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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 23, 2006 - 10:28pm PT
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Yesterday evening, the ever affable Hans Stentheimer fell to the deck when a yellow alien ripped out of a textbook perfect placement low on the Star Walls Crack (13a) Hans was lucky, landed in the perfect spot and only hairline cracked his heel, though now he is in a cast, it could have been so much worse. I was belaying. The second sickest feeling is to be providing a good belay, then in an instant realizing that the belay is useless and a spot 10 feet away is what is needed.
Our crew consisted of some very experienced trad climbers and none of us could come up with a plausible reason that this cam pulled. Did the rope catch the trigger? The rope came taught in the biner, taking some weight before blowing so it seems unlikely. Certainly it was a hard force fall, a small section of rope out, and Hans is not a small man, fit as he is right now. Any ideas? anyone experienced perfect alien placements failing? My confidence in these cams is very much diminished.
Peter
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2006 - 10:39pm PT
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Yes you are right, apples and oranges, it did not break, but it blew in a freakish way.
Peter
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Aug 23, 2006 - 10:40pm PT
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Did the cam break or rip out of that shallow, questionable rock? We frequently do it as a clean practice aid climb and most of those shallow placements make you think....I'm glad your friend didn't get more seriously injured.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 23, 2006 - 10:41pm PT
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Peter
You know as well as the rest of us cams blow all the time. It's not just aliens. Some guy blew two friends on Hardd at the cookie years ago at the top of that pillar 20 feet off the ground. He landed on his head broke his neck and died. His partners carried him to the road instead of stabilizing him at the base, so we don't know if that contributed towards his injuries or his death.
Small cams are always a suspect though. Their range is so limited. Go back and replace the yellow alien exactly where Hans fell and duplicate the failure. (from the ground of course)
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2006 - 10:43pm PT
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No, this was not a shallow placement, it was in a perfectly deep, slightly constricting spot. Visually bomber.
Peter
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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Aug 23, 2006 - 10:54pm PT
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I had a partner rip an alien on a fall early this season(Hang Ten at the Nears, placed in the horizontal just befor you are going to pull the roof move).
The most likely reason it ripped was because he torqued it sideways as he fell(stepped down from the move, had the rope around left leg and the right foot dangling in air instead of on rock as he thought....Went to reach down to swipe the rope away and....having only one hand for support instead of what he thought... he fell, of course). Getting hung up in the rope system, he twisted the cam and it pulled, and also pulled a micronut that had been set in opposition lower down the line. Luckily a tricam between the alien and the nut stopped him from decking.
Is it possible that your fall yarded the alien in a direction that wasn't anticipated?
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Aug 23, 2006 - 10:59pm PT
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I don't see how you can call this a gear failure if the cam is still good and undamaged.
Unless, as is posible with aliens, it umbrellaed.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2006 - 11:05pm PT
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If there was any rotation it was slight, he climbed up, placed it well, down climbed, went back up, fell and pop, out it came.
Werner, (Greetings!!) I know cams can fail, but I always figure there is a good reason, too tight, rock giving way, walking into a bad spot, etc. This was spooky, because it looked perfect. I will try to arrange the incident re-creation as you suggest.
Dirt, the piece did not break, it was a failure of function within what should be normally functional parameters. I wish I could edit the title of this thread to avoid another endless semantic go-round.
Peter
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:08pm PT
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There are places on that climb( even 40' up) that almost seem like the rock has been subjected to a fire or something. I don't even like the way the bolts look and feel on the top. Weird rock, maybe I'll drag the Geologist up there for a more detailed explanation..
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2006 - 11:14pm PT
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Mark, you are getting me thinking perhaps the outer most micro surface within the crack powdered off under stress. I will go back and look closely to see if there are any tiny grooves in the stone that would indicate micro surface failure. Thanks.
Peter
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:20pm PT
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Yes Juan, you will get the award. Don't worry.
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lazide
Big Wall climber
Bay Area, CA
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:21pm PT
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Not a stupid post!
One thing to check as well - does the yellow have the right range? I.E. if you measure the lobes, are the identical to your other yellows? Is the axle hole in the same place as for your other yellows?
There was an incident with misdrilled axle holes awhile ago, maybe this could be related?
A too shallow cam angle could lead to it popping out of a 'good' placement.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:30pm PT
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Juan
You've said enough! Some poor guy just almost got killed or seriously injured and you have the gall to come in here and make your dumb ass remark.
Start your daily evening thread now and leave Peter alone.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2006 - 11:35pm PT
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Yep, I should have the named the thread differently, the incident really shook us though, and there are many here who spend more time thinking about gear than I do. The rock was seemingly solid, the right size in the best spot, etc.
I guess it is high time I received the insults that this forum is famous for.
Thanks lazide, that I will check.
Peter
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Tradboy
Social climber
Valley
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:41pm PT
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Peter, glad to hear that Hans is okay.
I would also check the location of the axles as lazide mentioned. Just a few degrees off from the typical angles that cams operate at, 13 to 15, and the forces change significantly. You could also try doing some controlled tests by bounce testing this piece versus another piece that you know is good.
As you mentioned, Hans is no small fella. From the description, it sounds like he fell at the low crux. Right off the deck, you have a short hand crack to work with that gets smaller and eventually disappears. I'm assuming he had the yellow alien near the top of this crack? At this point, you have some bouldery moves where you first move out left to a sloper than back right and up. Pretty desperate moves if I remember correctly and is this where he fell? At this point he's a few feet above that piece, but still not really that far off the deck so my point is that it could've been a high fall factor, which is the variable of interest and not the actual distance he fell. Anyway, this is a lot of speculation on my part but I'm trying to get an idea of the fall factor involved.
Don't worry about Juan, he needs to get a life.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:50pm PT
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Maybe we should define an ANSI standard crack, and then if the piece pulls we can immediatly claim gear failure.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2006 - 11:58pm PT
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Trad,
Righto on the cam location. He made the move back right into the crack, then the next one, going for the lock from which he would have placed the next cam, so yes, a high load factor fall, cam at his knee level short amount of rope out.
Thanks for your suggestion.
Peter
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 23, 2006 - 11:59pm PT
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Maysho,
Sorry for the Flame, I can be a real as#@&%e at times.
Good Luck with your failure analysis.
Juan
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2006 - 12:03am PT
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Apology accepted. If you know how to edit or re-title a thread I will, I agree it is misleading.
Peter
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 24, 2006 - 12:21am PT
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The title is fine. I sometimes forget that the internet involves real people with real feelings. I really do not know what got into me.
Glad to hear no one got hurt. I had a coworker that got killed on Beverly's tower when his single cam pulled in the first twenty feet and he decked on his head.
He did Astroman a few days before and was solid on 5.11 but a 5.9 move got him.
Juan
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 24, 2006 - 03:40am PT
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Peter,
If Hans or you can get a good closeup shot of the side profile of one of the outside cam lobes from the cam in question (shooting directly down and inline with the center of the axle) I have access to software that will input the photograph and analyze the location of the axle hole to determine and measure any deviation from the design location. Send me an email if you'd care to have this cam checked for a misaligned axle hole. If it is not a misaligned axle then it would, for whatever reason, likely have had to have been a bad placement.
Joseph
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Aug 24, 2006 - 04:42am PT
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Peter,
Sorry to hear Hans got hurt - very sobering.
Because the Alien cams are all triggered to a single sheath, they do not expand independently. As a result, sometimes not all 4 cams will be touching the rock. This has been noted in the past (by Christopher Barrington-Leigh, I recall), and his observation was that you can work around this to some extent by *pushing* on the control bar after the cam is in place. This can help some of the cams expand if they were restricted by the single sheath. I doubt many people do this on a regular basi, and it is a step not needed with other types of cams.
If the Alien had seen a fair amount of use, there could conceivably be some dirt or some scratched metal between the cams which could also prevent the cams from expanding properly.
If the placement is deep like it appears to have been in this case, the problem would be hard to detect. Heck, it would be hard to detect unless the crack is horizontal and fairly shallow.
My own choice is to skip Aliens and use cams which are independently triggered. Perhaps best would be a Metolius 4CU in this size (although I use TCUs myself). I will admit I own one (blue) Alien, but I only use it for aid climbing. If I climbed in the Gunks I might use them.
Did Hans have a second cam in? No doubt this is ancient advice, but I always place two pieces of pro if there are hard moves right away. A single cam pulling has killed people before, like on Spiderline (JTree) within the past year.
Also, I agree the ability to edit the thread title would be a helpful upgrade for supertopo.com.
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elcapfool
Big Wall climber
hiding in plain sight
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Aug 24, 2006 - 08:43am PT
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I've been out of the loop for a while, so forgive me if my info is dated.
Are they still using the softer AL for the lobes? It provides better bite for marginal aid placements. For this reason, I don't use Aliens for freeclimbing.
Glad your buddy didn't get hurt worse, actually it's good timing, just enough time to heal before ski season.
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hardman
Trad climber
love the eastern sierras
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Aug 24, 2006 - 08:51am PT
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Happie
hang ten placement is not the greatest. i think the best cam for that climb is a grey alien anything else is crap
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2006 - 09:37am PT
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Joseph, thanks for the offer! I will follow up with Hans and get that photo.
Yep, two cams in that spot is the ticket. It was my first time watching someone lead the crack, much less belaying it, so I did not know the deal, or where the low crux was etc. Others who were there, stated that they had used two pieces at that spot. Hans had sent the crack twice on toprope and had tried to lead it before, so he knew what he wanted for pro. I am usually the one to dispense unsolicited safety advice, I regret that I did not do so then.
Good reminder for us all to speak up when it looks funky. I also think a grey camalot would work fine in nearly the same place and be stronger.
I really appreciate the good info contributed,
Peter
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bobmarley
Trad climber
auburn, california
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Aug 24, 2006 - 12:36pm PT
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peter no way man?! i can't believe it pulled (or failed). glad hansy is not too badly injured. bummer man. please pass on to hans that i said 'yo'. i don't think he gets online much. see you up at 'the office' soon.
-patrick
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andanother
climber
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Aug 24, 2006 - 12:58pm PT
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While I’m not a big fan of CCH, I think it’s pretty lame to say the cam “failed”. Aliens have been subject to plenty of legitimate failures over the years, but this isn’t one of them. If there was no damage to the unit, then you can’t blame it on the cam.
You didn’t mention what brand of shoes he was wearing. Perhaps it was the rubber on the shoe that “failed”.
Or what brand of chalk does he climb with? It sounds like that brand of chalk “failed” and should be held responsible for this accident.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Aug 24, 2006 - 01:05pm PT
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Since the brand name Alien was mentioned in the title of the thread, here's a counterpoint:
At Lover's Leap, I got a good placement with a single *blue* Alien in the roof-crack of East Corner,
and then took 3 consecutive falls on on it before sheepishly french-freeing the move
(in full view of loudly heckling spectators ("friends") on the Pony Express Trail).
The follower removed the Alien effortlessly.
Again at Lover's Leap, a friend fell low on Roofer Madness and blew a well-placed
yellow Camalot low on the route and decked, landing on his feet with no injuries.
An experienced climber, he had no idea why it blew.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 24, 2006 - 02:05pm PT
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I wonder what the force over time looks like for a cam in a fall. Vibrations may cause it to walk out.
I doubt anyone has ever done any experiments.
What could be revealing is high speed video of cams with different loading rates.
Did the leader grab the rope?
Juan
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 24, 2006 - 03:02pm PT
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It would also be interesting to know if the cam was slinged at all and whether it had rotated up to the horizontal as Hans went by it. Sometimes during a fall, when a cam has to rotate back to a more or less vertical orientation to start loading, the process of rotating down puts all the cams in motion relative to the rock and they just keep moving rather than re-catching on to the rock. I don't like having my cams rotate up this way for this reason though this failure modality is more common in smooth, slick rock and in parallel-sided cracks.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Aug 24, 2006 - 03:28pm PT
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This is why it is smart to use TWO pieces if your looking at a ground fall. Especially on a 13a, sheesh!
Cams pull, I have had a Red Alien pull out of a perfect pinscar placement after standing on it for 2 minutes (Tangerine Trip). No explination...shit happens.
I also had a #4 Camalot blow on me on the Captain, so it is not a brand specific issue. It is user error or bad luck.
But we as Americans must continue to search for someone to blame other then ourselves.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 24, 2006 - 05:01pm PT
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Its all about Karma.
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G_Gnome
Social climber
Tendonitis City
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Aug 24, 2006 - 05:11pm PT
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Juan, karma is spelled with a small 'k'. Only Werner's is spelled with a big 'K' cause he has so much built up.
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Burns
Trad climber
Arlington, VA
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Aug 24, 2006 - 05:43pm PT
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Clint-
I would generally disagree with your 'single trigger' assessment of aliens. All cams have a 'single trigger', although some cams, like camalots, have enough 'wiggle' in the trigger that the lobes are able to move generally independently. Metolius cams, because their triggers are fixed to the U-stem and can't 'wiggle' the same way a camalot's can, are probably the worst in the sense of operating with the 'single trigger' effect you are talking about. But all cams tend to overcome this to some extent with independent springs for each cam lobe. Aliens have internal springs that will operate each lobe independently. I've put my aliens in many funky placements and haven't ever seen a case where one of the lobes was not touching the rock because of this 'single trigger' effect.
As far as walking, aliens tend to be better than most cams because the stems are so flexible, the flexing of the cam can't really activate the trigger, and the slings attached to them are a little longer than most cams. Thats not to say that walking couldn't be a part of the problem, especially if the climber climbed up, back down, and back up again.
The other thing that I thought of is that you mentioned it was a slightly constricting spot (I assume you mean constricting as in it would look like a good stopper placement?). Is it possible that the climber bumped the bottom of the cam up with his foot and pushed the cam into a wider or wierder part of the crack?
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Aug 25, 2006 - 01:38am PT
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Burns wrote:
> I would generally disagree with your 'single trigger' assessment of aliens. All cams have a 'single trigger', although some cams, like camalots, have enough 'wiggle' in the trigger that the lobes are able to move generally independently. Metolius cams, because their triggers are fixed to the U-stem and can't 'wiggle' the same way a camalot's can, are probably the worst in the sense of operating with the 'single trigger' effect you are talking about. But all cams tend to overcome this to some extent with independent springs for each cam lobe. Aliens have internal springs that will operate each lobe independently. I've put my aliens in many funky placements and haven't ever seen a case where one of the lobes was not touching the rock because of this 'single trigger' effect.
Some good points here. I don't agree with everything you said here, but I do agree that all cams have some capacity to expand independently. It depends on the "degrees of freedom" in the way that the trigger bar, connecting cables, and springs operate. So really the important question is: "are they independent *enough*?"
I looked at a Metolius 4CU and a blue Alien, and pinched one set of cams tight with my fingers, to see how much the other set could expand. Actually the Metolius expanded quite independently, even though the trigger bar stays at a right angle to the stems. This is because the long/thin cables which connect to the stiff trigger wires will bend to allow the trigger bar to move up. The blue Alien does not have exactly the same mechanism, because its cables are so short that they cannot bend very much. But the cam pairs can expand independently if the cables of the tight cams are pushed through the flange. This is probably getting confusing, so in case anyone is interested, I made a small page with photos and explanations:
http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/alien/exp.htm
Here is one of the photos (to promote clicking on the above link):
These photos are OK for illustrating what I was talking about in my previous post. But I actually think they are pretty trivial and irrelevant to the safety of Aliens and Hans' accident. The main reason is that the independent expansion does not matter if the crack is sufficiently parallel. Also, the cam pair expansion in the blue Alien looks *independent enough* (to me), even without pushing on the trigger bar. Finally, if the crack is non-parallel, and one pair of cams has not been able to expand enough to span the local crack width, the unit will rotate radically if you test it by rotating the stem. This should be a "dead giveaway" that only 2 cams are touching the rock and the placement is bad. In the marginal situation where one cam pair is tightly compressed, and the other pair is almost fully expanded (i.e. ready to fail), you should be looking in at the cams and visually inspecting them anyway. So again, the default amount of independent expansion doesn't really matter, since you are inspecting it anyway.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Aug 25, 2006 - 01:45am PT
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Hey, cool gear-geek talk here. Hope Hans is doing well – good luck on a speedy recovery, dude!
Mark and I walked up to Star Wall to have a look today, after adventuring on the mere mortal crags below. The cam slot in question is obvious from the base of the wall – dreamy to any aid climber venturing up the Leaning Tower (or at least is seemed like it from our perspective…). A red (or possibly gray) Alien was my first thought, but what does that matter from someone who requires aiders to climb such a route? Anyways, weird things happen and climbing is definitely weird. I love Aliens and always will. Schist, I paid retail… (RETAIL???) for 4 new ones today…! Damn, they must be good! I’ve popped the odd placement a couple of times while testing, but overall, Aliens have always held when it counted. They rule.
As for the rock type on this route, yes, it’s a little bit different than most of the crags in the area. I’m no expert on the area (…you seen any fixed heads around up there…?) but from the quick hike this afternoon, and a few looks here and there, it seems that the main granitic unit in the Donner Pass area is a slightly porphyritic granodiorite. Porphyritic refers to larger crystals contained in a finer-grained crystal matrix; these larger crystals are just small versions of the large phenocrysts and megacrysts that we climb on in Tuolumne – large potassium feldspar crystals. I also noticed another granitic unit that is slightly darker in color and has a greater percentage of dark (mafic) minerals and lacks the larger feldspar phenocrysts. If compared to Yosemite units (in the sense of an intrusive suite), these two units roughly equate to Half Dome granodiorite (younger, lighter in color, porphyritic near Tenaya Lake) and the tonalite/granodiorite of Kuna Crest (older, darker in color, rockfalls above Glacier Point).
Anyways, (blah, blah, blah…) the area around the crack is composed of a hybridized mixture of granodiorite and a localized mafic/basaltic intrusion. A mafic enclave swarm (a la Killer Pillar, Knobby Wall, etc.) can be seen in the upper two-thirds of the route, on the right side of the crack (although ‘erosion’ has sheared off the face of the cliff, rather than shape the enclaves into nice handholds and footholds, as listed above). The enclaves are surrounded by a hybridized diorite, the result of mixing between mafic dikes/intrusions and the slightly older granodioritic host rock (a la North America diorite intruding El Cap granite on the Big Stone).
So, with all of that jargon said, although the rock is of slightly lesser ‘quality’ (i.e. NA diorite) than our standard “granite” it is still pretty darn bomb squad and I would not attribute any gear failure to rock quality (or lack thereof). The surface of the rock seemed quite solid to me… now I just need to convince ‘em that it’s ok to place heads and beaks up there… Heh…
Aliens still kick ass!!!
Heal quick, Hans!
(ps – Hey Peter… way cool to see you posting on the Taco these days! Keep up the old school spirit!!!!!)
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NeverSurfaced
Trad climber
Someplace F*#ked!
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Aug 25, 2006 - 12:35pm PT
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But we as Americans must continue to search for someone to blame other then ourselves.
he he he...
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Burns
Trad climber
Arlington, VA
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Aug 25, 2006 - 01:47pm PT
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Clint-
You're right about the independence of the metolius cam lobes (pic and link weren't working for me so I didn't see your pics, but I followed what you were saying). I had forgotten that the trigger wires were fairly soft. I don't use mine that often (I prefer aliens...) The big thing about those u-stem cams is the stiffness of the U-stem in the direction that would cause the cam to walk. You can take the thumb loop of an alien and touch it to the head. In a bomber placement, you can wiggle the thumb loop all over the place and the head won't move a bit. Doesn't work that way with most other cams. That, and the fact that you can put a 90 degree bend in the stem and still operate the trigger as normal to set the alien just so in funky placements, is what makes the trigger sheath design so brilliant. Combine that with internal springs for narrow heads, and you've got one of the most brilliantly simple designs in climbing.
Is any of this particularly pertinent to the accident? Probably not. Here's what I envision happened with the alien. It was a yellow alien, so not that large. It sounds as if the crack got a little wider higher up, and from Mineral's assessment, it may have been a better placement higher up with a larger alien. Alien gets placed in a decent spot, climber passes it and either moves it with his feet, hands (did he put his fingers in the crack right under it? Yellow alien is primo fingerlock size...) or with the rope and rotate the head such that the outer two lobes moved up into the wider section of the crack. If the climb traversed a little, an alien, because of the flexible stem, pulled directly to the side can also be induced to rotate up, putting the outer part of the head higher into the wider crack. Add in a downclimb (and possibly a couple yanks on the rope to test the piece), and you've rotated the cam to the original orientation, but now farther up. Climb up one more time and you've got the cam a little higher. When the cam gets loaded in the fall, it will likely rotate a little more and either umbrella or just plain pop because it is now in a bad placement.
Of course, this is all just conjecture, but I'd be curious if someone went up there with a pair of aiders and got a photo of a yellow alien in the original position of the cam (look for track marks too). Seems like for my 'theory' to apply though, it would have to have a fairly significant upward flare to it or it would have to have been a marginal placement at the beginning.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 25, 2006 - 01:49pm PT
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It seems a simple experiment to return to the crack, place the same gear on rappell. And experiment with torques to see what the hell happened.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 25, 2006 - 03:06pm PT
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It would be interested to see if there were any track marks in the crack.
I remember standing on a seemingly bomber placement under the roof of the second pitch of Zodiac for several minutes (we were taking picture) before it suddenly cut loose. I had done the pitch several times before and always wondered how folks managed to fall on it as much as I heard.
The potential of a misalligned cam lobe hole is certainly worth following up.
Peace
karl
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Aug 25, 2006 - 03:29pm PT
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How long was the sling on the cam the pulled?
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Aug 25, 2006 - 04:46pm PT
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I remember when I was on pitch 97 of the new route on Mt. Thor. For no reason a indigo alien just blew out for no damn reason. Luckily the girls on the portaharem were ready for a fall.
Juan
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Aug 27, 2006 - 12:43am PT
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funny Juan
uhhmmm...
I reread my last statement in context with this thread and realized it is totaly out of place here because no one in this thread places any blame on anyone so far. And this was obviously not Mahsyo's intent.
I was just thinking about different liability issues at the time and feeling bitter. my apologies!
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Aug 28, 2006 - 01:32pm PT
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hope the climber is alright.
my buddie pulled out two WC Friends in the 80's out of perfect cam placements in granite and decked. I suspect that there were small surface crystals that gave way, then the cam never reset itself. Two. And this guy has only free climbed the diamond about 25 times,so I dont think it was inexperience.
Cams rip sometimes, inexpicably. Dont think this is a gear failure unless there is something found wrong with the cam.
It does suck though...
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 28, 2006 - 02:34pm PT
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I don't know Hans, but am glad to hear his injuries are minor.
"Bombproof" terminology notwithstanding, there is no such thing as a 100% reliable piece of gear. Every placement has a certain, unfortunately unknown, probability of failure---a probability we hope is very small if the gear is "well-placed." With cams and the enormous number of variables involved in their holding effectively, I believe that the probability of failure is small but not as small as we'd really like. But we don't know, except that the combined experience of a lot of climbers indicates that "good" gear holds most of the time.
Viewing the failure of a "well-placed" smallish cam as some kind of equipment malfunction is wrong. A certain number of such cams have failed in the past and will continue to fail in the future. The small probability of failure means many, perhaps most people will never have an unfortunate experience. We may come to think of ourselves as "skilled" and "experienced" when in reality we just haven't been unlucky. Yet.
In the face of uncertainty, one can choose to take one's chances. Plenty of climbers do this, most get away with it, and in many cases there is no other choice. The only other course is redundancy, which is not always practical. But if hard moves are in the offing, gear failure would be catastrophic, and additional placements are possible, then I think doubling up, regardless of how "bombproof" a single placement appears, needs to be promoted as a matter of basic protection strategy.
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DHike
climber
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Aug 29, 2006 - 03:23am PT
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Jim B, thanks for posting up, especially the link to the 'Attaway' paper on fall forces. That was an incredibly eye opening read about what we are trusting to catch us should we fail. (Yikes, and did I recently find out!) Should be recommended reading material other than the latest 'Hot Flashes'.
Glad to report the 'Tonemeister' is well and upbeat as ever, 'chust a little gurly scratch'. Could've been a heck of a lot worse.
Peter, as always, thanks. See you at the 'office'
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 29, 2006 - 04:30pm PT
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Hi Peter,
sounds like you may be on point with a micro-surface failure. It could be compounded by a sticky cam, or perhaps a lateral flick of the rope.
It could even be a rare combo of the three.
I've noticed an over-reliance on SLCDs by a generation of climbers who never climbed without them. Personally I PREFER nuts to cams when the placements are good (lighter and cheaper too).
Further, reliance on gear without a backup is a strong risk factor by itself.
(Now I get to play curmudgeon;) I remember back in the day when I started climbing the common wisdom was to locate your belay where you could hammer pitons INTO SEPARATE CRACKS!
These days climbing on sandstone I just ASSUME that the crack's interior surface will have grit that could act like micro-bearings so I try to make certain my gear is well seated.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2006 - 05:19pm PT
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Thanks to all for the great info. Liked the geology, and the force analysis.
Once again, did not mean to mislead with the thread title. Should have read:
"Aliens' early withdrawal surprise to earthbound climber and friends".
Stronger cam models and secondary back up placement are clearly indicated.
I will pass on all kind thoughts to Hans,
Peter
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john tecklin
climber
Nevada City, CA
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I pulled a yellow alien (which I thought was a perfect placement) at the crux of serenity crack. Luckily my next piece held, I fell about 40 feet. I went up again, placed it again (this time with closer backup) and it happened again! This piece appears completely normal. I'm feeling a little queasy. Only thing I've been able to figure out is that it may have rotated as I fell, or as I stepped past it, since it was a fairly shallow placement. Hearing that this has happened to others is causing me to reevalute whether I rely on this gear. So far I've been putting those little cams in deeper and backing up when I can.
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hobo
climber
PDX
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Yellow alien? Where? I got a blue one in....
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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john tecklin wrote:
> I pulled a yellow alien (which I thought was a perfect placement) at the crux of serenity crack. Luckily my next piece held, I fell about 40 feet. I went up again, placed it again (this time with closer backup) and it happened again! This piece appears completely normal. I'm feeling a little queasy. Only thing I've been able to figure out is that it may have rotated as I fell, or as I stepped past it, since it was a fairly shallow placement. Hearing that this has happened to others is causing me to reevalute whether I rely on this gear. So far I've been putting those little cams in deeper and backing up when I can.
I have seen a similar problem with a yellow Alien at the crux of Serenity. Last fall, a person was leading it and I was waiting up top to rappel. She placed a yellow Alien below the crux, tested it by jerking down on it, and it came out. Tried a second time with the same result. She styled a rest at that delicate position and put in some different gear.
My conclusion is that the crack is "not sufficiently parallel" at that spot to be a good place for the yellow Alien. It is hard to look in and inspect the individual cams there, since you are to the side and it's not easy to hold on. Clearly some of them are not contacting the rock or are "tipped out" and not ready to hold much. It is at the transition from the finger crack to discrete pin scars there, so the irregularity of the crack should not be too surprising. I recall using something like #3 or #4 Rocks there in the past.
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hobo
climber
PDX
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Hmmm,in that spot I remember a blue TCU. While your standing on the knob type thing? Seemed bomber. Maybe not?
Alex
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