Getting used to falling on gear

I'm new to leading but already working on leading climbs that are at or just beyond my limit. This is what has worked for me:
- Yes, taking on my gear. The first time I took on a piece I was pretty terrified, then the second time scared, a little less scared the third time, etc... Now maybe ten leads later I'm to the point that I won't feel any fear at all taking on a piece. Obviously if I'm terrified to take on a piece, how am I going to be confident climbing a crux above it? And now that I'm not afraid, I agree with the "don't say take" people.
- As someone else mentioned, you have to look at and assess your placements. I'll check and rate each piece I place. Then I have my mentor of a partner climb and rate my pieces. And DON'T only place bomber pieces. It's been really important for me in those seamed up or shallow cracks where the only thing I can get in twenty feet has two lobes good and two tipped out, or whatever. Then I rate said shit piece: bodyweight only, or it'll catch a 5 foot fall, or whatever. THEN have my mentor rate my shit pieces too. He always agrees with me, or rates them a smidge better than I did.
- In keeping with the rating. When I climb I look at every piece and tell myself it's quality. Like: "don't fall, get another piece in asap", or that's bomber, or whatever. I don't know why, but having a concrete scale of quality, seeing and placing things that are 70% good, well it makes me so much more confident in the pieces that are 100% good. And telling myself a piece is good and will catch a fall takes the fear out of it for me.
- My great success with this method: A pillar hid the majority of the crack and I had minimal gear beta, so went into it not optimally racked. It turned out to be a tiny and often seamed up finger crack but with stemming for the feet. I'm bumping pieces from shallow and half tipped out placements to more shallow half tipped out. I place a piece and rate it only 50% good - will catch a very small fall. Then climb 15 feet to only get another 50% good placement. Then climb another 15 feet and finally get an 85% good piece. It's a bit more open than optimal, but it's symmetrical and deep. I tell myself: "This is good, this will hold a fall". Climb another 15 feet, place a piece, pull up all my rope and before I can clip my foot slips. Whip a good 30 feet! But I wasn't scared, I was okay because I'd looked at that piece, and I'd confidently told myself it would hold a fall. And it did :-) I've taken a few other little falls. As long as I'd checked my piece and affirmed it's safety to myself, then I'm not afraid to fall on it. I do anticipate not having to do this forever, but while falling on lead is so new to me it's been my method.

go to indian creek, climb supercrack, run out the last 15 ft. to the chains and victory whip.

Ted Pinson wrote:Hey everyone, So I'm a relatively new trad leader. I've done a decent number of moderate leads and have started pushing the grades but it seems like my current boundary is any climbs in which there's a real possibility of falling on gear. I did what turned out to be a sandbagged 5.8 in the Red and it scared the crap out of me, as I had to take at one point and realized I had never really loaded gear on lead before. Even though I knew it was a bomber placement, it was still a whole different thing to be 60 ft off the deck with all of your weight on it. I was wondering what you guys have done to get used to taking and falling on gear. 1 thing I was considering was doing a super moderate lead and testing each placement by taking on it, then maybe gradually moving up to light falls (at/below the placement with slack), and finally real-world above-the-pro falls. Has anyone tried this sort of thing, or how did you become comfortable falling on trad lead?

What to do? Examine your thoughts...

"I knew it was bomber". If it was bomber, then what's the worry? You had it backed up with another good piece not far below, right?

In other words, you didn't really "know" it was bomber. You didn't believe it; you had doubts... If you believed that, you would have trusted the piece.

So, dissect your thoughts and identify any that are false. If you fully believe your gear is bomber, then reassure yourself and go for the move.

If you don't fully believe that, then own it and devise a way to convince yourself :-).

Yeah, taking baby falls on gear or aiding has definitely helped me gained confidence in my gear.

"The only way to get over the fear of doing something is to go out and do it." (from some self-help book I read...)

Eli Buzzell wrote: +2 for "Never say take". This approach to climbing took me really far mentally.

No. Just no. This is *not* the solution here.

His problem is that although he's working his way up the grades trad leading, he's never actually tested his placements. He has no confidence that they would hold him if he did take an actual lead fall (and rightly so!)

Your advice seem to be that he should keep climbing and pushing his limits and attempt to just never fall on his gear. That will work right up until he takes his first real fall and learns that he has either been making good placements or he hasn't. If he hasn't he'll be seriously injured or dead. Which honestly is like a 50-50 chance if he doesn't have any feedback to show what placements are good.

My advice is the same as a few others here: Aid! Go do some routes where you weight *all* your placements. Test them. If you want to take a few longer falls then set up a top-rope for backup.

Then once you learn to make good placements that you can trust you'll know how far you can push your leading. *Then* you can go back to the attitude of "never take" and know that your gear will catch you if you fall.

karl kvashay wrote:Maybe Im a wimp but I don't see a problem with "taking" or hanging on gear (except for losing the "send"). It generates Much less force on all your equipment and in friable stone a piece may hold with a gentle take but rip in a fall. Safety first, right? But don't get me wrong, there's nothing like "going for it" when the gear is good and you have a chance at the send

Bumping this thread with a question, but a comment first. As a belayer who really, really knows her climber, I know when he's worried and when he has said "take!!!" usually he is already just short of any tension, but with Mom ready to give slack, catch the fall, sit down fast whatever. In other words, he already has what he thinks he needs, without interfering with his send, because his belayer is calm, thinking, paying really close attention, prepared to act fast, and wants him to succeed. A really great climb nets treats afterwards! There. Belayer spew, well earned, little credited. : )

I am planning on practicing trad placements by mixing them into sport climbs. For myself, the "don't fall" attitude doesn't work, so those placements darn well better do their job, to the best of my ability. Hence, I am planning on falling.

The question: will falling on it trash the gear at all? Do you need to know if it's had falls, or how many? Might be sorta dumb, I mean, I realize you could almost throw nuts into a cement mixer without structural damage, but what about the wires? What about those pricey cams? (Although I'm planning on passive as much as possible, to start. Help teach the eyes to eyeball stuff quickly. Also seems more fun to find the right nut/hex than just throw a cam in, but I know that will change later.) I've not seen this mentioned anywhere, so I'm hoping that's because it's a nonissue. I'll be using my son's gear, so can only kill what I can afford to replace. I am also thinking I want to be good at using the least expensive gear for any future bails. Thanks!

Maybe I'm missing something here but doesn't anybody use the eye test? I can tell pretty much if a piece is bomber, likely to hold a fall or a piece of shit. It's not all that complicated.

I've had gear rip or break many times and I was rarely all that surprised when it happened. Rarely did a piece I had confidence in fail.

If you like trad, you take what you can get and get going. Sometimes it's not what you'd really like but that's the nature of trad climbing.

I strongly recommend practicing downclimbing. It's not that important a skill for sport most of the time but it can save your ass when climbing trad.

And I never worried about trashing my gear. If you're thinking about the financial cost of being up there, maybe you shouldn't be up there in the first place. You can always get more money or stuff.

Thanks, Frank!

When you say you've had gear rip or break many times, do you mean the placement failed, or the gear itself? The latter was more what my question was about. If falls are a possibility (always, really, or why bother with a rope), then I would like to have confidence in my gear and ability to place it. For me, that will come from direct experience, i.e., "falling" on my placements. But if doing that costs a cam every third time, or something, than I would like to know that up front.

Falls can take a toll on ropes, for example, and I know to inspect ropes regularly, and everything else, for that matter, for anomalies and damage, and do so. I just wanted to know how one "kills" trad gear, and if that process is generally sped up by falls, and act appropriately.

And thanks for reminding me to practice downclimbing! I've sorta slacked off on that, even when working out at the gym. Dumb, especially since down is more work than up. Best, H.

FYI, no, I can't "afford" to climb. Neither can about 95% of the climbers i know, as I am in with the college kids usually, when training at the university gym, not with the I can waste any amount of money I want crowd at the commercial gym. What was your point??? Don't you want me to aspire to upholding climbing tradition? : )

Old lady H wrote:Thanks, Frank! When you say you've had gear rip or break many times, do you mean the placement failed, or the gear itself? The latter was more what my question was about. If falls are a possibility (always, really, or why bother with a rope), then I would like to have confidence in my gear and ability to place it. For me, that will come from direct experience, i.e., "falling" on my placements. But if doing that costs a cam every third time, or something, than I would like to know that up front. Falls can take a toll on ropes, for example, and I know to inspect ropes regularly, and everything else, for that matter, for anomalies and damage, and do so. I just wanted to know how one "kills" trad gear, and if that process is generally sped up by falls, and act appropriately. And thanks for reminding me to practice downclimbing! I've sorta slacked off on that, even when working out at the gym. Dumb, especially since down is more work than up. Best, H. FYI, no, I can't "afford" to climb. Neither can about 95% of the climbers i know, as I am in with the college kids usually, when training at the university gym, not with the I can waste any amount of money I want crowd at the commercial gym. What was your point??? Don't you want me to aspire to upholding climbing tradition? : )

Most of the time the gear has ripped from shaky placements. But I have broken a lot of small brass nuts and few small wires as well. I knew they might break considering their size and the fall. I've bent a few of the old solid shaft Friends and torn up some small TCUs or Aliens but only on really hard routes when they're in horizontal placements. That stuff can really take a beating. It takes a lot of abuse to render them unusable. I have some cams that are at least 25 years old, have had lots of falls and I would still feel perfectly comfortable falling on them.

Ropes I generally don't worry about too much unless they've run over an edge and have a cut. I'll periodically feel them up for soft spots and maybe cut some off the end which is where the most abuse is. It's actually pretty hard to kill a rope from falling. I've taken a lot of whippers onto ropes and I'm still breathing.

As for my take on cost. The point is that when you're leading, what you might lose in the way of meney due to gear should not be a factor when leading. There's enough to think about without throwing that in the mix. And over the years I've seen climbers do some ridiculously unsafe things in order to save a few dollars. A few dollars isn't worth risking your life for. I don't care how broke one might be. I've sacrificed a few pieces over the year, that's for sure.

Old Lady H-

Falling on a good placement won't hurt your gear. For a bad cam placement (i.e. only two lobes on one side of the stem with solid contact), a fall can bend the head even if the gear holds. I have a yellow Mastercam with a little bit of a curve in it from that exact situation. I've also seen a yellow x4 invert and have a trigger wires break. Both of those are smaller pieces in mediocre placements with pretty big (~15 foot) falls.

But a #2 camalot in a splitter hand crack can take whip after whip and come out just fine. A good medium/large nut placement will weld itself to the rock before it breaks.

I'll second the aid on toprope advice for new trad leaders. You can also take falls with a TR backup. Then get on climbs with excellent gear a grade or so below your limit and focus on placing solid gear. Eventually, you'll have a foot slip or pump out and fall--and once you get that out of the way, your confidence will skyrocket. Enjoy!

^ or plummet, depending on how it goes...

Anyways, Frank I'm curious about the logistics of down climbing a lead route, as I almost had to do this to bail a month ago (ended up calming myself down enough to finish the route, but the experience inspired this thread, lol). Do you pull each piece as you get to it...then downclimb with a ton of slack to the next piece? It seems like you'd be under constant risk of a big fall...

Ted Pinson wrote:Agreed - same mentality that goes into people doing crazy stuff like threading a bolt to rap off in order to avoid leaving gear. Is that $10 sling and carabiner really worth more than your life?? Anyways, Frank I'm curious about the logistics of down climbing a lead route, as I almost had to do this to bail a month ago (ended up calming myself down enough to finish the route, but the experience inspired this thread, lol). Do you pull each piece as you get to it...then downclimb with a ton of slack to the next piece? It seems like you'd be under constant risk of a big fall...

It all depends on the situation. But I've mostly used downclimbing to get back to a safe distance from the last piece or to get to a rest. I have on occasion, a: downclimbed an entire route taking the gear as I go, resting on good pieces and b: climbed to a bomber piece and left it for scavengers. The latter is a definite blow to the ego, but sometimes you're just get in over your head.

Big ++1 for both! Thanks!

It took awhile for me to realize that people are all different when climbing (duh, huh?). I have the good fortune, IMO, to be one who is prudent and willing to think, yet, once I'm climbing, trust the process and just go hard as I can. It exasperates and infuriates (in a good way) far more often than it worries or scares me! I also trust myself to know the difference between a real worry to pay attention to and idiotic head stuff. I'm aware, but I just don't worry at all. Age might actually help, there.

I will definitely go back and carefully read up on the cam reviews. I've read most of what is on here, and know to spend that money wisely.

Thanks for your generous help to a newcomer!

Edit to add: the prudence above applies to being sensible, but not stupidly cheap. I live with a pilot. Trash the plane, not the passengers, is a pretty good attitude, that I've always had in mind over the years. Especially after having a kid!

Jake Jones wrote: Most of the time it won't hurt your gear. I have had a couple thumb loops kink to the point of where I would probably only trust them as aid pieces from short hard falls where my belayer had to yard on the rope because I was close to the ground.

Interesting. Were they Dyneema slings or nylon?

Jake Jones wrote: Most of the time it won't hurt your gear. I have had a couple thumb loops kink to the point of where I would probably only trust them as aid pieces from short hard falls where my belayer had to yard on the rope because I was close to the ground.

Jake, were those the lowest pieces, then? I assume your belayer was pulling down, scrunching down, backing up, all of the above, to keep you off the deck? Trying to picture it, and can see how top or bottom pieces could get nailed. Thanks!

Try to climb some well protected but "awkward" or "insecure" feeling routes. Some routes tend to just spit some people off. I've taken two falls on gear, both in the same place on the same route and both were very unexpected. The climb just kind of spit me off. Both were large falls (a 20 footer and a 15 footer) on smallish gear (green alien and #6 stopper) and they really gave me confidence in my ability to place good gear.

When taking (in)voluntary falls, keep in mind where you are likely to be arrested and be aware of any obstacles. Sport climbers beware: there are many places, especially on easier routes, where you don't want to fall even if you have good gear.

I can't believe I am the first person to say… You are all going to die.

I've done a lot of practice on the ground. Soloing easy stuff when I didn't have a partner with a rope, 2 PAS's, putting draws and rope on the bolts for my "oh shit" last resort, going in direct to nearby bolts, and weighting trad placements. Just childs play BS for practice, because I was so genuinely interested in the practice and style. Placing a piece or two on sports pitches and weighting them or taking decent falls on the pieces. I recently led my first multipitch trad route. I was in free solo mode, cuz the pitches were so easy. I basically placed some psychological gear and left it. I had fun putting my attention and time into some solid placements. Don't rush it, just have fun. Occupy yourself.

i feel like falling on gear is not really acceptable for the first couple years for trad leads. low angle and ledgy means hurt legs.

by the time you start leading climbs steep enough to take clean falls ~5.10, you will have placed hundreds of pieces by then and would have lots of practice at it. you will have done hanging belays off gear, plenty of takes, some french free, and learned some lessons.

christoph benells wrote:i feel like falling on gear is not really acceptable for the first couple years for trad leads. low angle and ledgy means hurt legs.

Not every moderate trad climb is low angle or ledgy. Many classics aren't: High-E, Double Cross, Godzilla... it's all about picking your route.

christoph benells wrote:i feel like falling on gear is not really acceptable for the first couple years for trad leads. low angle and ledgy means hurt legs.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't think anyone goes up on a trad route early on expecting to fall. You put your gear in and try not to fall. If you do, it's there to protect you. Unless you think that climbing stuff that's so easy that you're not going to fall I guess. At which point it becomes academic and has little real-world value.