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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jun 18, 2015 - 05:13pm PT
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It shows up fine over here!
Edit: but only for a day before UKC filters kill it. See previous post for a way to view the shot.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Jun 19, 2015 - 03:13am PT
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weather or not the belayer screwed up is a moot point. play this game long enough and you have 100% chance of haveing a belayer screw up. one of the things you can do to help your chances of survival is to wear a lid..
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Jun 19, 2015 - 06:23am PT
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In this case helmets are a moot point.
He broke his ribs and a thumb.
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Bob Harrington
climber
Bishop, California
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Jun 19, 2015 - 08:48am PT
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In this case helmets are a moot point. He broke his ribs and a thumb.
I disagree. It looks to me like he came within inches of a bad bad head injury and was real lucky to have avoided it. The real culprit looks like the rope flipping him upside down. True, the catch could have been softer, but the belayer couldn't have prevented him from flipping over. This looks like 80% leader error to me.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Jun 19, 2015 - 08:58am PT
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Ropes can end up in odd places in the heat of the moment on hard climbs.
Yes and yes. Not a helmet issue, a shitty belayer issue. Ropes are dynamic and a hard catch can turn a fall into a pendulum, the only way he would physically come back TOWARDS the rock with enough force for an injury. The belayer yards in an armload of slack and leans back to take the stretch out of the rope when the climber is a foot or two above a bolt ~40 feet up, plenty of air for a better catch.
Reading these comments I don't think many climbers take falls while climbing...
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Rolfr
Trad climber
La Quinta and Penticton BC
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Jun 19, 2015 - 09:08am PT
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This article from 8a.nu is worth a read. Especially the different dynamic impact in belaying techniques.
Belaying technique and soft falls
Most climbing incidents are a result of a fall that has been broken too hard. A static fall increases the risk that the climber hits the wall and gets injured. Are you a good belayer? What is the weight difference between you and your partner? Do you have a fresh and dynamic rope or has it turned into a static trap? With some advice and training you and your climbing partner can get softer falls, loose your fear of falling/heights and as a result, become better climbers.
The five most important, ranked parameters that decide the softness of the fall are;
1. The belaying technique: Moving inwards can prolong the fall by meters but if you instinctively sit-down you can instead reduce the fall by some -20 cm.
2. Rope condition: A worn out rope can easily reduce the softness by a meter or so.
3. Rope drag: A fall, especially high up, gets harder by the level of the rope drag.
4. Belay device: The ATC may increase the softness by 20 cm.
5. Weight: Lighter climbers will get harder and more static falls.
Based on the five parameters and a 5 m fall from a height of 10 m, i.e. the last clip was made at 7,5 m, we have put together a worst case scenario and a best case scenario.
The worst case scenario results in a very dangerous totally static fall for our 50kg stuntwoman. The table below shows that her fall could have been soft if either a dynamic belaying technique or a new rope was used. The other parameters don’t normally have as great impact in this case. However, as it is the first few centimeters that are the most important for the softness of the fall, even the least important parameter, the belay device, could in such a case save a broken ankle.
Bending knees makes it
impossible to sit down and helps the heavier belayer to
jump upwards
Comparison of different scenarios for a 5 m fall on 10 m of rope - Dynamic impact in centimeters
DECIDING PARAMETERS Worst case: 50 kg climber Best case: 80 kg climber
1. Belaying technique -20 cm (Sit-down) 200 cm (Dynamic)
2. Rope condition 40 cm (Worn out) 140 cm (New)
3. Rope drag -20 cm (A lot) 0 cm (None)
4. Belay device 0 cm (GriGri) 20 cm (ATC etc.)
TOTAL FALL BRAKING 0 cm – Very Dangerous Very soft
Note that the numbers are estimations, given to facilitate comparison of different conditions and that the five factors affect each other making it impossible to summarize the best case scenario. It should also be mentioned that an 80 kg climber would never risk a 0 cm totally static fall if the belayer isn’t a real elephant.
1. The belaying technique is the most important factor. This means that the belayer moves towards the wall upon breaking. When a light climber belays a heavy climber this is often done automatically since the weight difference lifts the belayer off the ground. The opposite case is more dangerous. In worst case the heavier belayer gets scared and moves backwards, sits down (-20 cm) and thus makes the fall of the lighter climber harder.
Heavy weight climbers should train (in a controlled environment e.g. an indoor gym) to lean forward and bend their knees when catching a fall and be prepared to jump. By standing further away from the wall belayers also improve the chances of giving a nice soft fall, it might however be necessary to initially stand to the side since the climber might risk falling on the rope causing him/her to get burned on the rope. With a dynamic belaying technique climbers will improve the safety when belaying their light weighted climbers or kids. If the belayer is standing on a shelf or for some other reason is being prevented from stepping out from the wall, it is essential to bend the knees and to be prepared for jumping when a fall comes.
A light-weighted may clip the
first bolt in a neighboring route
Leaning forward helps a heavy
belayer to move inwards in the fall
Bending knees makes it impossible
to sit down and helps the heavier
belayer to jump upwards
2. The second most important parameter is the rope condition. Different ropes vary a lot in elasticity. Based on a load of 80 kg rope manufacturers declare a stretch of 6-10%, see impact force etc. After a fall the rope needs some “rest” to get back into an unstretched condition. If you fall/hang a lot while climbing it’s good to alternate which rope end you tie into as each fall causes some loss in elasticity. The ends of the rope loose the elasticity more quickly and by cutting off a couple of meters of a worn out rope you may improve the stretching ability.
If a dynamic belaying technique is used, the rope will not be worn out as quickly due to a lower impact force.
The rope manufactures report on scientific test-results regarding UIAA falls etc but nobody is talking about the reduction in elasticity of a worn out rope. 8a have measured that the declared stretch of 6-10 percents can get as low as 2 percents for a worn out rope. Using such a rope represents a static trap when falling!
3. The rope drag is another important parameter. Rope drag is caused by friction against the wall and/or when the quickdraws are not placed in line. This has a negative effect on the rope’s ability to stretch. The diameter and general condition of the rope may also affect negatively.
If there is a lot of rope drag a soft belaying technique is more difficult and the rope will not stretch as much. The reason is that the load of the fall is taken by the rope drag. On long routes the rope drag might be the main reason for hard falls. In such a case and if a dynamic belaying is not possible, you could give some extra slack to soften the fall.
Impact force from Beal
4. The belay device plays a minor role. Some people argue that the GriGri is the main reason for a hard fall but considering all parameters mentioned above, this is not the case. The difference by an ATC or similar compared to a GriGri, is only the few centimeters gained due to your hand could move closer to the ATC. It is important to underline that a normal use of the ATC does not mean that the rope slides through it.
Sometimes the belay may be too dynamic with fatal consequences mainly for the belayer. A light girl belaying her heavy boyfriend may collide with him, hit herself against the wall or against the first quick draw. In these cases it might be very dangerous not to use a GriGri. By clipping the first bolt at the neighboring route you increase the rope drag and reduce the risk of having an accident. If this is not possible, light climbers should be anchored to the ground.
The purpose of this article is to improve the safety for climbers. The belaying technique is an important factor quite easy to adapt to and thus improve the safety. The rope condition on the other hand is a trickier question. To physically describe the forces etc. applied to the rope upon breaking a fall is extremely complex and impossible to calculate. Big falls affects the rope but so does the normal use with many smaller falls and hanging while working on cruxes. So when is the rope too worn out to be used? To give a time related answer would be useless since it depends on how often you go climbing and the number of falls etc. Is it possible to give an answer based upon the elasticity of the rope and if so, what test method and numbers should be used? 8a don’t have these answers but we encourage a debate and discussion about rope condition.
GriGri safety by 8a
http://www.8a.nu
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ruppell
climber
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Jun 19, 2015 - 09:10am PT
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Gdavis
It's more of a shitty leader issue than a shitty belay. Granted the belayer could have performed better but watch the video again. At about 19 seconds the leader works his feet through. When he does his right leg steps OVER the rope. It's really easy to avoid that by hooking the rope with your foot as you step through to keep it over your leg. Had he done that the fall would have been a normal fall and not an invert. It's bad situational awareness on the leaders side.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jun 19, 2015 - 10:06am PT
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Agreed. I've flipped over four times and it was never because of the rope.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2015 - 10:11am PT
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This looks like 80% leader error to me.
I think the discussion about the belayer's role (and whether or not he should have done things differently) was fruitful, at least for me because I think I can benefit by thinking about how to give the best possible belay in different circumstances (which, in the end, as rgold pointed out, is a judgement call). I get the impression (I could be wrong about this) that the belayer yards in slack instinctvely, and not because this was a well thought out plan for catching a fall at this particular place and time. It seems (to me) like a soft catch would have been the best call.
Now I ask: would this had prevented injury? I'm still not convinced that what seems to be the more reasonable belay strategy would necessarily have prevented injury if we could somehow make an experiment and this was the only variable we tweaked. It is even possible (in my mind) that, in this particular instance (but certainly not in every instance of falling in this general area), a soft catch could have made things worst. A soft catch for a fall in this general area could give the best outcome in the huge majority of cases, but not necessarily every single one. We are sometimes controlled by the random outcomes of complex systems and judgement calls based on probability estimates are the best we can hope for.
On the other hand, I'm not sure saying it was an "error" for the leader to get the rope hooked around his leg is very fruitful. Assuming he falls unexpectly, he has about .5 seconds during a confusing pendulum fall to get his body on the correct side of the rope. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that a human being should be able to do that.
IMHO, if there was any error that climber made in this respect it came before, down below the fall, when he didn't evaluate the correctly the dangers of totally going for the roof in this situation. Instead of going balls to the walls for the send, maybe he should have been more cautious to begin with about falling in this situation. But even here, calling such a choice "an error" is easy to do in retrospect. Every time we make a decision to go for it in a dangerous decision and pull it off, we made the "correct" decision. If something goes wrong it was an "error". Without a deeper content, this analysis doesn't seem fruitful to me.
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ruppell
climber
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Jun 19, 2015 - 10:13am PT
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Four times in how many falls Rgold? Sure you can invert without the rope under your leg but that percentage is very small. I've never had it happen in hundreds of falls. The one time I had the rope under my leg I flipped. I learned early on to pay close attention to that. Unless you can grab the rope and do one hell of a sit up you'll invert every time with the rope under your leg.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Jun 19, 2015 - 10:13am PT
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I agree his rope behind the leg made things considerably worse, definitely avoidable on a route like that.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Jun 19, 2015 - 10:29am PT
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The way it looks to me, if the rope weren't behind his leg and he didn't flip, that catch would still have sent him slamming hard into the wall feet first.
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ruppell
climber
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Jun 19, 2015 - 10:38am PT
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Ksolem,
Watch it again. A lot of momentum is generated by his inverting. If he doesn't invert he doesn't carry that extra momentum into the wall. In no way am I defending the belayer's belay but it wouldn't have been that bad had the leader not inverted. Plus I'd much rather break an ankle(and I have) than my skull.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Jun 19, 2015 - 11:15am PT
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Bunch of guys who obviously never take falls talking about falling, this thread reads to me as expected.
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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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Jun 19, 2015 - 01:41pm PT
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the leader must not fall
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jun 19, 2015 - 01:54pm PT
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JLP is right; I don't fall much since I've been almost entirely a trad climber. I'd guess somewhere between 100 and 200 falls total, with, as I mentioned, four inverted ones. On one of the inverted falls, I would have been either dead or paraplegic had not my belayer (Jim McCarthy) literally jumped off the boulder he was belaying from in order to take in enough rope. I'm grateful for having a belayer who understood what the situation demanded and wasn't reflexively executing some procedure assumed appropriate for everything. And I'm grateful that the level of casualness and inattention that modern sport and gym climbing seem to have engendered was not a feature of our time.
All that said, the dynamic jump belay is absolutely the right tool for the job when there is nothing to hit and a pendulum fall happens (and on overhanging rock, every fall is a pendulum fall). The main reason (there are several) is conservation of angular momentum---lengthening the amount of rope has to decrease the magnitude of the velocity vector (well, the velocity component normal to the position vector) so your speed going into the wall is lower (unless possibly, as in the concave case, the wall comes out to meet you). Looking at the picture of the climb from the ground, I'm pretty convinced at this point that the belayer did indeed screw up.
My possibly fatal fall was on overhanging rock and so was an excellent candidate for the jump dynamic belay. If McCarthy had done that, I'd be typing this with my eyebrows, if at all.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Jun 19, 2015 - 02:19pm PT
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JLP is right; I don't fall much since I've been almost entirely a trad climber. I'd guess somewhere between 100 and 200 falls total, with, as I mentioned, four inverted ones. On one of the inverted falls, I would have been either dead or paraplegic had not my belayer (Jim McCarthy) literally jumped off the boulder he was belaying from in order to take in enough rope. I'm grateful for having a belayer who understood what the situation demanded and wasn't reflexively executing some procedure assumed appropriate for everything. And I'm grateful that the level of casualness and inattention that modern sport and gym climbing seem to have engendered was not a feature of our time.
All that said, the dynamic jump belay is absolutely the right tool for the job when there is nothing to hit and a pendulum fall happens (and on overhanging rock, every fall is a pendulum fall). The main reason (there are several) is conservation of angular momentum---lengthening the amount of rope has to decrease the magnitude of the velocity vector (well, the velocity component normal to the position vector) so your speed going into the wall is lower (unless possibly, as in the concave case, the wall comes out to meet you). Looking at the picture of the climb from the ground, I'm pretty convinced at this point that the belayer did indeed screw up.
My possibly fatal fall was on overhanging rock and so was an excellent candidate for the jump dynamic belay. If McCarthy had done that, I'd be typing this with my eyebrows, if at all.
This is spot on.... as usual. This a good discussion and from this I can see that some people who have answered do not sport climb- AT ALL- and they do not have a clue as to what goes on whilst climbing on the steep.
To be a good belayer one need to have a bag of tricks and Know how and when to use them.
I dont like to dismiss folks who believe in helmets as a fix-all to head injury. But most of the climbers who wear em sometimes are the ones who get into head down falling.... maybe the weight changes the CG... who knows.
have at it......
And Kris... thank for the props, you have saved my bacon before too you know.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Jun 19, 2015 - 03:09pm PT
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A helmet while sport climbing is like wearing a bullet proof vest to get your groceries - sure, there might be instances where it is warranted, but best to avoid the situation that necessitates it in the first place and take well lit sidewalks instead of alleys, kind of like having a good belayer and being mindful of the rope behind the leg.
Also, belayer totally climbs and leads in the gym more than not.
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sDawg
climber
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Jun 19, 2015 - 04:44pm PT
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For reference I weigh 120 pounds so I never get soft catches and I rarely try to give them, although I often do unintentionally.
1. If the climber had been focusing on not getting hurt AFTER the fall, he probably would have been OK. He just came off and did nothing. He accidentally got his leg around the rope during the fall, but could have prevented it if he'd been actively managing his body position during the fall. A soft catch is never guaranteed and it's always on the faller to take a good fall.
2. Extra slack is not a soft catch. Extra slack out before the fall increases the factor and increases the probability of what happened here, which is that the climber got his ankle caught AFTER FALLING. His positioning when he left the rock was OK. He wrapped is leg around the rope during the fall, which is more likely with more rope and more time. That's not to say there's no place in good sport belaying for some extra slack (if you're not smaller than your climber), but it's dangerous to make it a primary way to give a soft catch.
3. A proper soft catch is a high level skill. You need to read the amount of friction between you and your climber, which is a function of the contact area of the rope with the rock, the angles, your weight and how fast you get it on the rope, the rock type, the rope condition, etc. Then you need to decide to jump and/or feed out slack exactly as the climber hits the bottom of the fall. It's not easy and most belayers can't do it correctly often and almost none will do it correctly every single time or with a partner they're not used to. If anything, this guy could have put off a route that risked such a fall for a day when he had a very experienced belayer who knew him and his rope well.
4. Soft catches are not appropriate in many situations and many climbers do years of hardcore routes without ever needing to give one. Belaying is a habit and most belayers will belay in the style that is safest for them most often. If your belayer isn't a sport climber it's unfair to expect them to give a great sport climbing belay. Again, wait for a day with your regular sport partner to do the riskiest climbs.
Bottom line, if your belayer doesn't drop you they did their job. The rest is up to the climber mitigating their risk of bad falls.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 19, 2015 - 04:55pm PT
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sDawg, thank you, best post of the thread.
yanqi, haven't you posted enough?
ruppell, too, spot on.
.....
Here's a zinger, just caught it...
"On the other hand, I'm not sure saying it was an "error" for the leader to get the rope hooked around his leg is very fruitful." -yanqu
That there, by the OP no less, is probably the most incompetent statement of the entire thread.
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