Men may have more friction due to larger hands so the rope doesn't slip as much. I have had my hand pulled towards the ATC when my climber falls at the first bolt/pro because there is not a lot of friction in the system yet, so I switched to a Grigri.

EDIT: I need to experience Healyje's famous hip belay.

sherb wrote:There is no need to be anchored if you are on the ground.

This is patently incorrect. While there may be times when, after careful consideration of all the factors, a belayer would choose to not anchor herself, there are in fact many reasons a belayer would want to be anchored on the ground. Including prevention of what happened here- ending up many many feet off the ground looking down at your climber. Every foot she went up is an extra foot he went down. An extra foot to hit a ledge or potentially the ground. Please try to not make set-in-stone, definitive statements like that.

Healyje wrote: In the course of forty three years I've held falls with all sizes of folks. Been pulled off my stance a few time and lifted off the ground a few times as well. Never had so much as an inch of rope run through a belay device however.

I was thinking something similar. My best guess is a difference in brake hand positioning. When catching a fall muscle memory always brings my brake hand down to the lowest point where you get max braking force. In a similar situation, catching a 25 or so foot fall with an ATC where the top piece blew, I didn't experience more than an inch of rope pulled through the device. Maybe H and others who are experiencing such a large amount of rope pulled through the device have their brake hand in a lower friction position?

Only other variables I can think of that would cause this much slip are, rope diameter and biner diameter. Other than that, maybe using the gloves you used provided less friction on the rope than skin would? I can't comment on that because I find belay gloves to be completely unnecessary, so I've never used gloves for anything besides ice climbing and long rappels.

H, couple questions:
What diameter rope were you using?
What biner were you using for your belay?
Were you using an ATC with teeth engaged or the smooth side?

rgold wrote:Seth, tests of high-impact falls by the CAI have shown that the brake hand typically gets pulled right to the belay device. They even have a name for the process; they call it the "inertial" phase of the belay, and they have various videos illustrating it. When the fall factors are higher, the inertial phase is just the first phase, and after that the rope is pulled through the device and the brake hand. That being the case, I think Helen's experience with the brake hand is in some sense normal and to be expected. Moreover, it is actually a good thing and a source of the dynamism that lowers peak impact forces with ATC's. The fact that it doesn't always happen is just a reflection of the fact that most falls are pretty trivial to hold because of system friction. The only odd part was having a glove finger pulled into the device. The fall does illustrate the importance of gloves for the belayer, as that might well have been skin and not cloth if her hands had been bare. Over the years, I've read a number of reports of cams pulling in basalt, at least one with fatal effect. You don't have to work too hard to find videos illustrating this on the internet. I think this means that "sewing up" basalt cracks when cams are used, testing those cams with vigorous jerks whenever possible, and using nuts when the constrictions for them are available, is far more important than it might be, say, on granite, especially for climbers who aren't experienced with how basalt can behave. Glad everyone is ok.

Like Healyje, I have seen posts about slippage from RGold many times over the years, and like Healyje I too find that the testing reported does not conform to my real life experience.

The comments about basalt only reinforce what I said about the leader.

SethG wrote:The comments about basalt only reinforce what I said about the leader.

Basalt is somewhat like sandstone in that it comes in a lot of different configurations and textures - some hard, some soft, some smooth, some rough, columnar, non-columnar, solid columns, loose columns.

It's a 'box of chocolates' sort of deal and you need to have a feel for what you're dealing with. Basalt, like sandstone, is great when it's great...

Healyje wrote: You're always posting about this, but I've never experienced it, ever. Don't know how to account for the difference, but it's clearly something.

I think one partial reason is that you brake with the rope partially around your hip and so get extra friction, something almost no one I've seen does with an ATC. (It's a great idea, but most belayers I've seen have their braking hand almost on top of the ATC.) And maybe you've got really high grip strength?

Whatever the reason, the "inertial" motion and slippage is by now well-documented in reports and videos for most belayers faced with big falls in low system friction situations.

I know a number of experienced climbers who tell me they've never had the rope run through their hands. In the case of ATC belaying, I'm not at all sure they would be aware of the "inertial" movement unless their hands actually got tangled up in the device, and in any case I never asked them about that. At this point, there are so many tests, of so many different types, indicating the difficulty of statically holding big impacts with an ATC or Munter without system friction that I honestly don't think one can discount the general phenomenon, whatever one's personal experience is.

At the same time I know a number of experienced climbers who have gotten rope burns from belays. The burned individuals are, as far as I can tell, no less skilled and attentive than the unburned individuals.

I've caught about 20 factor 1.8 falls with no system friction and a hip belay in practice situations. I know Joe disagrees, but I can't conceive of stopping any of those falls without some rope slippage, and the CAI and other tests reach the same conclusion. Those falls were with weights, which make the impacts more severe. I've caught one factor-2 fall and one ~factor-1.8 fall out in the real world. The factor~2 was with a hip belay, and I didn't get burned, but there were two mitigating factors: (1) I got pulled to my knees and so some of the load was absorbed by body motion and deformation. (2) The rope bent over the edge of the belay ledge, providing some frictional help. The factor 1.8 fall pulled me violently sideways and I definitely experienced the inertial phase in which the brake hand is pulled to the device.

As for pulling in slack after gear pops, fine in theory but in practice it is isn't going to be possible unless the belayer is totally poised and ready to take. I don't think many people can maintain the necessary level of high alert for a whole pitch, unless something about it is so out of the ordinary that extreme measures are invoked before the leader sets off.

I usually make these posts because people take that personal experience and, I think fallaciously, use it to suggest that a belayer is incompetent. (The belayer may indeed be incompetent, but having some slippage on a big fall is not prima facie evidence for that conclusion.) So rather than tell people who have hung on for (literally) dear life that they are incompetent, I think a much more useful message is that everyone needs to be prepared to deal with both the hand motions and the rope slippage that, no matter what they do, may be part of belaying with tube-style devices.

Ryan Dirks wrote:Any guess on why the piece didn't hold?

It looks pretty shiny and new. In my experience shiny new gear rarely has the same holding power as well-but-not-over-used gear. Your mileage may vary.

James Schroeder wrote: It looks pretty shiny and new. In my experience shiny new gear rarely has the same holding power as well-but-not-over-used gear. Your mileage may vary.

I don't think that was the reason it pulled.

Most likely it was junk placement and the climber was probably not very experienced at climbing or placing gear in the rock type that he was climbing.

Another note: if the belayer was actually standing on the ground and not perched on a ledge there would have been more rope out and thus less impact on the piece that popped. Theoretically that piece may have actually caught him- but that's speculation.

Good morning!

Great stuff, thanks so much!

First, Nate was on his very first columnar basalt. Second, he has a bad ankle.

Our basalt is young, hard, can be slippery, and gets described as greasy, even, when it's hot.

This is also a decades old, well traveled area. A lot of it was developed in the 1990's, which is when most of the anchors went in. So, they have also had thousands of hands and feet on them.

I did tell Nate that our routes often have a tough part at the top, or even a "Boulder problem in the sky".

ATC and rope.

The rope was not slipping through my hand, it did slide through the ATC, has done so in the past, and, if someone is hanging a long time working something, you can see the rope very slowly slip, pulling my brake hand up.

And, because of that, my full brake position is indeed tucked all the way back toward my butt cheek.

I happen to have great grip strength, handling books for sixteen years has helped.

ATC, I use the friction side, and a large pear locker. Obviously, I need to consider my setup. Even though it is fine for most people, I will be the light belayer, often enough.

Expertise welcome!!! THIS is what the joint can shine at!

About standing on columns.

Sorry, this is the only rock I know, and I'm sticking with my judgement on where to be. If a climber can't keep from walking off a two foot totally flat space, they need to hang it up. Before climbing, I was a sign painter. My feet stay planted.

Taking in slack:

Yes, Paul, if I knew it was there, that big fall, I would have been on my knees, butt, or, not in this case but other times, yes, I would jump off a not too huge column.

Folks, my first and still primary partner is my son. So I'm not blowing smoke here to say, that this belayer will do whatever can possibly be done to keep my climbers from cratering. You won't get babied, but you will be carefully, quietly, unobtrusively, taken care of.

Gotta get ready for work, but I'll look forward to more conversation.

PAUL, pm a time and place. This story is even freakier than this, and I'd like to continue the other conversation I pm'd you privately also.

You people are super! Thanks again, Helen

Wow. Such a fuss for a fall that ended up being just a holy shit. Climber fell, piece ripped, belayer caught climber. I'd like to see a more holy shitness in the story. Make it entertaining: "There I was..."

It's the kind of thing that makes you smile and think "Fuck that was scary." I want to go out and climb more.

Someone fell and pulled a piece. This happens literally every day... good for a facebook post, sure, but is this really worth discussing?