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Re: [rightarmbad] Backup an ATC Belayer:
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cracklover
Oct 21, 2011, 4:04 PM
Views: 5169
Registered: Nov 14, 2002
Posts: 10162
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rightarmbad wrote: Healyj is 100% spot on here. There are many skills to be a great belayer, but the only one that needs to be guaranteed is to hold the bloody rope. If you cannot manage that 100% of the time, you are incompetent.
And...
In reply to: I climb with a lot of folks, young and old - all competent belayers or I wouldn't climb with them. Age and chance have nothing to do with it, only competence does.
I see so many crappy belayers, many of whom I know, and they climb with some of my climbing partners. But I will not climb with them. Nevertheless, none of them seem to find any difficulty getting partners. I suspect that folks like Bearbreeder, who think it's all a matter of chance, have no such qualms, or perhaps don't even notice some of the things I notice in a belay. I've seen several people get dropped, and I know lots of warning signs.
The only risk I see in my getting dropped is my *own* fallibility in judging new partners.
Edited to add: I think that if everyone took the zero tolerance policy I (and Healy, and plenty of other people) do, there would be almost no cases of drops due to belayer error/incompetence. Those belayers would either get sufficiently retrained, or would be driven out.
Or they'd have no choice but to climb with each other, being shunned by the rest of the community, and would eventually maim and kill each other, removing them from the climbing scene.
G
(This post was edited by cracklover on Oct 21, 2011, 4:09 PM)
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Edit Log:
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Post edited by cracklover
() on Oct 21, 2011, 4:09 PM
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