Bad belay or not? Hair Lip, Suicide

Lol. "Safe" is often in the eye of the beholder. If a route is 5.10 but there's a 50ft 5.6 run-out, do you consider it safe or unsafe?

Tradiban wrote:

Lol. "Safe" is often in the eye of the beholder. If a route is 5.10 but there's a 50ft 5.6 run-out, do you consider it safe or unsafe?

Safety and risk are 2 different things... it is still extremely unsafe for a 50ft runout no matter.

Let's take alex honnold free soloing for this example. He could free solo a 2000ft 5.10 or a 2000ft 5.4, the risk for the 5.10 is higher than the risk for the 5.4. However either one is equally unsafe before a fall would be death.

Risk is debatable however safety is not, a 50ft ground fall is never safe but it may not be very risky depending on your climbing abilities and the grade of the route.

ViperScale wrote:

Safety and risk are 2 different things... it is still extremely unsafe for a 50ft runout no matter.

Let's take alex honnold free soloing for this example. He could free solo a 2000ft 5.10 or a 2000ft 5.4, the risk for the 5.10 is higher than the risk for the 5.4. However either one is equally unsafe before a fall would be death.

Risk is debatable however safety is not, a 50ft ground fall is never safe but it may not be very risky depending on your climbing abilities and the grade of the route.

Ok, per your definition trad climbing will never be "safe". "Risk" is then dependent on your skills. If you can climb 5.10 then a 5.6 run-out has very little risk.

Sure 5.6 runout on a 5.10 is pretty low risk. However there is a difference between a runout where death, permanent injury, or just some pain is the result. Heck there are always people who are going to free solo but outside of that routes should be setup in such a way that death, getting paralyzed, 2ft cuts down your side etc is not the outcome (yes i know not every route in the world can be done this way, there are always going to be some that are just dangerous, but we aren't talking about the rare exceptions here). Yes I do know you can take a 3ft fall and die from it but the point is using modern technology to minimize risk not completely eliminate it.

Lets face it if the only reason you are climbing is to scare the shit out of yourself maybe you should go talk to a psychologist.

ViperScale wrote:

Sure 5.6 runout on a 5.10 is pretty low risk. However there is a difference between a runout where death, permanent injury, or just some pain is the result. Heck there are always people who are going to free solo but outside of that routes should be setup in such a way that death, getting paralyzed, 2ft cuts down your side etc is not the outcome (yes i know not every route in the world can be done this way, there are always going to be some that are just dangerous, but we aren't talking about the rare exceptions here). Yes I do know you can take a 3ft fall and die from it but the point is using modern technology to minimize risk not completely eliminate it.

Lets face it if the only reason you are climbing is to scare the shit out of yourself maybe you should go talk to a psychologist.

Well Viper, if I wanted to stay safe and without challenges I would just stay home. However, I DO want to use my mind and my skills to mitigate the risk, it's what I find interesting about trad climbing and why I don't find sport climbing as appealing. If you can drill from a stance I encourage you to go ahead and throw in a bolt but alot of us are looking for a challenge because sport climbing is just too damn easy in that regard. Can you respect that?

Em Cos wrote:

None of this would have happened if only they'd climbed in complete silence that day. 

Hilarious!  Best post of the week...

Tradiban wrote:

Well Viper, if I wanted to stay safe and without challenges I would just stay home. However, I DO want to use my mind and my skills to mitigate the risk, it's what I find interesting about trad climbing and why I don't find sport climbing as appealing. If you can drill from a stance I encourage you to go ahead and throw in a bolt but alot of us are looking for a challenge because sport climbing is just too damn easy in that regard. Can you respect that?

Big difference between climbing something challeging and protecting it with trad gear and climbing something that isn't protectable with risk of death / serious injury. Not sure why people think having a chance of death makes something challenging. Why do you think it is so bad to add a bolt to protect a runout that isn't protectable by any other means?

ViperScale wrote:

Its time for you to take up Golf...or Knitting.

ViperScale wrote:

Big difference between climbing something challeging and protecting it with trad gear and climbing something that isn't protectable with risk of death / serious injury. Not sure why people think having a chance of death makes something challenging. Why do you think it is so bad to add a bolt to protect a runout that isn't protectable by any other means?

I realize you are a troll but this is fun anyway....

There's chance of death in all aspects of climbing (and life BTW). The challenge is minimizing that risk with either physical or mental skills, usually a combination of both. Challenging is something that tests our abilities, what better challenge than one where a mistake equals death?

It's bad to add the bolt because it diminishes the challenge that many of us are looking for.

Sure there is a group of climbers who do like risking death but you are talking about the 1% not the majority of climbers.

This is a fact that is pretty easily testable because when you add the bolt people use it. If they really wanted the risk death they could skip it but they don't really want that type of challenge. There is a reason why free soloing isn't more common even though it makes climbing so much easier because you don't have all the weight from the gear and having to stop to place protection etc.

ViperScale wrote:

Not sure why people think having a chance of death makes something challenging.

Because it does.

Have you never had the experience of trying to lead something, or leading something, and finding a series of moves that are above the clip quite hard to do -- then coming back on follow/TR and finding that the same moves are actually easy/obvious?

Climbing is not just about doing the physical moves, it is also about the mental state, that is why the amount of run-out, the risk of injury/death does change how the climb is, and in fact, does make it more challenging.

There's an easy 3-pitch trad climb near me, with bolted anchors, so it is descended by rappelling.  The 3rd pitch is somewhere in the 5.0-5.1 range, and after a while I was placing only one piece of gear half-way up the pitch -- almost pro forma.  So, I decided I'd climb it without placing gear, though I still had my rack with me, and was (nominally) on belay.  Next time up, I left my rack at the belay, so I couldn't place gear.  The climbing was the same, but the two experiences were very different, the second one felt a lot scarier than the first, was more difficult, was more challenging.  

ViperScale wrote:

Just curious here how many people who have been posting this shit have free soloed a climb that has involved at least 30mins of their time that a single mistake would have been death? 

Because most of these responses I have seen are complete bullshit. At least in my responses I feel I have a little room to talk since I have climbed a 500ft route that a single mistake past around 50ft most likely would have been death. You all are posting like climbing something that involves making a mistake and dying is nothing... I have a feeling most of you have never even climbed something where a mistake is death.

If you think making a single mistake when soloing causes a fall (or death as you put it) you need to solo more, i have barn door'd, holds have broke, feet slipped, got the completely wrong sequence and gotten fairly pumped tons of times when soloing and I have yet to fall and die, soloing is only as hard as regular climbing you don't peel off every little mistake you make when climbing so why would you when soloing? 

Just like people make the choice to solo people make the choice to lead run out and dangerous trad climbs, unless the route is severely overhanging or a tower anyone can still top rope it, this by ur logic still makes it a classic climb so begs the question as to why you still think a dangerous climb needs bolts.

I never experience a climbing move being harder on lead vs top rope (pretty sure that is a myth, the rock doesn't get smaller because you are on lead). I have experience being able to top rope something that I couldn't lead because I didn't have to waste energy placing gear though.

That route you are talking about is my entire point. Why make that climb impossible for climbers who are not as skilled as you, you choose to leave your gear behind on purpose, but does that mean noone should be able to climb it with gear? That is basically what people are saying I am elite and uber and I can climb this without gear so you should have to as well!!!

that guy named seb wrote:

If you think making a single mistake when soloing causes a fall (or death as you put it) you need to solo more, i have barn door'd, holds have broke, feet slipped, got the completely wrong sequence and gotten fairly pumped tons of times when soloing and I have yet to fall and die, soloing is only as hard as regular climbing you don't peel off every little mistake you make when climbing so why would you when soloing? 

Just like people make the choice to solo people make the choice to lead run out and dangerous trad climbs, unless the route is severely overhanging or a tower anyone can still top rope it, this by ur logic still makes it a classic climb so begs the question as to why you still think a dangerous climb needs bolts.

Not exactly what I consider a mistake, mistake imo is something that causes a fall. What you are referring to is more like not climbing the most efficient way. Plenty of climbs that people climb off route on purpose to make it harder or just do it differently.

ViperScale wrote:

Not exactly what I consider a mistake, mistake imo is something that causes a fall. What you are referring to is more like not climbing the most efficient way. Plenty of climbs that people climb off route on purpose to make it harder or just do it differently.

But what is the line between climbing efficiently and making a mistake? Falling off? If i go wrong sequence and find my body weight completely off for a layback and barn door and get super close to falling but just barely rescue my self is that a mistake or simply not climbing efficiently?

Sure maybe I used the wrong term mistake isn't the best way to describe what I was talking about, maybe a better word is failure?

Considering how this poor thread is going, I'm sorry but I just have to say it first-

Hitler

Oh yeah- 

Dunning-Kruger!

ViperScale wrote:

Sure there is a group of climbers who do like risking death but you are talking about the 1% not the majority of climbers.

This is a fact that is pretty easily testable because when you add the bolt people use it. If they really wanted the risk death they could skip it but they don't really want that type of challenge. There is a reason why free soloing isn't more common even though it makes climbing so much easier because you don't have all the weight from the gear and having to stop to place protection etc.

People don't clip that added bolt because they aren't looking for a challenge, they clip it because not doing so forces them to be reckless. By placing the bolt you change the nature of the risk from a challenge to just being reckless. 

I doubt either of us have accurate numbers regarding how many climbers climb for the risk but if these people are in it for the workout wouldn't they be happier indoors or at a sport crag anyway? I don't see a reason for anyone to bring a climb down to their own level rather than rise up to it.

Did someone say Hitler?