Although you read about elongation in the Mammut 8.5 MM Genesis double rope, I never really grasped the full meaning until I watched one of my climbing buddies pop off a climb from about 10 feet off the ground. (She was seconding Double Crack at the gunks, a 160 foot climb). A 9% elongation factor= ~14 1/2 feet with 160 feet of rope out.

Anyways, my friend came off and watching the rope and my friend, it looked as if the belayer (who had set up the belay using an autoblock) let her zing through the belay device. My friend hit the ground at what looked like full force, as if she was not roped up at all. She landed on her tail bone and although it's not broken, it's mighty sore and really limiting her ability to get around.

So, just another thing to think about when you are bringing up your second.

Also...for Gunks climbers, the Urgent Care Center 3.5 miles outside of New Paltz (past 87) was amazing. My friend was xrayed, diagnosed and treated in 15 minutes! Really! (They even gave her two pain killers for the ride back to PA.) The place is only 8 months old, very beautiful and some of the staff are climbers. Beats waiting several hours at some emergency room.


Finally, Thank you Kim (Mohonk Preserve Education staff member who just happened to be walking by), Ranger Dave and Paul (Kim's friend) for all of your help getting my friend down the trail to the carriage road. You were all very kind and compassionate.

screw the "onsight" or whatever, just keep the rope nice and tuat for the first wee bit- you don't want any busted ankles.

Can this type of accident be avoided by bringing up the second with both ropes, not just one?

Can this type of accident be avoided by bringing up the second with both ropes, not just one?

Although you read about elongation in the Mammut 8.5 MM Genesis double rope, I never really grasped the full meaning until I watched one of my climbing buddies pop off a climb from about 10 feet off the ground. (She was seconding Double Crack at the gunks, a 160 foot climb). A 9% elongation factor= ~14 1/2 feet with 160 feet of rope out.

Anyway, my friend came off and watching the rope and my friend, it looked as if the belayer (who had set up the belay using an autoblock) let her zing through the belay device. My friend hit the ground at what looked like full force, as if she was not roped up at all. She landed on her tail bone and although it's not broken, it's mighty sore and really limiting her ability to get around.

So, just another thing to think about when you are bringing up your second.

I'm glad things turned out pretty alright and thank for posting. This brings up a habit that's good to develop as climber and belayer.

When are belaying for a second or for top roping don't just pull until you feel first feel tension take another arm length and pull on the rope. The rate at which the tension increases will give you an idea of rope stretch.

For the climber pull down on the rope and or sit down on the rope after the rope is "taught". This will tell you how far you are likely to fall from rope stretch alone and will take a little of "the stretch" out of the rope if needed.

If things suck the belayer can yard in rope with all his might and the climber can be stand up and sit down to help get "the stretch" out of the rope. If it still sucks you can climb up just a bit (to where you won't get hurt) and let the belayer yard in rope and climb down a bit and repeat to take in more rope.

I'm not assuming the belayer and climber didn't check things out. If I had to guess I'd guess they'd knew rope stretch would be an issue. I've smacked my own tailbone for the same reason when on a fair bit of tension. Mostly I don't spend a whole lot of time trying to get "full on tension" unless things seem hairy and just try not to fall. I've just remember some people don't seem to check and figured this might be a good place for a reminder for newish climbers.

I really think it's helpful for climbers and belayers to make a habit of doing a half second initial check to get an idea of what is going to be up with rope stretch. There's almost never a reason for the climber to be caught unaware about rope stretch. Depending on experience and rope drag the belayer should be able to get a pretty good idea too.

I don't think it's a good idea to leave it just to the belayer. Where the rope drag is makes a difference and it's harder to feel what's going to happen from the other end. You can actually make some educated guesses if you pay attention where the drag is on the climb. I think (haven't climbed much recently going by memory) the higher the drag is the harder it is to feel the amount of the climbers movement given the same amount of drag. Not sure why.

Do climbing schools or any of the books teach this? I don't remember seeing this consistently. I always do a check even if I "know" what the results are going to be. It's harder for me to forget to do things I always do then try to remember to do them when I need them.

Not trying to rag to much was the other second? (one double on a lead) spotting? Also not a bad idea when things get stretchy.

Hope this post isn't stupid because it's too basic. I'm really out of the loop about the currents state of noobs to intermediate climbers. Mostly be climbing with "old/middle age farts" the times I've gotten out over the last few years.

Peace

David

I'm not sure I understand how rope elongation came into play here. Given the part I highlighted above in particular.

I'm not sure I understand how rope elongation came into play here. Given the part I highlighted above in particular.

Also, It should be pointed out that a single strand of half (double) has, on average, no more static elongation than a single strand of single rope. Maximum allowed for certification for half is 12% and 10% for singles. Even though 12% is allowed for half ropes the average on the market is 10% or less. My point being that, in general. half ropes have little if any more elongation than singles ropes.

Anyway, my friend came off and watching the rope and my friend, it looked as if the belayer (who had set up the belay using an autoblock) let her zing through the belay device. My friend hit the ground at what looked like full force, as if she was not roped up at all. She landed on her tail bone and although it's not broken, it's mighty sore and really limiting her ability to get around.

Gblauer says "it looked as if" the belayer dropped the climber. I think the implication was that the belayer did not let the rope slip; only that the resulting fall was comparable.

From personal experience I've found that some autobloc devices don't work very well with half ropes and even worse with twins.

So how much tension can a belayer from above realistically apply? Normally 35 pounds or about 1/4 of body weight at best in most cases? I think I'd still deck in this case but I'd be thankful for a pre-tensioned rope.

Although you read about elongation in the Mammut 8.5 MM Genesis double rope, .... A 9% elongation factor= ~14 1/2 feet with 160 feet of rope out.

Mammut Genisis 8.5mm:

Static Elongation: 9%
Dynamic Elongation: 31%

If the fall for the second is looking particularly nasty (pool of piranha, etc.), then the leader should consider setting an intermediate belay -- to shorten the pitch length and the resulting rope stretch in the event of the follower falling. But in most cases the follower just needs to suck it up and deal with it, since the leader is usually facing worse falls elsewhere, and with much greater frequency.

Yes, but dynamic elongation is measured during the first drop of the test series when the rope has the highest degree of elasticity. The Fall Factor is 1.77 so the force is quite high. A top rope fall will never see that kind of elongation.

Contributing factors; Very thin rope (8.5, with 9% elongation), 160 feet of rope out above my friend.

Can this type of accident be avoided by bringing up the second with both ropes, not just one?

If things suck the belayer can yard in rope with all his might and the climber can be stand up and sit down to help get "the stretch" out of the rope. If it still sucks you can climb up just a bit (to where you won't get hurt) and let the belayer yard in rope and climb down a bit and repeat to take in more rope. EDIT: This probably helps less than I was thinking. While the belayer may be able to pull in a few feet or more of extra rope it just occurred to me from what bill7 said that the belayer is only pulling in about 35lbs not body weight. I'm getting to the point of remember what I do and when and not why off hand.

All,

Thank you for your comments.

Clarification...the belayer set up the belay in an autoblock mode. He did not let the rope "zing" though the belay device. Watching my friend fall, it LOOKED as if she was zinging through the device.

I learned a valuable lesson this weekend, I am only sorry that someone had to get hurt.

I was the belayer in this climb and I want to add a little more detail because many of the responses seem to suggest this accident was avoidable had more attention been paid to the belay -- it could not have been. Only more thorough planning could have prevented this -- and you are very ill advised to try to convince yourself that under similar circumstances, with similar equipment, this sort of thing couldn't happen to you. The climb in question was Doublecrack (5.8) in the Gunks Trapps. The climb is approximately 150 feet according to the gray Williams guide and probably a few additional feet of rope were consumed by rope wandering a bit left and right through gear. The belay consisted of a BD ATC Guide rigged in autoblock mode with lockers to fresh shoulder height tat on a tree 10 feet from the cliff's edge. As belayer, I extended on a clove hitch to position myself near the edge of the cliff and operated the belay from there which gave me slightly better communication with the ground/climbers and slightly better leverage with the ropes. Due to the slightly overhanging nature of the climb the climber was out of sight but audible. Initially I believed I would be belaying two simul-climbing followers on each line but the first, more experienced follower actually climbed first to reach a good ledge at approximately 25 feet from which he intended to coach the second follower, a relatively new outdoor climber, through the first cruxy 20 feet of the climb. Although the second follower was relatively new to outdoors climbing, I understood her to have had some gym-climbing experience and prior to ascending Doublecrack I watched her successfully follow and clean Ants' Line (5.9) and move through the initial 5.7 moves on Ent Line, also on top-rope. Because the experienced climber was at the ledge, at the time of the accident I was only actively belaying a single line, on which I attempted to maintain continuous tension -- limited mainly by my ability to pull rope upwards and through the device. At the time the climber fell, no rope passed through the device or my hands and the belay did not shift under any apparent greater tension. After hearing calls for slack from the ground and confirming that the other climber was secure on the ledge, I released the device from autoblock with a nut-tool to pay out slack so that the climber could be untied. As I understand it, she fell from somewhere between 15 and 20 feet up, touched down initially on her feet and tumbled backwards onto her tailbone. The accident could perhaps have been avoided by the use of ropes with less elongation or by staging planned weightings of the rope to "take the stretch out" before she moved into the crux -- I have no experience with the latter and in this instance I was climbing on a friend's ropes and am uncertain how their elongation compares to single lines or other models of doubles. My personal take away is to simply avoid taking anyone up a longer climb with a crux in the lower portion unless I know they are climbing well beneath their grade. I have climbed safely and cautiously for eight years and this is the first time I have been involved in any sort of climbing injury. I believe that comments such as "you should have kept the line tighter" are erroneous, provide false confidence to those who make them, and are poor guidance to those who would follow them.

Bullshit. Although not always possible or desirable, in most cases the leader should simply put the second on sufficient tension at the beginning of the pitch so that if he falls he won't get hurt. I'm amazed by how many belayers I find who have never even considered this.

Jay

True, however I would guess the the OP's scenario falls in between the UIAA static and dynamic testing procedures.

Bad pun, I know.

I was in a potentially similar situation yesterday at Whitehorse in N. Conway on the same ropes, climbing with 3 people, on a technical 5.9+ route with an early crux.

The leader proposed that the seconds follow at the same time and I merely refused. I don't believe there's any way to give both people a good belay in that situation. Furthermore, the entire first pitch is sustained with intricate moves. It was not fun for me as my rope was only clipped into 2 pieces in a 100 ft. pitch.

End result...I bailed at the first belay. I wasn't up for another pitch of that crap....and 9+ isn't my follow limit.

^^^I'm not reading that...


till he breaks it down into paragraphs.

It's fucking impossible to read that shit while drivin' 80 down the I15.

...1983 or'83, me, erler and dano are out at waltzing worm. none of us is up to leading it, so we set a tr with my brand new edelweiss. dano casts off with erler belaying. dano pitches at the first crux, maybe 15 feet up, and plummets. the rope may have slowed him down a bit, but mostly stretched, and he left a nice long chunk of flesh on one of the sharpest sharks...

You didn't miss much. It's just the guy who let her deck claiming that it wasn't his fault.

Curt

he let her deck, huh?

WTF was he thinking!?!

You didn't miss much. It's just the guy who let her deck claiming that it wasn't his fault.

Curt

First thought was to argue the numbers since I think they support that the basic belay was as good as it could be - except for maybe pre-tensioning with full body weight or setting an intermediate belay.

Second thought was that, yeah, a leader has responsibility for setting up the situation regardless of whether or not the stretch-numbers would stack up on the belayers side in the end.

Bill L

The first 20 or so feet of many routes can be a lot more dangerous than any bouldering high ball. I'm always amused to see folks who refuse to do highballs routinely tie into a rope and then solo up over the talus sharks to clip the first bolt or place the first cam..

I understand your point but consider... bouldering often doesn't merely hold the threat of falling, but the expectation.

In my case I have broken both ankles and the last break didn't heal all that well. A high ball bouldering fall is simply not in the program.

Its different, s'all.

Cheers bro
DMT

Bullshit. Although not always possible or desirable, in most cases the leader should simply put the second on sufficient tension at the beginning of the pitch so that if he falls he won't get hurt. I'm amazed by how many belayers I find who have never even considered this.

Jay

Bullshit. Although not always possible or desirable, in most cases the leader should simply put the second on sufficient tension at the beginning of the pitch so that if he falls he won't get hurt. I'm amazed by how many belayers I find who have never even considered this.

That is why I call the first 15 feet of any trad climbing as the "trad death zone"

Perhaps I was unclear. I was referring to the specialized case where pulling sufficient tension on the line was not possible (short of a haul system or something like that). I believe that was the original scenario (the leader had tensioned the line?).

I kind of take it as a given that the belayer above is going to try to take as much slack as possible if there's a difficult/risky start. Perhaps I assume too much.

The important thing for people to take away from this is that tension on the belayer's end does not always equal a short fall on the follower's end of things -- particularly with great lengths of rope and rope drag in play. Most of the time this is not a big deal: either the follower is on easy ground, or the fall is clean. Regardless, the team needs to be able to recognize the risk and deal with it as they see fit.

Please note that the opinions expressed by Majid_sabet are not necessarily those of jt512. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

Jay

if the leader would have had the foresight to know that a low crux + stretcy rope were going to cause a problem, one solution would have been to plan on bringing up both seconds independently. Doing so would have allowed a re-direct from a high-point anchor with a direct belay from the harness. This would also have allowed the top belayer to add his/her body-weight to the tension equation, simply by jumping up and removing slack from the system, using their own body-weight to pull stretch from the rope.


In this particular case, with the stretchy half-ropes, I doubt that even this technique would have been sufficient to prevent a decking.

Which leaves two reasonable options from where I'm sitting.

1: split the pitch up. it sounds like there was a good ledge less than half-way up the pitch.

2: use single-rated ropes and tension the seconds aggressively while they are near potential obstructions on the route.


Perhaps a less reasonable option would be to stay in the gym, don't climb outside where unforeseen dangers might exist. Even though, it is the option many would rather be exercised.

Perhaps I was unclear. I was referring to the specialized case [emphasis mine] where pulling sufficient tension on the line was not possible (short of a haul system or something like that). I believe that was the original scenario (the leader had tensioned the line?).

...in most cases the follower just needs to suck it up and deal with it....[emphasis mine]

No, actually, you were perfectly clear. You wrote:

"In most cases" does not mean "the specialized case." In fact, it means the opposite.

...I think the real problem is not the people taking that risk, but those who fail to realize they are taking that risk...

All else aside, I think you are spot-on in that observation.

Curt

it would have helped if he had extended the anchor to the edge, rather than ten feet away from where he was. Izmuch easier to pre-tension skinny ropes auto-blocked with an ATC-Guide when it's sitting right there in front of you, but nearly impossible when it's not.

The belayer's lengthy one-paragraph explanation indicated that the anchor was extended to the edge. I wouldn't have read it either if I were sailing down I15.

I understand your point but consider... bouldering often doesn't merely hold the threat of falling, but the expectation.

I guess I'm showing my age. Repeated downclimbing used to be the norm on highballs, and it still is for me. Since I rarely climb in the gym, I easily forget that the bouldering cave is always filled with the steady WHOMP! of gromms jumping from 20 foot up.

We could make the point another way-- the first section of any lead, and often the first section of any second, is frequently a free solo.

"...my indoor climbing reflex kicked in and I sat back to study the problem-

Your idea about belaying off the harness and redirecting through the anchor was something I had not considered. Still, at most, that would take out just a couple fee of slack which, on the next attempted stroke, could just get sucked back out.

[Y]ou can take out a lot more stretch than a couple of feet. . . . As Sty said, you rig the anchor high, belay off your harness, and redirect the belay through the anchor. You have now essentially mimicked a sling-shot toprope setup. Put as much tension in the rope as you can by using brute force. Then, with your brake hand locking the rope off, grab the rope as high as you can with your guide hand. Then, do the following three things simultaneously: (1) pull down with your guide hand, (2) jump, (3) pull slack out of the rope by pulling up with your brake and quickly returning it to the braking position. You can perform this maneuver repeatedly to increase the tension in the rope, up until you can no longer stand firmly on the ground. Still not enough tension? Have the second climb a few feet up, and repeat the maneuver a couple more times.

With 150 feet of rope out, you can pull out a lot more than a couple of feet of slack like this. By pulling down continuously with your guide hand, friction through the anchor prevents the rope from sliding back on each jump, the anchor essentially acting as a ratchet.

Given the audience for this site, we should probably add the caveats: This works best for climbs with ultra-bomber anchors, that are mostly vertical or slabby, and mostly straight up-and-down. If the climb starts with a traverse or a steep overhang, the tension is going to work like a slingshot with potentially interesting results.

yes, though in some situations I will remove my tether to the anchor and can counter-weight my seconding climber as much as necessary.

There are times when I will actually lower myself down my side of the rope such that I can see my seconding climber. In such situations I must be able to get my weight on the rock to utilize the technique outlined before in order to re-ascend my side of the rope when it is no longer necessary for me to be within visual range.

^^this is usually done on easier climbs, when I've got a rank beginner with me, or perhaps a situation arises that I need to see to be able to come up with a solution, as none seems to be forthcoming from below.. certainly ain't gonna happen on some overhanging dog-fest.Smile

as I was telling bill in a followup PM;

There ya have it. Didn't fall; jumped... backwards.

DMT

Really, I just shouldn't bother, but I can't shake the feeling that there might be a handful of people who read these forums who actually want to avoid getting hurt or hurting others. If you're one of those folks: run away. Others, apologies for the interruption, continue theorizing at will.

Hopefully, you're one of the handful who wants to learn, but based on all the excuses you've made, that is far from certain. People are trying to explain what you did wrong here; they are not theorizing. Perhaps you need it spelled out:

First, you fucked up by having your seconds simul-climb a route with a crux start at their difficulty limit.

Second, you fucked up by rigging an autoblocking belay (necessitated by your first fuck-up), making it difficult, if not impossible, to sufficiently pretension the rope to protect your seconds at the start of the climb. Think about this: You put your seconds at greater risk than yourself, the leader, at the start of the climb. Does something sound wrong there?

Third, you fucked up by sending the least skilled climber up last. Had she gone second, at least the other climber could have spotted her at the start.

These are not my theories; they are your errors.

Jay

Pull outward on the rope leading to the climber like drawing back an archer's bow and maybe a little bit upward.

As to your/JT512's recommendation that the belayer "take the stretch out," I think its complete supposition that 1) it can be done effectively from above without using bodyweight. . .

. . .and 2) the rope won't recover a meaningful portion of its elasticity between the time the climber leaves the ground and the time in which she passes the crux. The anecdotal fact that you have had success doing as much on a slingshot belay from the ground where you can hop up and down is simply not compelling because short of counter weighting the climber's end of rope with my body and effectively hauling the second up, there is no practical way to maintain continuous tension of that degree from above.

At the end of the day, a direct belay on autoblock is standard operating procedure for vast numbers of climbers, whereas "pretension" has probably never appeared in print per your usage and has been used only 33 times throughout all of the rc.com forums, where it is employed mainly to refer to theorists like yourself.

The goal of my posting here was to encourage those who choose to belay with a system similar to the one I employed to be particularly aware of issues of rope stretch in _planning_ a climb and, very specifically, not to engage in hypothetically protective ritualistic acts of questionable utility.

If its a question of culpability, I've already copped to being at fault, but if you would have bothered to read my original post, I believe (and still do) that my mistakes were with planning and not execution.

In my original post I wrote, "The accident could perhaps have been avoided by the use of ropes with less elongation or by staging planned weightings of the rope to "take the stretch out" before she moved into the crux -- I have no experience with the latter and in this instance I was climbing on a friend's ropes and am uncertain how their elongation compares to single lines or other models of doubles. My personal take away is to simply avoid taking anyone up a longer climb with a crux in the lower portion unless I know they are climbing well beneath their grade."

As to your/JT512's recommendation that the belayer "take the stretch out," I think its complete supposition that 1) it can be done effectively from above without using bodyweight and 2) the rope won't recover a meaningful portion of its elasticity between the time the climber leaves the ground and the time in which she passes the crux. The anecdotal fact that you have had success doing as much on a slingshot belay from the ground where you can hop up and down is simply not compelling because short of counter weighting the climber's end of rope with my body and effectively hauling the second up, there is no practical way to maintain continuous tension of that degree from above.

At the end of the day, a direct belay on autoblock is standard operating procedure for vast numbers of climbers, whereas "pretension" has probably never appeared in print per your usage and has been used only 33 times throughout all of the rc.com forums, where it is employed mainly to refer to theorists like yourself. The goal of my posting here was to encourage those who choose to belay with a system similar to the one I employed to be particularly aware of issues of rope stretch in _planning_ a climb and, very specifically, not to engage in hypothetically protective ritualistic acts of questionable utility.

Second, you fucked up by rigging an autoblocking belay (necessitated by your first fuck-up), making it difficult, if not impossible, to sufficiently pretension the rope to protect your seconds at the start of the climb.

First of all, in 25 years of climbing, I have never -- not even once -- used an "autoblock belay."

In spite of how widespread the "autoblock belay" may recently have become, as your accident shows, it is not always the safest (probably not even usually the safest) practice.

A redirected belay off the harness is certainly a standard practice, if not the standard practice.

If you can't recognize when an autoblock belay will put your second at unnecessary risk, I do not see how you can consider yourself a safe, competent leader.

I was in a potentially similar situation yesterday at Whitehorse in N. Conway on the same ropes, climbing with 3 people, on a technical 5.9+ route with an early crux.

The leader proposed that the seconds follow at the same time and I merely refused. I don't believe there's any way to give both people a good belay in that situation.

Furthermore, the entire first pitch is sustained with intricate moves. It was not fun for me as my rope was only clipped into 2 pieces in a 100 ft. pitch.

End result...I bailed at the first belay. I wasn't up for another pitch of that crap....and 9+ isn't my follow limit.

Simul climbing isn't a misnomer at all.Two people are climbing simultaneously.One 15 feet from the other,look at the distance involved here in this accident.The fall would likely wipe the second person off too.

At that point the fact that you only put half the load on the anchor is mute.

No question,at least to me,that autoblocking two climbers is a valid technique for a party of three experienced climbers who know what they are dealing with and it's limitations,but I don't personally think it's sound practice with people you just met or gym escapees.Or much of a time saver.

Routes everywhere have run out starts,and even when they don't many of us don't stop to plug gear in because it's only going to help for a moment before you are back in deck country.The big difference is that as the leader you know you are soloing essentially and therefore give due attention to the situation.The follower here just didn't understand the situation.

Pretensioning the second is just common sense,which is why it's not discussed much.

A use an autoblock plate almost exclusively (atc guide, gigi, reverso, etc.) to belay my second or seconds. I have NEVER had trouble taking in enough slack to make the start of a pitch / climb safe for my second(s), whether it be with new ropes, single ropes, double ropes or twins.

Basically he screwed up.

First of all, in 25 years of climbing, I have never -- not even once -- used an "autoblock belay."

C’mon, Jay, if you’ve never used an autoblock belay how can you speculate as to it’s safety?

It’s a perfectly safe and efficient means to belay a second or two people seconding.

I think that’s the crux of the issue. Hopefully he’s now learned (the hard way, at least for his second) the limits of and how to properly use his autoblock belay device.

Yes, I agree, for the experienced leader it’s common sense.

Is it not discussed much or do you not mention it when explaining to others how to belay a follower? I certainly do, and I emphasize its importance by using examples of what could happen right of the ground (as in the OP’s example) or right off a ledge.

That is vague. He said that the autoblock prevented him from being able to take up enough slack. If his error was not that he used an autoblock, then how did he screw up?

I'm not speculating. I'm taking the OP's claim at face value that he couldn't take up enough slack with an autoblock, given that he had 150 feet of rope out. I don't think it's an issue with an autoblock per se, but rather any direct belay off the anchor: if you need to suck a lot of slack out of the rope, I can't imagine how you could do it. Of course that could be a failure of my imagination. Sterlingjim offers a "tech tip" to help, which implies that getting the stretch out is at least difficult, and he doesn't say how effective the tech tip actually is. Sty has agreed (I think) that a redirected belay would have allowed the belayer to put more tension in the rope than by using an autoblock. No one else in the thread has disagreed.


OK, so say you have 150 feet of rope out, you've pulled all the slack out the rope. The rope has say 10% static elongation. You'd like to pull an additional 15 feet of rope through the device. Maybe you'd be satisfied with say least 10 or 12 feet of additional rope through the device you can at least assure the second of a soft landing if she falls off the first couple of holds. Is it possible to pull that much additional rope through the device using an autolock belay? If so, how do you do it, and why did the OP find it impossible?

But that contradicts your claim that one can always sufficiently pre-tension the rope using an autoblock belay. Which is it?

Jay

Well, Sosure performed a literature search and found only 33 mentions of pre-tensioning the rope to protect the second, and thus concluded that it was strictly a theoretical technique.

Jay

Sty has agreed (I think) that a redirected belay would have allowed the belayer to put more tension in the rope than by using an autoblock. No one else in the thread has disagreed.

Jay

Yes another example of gym climbing 'skills' getting someone hurt when they try real climbing. Gyms need to o a beter job of educating people with the differences between indoor and outdoor climbing.

Back in the day, Double Crack was a two-pitch climb. There's a perfectly good belay stance somewhat less than half way up. Belaying there would have given much better communication, maybe enough for the belayer to haul in an armload of slack just as the second fell. Even without special belayer action, halving the amount of rope out would probably have kept rope stretch from becoming critical. Moral: As a general rule, when there is hard climbing off the ground or off a ledge, the safest thing for the second is to keep the pitch short.

Ha! Now that's funny.

Yes, he was precise about that wasn't he. Did he write how many mentions are needed for in order to take pre-tensioning the rope seriously?