Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 50 of total 50 in this topic |
justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 25, 2012 - 02:41am PT
|
I was in MN last week and climbed at Taylors falls. I took my first lead fall in a year+ on a 3 ft roof climb there. I was surprised getting to the roof that all I could find was a #2 micro as my first and only piece. I took a 15fter on it which I was not expecting (basalt is slick, who knew). I stopped 1ft from the ground inverted without feeling a thing, Thank God. A good #2 did the trick, much to my surprise. I guess a well placed micro is pretty bomber. I will be wearing a helmet consistently from now on, I swear!
My wife nearly swore off belaying me, she got launched a good 7ft. Thank God she can hold a belay. Maybe the soft landing of our weight delta did the trick.
Anyone have any harrowing stories of micros saving their bacon. I owe my legs to one.
|
|
briham89
Trad climber
los gatos. ca
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 02:59am PT
|
if that happened to me I would have gone Number 2 ...too
haha me 2!!
that is gnarly, i'm glad you are alive. I've never taken a whipper on a micro, but I am always surprised they hold when I bounce test them while aiding on crap placements
and oh ya
YOU'RE STILL GONNA DIE
|
|
Mungeclimber
Trad climber
the crowd MUST BE MOCKED...Mocked I tell you.
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 03:20am PT
|
Taylors Falls, where the true Yosemite crack is
good save of bacon!
helmuts is good.
|
|
tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 05:57am PT
|
This hapened to me on P38 in the gunks about 1985 or so. the #3 ripped out and the #2 saved me. inverted a few feet from a pile of rocks, no lid. Does NOT mean that I will do stupid thing over micro gear just that I got lucky that day....
|
|
justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 07:54am PT
|
I never fall on anything smaller than a # 2 so I have no harrowing story.
I do have a 200 pound climber-friend who took a good fall onto one of those green micro cams. (Smaller than a 00). Pretty wild. I guess when gear is good and the rock is solid those things do their job.
|
|
mhd
Trad climber
St Paul
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 08:52am PT
|
That's sounds like a long fall on what was probably a short route, glad the nut held. What route where you on at Taylors Falls?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 09:08am PT
|
held a leader fall on a #2 stopper in the late 80s when my partner fell off the overhang crux of Anguish in the 'Gunks...
we had been climbing a bunch that year and gotten pretty lax in anchoring, I had a single piece of webbing draped around a flake for the belay, doubt that would have held if the stopper had blown, I was standing with slack to the anchor.
pledged then and there to be better at anchors, always.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 09:30am PT
|
pledged then and there to be better at...
Been there done that.
... probably a lead reason why we're both here 20+ years later. :)
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Social climber
Retired in Appalachia
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 09:44am PT
|
I took a 25 foot ripper onto a #3 wired stopper back in 1974, I came to rest upside-down just a couple of feet off the deck. Actually, the entire pitch zippered except for the #3 that caught me.
That was one of my 9 lives scratched off the list.
|
|
couchmaster
climber
pdx
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 09:52am PT
|
The wires have been known to break, I'd back up any small wired you have to use if you think there is any chance of a fall with any consequences. Like a ground fall.
|
|
Grampa
Trad climber
OC in So Cal
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 10:28am PT
|
I think you are a very lucky climber. Had your belayer been tied into an anchor at the ground, would your fall have been shorter?
I saw a number 1 stopper pull at Tahquitz in solid granite. A lucky number 2 in the same crack held after the number 1 pulled.
( Hummm,where are my knifeblades? )
|
|
John Butler
Social climber
SLC, Utah
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 10:56am PT
|
I bet on these:
|
|
Branscomb
Trad climber
Lander, WY
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 11:05am PT
|
Sometime around 1973 or 74, Carlos and Ricardo Casa and I were doing some aid climb on Lower Index Town Wall and Casa took a 20 footer onto a #1 Coonyard stopper, and it held. Would have been a nasty one to the ledge if it hadn't. We saved that baby for years in reverence.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 11:06am PT
|
Why is everyone turning upside down? You need to prevent that. Upside down I doubt a helmet would do you much good.
|
|
Grampa
Trad climber
OC in So Cal
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 11:08am PT
|
Ron,
I agree Brother! I will use a stopper or hex first, and a springy thing as a last resort.
|
|
justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2012 - 11:19am PT
|
Yeah, I really have no idea why I ended up inverted. I figure I was in a weird crouched position after passing the roof, and just fell off balance. I didn't really see it coming, so I do not know what happened in the air. The rope was not between my feet, I may have just flipped over when coming to a rest.
Not sure the route name, I have never climbing in MN before, and I didn't have a book. It was a nice fractured portion of steep basalt, 70ft tall probably, and right off the river. The route felt like 5.9 so I wasn't feeling too too stressed.
As far as the fall length. The piece was about 3 or 4 ft below my feet, and then my wife added to the fall. So probably a 10 or more feet of actual falling, and then the rest was the catch. All I know is I ended up inches from the ground. I think the soft landing was definitely key though. I barely felt the catch at all, like landing in a bed of feathers really (or going to heaven)!
We definitely quit climbing for the day after that. It was time to head for the lake and have a beer.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 12:11pm PT
|
More than one person tells of becoming inverted. There is something badly wrong.
You do not want to fall head first.
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Social climber
Retired in Appalachia
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 12:14pm PT
|
Why is everyone turning upside down? You need to prevent that. Upside down I doubt a helmet would do you much good.
I suppose that Sherlock is your first name?
I dropped in a #3 wired, made a couple of hook moves, and then was reaching around a corner to place another nut. It was a long reach and the piece was difficult to bounce test. I was in the process of transitioning from the hook to the nut (with one foot in one aider and the other foot in other aider) when the nut blew. I guess that's what flipped me.
The entire pitch zippered except for that #3 wired. I had go back up to get my hook & etrier that was still hanging up on the pitch!
He-he
He said he blew a nut
|
|
Grampa
Trad climber
OC in So Cal
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 12:21pm PT
|
Inversion can occur when you fall and the rope is between your legs and behind you.
This may also result in a (hopefully temporary) change in voice tone.
Another good reason for a helmet, in case you invert and smack the rock with your head.
|
|
Dos XX
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 01:20pm PT
|
Yes, what @grampa says about preferring nuts over cams, and the value of wearing a helmet not just for rockfall danger.
I told @grampa in person about an inverted fall taken by a family member, and how a helmet saved their bacon, but it's still such a chilling memory that I won't recount it here. Stoppers good, helmets good.
|
|
Morgan
Trad climber
East Coast
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 01:39pm PT
|
I know a guy who took three consecutive 20-foot falls on a #2 (red) RP nut at Red Wall, Gogarth. Roland Pauligk is the man and produces a quality product for sure. Reach for the brass, save your ass!
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 01:51pm PT
|
I took several ten-to-fifteen foot falls on a No. 2 Stopper in the early 1970's, but the numbering changed since then. The No. 2 then didn't have as thin a cable as the No. 1, but not as thick as No. 3 and above. Also, they belaying method was the (standard for the day) ungloved hip belay.
I also had a friend who took a couple of longer falls on a No. 2 around the same time on Selaginella Wall and Try Again Ledge. That Stopper was rather wasted by the end of the day.
John
|
|
graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 02:41pm PT
|
I guess a well placed micro is pretty bomber.
Assuming that they aren't bomber but you were just really lucky may be the better way to go.
|
|
justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2012 - 02:44pm PT
|
^^^^haha
I definitely agree. The "pretty" was the qualifier giving me some wiggle room.
|
|
yosemite 5.9
climber
santa cruz
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 06:10pm PT
|
No backing up the first twenty feet above the belay?
Overly confident that the one piece at ten feet will keep you off the deck? What happens if it rips out?
Too much slack in the line?
No tie-in by your belayer to a directional to keep him/her down so he/she can protect that first twenty feet so you don't hit the ground (or fall below an anchor and rip it out on a higher pitch)?
No helmet to protect your brains that literally have the consistency of cottage cheese inside your thin skull? Traumatic brain damage does not heal, ever. Better to break a bone or lose an arm. Even a face can be reconstructed, but not a brain, a critical care doctor told me once.
Belayer looking at something else?
All of the above while far from rescue personnel? Not that it matters if you are dead.
Common factors. I see it all the time in young climbers. But not on my rig. I like to breathe.
I don't mean to sound preachy. Just trying to help young people stay alive. Go ahead, be mad at me if you want, but you have to be alive to be mad.
Go see all the young males in your local major hospital's rehab department and you might understand my perspective.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 06:41pm PT
|
I hope all of us who have inverted in a fall have taken time to examine why.
It is not always apparent.
In one case, I simply eschewed leg loops in one harness designed (poorly, I feel) to be used either way.
If you have this style, don't use it that way.
The other time I simply fell (the last pitch on the SalWall--'74, Doug Ross on belay) on a wet slab, the entire load of iron and biners draped around my shoulders.
I had no leg loops then , either, but the dynamics involved, a short slab ride, really, and the consequent tumbling effect, combined with the weight of gear on my upper torso, inverted me instantly.
No helmet, my head a foot or less above the ledge Ross stood on, the whole route below me, and I am here to tell you, I'm glad to hear we all lived to see today.
Every one comes to see the falls in Yosemite. Waterfalls, leader falls, and rockfalls.
What held me on the Captain was a tied-off short thick LA or one of the wedge LAs. It was in half-way. Brrr....
edit
As for falling from just above the belayer at the start of a pitch w/o pro:
I sat facing the wall on the pillar at the base of pitch two of Tweedle Dee, Randy Hamm going, "Easy stuff," for the first ten or so, then ignoring the chance to do the right thing.
But he's leading, I shut my mouth.
It is steep, and my feet were well-braced.
He fell (or there would be nothing to tell) into my lap, I SYN.
We did not bang heads, bleed, cry or tip side wise. It was the perfectest catch.
But not good leader etiquette. Don't need to show off. Respect the belay.
edit #2 for the hell of it is for 5.9
You speak the truth to the youth of America and the world but will they listen? If they wish to live as long as we.
Repeat after me: Climbing is dangerous. Climb at your own risk. If you ignore good advice, your stupidity is your reward.
|
|
Grampa
Trad climber
OC in So Cal
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 07:23pm PT
|
My worst inversion was going off Flower of High Rank. The rope went between my legs and behind, so I flipped forward and stopped upside down in my swami belt.
The first thing I remember was "Oh Sheet, I fell"
The second was "I just flipped head first"
Third was "I'm still alive" when I stopped bouncing on the rope.
I was wearing levi's and the crotch ripped apart like paper. Thankfully, nothing else down there ripped apart or was damaged.
No helmet, of course, back then. A number 6 hex saved me.
|
|
justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2012 - 09:58pm PT
|
Yosemite 5.9, I totally agree with your comments. From my kayaking days I have learned a good beat down (not death mind you) once in a while is the surest fire way to keep you honest. One failure can teach you a lesson a thousand successes can not. Thankfully, I was lucky for learning that lesson without consequence.
A few take-aways. 1. Buddy up marginal gear (aid stoppers no matter how well placed are always marginal) with some equalizer preferably, I probably could have rigged this up. Being fiddly with one free hand was the reason for my complacency. Its never good to have only one piece to save your legs (then again the first piece is always your only piece). 2. If you can only get in micro or marginal gear, down climb and walk away. I felt somewhat climbed into a corner. I did not feel confident in the gear, but it was what was afforded to me. But if I fell on the down climb, I would be toproped by a micro lower to the ground...and that's better than falling on a micro. 3. Even if you think it is casual be more diligent than you think you need to be. 4. Wear a helmet even if you think its going to be an easy warm up day.
For the record, I do not consider myself a cavalier climber (that's probably what all dead ones would say). I fallen very few times in the last 5 years, I place gear with care, and I place it often. Sometimes, the route doesn't give you the options you want, even when it looks from below like it should.
I think not tying down the belayer was to my benefit. At multipitch belays, I always incorporate a upward pull piece for an entirely different reason.
Am I missing anything?
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 10:07pm PT
|
Probably, but you sound like you will live to tell about your next fall.
Gotta go. It's time for Jeopardy!
|
|
ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 10:09pm PT
|
figure out the name of the route
|
|
MisterE
Social climber
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 10:13pm PT
|
When I was trying to send "Japanese Gardens" (5.11d) at Index, I was taking repeated whippers on a #2 Loweball (with a long sling, of course).
Never did get that rig...
|
|
justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2012 - 10:17pm PT
|
ah haha, the embarrassment deepens!
Any MN folk(s), all one of you, care to venture a guess? Its on the MN side near the river, has a 2-3ft roof, felt like 5.9...but to deepen the embarrassment it wasn't...
|
|
ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 10:48pm PT
|
maybe Piece of Pie, 5.8-ish
|
|
justin01
Trad climber
sacramento
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 25, 2012 - 10:55pm PT
|
ding ding ding...
<hanging my head in shame>
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Apr 25, 2012 - 11:50pm PT
|
The list of inverted falls gets longer and longer. Only luck keeps an inverted fall from being fatal - or worse. Much much worse.
I have been told I am wrong on this but consider. If you move your tie-in point down even two or three inches your chances of inverting increase. If your tie-in point is below your center of mass, inversion is nearly impossible to avoid unless the fall is both planned and well executed. If you are carrying a lot of gear it even begins to make sense to be clutzy and clip it all onto your seat harness. Get it low. Being really heavy in the legs does not help the climbing but it might help the falling.
We have a lot more people and better communications than we did forty years ago, but the fact is in the sixties I never heard of an inverted fall. We were also very careful to push the tie-in around to one side or the other on our swami so as to keep the rope away from the legs.
The comment about contact with the full face of a stopper is on target. Indeed if you know the alloy used in your stoppers you can look at the area of contact any placement has, and can estimate the force that will cause failure by shear. Simple metallurgy. If you want to get really serious, get a small hydraulic rig with a gauge on it and see how good your estimates are.
Sometimes it is good to get serious. Climbing is one of those times.
Darwin does not always remain sitting on the sidelines.
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Social climber
Retired in Appalachia
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 10:32am PT
|
...If you move your tie-in point down even two or three inches your chances of inverting increase...
True.
Climbing harnesses have a high tie-in for this reason.
In caving we use harnesses with a low tie-in to facilitate longer throws when using mechanical ascenders. Cavers generaly don't have to worry about lead falls; most of the rope work is either rapping or jugging.
|
|
ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 08:37pm PT
|
that's the initiation route -- all the local gym-climbing n00bs do this as their first lead
|
|
couchmaster
climber
pdx
|
|
|
Apr 26, 2012 - 08:45pm PT
|
To follow up with what Jstan says, Metolius has extensive instructions for users to get their harness's (talking the Waldo version) sized up high enough to reduce this. I rarely read instructions, but in this case, I was glad that I did, and noted that the different positions make a drastic change in where the balance point is.
I think that the reason inverted falls were more uncommon then is that falls were much more uncommon back then. Due to less climbers, and those that climbed were what are called "trad" climbers now, and less interested in taking falls.
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Cave Creek, AZ
|
|
The original #2 stoppers could be pretty solid and you could take some good falls on them. They were rated 1700lb (~7 kN) while the newer ones are rated 450lb (~ 2 kN). The original cable was really thick for the size of the nut and it could keep you from getting placements sometimes, but if you did they could be sweet. Of course, really dynamic belays can be like magic! As long as you don't hit anything on the way down.
As for flippin' over, don't get the rope between your legs. Oh, and wear a swami!
|
|
Ol' Skool
Trad climber
Oakhurst, CA
|
|
"Only luck keeps an inverted fall from being fatal - or worse. Much much worse."
How much worse than fatal do falls come?
|
|
TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
|
|
I love it when you worry about sounding brash or offensive...
And then someone says it for you...
Thank you: "yosemite 5.9"
|
|
Ol' Skool
Trad climber
Oakhurst, CA
|
|
Trudat
Good point-
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
|
|
How much worse than fatal?
When your fall brings your partner with you, making it a double fatality.
Or when you land on and crater him. That is a nail job, according to Millis.
t*r, hang in there. You can fall all day in the cyber-gym. Deep breath...
and suddenly here is ol' Mousie, hanging upside down again, on the Salathe,
but this time it's not a fall. THANK GOD! I was just minding my own
business, getting ready to jug up to Ross after lowering myself across the
Hollow Flake pendulum. Boy that is easier than you think. I'm getting to
be quite the expert. When up comes our version of an elevator. Ross was
hauling that bag so fast that it comes right up underneath of my feet, and
everything went topsy. I am upside down, the bag slows down because my
weight is now part of Ross's load. I can't tell you how embarrassed I
was for 1) not knowing where the haul line was running and 2) not waiting
until the haul bag was well on its way and above me and 3) for being
upside down insside the Hollow Flake, even though nobody could have
witnessed it besides Ross. Thank god, thank god, thank god. Had I been
wearing a mountaineering chest harness like the one Mammut produced, this
might not have happened, as the chest would have connected to the prussik
above the Jumars, alleviating problems with centers of gravity.
There was a short piece that Pratt did maybe in the laaate '60s in a
Summit, most likely. Grosserman, do you have it? In the article
he detailed how to get out of inversion if wearing a swami and hanging
away from the wall. Grab a runner, twist it once to make the infinity
sign (figure eight), stick your legs up so you can work the sling in
between your tushie and the rope, and stick your feet into the holes, draw
the loops up your legs to your tushie, then lower your legs so the rope is
between your legs and forming a kind of diaper seat. Chuck called this
method the "Monkey Seat." I've tried it, but I had illustrations. For
gosh sakes, try this at home before rigging a test on the crag.
Hang in there, t*r.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 04:16am PT
|
How Much More Than Fatal ? Far more than some things , less than COPD with Chronic HD
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 08:09am PT
|
When I got a #2 in on some pillow lava FA to protect a couple hard moves after a 75' runout you can be damn sure there was no way I was gonna test it.
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 08:12am PT
|
Unless you'll hang free of the rock at the end of a fall, a swami is in a lot of ways, safer than a harness, because it solves the flip upside down and either land on your head or thwack the back of your head problem that we see so often in climbing these days.
Metolius seems to be aware of this and have addressed it by allowing for adjusting the rise in their harnesses. I have a BD Alpine Bod and a Xenos and they are both too low - below the umbilicus.
It seems like it's fashionable these days to have the harness hang on top of the pelvis with the tie in point well below the center of gravity. This is probably part of the reason for how common flipping over when falling is these days.
The safest harness for me is a 2" tied swami with separate leg loops and a belay loop. It's a little more involved to put those three parts together, but it feels safer falling and rapping and the comfort is same as the other harnesses I have.
But, then I'm just a fat old trad.
|
|
ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 08:17am PT
|
I took a sold fall on to a tiny stopper on Mayflower Direct (.11d/.12a) at Paradise Forks. Yikes!!! Stopped about a foot off the ground and I think it was the closest I've come to getting killed or maimed rock climbing. Makes me feel queasy thinking about it 20+ years later.
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 08:43am PT
|
Damn!
|
|
AP
Trad climber
Calgary
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 10:54am PT
|
So what was it like to remove those small stoppers after the fall?
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Apr 27, 2017 - 11:43am PT
|
Duane Raleigh told me that he took a hundred footer soloing the second ascent of an aid route in the Black Canyon, and was held by a rurp. No doubt the other gear that he ripped slowed him down to some degree.
I took a good 35 footer once on a small stopper, a number one or two. The old El Cap routes used to be without bolt hangers. You brought your own, wth nuts and a wrench. We never bothered, and just cinched a small stopper wire over them, or tied them off with thin webbing. Much faster. I ripped one of the early friends out of an expanding flake and was caught by a stopper. I slid the wires up past the nut, put it over a 1/4 inch bolt, and then slid the nut back up to cinch it kind of tight. Worked fine.
Bomber. Didn't blow.
|
|
| Messages 1 - 50 of total 50 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!