The deadly ATC

I don't get why we need an "extra grabby toprope" setting. Has anyone ever been dropped using a Grigri on toprope?! The only possible place I could see for this would be autoblock mode with thin ropes...

Greg D wrote: Without a fall factor, 20 footer and 40 footer falls are meaningless to determine force on top piece of gear.

Not really. We're assuming a standard lead fall with a soft catch, so a few pieces in, not decking, so FF < 1.

Ted Pinson wrote:I don't get why we need an "extra grabby toprope" setting.

It's again a device feature attempting to compensate and you can bet your ass people find new and exciting ways to use that feature to screw up - like how many people are going to get short-roped right off the wall on lead because the thing is on the wrong setting?

Ted Pinson wrote:Has anyone ever been dropped using a Grigri on toprope?!

If you have to ask...

Greg D wrote: Without a fall factor, 20 footer and 40 footer falls are meaningless to determine force on top piece of gear.

Sometimes I find it amazing tens of thousands of people took 20 and 40 footers on a fairly regular basis bitd without any of us knowing a damn thing about fall factors, test results, certs, FMEA analysis or FEA design software. Ditto locking carabiners, belay devices and guides - crikey, what were we thinking?

rgold wrote: The same things have been said about ordinary ATC's, and proclaimed as advantages by the manufacturers. But over time there has been a growing conviction that many belayers will lose control of an ATC in a truly severe fall. If this is true, then it appears that the problem will be worse with the semiautomatic devices, whose braking capacities do not scale much with grip intensity, whereas an ATC is much more of a force-multiplier through a wide range of grip strengths. Other than Jim's tests, no one has even noted this issue. It appears that the magazine and online testers are using single pitch gym and sport climbing and low fall-factor trad climbing as their reference, and so are nowhere near addressing device behavior in extreme circumstances, something one doesn't really want to test on purpose on real multipitch climbs because of the dangers involved. In some of the discussions, one hears claims about holding "big whippers" without any of the accompanying information about fall factor and system friction that might, in some cases, lend validity to the claims. So we are left with a substantial questionmark about the behavior in the field of semiautomatic devices in low-friction high fall factor scenarios. The idea that the device is going to lock up for such falls appears to be mistaken, and how much assistance will be provided might be significantly less than with an ATC-XP if the belayer is blessed with high grip strength. If the rope is ultimately going to slide through the device with lower resistance than an ATC, then loss of control is more likely and the fall, if eventually arrested, is either going to be longer or, if not stopped eventually by the belay, the impact will be higher. I'd say, at the very least, that multipitch users of semiautomatic devices, even more so than ATC users, should be gloved.

Thanks for your comments rgold. Going back a bit here to the loss of control issue during a FF2. I've been thinking about this and I wonder if "locking" your device by tugging the brake strand (smart/toucan/megajul style) with some slack out before the climber clips the first pro off a multipitch belay would be a valid mitigation strategy? Or if you're really worried about the moves off the belay even putting an overhand 5-10ft down the brake strand as a failsafe (which of course you'd have to untie later on). Anyone have thoughts on this?

Healyje wrote: It's again a device feature attempting to compensate and you can bet your ass people find new and exciting ways to use that feature to screw up - like how many people are going to get short-roped right off the wall on lead because the thing is on the wrong setting? If you have to ask...

Yeah, maybe I have too much faith in humanity. I guess if you threaded it backwards...?

Ted Pinson wrote: Yeah, maybe I have too much faith in humanity. I guess if you threaded it backwards...?

most of the drops I know of in the real world (besides the slew of internet problems) are from n00bs dropping people on the lower. Shit goes wrong fast when you pull the handle back too far and then panic.

Not just noobs. pleanty of experienced folks get the chop as well.

she can't weigh much more that 50 lbs. he could have just grabbed the rope...

greg 24 wrote: Here's a good one about a n00b dropping a climber. ;) rockandice.com/climbing-new…

Another case of a belayer defeating the device (camming action). I have yet to hear of a Gri-Gri failure because of a problem with the device.

The important thing to do is train belayers on what do if the climber starts falling, it is never to clutch at the device. By using a trained brake hand the device cannot be defeated.

King Tut wrote: Another case of a belayer defeating the device (camming action). I have yet to hear of a Gri-Gri failure because of a problem with the device. The important thing to do is train belayers on what do if the climber starts falling, it is never to clutch at the device. By using a trained brake hand the device cannot be defeated.

I'd make it even more simple and say to just tell the n00b to let fucking go of everything so the device can do its job but Bearbreeder might come back and growl at me

Yeah, that's a bad idea.

greg 24 wrote: Here's a good one about a n00b dropping a climber. ;) rockandice.com/climbing-new…

Lead fall drop, not toprope.

Sometimes I wonder why people don't just slap the gri-gri on a ground anchor and just let it do its thing. Maybe have a person on the ground just in case it gets jammed.

Perhaps once the revo gets out then we can finally quit arguing over the grigri

Vaughn wrote: Thanks for your comments rgold. Going back a bit here to the loss of control issue during a FF2. I've been thinking about this and I wonder if "locking" your device by tugging the brake strand (smart/toucan/megajul style) with some slack out before the climber clips the first pro off a multipitch belay would be a valid mitigation strategy? Or if you're really worried about the moves off the belay even putting an overhand 5-10ft down the brake strand as a failsafe (which of course you'd have to untie later on). Anyone have thoughts on this?

All speculation on my part.

I'm not sure I'd trust that locking the device with slack out prior to a potential fall factor two would hold. Besides, unless it is blatantly obvious where the first piece of rock protection is going, or it's sport lead, how are you going to know how much rope to have out? I'd be worried that in the violence of the catch and the resulting inversion of the belay device the lock could potentially be undone. Particularly if the belayer did not pull upwards on the brake strand.

Putting an overhand further down the brake strand at first glance seems like a possible solution. I wonder though what would happen to the belayer's brake hand if they lost control of the rope and it gets squashed between the stopper knot and the belay device. That doesn't seem like it would end well.

Fuck it, I am going to relive my past and go jump off the garage with parachute which is actually a sheet that i am holding over my head. All my friends will be watching because I talked them into watching me kill myself.

You can catch a factor two Fall with a ATC.

greg 24 wrote: A drop is a drop.

Not at all. Comparing a lead fall to a toprope fall is apples to oranges.

Ted Pinson wrote:Yeah, that's a bad idea.

so is climbing really, most of us do it anyways.

Agreed.

Pretty sure whether it's a top rope versus lead drop makes a difference in calculating time and distance to terminal velocity.

I agree that a drop is a drop. A failure of the belayer to properly hold the climber they are belaying when they were tasked to do so.