A PSA on belay gloves and brake hands

Went sport climbing yesterday with my typical partners and affiliated crew, later in the afternoon we started lowering grades and I found myself on a slightly overhanging 40' 9+ that looked pretty fun. There was a nice 12' gap between the 3rd and 4th bolt that happened to be at the crux. The move was essentially a right hand into a waist-high undercling, a longer throw (for me) high left to a nice horn that would leave the clip just left of my left hand and then letting go of the undercling and reaching over to clip. I hit the horn and sat back on it straight armed and remember thinking, "nice, i got this."

After a bit of a short from my belayer, I flubbed the crossover clip 3-4 times and just couldn't snap it in. (i never dropped the rope but I middle-fingered the clip and tried my standard wrist movement, but I think the cross clip changed the angle just enough). In an instant I realized this was bad, gave the yell, and took the whip. after lifting my belayer and rope stretch, my toes barely grazed the ground before the recoil lifted me a few feet off the ground.

Here is a picture of my belayers NON BRAKE hand:

non-brake hand

And here is a photo of the route. I took it in pano with my iPhone and seems to have thrown off perspective. the entire line is about 40':

Birds line

A few things occurred:
1. My belayer gave me a pair of tig welding gloves from his job and lost his a week ago. the gloves he gave me were clipped to my harness. We should take every route seriously no matter the grade.

2. In seeing my pump and me about to clip above my head, my belayer was ready to take and assumed Id make the clip. In doing so, his non-brake hand was on the rope ABOVE the ATC.

3. during the fall in his effort to take, cinched his non-brake hand above the device and that hand took a lot of friction before the device

Im sure this probably seems like basic stuff to the more experienced climbers, but its these small things my group continues to learn. Ive had three legit falls and this guys caught them all. I feel horrible is hand is a bit burned. Im happy to read your input/criticisms. Be safe out there.

gri gri

Maybe the burned hand will help him learn to not grab the rope above the belay device in a fall. Belay gloves will not help the situation, as it would just reinforce bad habits.

Eric Carlos wrote:Maybe the burned hand will help him learn to not grab the rope above the belay device in a fall. Belay gloves will not help the situation, as it would just reinforce bad habits.

fair enough on that point. would you mind describing how to change the habit? or what is best practice in this situation? It seems the idea of letting go of the off-hand and going into brake with brake hand is logical,but mentally letting goof the rope and hoping the single brake hand holds would be a mental block to get through.

During our little pow-wow afterwards, i think i tend to do this too. and a few others around us weren't sure.

Seth Jones wrote: A gri gri isn't going to keep his belayer from grabbing the climber side of the rope. Did you even read his post?

yeah, I'll take a bad belay with a grigri over a bad belay with an ATC any fucking day. call me a reckless if you will...

JRZane wrote:how to change the habit?

As usual, the only way to learn a new trick is to focus on learning it. It means to focus on non-braking hand while giving slack, and taking slack, and arresting falls. It means a focused several weeks (maybe even months) push to learn it. It means almost no "real" climbing for at least several days - climbing and training for climbing are way different.

Something like jump on really easy climb you can hike up and down easily and ask your belayer to focus on non-braking hand belaying technique solely. Take falls (first - with pre-notice, when you both get comfortable - unexpected) on every training climb.

JRZane wrote: fair enough on that point. would you mind describing how to change the habit? or what is best practice in this situation? It seems the idea of letting go of the off-hand and going into brake with brake hand is logical,but mentally letting goof the rope and hoping the single brake hand holds would be a mental block to get through. During our little pow-wow afterwards, i think i tend to do this too. and a few others around us weren't sure.

If the belayer is properly braking, then not enough rope would slide through the hand anyway to burn the non brake hand. Also, the more comfortable one gets in catching falls the more second nature it becomes. Go to a gym, and have someone back up the belayer and let them catch numerous falls. Also consider getting a brake assisted device such as a gri gri.

T Roper wrote: yeah, I'll take a bad belay with a grigri over a bad belay with an ATC any fucking day. call me a reckless if you will...

Grab above the device like that with a grigri and it won't lock.

Eric Carlos wrote: If the belayer is properly braking, then not enough rope would slide through the hand anyway to burn the non brake hand. Also, the more comfortable one gets in catching falls the more second nature it becomes. Go to a gym, and have someone back up the belayer and let them catch numerous falls. Also consider getting a brake assisted device such as a gri gri.

again, not entirely sure what he could have done differently other than not initially shorting me a bit (and obviously having his hand above the device). There was a lot of rope out above the last clip which put a fair amount of slack at the device. it was that slack that burned him prior to the device catching.

we do have and use gri gris, in fact we use them a majority of the time, but we are 90% trad climbers and typically don't take them along on multi pitch trad routes so the idea is to be proficient in both. as mentioned above, a gri gri wouldn't have stopped the burn in this case.

I appreciate your comments and really don't want to sound in anyway unappreciative, but I recognize the errors we made and have yet to hear specific solutions. i.e. how would there not be enough slack in the rope to burn during a fall if the belayer is paying out during a clip?

Eric Carlos wrote: If the belayer is properly braking, then not enough rope would slide through the hand anyway to burn the non brake hand. Also, the more comfortable one gets in catching falls the more second nature it becomes. Go to a gym, and have someone back up the belayer and let them catch numerous falls. Also consider getting a brake assisted device such as a gri gri.

This

Your belayer didn't lock off the brake fast enough. You got dropped.

Gripping the climbers side of the rope is not a problem. Everyone does it, it very natural. Even with a GriGri you can grab [hard] above the device. As long as you have a good brake you can't f'up.

Gloves would have helped mitigate the burns but the fact still remains, you got dropped. Happy nothing worse happened.

JRZane wrote: again, not entirely sure what he could have done differently other than not initially shorting me a bit (and obviously having his hand above the device). There was a lot of rope out above the last clip which put a fair amount of slack at the device. it was that slack that burned him prior to the device catching. we do have and use gri gris, in fact we use them a majority of the time, but we are 90% trad climbers and typically don't take them along on multi pitch trad routes so the idea is to be proficient in both. as mentioned above, a gri gri wouldn't have stopped the burn in this case. I appreciate your comments and really don't want to sound in anyway unappreciative, but I recognize the errors we made and have yet to hear specific solutions. i.e. how would there not be enough slack in the rope to burn during a fall if the belayer is paying out during a clip?

Unless he had 3 feet worth of slack between his non-brake hand and the ATC, I don't see how he would have burned that hand. Unless he dropped you.

Or are you saying that as you dropped the rope in hand, to form a large amount of slack at the base of the route. He then grabbed the rope above the slack.

JRZane wrote: again, not entirely sure what he could have done differently other than not initially shorting me a bit (and obviously having his hand above the device). There was a lot of rope out above the last clip which put a fair amount of slack at the device. it was that slack that burned him prior to the device catching. we do have and use gri gris, in fact we use them a majority of the time, but we are 90% trad climbers and typically don't take them along on multi pitch trad routes so the idea is to be proficient in both. as mentioned above, a gri gri wouldn't have stopped the burn in this case. I appreciate your comments and really don't want to sound in anyway unappreciative, but I recognize the errors we made and have yet to hear specific solutions. i.e. how would there not be enough slack in the rope to burn during a fall if the belayer is paying out during a clip?

I am not going to argue with you as you are not understanding logic. There is no reason for the belayer to have a ton of rope between his not brake hand and the device. If he did, that is wrong. If he didn't then clearly he didn't brake properly or there would have not been enough rope passing through his non brake hand to burn him.

I'm 260 and have had a couple near misses with dismissive belayers. After explaining this to my regular partner he told me to watch out and not let just anyone belay me as I could be dropped when my belayers is feeding or taking in slack. Maybe your belayer didn't have the rope in the brake position? Maybe he let some slack go through the ATC? Sounds like a sketchy belayer?

Eric Carlos wrote: If the belayer is properly braking, then not enough rope would slide through the hand anyway to burn the non brake hand. Also, the more comfortable one gets in catching falls the more second nature it becomes. Go to a gym, and have someone back up the belayer and let them catch numerous falls. Also consider getting a brake assisted device such as a gri gri.

Like others the above is correct analysis of the issue. Improper braking. Would using an auto-lock device instead of an ATC device helped? probably.

The other item to note is the belay terrain. The belayer can move around a bit. Meaning they can adjust the amount of rope out a bit just by moving. I feed out rope for the clip then adjust my position so that "right" amount of top is out. That way I do need to adjust my brake hand while they are clipping.

Also it is not clear where the belayer was standing. Here again one often gets complacent and moves far enough back that the whipper will move the belayer forward adding more rope to the fall.

A few rope burns on the non brakehand should give the belayer pause...gloves will make a bad habit worse IMO.

They also could tiein to a ground anchor......but no one does that anymore...The softcatch bullshit

americanalpineclub.org/univ…

It's a little late, but your partner should get certified in proper belay technique when available, but there's a good video on this page as a start.
youtu.be/BOIAYx-d4HE

JRZane wrote: have yet to hear specific solutions. i.e. how would there not be enough slack in the rope to burn during a fall if the belayer is paying out during a clip?

Keeping your hand above the ATC is not necessarily 'bad.' You can gently pull 'up' on the climber strand and your rope hand in the brake position. Pulling 'up' on the ATC keeps the tube nested on the carabiner and the device is already 'engaged' so the rope doesn't slip through during a fall nearly as much. Your belayer didn't understand the way the device he/she was using worked and this almost broke some ankles.

You should consider using an assisted braking device 100% of the time.

Here's a great video about belaying with a grigri.
youtu.be/FHdqjjyeTtg

In addition, you got really lucky. Consider carefully that climbing relationship that lead to a near ground fall and who you trust to keep you off the deck.

Also, there are alternatives to the ATC and you might consider which have the added benefit of assisted break while belaying similarly to an ATC (no cam to hold open)r:
Alpine smart
MegaJul2

I'm a huge fan of the MegaJul. It's very easy to use and almost impossible to override

Seth Jones wrote: I really don't like lowering with the MegaJul but aside from that, it's pretty nifty.

It's pretty idiot proof :)

rocknice2 wrote: This Your belayer didn't lock off the brake fast enough. You got dropped. Gripping the climbers side of the rope is not a problem. Everyone does it, it very natural. Even with a GriGri you can grab [hard] above the device. As long as you have a good brake you can't f'up. Gloves would have helped mitigate the burns but the fact still remains, you got dropped. Happy nothing worse happened.

I generally don't take any issue with what you say. The above is misinformed and the exact technique you're talking about has caused accidents with the grigri. In fact, it was one of their original warnings on the device 20 years ago.

Think about it, a firm grip above the device will lessen the force below the rope. This force isn't enough to activate the cam and it just keeps slipping. The fall usually stops when the belayer burns his hand and lets go.

When the belayer saw his leader was having difficulty making the clip high above the last clipped bolt, he should have moved both hands to the brake side and taken in excess rope in anticipation of a fall. Gloves are not the issue, nor is the type of belay device. Proper technique and attention would have prevented the hand burn, IMHO.

john strand wrote: They also could tiein to a ground anchor......but no one does that anymore...The softcatch bullshit

Did I mention I'm 260? I do I do me me me...

Seriously though, we use the rope as the anchor and that helps soften the jolt.