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couchmaster
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2007 - 11:36pm PT
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Phillip Mike said: " i have always thought that aliens were inferior to cams of the bigger name brands
i have never owned any and never thought i could have done anything any easier with them even in the pin scared world of yosemite and i don't think that saftey has suffered
and besides how can a company based in wyoming call itself colorado custom hardware
obviously aliens suck".
I don't know what you are talking about. I may not be the only one either.
_
What I find interesting, Tradrack.com claims that these are UIAA and CE approved, yet it says nothing about it on the actual Alien site. Hmmmm. Maybe I'm missing something.
In either case, what size alien was it? The OP on RC.com said this on April 25th 2007:
"First off, thanks to all for the positive thoughts. Second, sorry for the delay in getting back to the forum, I am not a regular, and have been very busy catching up with life (i.e. finishing a 16 credit semester without the use of my dominant hand/arm). Now, about the alien. I will attempt to answer many of the questions posted. It was not a broken stem due to an edge or any other strange action on the cam. It was a vertical placement and broke at the head. Where it broke, was well into the crack. It was NOT A RECALLED ALIEN. I was seventy feet up or so when I fell from just a few feet above the piece. i will be posting pictures of the alien, but not yet. Just know that it did not fail because of an edge or any other contortion. It was a good clean placement.
Thanks again for the concerns and I will post more when I have all of my facts together.
P&B "
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Apr 26, 2007 - 12:08am PT
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All CCH would have to do to put this to rest is publish documentation of how it follows and documents industry standard procedures.
It ain't all that hard to find out what they are. If they can't afford to buy the books a trip to the library at even a back woods engineering school would suffice.
[url]http://www.aws.org/w/s/associations/bsmc/stdspc.html[/url]
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Apr 26, 2007 - 02:15am PT
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Scored a brand new double set off Offest Aliens on ebay the other day! (to replace my first which a beat)
F-YEAH! Take me to the Captain!
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So Ill Climber
climber
So Ill and Yosemite
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Apr 26, 2007 - 09:39am PT
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JLP, You did read j_ung's post correctly, but it was incorrect. The placement was vertical and where the braze failed, was inside of the crack. It was placed in the direction of pull and went over no edges of any kind.
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JLP
Social climber
Fargo, MN
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Apr 26, 2007 - 10:41am PT
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Until we see pictures, I think I'm going to assume, based on what's been said so far, that the guy doesn't know how to place a cam. A couple close-up pics of the break would tell all.
JLP
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 26, 2007 - 11:22am PT
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I don't understand all of the accounts I have read regarding this accident.
The leader hit the ground after the anchor failure. By the account at rc.com, he was approaching the final anchors of a climb roughly 60 feet long. Given a maximum 40% rope stretch, the next piece could have been around 36 feet from the belayer giving a maximum fall factor of say 48/60 = 0.8, but the piece was put in somewhere in that 24 feet, lets say that it was roughly half way, then f = 24/60 = 0.4
The impact force can be found here
Assume an 80kg climber and a rope "specific spring constant" of 20000 kg
F ≈ 176lb × [1 + √( 1 + 2 × 0.4 × 20000/800)]
= 982 lbs
from http://www.aliencamsbycch.com/recall/faq.html
.33 -BLACK 1800lbs
3/8 -BLUE 2100lbs
1/2 -GREEN 2700lbs
3/4 -YELLOW 2700lbs
1.0 -RED 2700lbs
1.5 -ORANGE 3500lbs
2.0 -PURPLE 3500lbs
2.5 -CLEAR 3500lbs
What bothers me, however, is that we learn at a very early time in our climbing careers not to depend on a single piece of pro in our system...
Putting a piece in that 24' stretch might not seem like running it out, the consequence of the piece failure was a ground fall.
edit always take a shower after calculating... yes I caught that too... thanks graniteclimber
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Apr 26, 2007 - 11:45am PT
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Edit: deleted because typo was fixed
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So Ill Climber
climber
So Ill and Yosemite
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Apr 26, 2007 - 07:50pm PT
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JLP, I was trying to clarify based on the fact that I have seen the pics. So you can choose to believe people who are basing their posts off of "I heard" and "Was posted" or you can believe a post by someone who has actually seen the pics of the cam broken right at the head and other pics of the placement still in the rock, minus the stem. I am just trying to let people know that it was a cam failure, not operator error.
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OlympicMtnBoy
climber
Seattle
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Apr 26, 2007 - 08:07pm PT
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Since the whole recall thing had me a little sketched, but I still love my aliens because they work in places nothing else does, I sent mine back to CCH for tensile testing. I sent 9 cams back, all with little tags, about half were significantly pre-recall, the rest were newer. It took about 6 weeks which was ok cause it was winter. They all came back stamped with a "tensile tested" mark and a little tag that said "tensile tested by Dave Waggoner". None of mine looked to have had any parts replaced and my marker tags were still on them. It cost my like $10 to ship them to CCH, not a bad price at all and I'm now once again happily plugging away with them.
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jsb
Trad climber
Palo Alto, CA
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Apr 26, 2007 - 10:04pm PT
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Correct me if i'm wrong, but haven't all the post-recall cams been tensile tested before being shipped out?
Maybe there was a window of time after the recall period (11-04 to 12-05) but before the practice of de facto tensile testing... and then this cam somehow happened to land in that window, and a defect was missed. If not, I am eager to learn how this well-placed, 'tensile tested' cam supposedly failed under a very modest leader fall.
For starters, it'd be helpful to know...
1) What was the size/rated strength of the cam that failed
2) What was the manufacturing date?
3) Was it stamped as tested?
 jb
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JLP
Social climber
Fargo, MN
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Apr 26, 2007 - 11:22pm PT
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Like I said, I'll wait until the pix are posted.
JLP
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 27, 2007 - 12:33am PT
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irrespective of the cam failure, when a single piece of pro is between you and the ground, you have to take into account the possibility of a failure. Sh#t happens, you want to make sure that when it does you have some sort of backup to save your ass.
How do you climb a 60' gear route (I assume it's a gear route) and hit the ground from a fall initiated near the anchor chains?
Don't we all play the "what if game" when we are climbing?
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BV
Trad climber
Reno
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Apr 27, 2007 - 03:13am PT
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Took a 30ft whipper on a yellow alien at the creek earlier this month. Boy am I glad I sent mine in for testing!
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lunchbox
Trad climber
santa cruz, ca
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Apr 27, 2007 - 01:47pm PT
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Perhaps a brief description and history of Souders Crack is in order, for all of our beloved climbing detectives on the forum....
I've climbed this route about a dozen times on top rope, and have never seriously thought about leading it for several reasons. In fact, I've only heard of one person ever leading it.
Souders crack is officially listed as a TR in the guide books. It's 80 feet long and you set it up by climbing the ultra classic Rock Wars. This is a perfect TR set up, the rope hangs clean and right in front of Souders Crack from the bolts on Rock Wars.
anyway.....
The first 3rd of the route is pretty easy, climbing over a fractured flake system and a huge block that looks like Boot flake on the Nose. There's no gear on this part that would keep you off the ground or hold you hat, but the climbing is easy enough that you don't need it anyway.
This is where the real climbing starts and is the first chance to get some pro. I'm guessing you don't get much more that a couple of green or yellow aliens behind the flake before it seams out and isn't much deeper than a pad. It's important to note that this part of the route is the only real place to get gear as the last 3rd of the route is a splitter seam to the anchors. After a couple of hard "layback-ish" moves you get flared, first knuckle tips with no real feet. There's no gear in the last 15 to 20 feet to the chains and this is the crux of the climb. It's very insecure...
Leading this would be similar to gunning it for the head point on a hard grit stone route as it doesn't even get a R/X rating, just a TR in the guide book.
P&B
hope you heal up fast dude...
sorry for the RC.com like post...just though it's important to know that its not you average trad climb....
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Micah Dash
climber
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I saw another Alien brazeing failure, with my own eyes, yesterday in Indian Creek. It was a new purple Alien maybe six months old. Nobody was hurt.We took pictures and will post them soon.
Micah
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Micah...No one was hurt, I hope?
Was it a no-dimple unit w/ a date stamp after the recall (and pull testing was initiated)? I'm interested to see where it broke.
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couchmaster
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - May 1, 2007 - 02:31pm PT
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# 2.0 -PURPLE Strength = 3500lbs
Looking forward too seeing the pics and learning the date on the cam Micah.
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Tahoe climber
Trad climber
a dark-green forester out west
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sketchy!
still wondering why the community hasn't heard from CCH about it. Even a "hey, not sure what's happening, but we're on it" would make me feel a lot better...
'Till I hear from CCH, definitely not picking up any Aliens
-A
Andanother: Can we have another positive statement from you? Please advise.
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Makes me wonder if the person who reported the original failure isn't coming forward w/ their units b/c they've got their own people looking into the matter?
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Wow. These guys just love to shoot themselves in the foot don't they? If they had half a clue at all, they'd be hounding that guy to get them the cam already. saying "we asked him to send it. he hasn't sent it yet" is pretty f'in weak.
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