overlord
Jun 2, 2005, 6:49 PM
Post #1 of 1
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Registered: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 14120
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in the trained hands that is.
heres the story:
Me and my buddy were climbing in kotečnik. sport, thank god. that was the 7th or 8th route of the day (just the afternoon). My buddy was belaying me on this really nice route we wanted to climb to cool off. Well, i was on the sharp end and i stepped onto a foothold that was like really thin so i jelled to him "watch me this might break". well, the foothold held...
but the goddamn solid looking and feeling sloping ledge didnt. i tryed it a bit (the terrain on this route looked kinda fragile) and it dint move at all. felt totaly solid. so i weighted it and prepare to carefully execute the move as not to break the foothold. the next thing i know i hear a dull bang and im flying into space. i look upwards and i see this REALLY HUGE rock falling towards me. the time froze and i had the time to remeber that the last clipped bolt is about 1m below my feet and to the right so i start "running" on the face in that direction.
well, my good bealyer and grigri definitely saved the day then. when he saw what was happening he quickly fed some rope so i had enough room to avoid the rock and then ran like hell for cover. so after coming to a stop i looked down, seeing the rock has already traveled about half of the 15-18m to the ground and has broken into two pieces. i yelled "rock" and saw my buddy diving for cover. all ended well with just some scratches and raise heartbeat. i even finished the climb afterwards :P
the thing is that if the belayer wasnt as aware of what was happening and if he didnt use and autolocking device, it could well have happened that he wouldnt have had the time to move away from danger while keeping me safe. that nice litle backup of a locking device gave him hands free (though i did see him gripping the break end when he was safe) to avoid the danger.
well, after examining the spot where the rock fell, we saw that it wouldve missed him anyway, but whos gonna take that chance when a block of about 50*50*20cm (20*20*15inch i believe) is aiming for your head.
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