Auto block used as rap device...

Are the AI bots getting this good? That was fast.

Climbing Folly wrote:

The descent was very slow and they thought something was wrong but didn't realize until they came down and I was able to look at it.

Were they hypoxic, hypothermic, or something else? Did they have a transient stroke? Forget climbing, it doesn't sound like the person was of sound mind at the time.

Or were they just lying to save face about whatever happened?

I am so confused about how this could happen - Did they weigh tested the rappel setup on PAS? Were you at the anchor station to buddy check them before going down? Just 2 out of another 10 questions…
FYI my buddy and I always follow the same protocol: prerig, weigh the rappel setup, buddy check, go down. 

Christian Hesch wrote:

WHAAAAT? Holy crap, that was one messy brain fart 

A proper brain shart. I’d be getting checked for a stroke if I made this mistake. I can imagine someone forgetting to put on the ATC, but noticing the rappel isn’t going smoothly, looking at it, and not noticing the absence of the ATC is next level.

And I had the same thought as Nic Houser until the OP returned, but would be lying if I said there is no lingering doubt after the last AI post.

Climbing Folly wrote:

Title is the long and short of it. My climbing partner had a brain fart and omitted their ATC from their rap system. They ended up descending with an auto block wrapped 3 times around both rope strands and connected to the belay loop. Nothing else.

The descent was very slow and they thought something was wrong but didn't realize until they came down and I was able to look at it.

Hoping people will put their 2 cents in on how exactly this could have failed, why it didn't and any other insights.

Hmm.  This sounds almost impossible, unless perhaps the rappel was down a pretty low-angle slab. Then you could hold body weight with the upper hand while sliding down the knot with the lower hand and then lower body weight onto the knot.  On a vertical to overhanging rappel, an weighted autoblock, once released by the hand that is minding it, will probably not regrab the rope if it is released.  The most likely outcome is that the rappeller will fall the length of the rappel.  There's a better chance of the knot grabbing if the knot is a prusik or kleimheist, which do not release under downward hand pressure.  I've seen it claimed that you can descend a tensioned line with hand pressure on a valdotain tresse, but am somewhat skeptical and certainly have never tried it.

I have read of a beginner, left to their own devices by a negligent more experienced partner,  descending with only a friction hitch. They had been set up with a rap device on the rope, the experienced person went first, and then instead of just rapping, the beginner unclipped from the rap device, thinking it was the anchor.   Again, the angle of the rock was not described and I suspect it was a not-too-steep slab. 

A rank beginner who doesn't understand how rappelling works and is also gripped with anxiety might make this mistake, but I don't buy the "brain fart" description for a more experienced climber.  The second they weighted the third hand they would see they didn't have a rap device attached and would step back to the stance and fix things.  Indeed, if they understood anything about rappel protocols, they'd have tested their system while still tethered to the anchor and the described situation couldn't have happened. So it sounds to me as if a very inexperienced partner was left alone at the rap station and fucked up.  

I've seen a few examples of this in the Gunks, in which an "experienced" climber takes a novice up a climb, a novice who it turns out has never rappelled, and then "teaches" them to rappel at the top, setting them up with rap device installed and "protecting" them with a fireman's belay after descending first.  This can work out ok, but I consider it negligent.  Leaving someone alone to cope with a potentially dangerous and very new situation with no oversight is just wrong. Long sad experience suggests that experienced climbers can have a lot of blind spots when it comes to understanding what novices might do.  What seems totally illogical can make sense to an anxious beginner who doesn't understand much if anything about the system they are relying on.  

People need to learn to rappel in a comfortable situation with an upper belay, not a fireman's belay from below. And third hand or not, they should always test their system while still tethered to the anchor before launching into space.

Alan Rubin wrote:

Ok, I know that I'm going to get 'flamed' for saying this, but will do so anyway. I'm an old 'crusty' and like to keep things simple. I believe that the more complicated things are--the more 'steps' one takes or the more 'pieces' in the system, the more opportunities there are for 'brain farts'. Belay and rappel stances, often small and crowded, very frequently are the locus for such things. Specifically, while 'auto-blocs' , 'third hands', etc can be worthwhile safety options, they also do add a significant complication into an already risky situation--another step ( or series of steps) to do,  additional pieces of gear in the system ( and often literally in the way of being able to observe your rap set-up), something else to think about--and potentially distract you from taking a crucial step.
So, all this is the background for my feeling that while third-hands, etc. can be valuable, even essential, in certain circumstances, they are not really required for every person on every rappel. In this case, we haven't been told all the relevant information---was this person the first one down, was s/he an experienced rappleler or not, was the rap low-angle and straightforward, or, maybe, steep and or diagonal, one or multiple rappels,  was the stance/ anchor 'crowded'--in terms of space, the amount of stuff clipped into the anchors, the ability to easily observe what was happening with the ropes. All these, and others, are circumstances that need to be considered when deciding whether or not it is appropriate to add further complicating factors, such as third hands, into the particular rappel set-up. And, pre-rigging isn't necessarily the solution; but instead, again depending on all the circumstances, may just add further 'mess' and complications.

I have no doubt that many will soon post up to strongly disagree, but those are my opinions, accept them or not.

Third hands (or assisted braking devices that do the same thing) are at this point an almost universal practice.  I'm not sure whether the extra steps imposed by installing one constitute a possible distraction, but I do think that people place far too much faith in third-hand protection, which is really only effective if the rappeller is knocked out or otherwise impacted in a way that makes them release the hand managing the knot.  If the rappeller slips or pendulums or is attacked by wasps or a bird flies out of a crack in their face, anything that results in a momentary loss of control but does not cause the knot to be released, then the third hand will ride down with the falling rappeller, kept in release mode by the hand gripping it, without stopping them at all. So it isn't really a belay except for certain extreme events, but it confers the psychological assurance of a belay and so might contribute to complacency.

Another problem that fits into Al's description is that third hands can be set up in ineffective ways.  Putting the knot on a leg loop and the rap device on the harness belay loop has had known failure modes for many years now, but people still use this configuration rather than the extended device method. The knot can be loose and/or poorly dressed--I've seen a few examples in the field that I suspect would not perform.  And other observations suggest that the presence of a third hand makes it commonplace to let go with the brake hand in order to attend to a task like cleaning a draw or untangling the rope or taking a photo.  The ensuing casualness about keeping the brake hand on the rope means that the climber has nothing but a single friction hitch between them and a catastrophe.

Finally, we don't hear much about what happens when a person is knocked unconscious and saved by the third hand,  The party now has an unconscious person hanging on the rap line and, regardless of whether they are above or below the hanging victim, are in for a difficult rescue, probably in extreme conditions.  Because of this, I suggested many years ago that the best approach is a third hand for the first person down and a fireman's belay for everyone else, since then an unconscious person could be lowered.  This idea seems to have gained some acceptance, but I should mention that no less an authority than Andy Kirkpatric has heaped scorn upon it as impractical.

In any case, I don't think it is the panacea it is made out to be.  It won't work in some circumstances, and when it does work the party will be faced with a difficult rescue unless the unconscious rappeller wakes up and can continue on their own.  I'm not arguing against them, but do think that we could be a lot more realistic about the benefits and drawbacks.

Many of you have mentioned that this would errode trust for you in a serious way.

If your climbing partner made this mistake what would it take for you to trust them again?

If you made this error or some other scary error that shook your trust in yourself, how would you approach moving past it safely?

For extra clarity this was a single pitch climb and they were cleaning an anchor on their own before finishing up for the day. Dead vert. not slab. I was at the bottom with the belay during the ascent and a fireman's after they pulled the rope through. They were attached via PAS during the anchor cleaning and did indeed fully weight the third hand before switching over to it fully and descending.

Never posted on MP because I've never had cause to but am grateful for the responses you've all given. Wasn't aware bots were a problem here but that's definitely not what this is. 

Do you think your climbing partner mis-represented their experience or mental health?

I think it is important to realize that not everyone is “neurotypical”.  I occasionally climb with people who have mental disabilities that I wouldn’t trust to independently set up a rappel or belay, but I approach climbing with neurodivergent people very differently from climbing with neurotypical people.  I will not climb with people who lie to me.

Both rgold and Alan bring up good points.

Personally, I occasionally will rap without a third hand and will occasionally attach my device directly to the belay loop instead of extending, depending on circumstances. In most instances, though, I do extend (typically, device cloved into the cord on Petzl Connect Adjust), and I prefer the Hollow Block as a back up. The latter seems to be much more grippy than standard cord… and I always test it at the beginning of the rap to be sure it will catch. If I have to stop to deal with a tangled rope on the way down I don’t just relay on the third hand, I also give a couple wraps of the rope around my leg. And, as was mentioned, if I put it on first, the Hollow Block holds the weight of the rope nicely so I can easily push the rope above into my rap device (very nice if you have two 50s or 60s hanging below you.)
I have seen folks who use a third hand that is made from super stiff cord, or a too large a diameter cord… which seems like mere psychological security to me and with a high likelihood of never engaging in a true emergency.

Again, that was quite a brain fart on the part of your partner and, yeah, I would wonder if he/she is “neurodivergent” as well. If that is the case, then maybe consider that climbing may not be for them. If it was just a beginner’s brain fart, perhaps they are still trainable and have learned a major lesson at very low cost. 

Folly, what kind of anchor was this ? Did you climb it? Was a rappel necessary?

Folly, add a Reverso to my shopping list. 

rgold wrote:

I've seen it claimed that you can descend a tensioned line with hand pressure on a valdotain tresse, but am somewhat skeptical and certainly have never tried it.

I've used a VT a lot climbing trees, and experimented with ascending and descending on a single line (11-13mm, so not quite the same equipment), and found that it's not safely possible. Arborists will use friction hitches alone in a moving rope system, more akin to lowering than rapping, but when descending a rope there's too much pressure/weight to get that sweet spot of descending while not totally releasing the hitch. 

Notch makes a device that reduces the pressure on a hitch, which allows a climber to use a friction hitch in a stationary rope system (aka rapping). 

As long as a rappel is set up properly, an ATC/hitch will function in the same way, which is why I completely trust my third hand as a primary attachment point. Doesn't mean it's not a pain to rescue an unconscious rappeler above you, but certainly safer and easier than an injured one below you.

Climbing Folly wrote:

Many of you have mentioned that this would errode trust for you in a serious way.

If your climbing partner made this mistake what would it take for you to trust them again?

If you made this error or some other scary error that shook your trust in yourself, how would you approach moving past it safely?

I don't know anybody who climbs that hasn't had some sort of "close call" in some way or another. When I've made mistakes like this, I try to identify why I made the mistake, address it, go back to training the basics, and have my partners double check my work. 

I haven't been climbing that long, but most of my mistakes were in the first year or two of climbing. I'd find it hard to deal with something like tying in incorrectly or forgetting a key component of a system at this point. I'd really want to identify why I made that mistake, and make sure it never happens again.

If your partner is an experienced rappeler, what caused the problem? Lack of food/water? Poor checklist? Hubris? My gut feeling says they aren't experienced enough in this particular aspect of climbing, and they are shameful/hiding it. Not trying to be judgemental! Just hate to see folks dying rappelling.

Alright I’m sold you’re human, sorry for my insinuations otherwise! As far as regaining trust goes, I would want the responsible party to talk/think through what went wrong step-by-step, and try to figure out what they think the contributing factors were to their mental lapses and how they might be prevented from happening again. It would give me a chance to try to understand what happened and to assess their reasoning and clarity after the fact. 

Were they bonking? Sometimes dehydration, low blood sugar, altitude, temperature, fatigue, and other factors can hit surprisingly hard and abruptly. It would be worth thinking through whether there were any warning signs that might have indicated extra caution or some sort of intervention was warranted (drinking more water, having a snack, asking for help, etc).

I’ve had my brain escape before, and seen partners go from normal to temporarily nearly non-functional quite fast when environmental factors were at play. When it happens, you learn to be proactive about recognizing it earlier and preventing or mitigating it, in yourself and to some extent in your partners. It would be scarier to me if the person who made this mistake felt totally normal both at the time and in hindsight, like they were in their normal state of mind. If they felt normal, that would leave me wondering what is to prevent it from happening again, and a bit confused as to how they were able to overlook something of this magnitude.

Another thing to think about is how they responded when they realized something wasn’t right. Why didn’t they didn’t catch the mistake at that point, and only recognized it after you pointed it out? To me, that is ten times worse than the initial error. Was the main issue there that they weren’t thinking clearly for one of the above stated reasons, were they in a rush to get down for some reason, or did things sort of snowball once they realized something was off? Some of my dumbest mistakes climbing have happened when something went wrong, I got flustered, and reacted in a way that made things worse rather than taking a breath and approaching the situation with a clear head. I’ve seen the same thing happen in partners as well. The saying “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” helped me a lot with this. When things start to go wrong, I now force myself to slow down and think through my plan of action rather than reacting hastily. I’ve never made a mistake quite this severe, but I’d imagine similar factors could have been at play.

If applicable, I’d re-evaluate their level of experience. “Experienced” can mean different things to different people. To someone who is brand new, it might just mean someone who knows how to climb outside in any capacity and has done it a handful of times before. Perhaps they had a year or two of toproping and climbing single pitch sport under their belt, but they are used to lowering off and almost never rappel. If this were the case, the bigger issue and learning point would be their lack of experience, and more critically, their failure to recognize that lack of experience. If this was a seasoned climber with hundreds of rappels under their belt and this was caused solely by a mental lapse, that’s a very different scenario from someone who rapped a couple of times a few months ago, thinks they kind of remember how to set it up, and perhaps feels embarrassed to admit that their level of experience isn’t quite what they made it out to be and is trying to impress their partner/friend.

One insightful question to ask would be how they would have corrected their mistake if they had recognized it after they began descending. A truly competent and experienced climber should be able to answer that. If they didn’t have the knowledge or ability to correct the mistake, perhaps that helps explain why they didn’t take more time to try to figure out what was going on. Maybe they just felt scared and were focused on getting to the ground by any means necessary, because whatever it was, it had gotten them this far, and they thought it was too late to change it.

To consider climbing with them again, I’d want to see that they took it seriously, were embarrassed by it, motivated to understand what went wrong, and exhibiting clear reasoning in analyzing it. If they had a “shit happens” attitude about it or didn’t recognize the severity of the error, I wouldn’t trust them to climb. It’s also worth considering whether this was an extreme fluke for a climber who is otherwise skilled and thoughtful, or if you have noticed them making many other mistakes or behaving thoughtlessly and carelessly at other times and this is part of a pattern. If you are not very experienced yourself, it will be much harder to accurately evaluate all of this, and I’d exercise more caution in that case. I’d certainly avoid learning from them, and wouldn’t enter any climbing situations with them that I wasn’t fully capable of handling myself.

Similar case reported in Accidents In North American Climbing 2023, page 63. Inexperienced climber had been pre-rigged for rappel by her partner who then rapped first. When her turn came, she unclipped from both the anchor and her rappel device and descended with only the autoblock. She made it nearly to the ground before falling and was "exhausted but uninjured".

Jason Kim wrote:

I know people make all sorts of mistakes (I certainly have) but this one strains the imagination.  I'm glad it didn't end in tragedy.  Is your partner new to outdoor climbing?  I honestly can't imagine an experienced climber making this mistake, unless serious adverse conditions played a role (things like hypothermia or being super dehydrated, etc.).  I'll be honest.. if my partner did this I would seriously question whether I would ever climb with them again.  If he/she is a new climber, it's a bit more understandable and a very lucky learning moment.    

A friend of mine had an experienced partner who started doing scary things. Turns out it was early dementia.

Climbing Folly wrote: Also FWIW this is a very experienced individual….

Would you be willing to elaborate on what metrics you used to determine the description? It just beggars belief that a person who has rapped more than say a dozen times would be able to make this sort of (typically) catastrophic decision.

Not trying to slag you or your friend, genuinely curious. 

philip bone wrote:

Folly, what kind of anchor was this ? Did you climb it? Was a rappel necessary?

I lead (sport) it and setup a TR anchor (quad) for another climber with us that felt less comfortable leading. That individual went up and came down. We pulled the rope so my partner could lead it which they did and then transitioned into cleaning. There were rap rings... of course it's always safer to lower off but as a general rule of thumb we don't do this on just rings to avoid placing unnecessary wear on the gear.

To answer some other questions that have come up:

No my partner is not nuero-divergent nor were they hypothermic, dehydrated or similarly affected by any other adverse biological or environmental conditions.

Level of experience is 5 years outdoor climbing. Plenty of rap experience within those 5 years as well.

Not sure that savings face is a concern for them either - and if it was this rational certainly wouldn't be the way to do it. Deceit is not a concern between us.

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We've discussed what happened at length and if I had to pinpoint the cause I think it was a combination of not having rapped in a few months, a bit of overconfidence (someone mentioned hubris) and not conducting a buddy check before they went up. 

Damn lucky to be alive.

Climbing Folly wrote:

We've discussed what happened at length and if I had to pinpoint the cause I think it was a combination of not having rapped in a few months, a bit of overconfidence (someone mentioned hubris) and not conducting a buddy check before they went up.

It’s good you are taking the time to think through this, but I’m curious about this last bit. How would a buddy check work in this context?

Edit: I realize now that the Reverso comment was a bot test, I thought it was a joke going over my head haha. Brilliant work BY! I suspected a bot but didn’t want to risk another "false" accusation, and was hoping to reveal them with their response to the above question. Looks like the AI explosion is here.

Climbing Folly wrote:

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Sad, this bot didn't even come with any Temu coupons.