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ihategrigris
Jul 10, 2006, 5:20 AM
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This weekend, I caused a potential 12' fall to turn into a 25' fall due to inattentive belaying and lack of communication between belayer and climber.
I was belaying a climber up on a climb at a local crag around calgary. The route was a 5.9+ (which felt suspiciously 10aish, but hey... whatever). The route is very sustained and lacks a distinct crux. I was belaying on a reverso and we were using a single 9.8 mm Maxxim Glider rope.
As the climber climbed up to the second to last bolt, he left my view partially, so I was looking forward and watching the motion of the rope, instead of looking up at the climber.
Suddenly, I feel a tug on the rope; quite mistakenly, I think the climber is pulling slack to clip in, so I unlock the belay device (reverso set up for lead belay) and pull up with my feed hand to let out a bunch of slack, but the rope keeps going... my climber had fallen, and was not reaching for slack at all.
I slam the belay device into locked position, and stop the fall. The climber comes to a stop about 5 feet above a rather large and scary ledge.
The climbers feet were about 2' above his bolt, indicating that about 5' of rope from the bolt to the tie in (he's a tall guy!). This should have resulted in a 10-15' fall... instead, the fall was 25'. I fed out about a 1.5 meters of slack into the system (or about 5') and let an amount more slip through as I realized what was happening. The climber was 25m up on a 60m rope, so rope strech was a significant factor.
From my analysis, there were two major factors that contributed to this occurance:
1. Inattentive belaying - IF I had kept constant watch and stared up at the climber while he was climbing, I would have seen him falling rather than clipping. I was also partially distracted by some friends near by, so I was not 100% focused on belaying.
2. Poor Communication - The climber and I hadden't worked out a good system for calling for slack to clip. Further more, the climber did not inform me that he was in a sticky situation (watch me, falling, etc). Any command of that nature would have likely reduced the length of the fall. I realize thsi isn't always possible, I'm just identifying what could have prevented this from happening.
Lessons Learned:
a) Be much more vigelant in my belaying. I've caught several serious lead falls in the past, and have belayed dozens of people up hundreds of routes. After so much belaying it's easy to treat the activity as rote, and forget to concider the seriousness of the endeavor. I will keep a much closer watch on my climber in future, if possible, not let my eyes leave him/her at all.
b) Communication, if anything, the near-miss empesizes how important it is to establish a solid and specific system of communications between the climber and belayer before the climb... including all commands that will be called (clipping ,take , etc) and to maintain a constant dialogue during the climb.
Thats it for now.
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sbaclimber
Jul 10, 2006, 5:24 AM
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What doesn't kill you our your partner will.....hopefully teach you a lesson :wink:
Just out of curiosity, how much does your partner weigh? The pull of bodyweight is generally a lot harder than just for more rope to clip with!
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ihategrigris
Jul 10, 2006, 5:38 AM
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In reply to: What doesn't kill you our your partner will.....hopefully teach you a lesson :wink: Just out of curiosity, how much does your partner weigh? The pull of bodyweight is generally a lot harder than just for more rope to clip with!
He's fairly heavy, but there were 8 bolts clipped and a significant amount of rope drag which reduced the initial tugging force on the rope.
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mapper94
Jul 10, 2006, 4:09 PM
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ihategrigris thanks, for sharing.
We can all learn from your mistake, and I appreciate you be willing to share this with everyone.
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machino
Jul 10, 2006, 4:21 PM
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It sounds to me like your partner was trying to make the clip then fell. I can't see how it is possible for the system to go tight (what you thought was slack), then loose, then catching the fall. I have caught many falls and it only tightens once. If you had enough time to feed slack it make me wonder what was going on up there. Nevertheless, you kept him off the ground. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR LEADER.
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codhands
Jul 10, 2006, 4:58 PM
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Shouda been using a GriGri... Doh! :twisted:
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puerto
Jul 10, 2006, 5:01 PM
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I think Machino is correct, a fall's a split second thing, there's no way you would have had time to screw around with the belay device, let out slack, etc..before the rope came tight..
You were probably correct to feed him rope, at which point he probaby blew the clip? Didn't you ask him what happened?
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sweetchuck
Jul 10, 2006, 5:06 PM
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So do most climbers announce when they are about to clip? I know this was a sport incident, but I am thinking about trad mainly (because they don’t freakin’ bolt easy climbs around here dag nabit!). I am a new leader, and my girlfriend doesn’t have much experience belaying leaders. She has asked me a few times to announce when I am pulling up to clip, but I always forget. I am just so happy to finally have a piece in. I haven’t really had a problem belaying leaders when they clip. No one has ever announced it to me. If I can’t see the climber I just always keep a bit of slack in the line and watch it like a bobber in the pond, read to pay out rope when I see it tighten. Of course, with trad there is usually a period where the leader hangs out and fiddles with gear before the clip. It makes it more obvious that they will soon need rope to clip. I guess sport leaders can clip much more quickly. I just wonder.
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rockguide
Jul 10, 2006, 5:16 PM
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In reply to: Shouda been using a GriGri... Doh! :twisted:
LOL
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markc
Jul 10, 2006, 5:22 PM
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In reply to: So do most climbers announce when they are about to clip? I know this was a sport incident, but I am thinking about trad mainly (because they don’t freakin’ bolt easy climbs around here dag nabit!). I am a new leader, and my girlfriend doesn’t have much experience belaying leaders. She has asked me a few times to announce when I am pulling up to clip, but I always forget. I am just so happy to finally have a piece in. I haven’t really had a problem belaying leaders when they clip. No one has ever announced it to me. If I can’t see the climber I just always keep a bit of slack in the line and watch it like a bobber in the pond, read to pay out rope when I see it tighten. Of course, with trad there is usually a period where the leader hangs out and fiddles with gear before the clip. It makes it more obvious that they will soon need rope to clip. I guess sport leaders can clip much more quickly. I just wonder.
When climbing traditional routes, I'm usually clipping fully-extended two-foot runners. It's rare that I'll need to pull up a significant portion of rope to clip. On sport routes, I'm looking for the best clipping stance, which usually involves pulling up some length of rope. On a sport route, I'm much more likely to announce when I need rope or when I've just clipped. The exception is the first piece per pitch on a traditional route.
Regarding communication, I always like to inform my partner when she moves out of view. It reinforces the need for verbal communication. You no longer have the benefit of knowing what each movement of the rope is about, watching those non-verbal indicators of a gripped climber, etc. When possible, I'll relocate the belay to get a better view. There are times when that just isn't an option, so paying even more attention to the singals from the rope is vital.
Thanks to the OP for sharing. It can be tough, especially in this sort of forum, to post this sort of report. I'm glad you (and hopefully your partner) learned such a valuable lesson at so cheap a cost. It could have been a lot worse.
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ihategrigris
Jul 10, 2006, 5:45 PM
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In reply to: Shouda been using a GriGri... Doh! :twisted:
Actually, a gri-gri wouldn't have done dick-all as I fed out slack, which caused the problem to begin with... but thanks for the suggestion. :wink:
As for the question of whether the leader was clipping... no the leader was NOT clipping.
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sweetchuck
Jul 10, 2006, 5:53 PM
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Good points markc. You are totally right, I always put at least 2’ slings on my pieces so I usually don’t have to pull up much. I put 4’ slings on some, and hate clipping them and then dropping them to my feet. Man! I don’t know what she is complaining about. We’ll get some good practice in next week at the Gunks, lots to work on. That’s a great tip about telling the leader when they are out of sight. I’ll have to remember that one.
sc
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j_ung
Jul 10, 2006, 7:33 PM
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Good on ya for posting this up -- your balls are not tiny.
I like machino's theory that the leader may have been pulling rope for a clip, but there's also another explanation. A fall of only 10-15' when the climber's feet are 2' above the gear seems a bit conservative to me.
There's a lot of slack in a typical system. More so the higher the climber goes from the belay. Depending on how much rope was out, I would guess a normal fall in this case might be more like 15-20 feet (including stretch). So, while your inattention had some affect, I suspect it's less than you think.
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blueeyedclimber
Jul 10, 2006, 7:46 PM
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In reply to: It sounds to me like your partner was trying to make the clip then fell. I can't see how it is possible for the system to go tight (what you thought was slack), then loose, then catching the fall. I have caught many falls and it only tightens once. If you had enough time to feed slack it make me wonder what was going on up there. Nevertheless, you kept him off the ground. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR LEADER.
Actually, this is possible. THe more rope that is out, the slower the system will go taut, because there is so much more rope that will stretch. When the climber falls, that initial tension might be mistaken for clipping, but should soon be realized that it is the climber falling. This has happened to me exactly once. It was on a long pitch where my climber was out of view. I initially thought she was clipping so I yarded out some slack, but quickly realized she was falling and pulled down the break.
Sometimes it is hard to see your climber or they may be totally out of view. That's when you must rely on your ability to "feel" exactly what the climber wants.
Josh
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machino
Jul 10, 2006, 8:36 PM
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In reply to: Actually, this is possible. THe more rope that is out, the slower the system will go taut, because there is so much more rope that will stretch. When the climber falls, that initial tension might be mistaken for clipping, but should soon be realized that it is the climber falling.
I still have to disagree. He was 25m up and took a 20 something foot fall that would have taken a split second. He was probably clipping. In no way would a belayer have time to feed slack when a leader took a fall 25m away.
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ihategrigris
Jul 10, 2006, 8:53 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Actually, this is possible. THe more rope that is out, the slower the system will go taut, because there is so much more rope that will stretch. When the climber falls, that initial tension might be mistaken for clipping, but should soon be realized that it is the climber falling. I still have to disagree. He was 25m up and took a 20 something foot fall that would have taken a split second. He was probably clipping. In no way would a belayer have time to feed slack when a leader took a fall 25m away.
25 meters plus 8 clips.... also realize that as rope was being pulled up it was running through my belay device.... and the reverso (on high friction mode) provides a lot of breaking, even when partially unlocked (I never fully unlock a device, I just pull hard with my feed hand).
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sbaclimber
Jul 10, 2006, 9:14 PM
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I will have to agree with j_ung on this one. I highly doubt you caused your partner to 'fall' much further by paying out slack. You may have essentially lowered him more, but I doubt you cause the actual fall to be any further. By the time you felt the tug on the rope, and reacted, the fall was already over.
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gunkiemike
Jul 10, 2006, 9:39 PM
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Contributing factor IMO - a fallacious belief that "short roping" the leader is the worst thing in the world.
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mike_gibson
Jul 10, 2006, 10:23 PM
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I did the same thing once. Leader took a fall and I keep feeding slack thinking he was pulling up for a clip. Contributing factors were leader was out of sight , had some rope drag, and he was slidding more than falling. The fall didnt feel like a fall to me (the belayer) at first. I didnt catch on until he yelled. I think my partner was a little mad about that one.
oh and I was using a grigri
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cracklover
Jul 10, 2006, 11:56 PM
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In reply to: I will have to agree with j_ung on this one. I highly doubt you caused your partner to 'fall' much further by paying out slack. You may have essentially lowered him more, but I doubt you cause the actual fall to be any further. By the time you felt the tug on the rope, and reacted, the fall was already over.
I agree with the above. Or at least, by the time you felt the tug, the climber was slowing down.
In addition, while the post about belaying with the grigri was probably meant in jest, it does raise an interesting issue. If you had been belaying with a grigri, in order to feed out more rope fast to allow your climber to make the clip you thought he was making, you would have had to squeeze the device and pull rope out with your guide hand. This is exactly the scenario that has caused some out of control grigri falls.
Here we have the reverse of the usual argument - in which an inattentive belayer is supposed to be better off with a grigri. This one (perhaps rare?) scenario happens to show an innattentive belayer who was better off with a tube device.
GO
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ihategrigris
Jul 11, 2006, 12:28 AM
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In reply to: In addition, while the post about belaying with the grigri was probably meant in jest, it does raise an interesting issue. If you had been belaying with a grigri, in order to feed out more rope fast to allow your climber to make the clip you thought he was making, you would have had to squeeze the device and pull rope out with your guide hand. This is exactly the scenario that has caused some out of control grigri falls. Here we have the reverse of the usual argument - in which an inattentive belayer is supposed to be better off with a grigri. This one (perhaps rare?) scenario happens to show an innattentive belayer who was better off with a tube device. GO
I have to fully agree, especially after reading this article:
http://www.chockstone.org/TechTips/RapBackup.htm
In reply to: Also studies have shown that in a panic situation the instinct is to grip the rope, not release it. If your guide hand is over the knot, as opposed to above it, gripping the knot may cause it to fail (depending on the friction knot you chose), thus resulting in the climber "riding the knot" all the way to the ground.
The main point there is that the natural tendency of a stressful, emergency situation is that you squeeze down on whatever your holding.... in the case of a tube device, the rope; in the case of a rapel, the prussick and in the case of a gri-gri feeding out slack... the gri gri :shock: .
Combine that with the fact that most people I've seen do not use a gri-gri properly (don't pull the rope over the little backup edge on the right side) and you've got yourself a groundfall.
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knowsam
Jul 11, 2006, 5:33 AM
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I was the guy who took the fall and I think its being blown out of proportion. I was five feet above a bolt, so I was going to fall at least ten feet plus slack and stretch. Yes, poor communication might have put a bit more slack into the system but it wasn't a tonne. The last 10 feet or so of the fall were stretch and really pretty comfortable. Also my belayer was pulled off the ground adding more to the distance - but at a controlled pace.
I definitely was not reaching to clip, I just teetered backward while I was highsteping.
Sean
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dalguard
Jul 11, 2006, 3:32 PM
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Highstepping can feel like a jerk on the rope if you correctly put your foot/knee under the rope rather than stepping over it. I've accidentally short-roped leaders doing that before so I know it feels like a request for slack (and actually is a request for slack, just not huge clipping amounts of slack).
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