Rope hooking as a safety technique

Here's a thought.

When you stop to place a screw, before placing the screw, place an ice screw to protect yourself against falling while you place an ice screw.

Oh, you just placed a screw, so keep climbing...

Yeah, looping the rope be aid. All mixed/comp climbers know to clip then settle down on the rope to take some of the weight off.

Piece of advice. I once came upon a guy who had whacked himself in the forehead with an Ergo. He had put his forearm through the tool to take the weight off his hand I guess when the tool popped out and hit him. He had a very deep skull showing cut and was concussed.

So what might seem to be saving yer bacon might actually be a frying it...

RobC2 wrote:Here's a thought. When you stop to place a screw, before placing the screw, place an ice screw to protect yourself against falling while you place an ice screw. Oh, you just placed a screw, so keep climbing... Yeah, looping the rope be aid. All mixed/comp climbers know to clip then settle down on the rope to take some of the weight off. Piece of advice. I once came upon a guy who had whacked himself in the forehead with an Ergo. He had put his forearm through the tool to take the weight off his hand I guess when the tool popped out and hit him. He had a very deep skull showing cut and was concussed. So what might seem to be saving yer bacon might actually be a frying it...

Interesting story. I've never heard of someone putting their forearm through their tool, however, it's understandable (and sad) that the guy was desperate and doing everything he could think of (notwithstanding he was probably climbing something way beyond his ability....who knows). As you said, he fried his bacon. (Wonder why he didn't weight the other tool more?)

Did you find this guy still on the route, injured, or at the bottom of the climb? Am interested in this for the ice climbing injury study we're working on.

In more than three decades, I've never fallen (just luck), never dropped a tool nor a partner....but have dropped gear. Like many (ice or rock), I try to keep within the bounds of clean climbing (am obsessive about it) and if I rest on gear, well, I've just turned it into an aid climb (but I have a different opinion about a rope flick being aid...if tension, then it's aid). If I'm on lead and starting to get pumped out, I'll put a screw in....I don't wait until that full pump comes because it comes sooner than expected. Wonder why that guy you found didn't place a screw or clip the spike with a draw to harness? Probably too scared to think about options....

I recall my friend Bill Forrest years ago telling me what he called the "rock climber's axiom": "When in doubt, chicken out". I need not articulate what he meant.

Warbonnet wrote: I recall my friend Bill Forrest years ago telling me what he called the "rock climber's axiom": "When in doubt, chicken out". I need not articulate what he meant.

I've always gone with "smoke pot, check your knot" myself. "Climb in control" is a good one too.

I enjoy reading your postings, keep it up!

We found him at days end helmet-less coatless hatless gloveless wandering around near the base of Amphibian disoriented becoming hypothermic clutching a wad of toilet paper to his head. I sat him down put my exam gloves on put his coat on and when I examined his wound I could see skull. There were a bunch of blokes there but none showed any concern for him it took a minute or two to find his partner but eventually we got him dressed and short-roped him down to the trail where his partner swore he would take him to the ER. I gave him a very nice bandage of vet-wrap stylish indeed...

MJMobes wrote: I've always gone with "smoke pot, check your knot" myself. "Climb in control" is a good one too. I enjoy reading your postings, keep it up!

Far be it from me from ever having done that but I must say I am completely blown away as to the number of people doing acid on seriously hard routes, say V2 off the deck....they might sprain their butt. But I DO occasionally see people tripped out on very serious routes they shouldn't be on, IMO.

RobC2 wrote:We found him at days end helmet-less coatless hatless gloveless wandering around near the base of Amphibian disoriented becoming hypothermic clutching a wad of toilet paper to his head. I sat him down put my exam gloves on put his coat on and when I examined his wound I could see skull. There were a bunch of blokes there but none showed any concern for him it took a minute or two to find his partner but eventually we got him dressed and short-roped him down to the trail where his partner swore he would take him to the ER. I gave him a very nice bandage of vet-wrap stylish indeed...

RobC2.....you're a good man. You may have saved his life? What's with the blokes standing around? Were they on drugs?

Stay tuned.......I'm collecting photos of as many ice tools' pinkys as possible (side and end view but the latter is hard to come by).

Interesting to look at the spike hole (and especially shape) as compared to others for those that prefer to clip the spike (if clip anything at all) than the good ol' rope flick. With the help of friends who have nothing better to do (but are ice climbers), we've been clipping certain 'biners thru the holes. Interesting; not surprisingly not are as easy as one might think.

In the meantime, check out what just about hit me in the head on a mixed route this weekend. And the weenie didn't even have the courtesy to yell "ROCK"!

Warbonnet wrote: RobC2.....you're a good man. You may have saved his life? What's with the blokes standing around? Were they on drugs?

Who knows. His partner seemed more annoyed than anything that the guy had gotten hurt. The injured man his pupils were pinhole which made me think he was f*cked up. Picture being hit full force in the forehead with a framing hammer, you get the picture...

I'm just about finished with my mini-study regarding which ice tools' spike ends will take (or not take) which carabiners. (This was prompted by commenters saying that they would simply clip the spike end (instead of the famous/infamous "rope flick) with the other end to their harness.

To my surprise, many spike ends do NOT take many types of biners, even though looking at the spike end you would swear it would go in fast, smooth & rotate (the latter point I discovered was important for reasons I'll share....and then get hammered). Not so; many got caught in their own "geometry".

It surprised even the rope flicker. (However, I knew the Nomics...which I do not use regularly but think they are a great tool), would not be easy.....the handle is too thick and the hole too small. I prefer carbon Cobras for many reasons. Other leash less tools suffered the same problem as the Nomics (and Ergos) but not all of them did.

An unexpected discovery (although I'm sure all in this string already know this & I didn't) was that "odd shaped" spike holes (but not all of them) would not easily take a carabiner....ANY KIND OR SHAPE (unless you used the tiny tiny ones - bad). The nose would go in but when I tried to rotate the biner thru the hole, it would get bound up.

I'll finish the write up and sent pics......I tried maybe 20 ice tools & quite a number of types (shapes & brands) of carabiners. Spoiler: the biner that had the highest success rate were ovals but not just any oval.....

I'll make a rope flicker of you yet.

(Two examples: Petzl's Nomic & the Quark. (The Ergo has the same problem as the Nomic). I'll tell you later what I've seen people do to remedy this problem; many of you probably already know. And "no", you don't simply tie a cord through the main hole. We don't want any spoilers here.

I feel another "rope flick" coming on......

A clarifying note to the above (as well as more info coming). What I & a few ice climbing friends found was that if the "top" of the carabiner would not move in a smooth circular...or semi-circular motion the "top" became the limiting factor because it would not "pass through" odd shaped (or thick) pick holes (don't know if that makes sense).

The ONLY oval we found to work on tools that had adequate clearance per the shape of the oval were Mad Rock's; amazingly, other ovals would either not work or seldom did. BD ovals only work on some tools whereas Mad Rock would clip a number of tools that BDs would not fit into. It struck me that there is little tolerance (unexpectedly) here. (It may be the "flatter" profile of Mad Rocks make a big difference....not sure yet. While the photos are likely not to scale, it may be that the "radius" of the top of Mad Rock's are wider and thus provide longer "running room" to go in and out. Bill Belcourt would know).

What WAS clear with some tools is that weird shaped (not symmetrical) holes actually would not let the biner shut, thus, the gate got hung up (and open) AFTER it was inserted into the spike's hole. It was a one-way street with some models; in fact with a couple of tools (can't remember which ones), one of us had to hold the tool while the other had to virtually twist the biner out (something you don't want to be doing on the Pencil Pitch of Polar Circus).

Our preliminary conclusion was that if the hole took an oval (but only 2 brands....will be in the report), all worked fine because the action was smooth going in....and smooth coming out, thus my comment that the biner needed to rotate in and downwards.

I got to thinking that those words may sound weird w/o further explanation, i.e. why is it so important for a clip into an ice tool to have the gate "down and out", just like in rock climbing? It's not the "down and out" that's important, rather, the coincidence that the shape of the biner makes it silky smooth to clip and unclip.

More on this later. I figured I'd give everyone a heads up so I can provide time for you to ream me a new one when I get back to you with our results (and for you to do your own testing with your stuff....see what you come up with).

As for the Nomics and Ergo, it's possible that a thin oval will work, however, you need to be Tiger Woods to quickly clip/unclip that hole.

Grivels probably OK, however, we need to mess around with them a bit more. The "Reporto Corse" series ("Master Alloy", "Force Carbon" and "Force Alloy" ....no... because the handles are rubberized, making it difficult (almost impossible) to insert a carabiner in the hole in the bottom grip even though the hole is large.

The X Monster & the X Blade have an interestingly-located hole about half way up the back of the shaft. This makes sense given the radical profile of these tools and how they would rest against ice were the climber needing to hang out (just a guess), so that seems plausible (they are about toilet tissue thin so most any biner would work. I would want to see if they "lever" once placed and then weighted with a draw-to-harness.

None of the BD tools have problems....will take a range of biners.

(Note: we may have used BD wire ovals (larger nose) than regular ovals....will have to check to make sure we didn't make the wrong call on that).

NANOS will not work (amazingly) on Cassin X Dreams.

All of the E-Climb Cryos are easy to clip...will take anything. The exception is the Cryo LT (no spike but an integrated pinky rest (part of the aluminum shaft).

(These are not final conclusions but mostly. I think).

So, if you're thinking you want to clip your tools (once one or both tools is secure in the ice) to your harness, there are considerations. Of course, the clip should be accurate, smooth, easy & quick (both in and out).....and you get to do it with gloves. (Were I to use this technique, I would want to use boxing gloves).

But the Grivel Reporto Corse series has three (count them, 3!) places (per tool) to flick your rope. Thrice removed from the sketch.

Sunday, March 2.

We've re-done some of the testing of a variety of ice tools & biner sizes, shapes, etc. and what will fit into which spike end hole and in some cases have completely altered the results of some tools mentioned above. Will post all when we're confident we've gone as far as we can. It's been quite interesting.

Additionally, curiosity re: the pinky (and what lays beneath), we found some tools (YOURS !) that we could either take apart or destroy in order to check out what supports them (5...not necessarily representative). However, in all cases, the shaft "bends" underneath the pinky to both provide an anchor for small bolts or other connecting mechanisms and TO PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR THE PINKY.

Why am I not surprised ???

DannyUncanny wrote:If you've got two hammers, pound that sucker in and it's not going anywhere.

love my older tools with REAL hammer heads,,and Snargs!!,the fat ones, for a quick pound in piece. Some are haters for both fat Snargs and for heavier hammers of old, but they sure did the job on ice well!

Woodchuck ATC wrote: love my older tools with REAL hammer heads,,and Snargs!!,the fat ones, for a quick pound in piece. Some are haters for both fat Snargs and for heavier hammers of old, but they sure did the job on ice well!

You may have loved them, but your second cursed you with every hammer blow.

Here's what I do with Nomics:

Can't quite tell from the pic but it looks like it's threaded thru the bottom hole? If so, don't you find that limits other possibilities in using the hole? The best solution I've seen with Nomics is to take apart the lower pinky rest and thread much smaller cord thru the "joint" and put it back together. Sounds weird but it works, frees up the larger hole and is much easier to clip with a biner than clipping thru the larger hole. It's also a smaller "profile" so it won't get hung up or catch other things. I'll try to find a pick for you or get one from my friends who use Nomics and have used this trick.

Warbonnet wrote:Can't quite tell from the pic but it looks like it's threaded thru the bottom hole? If so, don't you find that limits other possibilities in using the hole? The best solution I've seen with Nomics is to take apart the lower pinky rest and thread much smaller cord thru the "joint" and put it back together. Sounds weird but it works, frees up the larger hole and is much easier to clip with a biner than clipping thru the larger hole. It's also a smaller "profile" so it won't get hung up or catch other things. I'll try to find a pick for you or get one from my friends who use Nomics and have used this trick.

BUT, you have to be willing to cut and mill a bit of the handle and then drill a hole for the cord. I don't know about your friends but I can deal with a tad bit of cord thorough the big hole than drilling $600 tools. I have yet to have a scenario where I can not clip the cord and I feel I NEEDED the hole for some reason.

Warbonnet wrote:Can't quite tell from the pic but it looks like it's threaded thru the bottom hole? If so, don't you find that limits other possibilities in using the hole? The best solution I've seen with Nomics is to take apart the lower pinky rest and thread much smaller cord thru the "joint" and put it back together. Sounds weird but it works, frees up the larger hole and is much easier to clip with a biner than clipping thru the larger hole. It's also a smaller "profile" so it won't get hung up or catch other things. I'll try to find a pick for you or get one from my friends who use Nomics and have used this trick.

Pics would be good. Dane on cold thistle talks about this as well.