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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 8, 2011 - 10:27am PT
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High Traverse, I use a sitting hip belay whenever the person following is on easy/moderate terrain where he/she is climbing quickly. In 1974 I held a 80 ft. leader fall in Yosemite on the Meatgrinder with a hip belay and swami belt with no ill effects to either me or the leader.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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donini, I do the same--us a hip belay when the follower is floating up easy ground. Man, the looks I get from the less experienced!
Edit:
Trango Alpine Equalizer
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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I was held on an 80 foot slider/bouncer on Pywiack Dike route by a sitting hip belay on a swami. No worries myte!
Trango Alpine Equalizer Complex, single use gizmo.
And in the extremely unlikely but SH@T happens event that a falling rock cuts the webbing, you're toast.
Meh! Unless someone can explain better why I need one.
I STILL don't get the use of a GriGri for free climbing except Planet Granite requires you to use one. Go ahead, call me a Luddite.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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"Complex, single use gizmo."
High Traverse - my husband says the exact same thing about it, and that is why he doesn't like it. I respect your opinion. It is not something you NEED. But I still like it. :)
"And in the extremely unlikely but SH@T happens event that a falling rock cuts the webbing, you're toast."
You are right if using it as in the picture with no knots of any kind clipped to the biners of the belay gear. It is basically a one piece of long runner. The instructions specify you can tie a clove hitch at each anchor point if that is your preference.
Phyl
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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I agree that climbers will be rewarded when they can climb efficiently with the smallest possible rack.
But, what needs to be realized is why the noobs take too much gear, and too much time. The lack confidence. When you lack confidence, you are scared to commit to a move, and it takes you more time. When you lack confidence, you don't trust the placement you've made, so you fiddle around with it, and place another piece 3-5' above it. When you don't have confidence you place multiple anchors, and are still afraid they won't hold. Same with extra clothing, food, water etc. All one has to do is peruse rc.noob to see the hoards that are second guessing how to equalize three or four anchors. The don't have the experience to trust themselves, and the overload of manuals and equipment options just makes them second guess themselves. The make up for their lack of confidence by clipping extra gear to their harness.
Life was pretty easy when 7 1/2' of 1" webbing with a sliding X to equalize two pieces and two opposed biners to tie in was all you knew.
You can scold them, you can berate them, you can avoid them. But none of that will build their confidence. What is required is for them to put in the mileage. Experiencing different situations and being able to build on that experience. To me there is no better teacher as to why you don't want to haul a pack, then hauling a pack on a multi pitch route. One or two times is usually sufficient to wean one of that madness.
Until one has done 10, 20, 30, 50 etc pitches of a given type of climb on a similiar type of rock, it's tough to be confident with say a set of nuts, dozen cams and 8 runners. Once one gains the experience, then they will naturally pare down their rack.
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zeta
Trad climber
Berkeley
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great topic!
It takes time to be faster, more efficient. Having a good mentor is key. I used to take forever to lead a pitch and build an anchor so I try to remember to be patient with others for doing things that I used to do...now when I climb w/ new people (new to multi-pitch), here's what I try to impress upon them:
Be ready at the base:
I hate it when I finish a lead, build the anchor, pull up the rope, tell them they're on belay...and then ...spend like 5 minutes waiting...they're putting on their climbing shoes, packing sh#t away, etc. I learned early on to be ready to climb the moment the rope comes tight and you're on belay.
Don't take a pack unless you absolutely have to..and even then, pare it down. Getting in the habit of guzzling a lot of water at the base before a long climb so you can just get away with carrying less water...
Cleaning/racking:
making sure the new MP person knows how to properly and quickly rack the gear so that it's efficient/fast to pass the gear to the leader. Such a pain when the follower comes up with all the gear splayed all over their bodies when they arrive at the anchor.
Rope management:
this is key and took me a while to get better at it. Phylp's point below I only recently started to do on a more regular basis. Sometimes a little thing makes a huge difference!
4. If you are at a hanging belay and need to coil the ropes back and forth over your stance, coil each successive loop slightly shorter than the one previous. That way, when the leader starts up the next pitch and you are feeding out the rope, the loops on top are much less likely to catch underneath the lower loops and pull them into an impossible knotty tangle. I hadn't been doing much multipitch climbing recently until my October trip to the Red Rocks and forgot this myself until I was reminded by my own messy tangle.
you just keep learning though. When I climb with other partners, I like seeing their systems for efficiency...and then deciding if I'll copy it
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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But, what needs to be realized is why the noobs take too much gear, and too much time. The lack confidence.
Truth!
John
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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A Norwegian story from the 50s
Odd Saether was the uncrowned king of Kolsaas at the time. He was a climbing maestro. I have never seen anything like him when it comes to grips. Whatever he touched he was able to hold. He never gave in to a grip, he left it. Before he went for the next move he let his fingers hang for a short time to regain his power. His footwork was just as excellent. He was not nonchalantly relaxed as Franz Beckenbauer. All of Saethers moves were calm and conscious. The free foot was left to hang for a moment to rest before he raised it and placed it, precisely every time. To Saether climbing was coordination, transfer of weight, balance, precision.
The king do not see the novices. Dag and I had been climbing for a long time before we understood that Saether had seen us. A Sunday he invited us to climb Brochs gate. It was an incredible recognition. We felt accepted by the grown ups, it was our confirmation as adults. We were allowed to carry the rope. Pride!
To me it became a school of "harm makes wise". It started well. Saethers instructions were short and made with authority. The essens of the climbing ethics came in short sentences. They stuck to the young receptive minds: Never trust a bolt! The climber on lead must never fall! What he did not say, but what I became painfully aware of during the climbing was: "Neither do Sather climb with people who fall while following as second".
This is what happened:
I wanted of my whole heart to show Saether that I was a good climber. I knew that Saether disliked slowness. Climbing should happen flowingly. Problems should be solved first time.
In my eagerness I went the wrong way. I realised it soon, but instead of admitting it and ask for rope to climb back, I pushed on.
Saether watched me from above. He did not say anything. When I fell he let a couple of meters of rope go to give me air. He still did not say anything when I came up, but I understood that imprecision was a hundred times worse than slowness. I was air to him. Dag was allowed to carry the rope.
It took a long time before I again was asked to follow him climbing. Saether had written me off as a climber. I had failed at the exam. And climbers do not have a second chance.
Saether's pedagogics was short and effective. The message was clear as ice.
As he said many years after: "I let you go Ralph".
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 8, 2011 - 04:27pm PT
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High Traverse, don't, never have and never will use a GriGri. The last thing I would ever do is to allow someone to lower me with one unless I had complete faith in them.
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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Put me in the don't have, nor can't ever see me using a gri gri or it's ilk.
If somebody can't handle an atc, sticht plate, munter etc, then they have absolutely no business belaying IM(notso)HO.
As to mentors, they can be great if you have the option. But I expect many of us managed to become confident and efficient climbers without a mentor.
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Degaine
climber
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I'm pretty sure my grandpa knew a bunch of you, including the OP. He used to tell stories about how all of you used to walk to school backwards uphill in the snow barefoot. He also told me how about the time before now was the good old days, where the women were all young and beautiful, and the beer was ice cold all day, every day.
Seriously, while good advice has been provided, including the OP, everyone seems to be looking at noobs through the glasses of experience, forgetting just how much one has learned through the years in order to have the privilege of being so judgmental.
Kind of like looking at teens and saying to yourself "there's no way in hell I ever acted like that!"
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 8, 2011 - 05:46pm PT
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Degaine, you have some very good points. We all our guilty of imaging that we were different (better?) than the current crop at different stages of our lives. As an ardent reader of history I suffer no such illusions. I am merely trying to ease the passage for many of today's beginning climbers from gym and sport climbing to multi pitch trad- a transition we didn't have to go thru in my era.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
In the mountains... somewhere...
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I don't even think it is a problem to bring too big a rack and to take a long time setting up anchors, it is the packs and approach shoes to climb a two pitch slab that you are going to rap that seems ridiculous. And quite frankly, it would have seemed ridiculous to the 25 year old me too.
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Degaine
climber
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Hi donini,
I certainly appreciate the knowledge and experience that you're willing to share on this forum.
But, given the slight "those kids today" undertone of your first post, I could not help but respond in jest.
cheers
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pFranzen
Boulder climber
Portland, OR
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Nov 11, 2011 - 05:46pm PT
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So we got up a little after 7am, made breakfast, packed lunch, chose gear, packed up, etc and were on the road by about 9:45am, found the parking and started hiking by about 10:30am.
This sounds like their biggest problem, aside from too few headlamps. What were they thinking starting a full 12-hour day at 10:30?
Moving quickly with people who aren't used to it can sometimes be tricky from a personnel/morale standpoint. People don't like to be rushed, especially when they're in a situation that isn't 100% comfortable, but Jim and all you other old crusties are absolutely correct that there is a need for urgency. Finding a way to encourage a slow partner or party while not making them panicked and angry can be a good skill to have, and I'm sure it's something that guides are very adept at doing.
I have seen far too many young(er) climbers just assume that multi-pitch climbs take forever, so they approach the outing thinking that a 4-pitch climb is going to take the entire day.
The other thing that I just can't wrap my head around is why people get on routes (or worse-- get in line for routes) that already have 3 or 4 parties on them. If Crimson Chrysalis has 10 people stacked up from the base to the top of P3, just find another f'ing route for the day rather than setting yourself up for a midnight rappelling party.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2012 - 04:51pm PT
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Looks like an appropriate time for a bump.
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matlinb
Trad climber
Albuquerque
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May 20, 2012 - 12:03am PT
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One of the ways I have eased into carrying a lighter rack is to use a 100 feet of 6 mm as a tag line and have the second keep the extra gear I would normally take with me. That way if I really, really have to use that 2nd .75 I can pull it up.
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