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nutstuffer
Dec 6, 2006, 11:38 PM
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I am really surprised how many said you would stick with this guy. I don't know this person so what I am saying could be different If I did. I would never climb with this person again. Its like This guy just dropped one of my buddies to his death, so I am gonna go and trust him to belay me, cause whats the chance of him killing both of us. I don't think so.
I have climbed over 20 years, never lost contol of a belay for a second. Some people aint got the head for climbing, When I spot em I drop them as climbing partners.
Hope your leg isn't serious. Find a competent partner
(This post was edited by nutstuffer on Dec 6, 2006, 11:49 PM)
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ihategrigris
Dec 7, 2006, 12:55 AM
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kman wrote: In reply to: He asked that in the future I say something when I am about to come off. Fuck that. This comment screams "it's not fully my fault that I dropped you and I don't need to take ALL of the responsibility. After all, you did not warn me you were about to fall". That's how I translate that.
I think this is relevent in the case where a belayer can't see the person climbing properly. Or if it's obvious that the belayer is getting distracted (which unfortuantly happens with crowds at the crag and all). that being said, when properly belaying (even if distracted) a guy must be able to lock off, even if a person falls further than they should... a deck fall is absolutly unacceptable and stinks of incompetance.
kman wrote: Personally, I would never climb with any one that dropped a person, unless it was caused by a rock fall bounce or some thing along those lines.
Unless of course they're available on a weekday ;)
(This post was edited by ihategrigris on Dec 7, 2006, 12:57 AM)
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kman
Dec 7, 2006, 1:14 AM
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ihategrigris wrote: kman wrote: In reply to: He asked that in the future I say something when I am about to come off. Fuck that. This comment screams "it's not fully my fault that I dropped you and I don't need to take ALL of the responsibility. After all, you did not warn me you were about to fall". That's how I translate that. I think this is relevent in the case where a belayer can't see the person climbing properly. Or if it's obvious that the belayer is getting distracted
Some falls happen so fast you have no time to say anything. A belayer should be able to catch a fall without any verbal warning what so ever regardless of if you can see them or not.
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billl7
Dec 7, 2006, 2:29 AM
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kman wrote: Some falls happen so fast you have no time to say anything. A belayer should be able to catch a fall without any verbal warning what so ever regardless of if you can see them or not.
Well said. That's gotta be the golden rule of belaying.
And I really like this earlier comment: the belayer needs ...
cracklover wrote: ... to be belaying in such a way so that if the climber comes off unexpectedly, the belayer catches the climber before even knowing what they're doing.
Make it reflexive.
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ihategrigris
Dec 7, 2006, 3:01 AM
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kman wrote: ihategrigris wrote: kman wrote: In reply to: He asked that in the future I say something when I am about to come off. Fuck that. This comment screams "it's not fully my fault that I dropped you and I don't need to take ALL of the responsibility. After all, you did not warn me you were about to fall". That's how I translate that. I think this is relevent in the case where a belayer can't see the person climbing properly. Or if it's obvious that the belayer is getting distracted Some falls happen so fast you have no time to say anything. A belayer should be able to catch a fall without any verbal warning what so ever regardless of if you can see them or not.
I would suggest that in cases where the climber is out of site of the belayer, it is the climbers responsibility to ensure the belayer knows what the climbers situation is, with commands such as "watch me here", "clipping", "clipped" and if possible "falling". When a shitload of rope is out, a clip and a fall don't feel that much different (at first) and the climber may fall further than he/she would like. This problem can only be solved with good communication, and that I believe is the second most important part of belaying (the first of course being never, never, ever lose control of the rope)
I remember reading a story not too long ago of a belayer who was killed bhy rockfall; his climber survived and did not plummit off the climb. When the found him they had to cut the break end of the rope out of his hand as they were recovering his body. Now That is a good belay!
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kman
Dec 7, 2006, 3:42 AM
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In reply to: I would suggest that in cases where the climber is out of site of the belayer, it is the climbers responsibility to ensure the belayer knows what the climbers situation is, with commands such as "watch me here", "clipping", "clipped" and if possible "falling".
That's fine in ideal situations. Add wind noise or naturally poor acoustics and that plan does not always work.
In reply to: When a shitload of rope is out, a clip and a fall don't feel that much different (at first) and the climber may fall further than he/she would like.
Going to have to call bullshit on this one. A practiced belayer can easily feed out clips without seeing the climber, and IMO a clip and a fall feel alot different.
And 15 metres of rope out is not a "shit load of rope" as per your example incident  
In reply to: This problem can only be solved with good communication
Dude, the incident you are refering to was from not paying attention, not from a lack of communication.
IMHO.
(This post was edited by kman on Dec 7, 2006, 3:44 AM)
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dan2see
Dec 7, 2006, 4:34 AM
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Hey everybody,pay attention to the original post:
climberman15 wrote: the guy pinched his finger in the atc, let go and grabbed the rope above the atc with one hand. he had a pretty bad rope burn so at least he tried ... the guy has caught me 100's of times ... should I just tell everyone what happened and let them make thier own mind up. ... I don't want to talk bad about him but...
Now everybody, pay attention the very first reply
johnclimbrok wrote: Given the fact that he has been so reliable in the past, it doesn't sound like the belayer is incompetent. Was his finger really jammed, or was he just really not paying attention to you while you were climbing? Given the fact that his hand had a "pretty bad" rope-burn I think it's likely that this was a feak accident. How did he react afterward? If he's the kind of guy where this will be a learning experience for him, I'd be willing to bet that he's now safer than he otherwise would be. Climbing partners often have some crazy stories about experiences they've had together. Not all of them are stories about safety. If he's such a good partner of yours (100's of belays +), you might want to consider that. Unless it happens again, I'd suggest that you don't make a big deal out of it. But yes, you were very lucky. Go to the doctor and get your leg checked out.
I'm ashamed of all of you! (except johnclimbrok)
Here's why:
1. Shit happens. It happens all the time. But as climbers, we build the skill of reducing risk, preparing for risk, and also making it better, the next time.
2. Climbing is a social activity where you work hard at cooperating and understanding each other. You build teamwork, trust, and confidence.
So when shit happens to you, you work on the problem, and you do it with each other, not against each other.
He caught you 100 times? That sounds like plenty of time to get to know him.
(This post was edited by dan2see on Dec 7, 2006, 5:18 AM)
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jakedatc
Dec 7, 2006, 4:41 AM
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In reply to: ... to be belaying in such a way so that if the climber comes off unexpectedly, the belayer catches the climber before even knowing what they're doing.
exactly.. well said Gabe. 99% of the lead falls i've caught have been unwarned, unexpected, and didn't think about anything until they were already hanging. Including one completely blocked from view and one when i was lifted 3-4 feet off the ground and into the wall. The few that weren't were on a 3 bolt sport route my friend was working so cruxes were very defined and falls easily anticipated.
and was this a top rope fall?? if so then damn.. ive pinched myself before.. it sucks but the rope didnt drop the rope. and how ADHD do you have to be to need to be told someone is falling in a gym? they are like 10 feet away
i'm surprised his hasn't been brought up.. but belay basics.. locked off after every pull in or feed out
i got semi dropped at the gym once.. by a kid i belay tested the week before! he did fine then.. but when i went to show him beta for a route nooo he seemed to forget speed control lowering off.. luckily he remembered before i decked. i never roped up with him again.
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kman
Dec 7, 2006, 5:29 AM
Post #34 of 66
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In reply to: 1. Shit happens. It happens all the time. But as climbers, we build the skill of reducing risk, preparing for risk, and also making it better, the next time.
Exactly. My way of reducing risk is to not climb with people that drop people. That's making it better alright.
In reply to: 2. Climbing is a social activity where you work hard at cooperating and understanding each other. You build teamwork, trust, and confidence.
How the heck do you trust some one that has dropped climbers? That's just fucked.
WTF? I can't believe how many people are so casual with this.
I swear to god if anyone ever drops me and then says shit happens I am going to go slap happy on them.
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ihategrigris
Dec 7, 2006, 6:13 AM
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kman wrote: In reply to: I would suggest that in cases where the climber is out of site of the belayer, it is the climbers responsibility to ensure the belayer knows what the climbers situation is, with commands such as "watch me here", "clipping", "clipped" and if possible "falling". That's fine in ideal situations. Add wind noise or naturally poor acoustics and that plan does not always work. In reply to: When a shitload of rope is out, a clip and a fall don't feel that much different (at first) and the climber may fall further than he/she would like. Going to have to call bullshit on this one. A practiced belayer can easily feed out clips without seeing the climber, and IMO a clip and a fall feel alot different. And 15 metres of rope out is not a "shit load of rope" as per your example incident In reply to: This problem can only be solved with good communication Dude, the incident you are refering to was from not paying attention, not from a lack of communication. IMHO.
http://www.rockclimbing.com/...;;page=unread#unread
And of course the statement that "oh it wasn't my fault, you didn't tell me you were falling" is rediculous.
That being said, when climbing, especially with strangers proper communication is a key to survival. All the moreso if you suspect an innatentive, distracted, or simply out of view belayer... My reflex when falling is to call falling, even if the fall is out of nowhere.
On a different topic, are you around this weekend? Skiing or rock climbing would be fun.
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socalclimber
Dec 7, 2006, 1:13 PM
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What a crock of shit this is. It's the belayers fault. Period. And no, I would not climb with him again. Got his had pinched in the ATC, he clearly doesn't know what in the hell he is doing.
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cracklover
Dec 7, 2006, 2:46 PM
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dan2see wrote: 1. Shit happens. It happens all the time. But as climbers, we build the skill of reducing risk, preparing for risk, and also making it better, the next time.
There are two problems with the above.
The first is that the kind of shit that happens where you say "shit happens", has a name. That name is "objective risk". Objective risk is things like storm, rockfall, earthquake. These are risks which one might try to mitigate through checking the forecast, climbing through that alpine gully at night, or giving a sacrifice to the local volcano god. Do all those things and you reduce the probability of getting nailed to a "safe" level. But still, probabilities being what they are, sometimes shit still happens. But the accident this thread is about was caused by a "subjective risk". Subjective risks are things like insufficient equipment, poor training, and poor decisionmaking. When accidents happen due to a subjective risk, you can never say "shit happens" - that way just leads to more accidents. You must either learn from it, quit climbing, or accept that you're going to die from it sooner or later.
The second problem with the statement above is that statement supposes that after something "happened" the situation naturally spun out of control, resulting in the accident that we saw. That's nonsense. Had the belayer been pegged with a rock and knocked unconscious, that would be a reasonable thing to say. But what was the cause of the accident? He pinched his hand in the device. Okay - that could cause a problem. Solution - if you must let go with your brake hand, grab the brake strand with the other hand. This was not about risk mitigation. Pinching your hand in the device is the kind of belayer error that happens all the time. *That* should be mitigated. But the reason why the climber decked is because the belayer went and grabbed the wrong strand of the rope. That's got nothing to do with risk management, and everything to do with poor training or poor judgement.
In reply to: 2. Climbing is a social activity where you work hard at cooperating and understanding each other. You build teamwork, trust, and confidence.
Maybe for you. For me, I work hard at *climbing*. I don't work hard at cooperating. I don't climb with anyone that failed kindergarten and doesn't know how to share duties, doesn't know how to communicate effectively, and doesn't have at least the most basic level of empathy that allows them to understand that when they're belaying me, it's a real human life on the other side of the line, and they actually give enough of a shit to not fuck up.
In reply to: So when shit happens to you, you work on the problem, and you do it with each other, not against each other. He caught you 100 times? That sounds like plenty of time to get to know him.
Maybe they both have crappy belay techniques and that's why the OP didn't have a problem with what his belayer was doing? Who knows. That's still no reason to be casual about it. That only means they *both* have to get their shit together. I'm not saying that's the case - it's up to the two of them to figure it out. What I do know is that a request to be notified when you fall is *not* an adequate solution to a poor belay, and it suggests that the belayer is not interested in changing his belay habits.
GO
(This post was edited by cracklover on Dec 7, 2006, 2:58 PM)
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billl7
Dec 7, 2006, 3:48 PM
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socalclimber wrote: What a crock of shit this is. It's the belayers fault. Period. And no, I would not climb with him again. Got his had pinched in the ATC, he clearly doesn't know what in the hell he is doing.
So it's one thing to say "Hell no, I won't climb with him again!" It's another to say "... and I'm going to warn everyone else about him and this accident."
It's a good question. Anyone want to address it.
Bill L
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kman
Dec 7, 2006, 4:08 PM
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Gri-gri's. For the record, as a 3rd party observer to your incident, you didn't really yard out much slack. It was like 2 one quarter length armloads of slack
I am at work now until the 20th unfortunately.
To answer the original question, yes I would warn others without hesitation. They can make up their own minds, but at least they will be informed. Would you ignore any other hazard or let people know about the hazard?
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macherry
Dec 7, 2006, 4:18 PM
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interesting that the op was dropped by a usual climbing partner. I could belay my regular climbing partner in the dark, with no sound and no verbal commands. You just know how they climb, how they clip, how they place pro.
For the dude to get his hand pinched in the atc just shows that the guy was not paying attention. He was sloppy in the gym. NO excuses.
IMO, there's no second chances.
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ihategrigris
Dec 7, 2006, 4:35 PM
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Reading over this thread again, I'm starting to agree with everyone else on the fourm. I'm not sure how a guy gets his hand caught in the device, it's certainly never happened to me, but I try and keep my break hand a foot away from my device while i'm belaying. I could see the feed hand getting caught, but thats no excuse to release the break hand!
My biggest concern is the climbers reflex was to grab the loaded line rather than the break line. Nor sure how the guy could have caught hundreds of falls in the past, and not been had the reflex to lock the break, no matter what down.
Maybe you shouldn't climb with this guy again, I guess I just have a bit of empathy for the guy who dropped the climber. An intelligent and mature person should be able to make the call himself as to whether he's a safe belayer or not. But if he is transfering blame on the climber :o, then he isn't accepting responsibility for his actions. Concequently can never be trusted, at least not until he grows up a bit.
Yes, it may be a good idea to warn your friends, starting on rc.com was a good start :D.
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kman
Dec 7, 2006, 5:18 PM
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ihategrigris wrote: kman wrote: I am at work now until the 20th unfortunately. Judging by the number of posts in this topic, I'd suspect your working as hard as I am . See you in the new year.
Totally multi-tasking. Making coffee, surfing rc.com AND watching Team America World Police all at the same time.
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cracklover
Dec 7, 2006, 5:20 PM
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Well said, ihategrigris.
ihategrigris wrote: My biggest concern is the climbers reflex was to grab the loaded line rather than the break line. Nor sure how the guy could have caught hundreds of falls in the past, and not been had the reflex to lock the break, no matter what down.
I agree with your analysis. Perhaps part of the answer of how this could have happened lies here:
The OP wrote: What I usually do and what I did yesterday is this. If I know a move is giving me trouble I warn the belayer and tell him of the problem. I usually even go through the steps of the move with them because it helps me think it through and keep focused while making the move.
So perhaps the belayer could catch lots of falls, despite un-trained reflexes and poor habits, simply because he was essentially told that there was a fall about to happen.
Of course, we're only getting one side of the story. I'm just saying that the above is a possibility that could explain the events, not that it is what actually *did* happen.
GO
(edited to fix tags)
(This post was edited by cracklover on Dec 7, 2006, 5:22 PM)
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skurdeycat
Dec 7, 2006, 5:38 PM
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In reply to: Indeed. Unless he takes full responsibility, tries to understand what went wrong, and figures out how to avoid it in the future, I wouldn't climb with him again.
That about sums it up for me, having been in an almost identical situation, my belayer was distracted by some pretty young thing, but while he did catch me at the last second, I hit the deck on the rope stretch, and was out of work for a week.
My belayer could not have been more apologetic, and took all responsibility for what happened, with NO EXCUSES. That was good enough for me. It was still incredibly hard to let him belay me again, but I did. Now if I can cure this tendency to short rope that he developed afterwards...
If you feel that your belayer has learned his lesson, climb with him. If you feel that he has not learned, and is a danger to others, warn them.
I also think that the climber should assume ALL risks associated with climbing, including but not limited to belayer failure. If you can't accept the remote possibility of human error, whether from the belayer, or from a machine operator at the rope/biner/cam factory, don't climb.
Skurdey
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ihategrigris
Dec 7, 2006, 5:46 PM
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skurdeycat wrote: ....Now if I can cure this tendency to short rope that he developed afterwards...
Thats cute... I laughed.
skurdeycat wrote: If you feel that your belayer has learned his lesson, climb with him. If you feel that he has not learned, and is a danger to others, warn them. I also think that the climber should assume ALL risks associated with climbing, including but not limited to belayer failure. If you can't accept the remote possibility of human error, whether from the belayer, or from a machine operator at the rope/biner/cam factory, don't climb. Skurdey
That pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole thing, and what I was trying to say before.
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climberman15
Dec 7, 2006, 7:10 PM
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Most didn't really see what he did wrong but one guy thought he was locked off and that he just had his hand too close to the atc. Then there was the mistake of grabbing the rope on the wrong side of the atc. This is what I THOUGHT happened but am pretty convinced of it now.
Thank you all! Climb safe and check your belayer.
(This post was edited by climberman15 on Dec 11, 2006, 3:05 AM)
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billl7
Dec 7, 2006, 7:25 PM
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ihategrigris wrote: skurdeycat wrote: If you feel that your belayer has learned his lesson, climb with him. If you feel that he has not learned, and is a danger to others, warn them. I also think that the climber should assume ALL risks associated with climbing, including but not limited to belayer failure. If you can't accept the remote possibility of human error, whether from the belayer, or from a machine operator at the rope/biner/cam factory, don't climb. Skurdey That pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole thing, and what I was trying to say before.
(This post was edited by billl7 on Dec 7, 2006, 7:26 PM)
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talnlnky
Dec 7, 2006, 11:02 PM
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i'll admit i didn't read both pages of this yet.... but sounds to me like your partner just needs to hold their hand a bit further away from the atc and all will be good... that way they won't pinch the hand and not drop you. I'd for sure talk to them about it, you know they feel horrible, and most likely will be one of the safest belayers for the next few months.
i once semi-dropped someone in the gym. It was one of my main climbing partners. We were both just learning how to lead, and lead-belay. He was going to clip the third draw, took out more rope than he needed... i had slightly more slack than i needed, and he fell.
what ended up happening was the rope started stretching before he touched the ground, so he was significantly slowed down, landed on his feet on some padding and wasn't injured at all. However, it scared the hell out of people who were watching. looked like he just fell about 12-15 feet.
something we both learned from, and hasn't happened since. In fact, since then we've actually practiced falling and testing each other when on belay... you know... sudden fall without the belayer knowing it was going to happen... dynamic belays and all...
its deffinitely a learning experience.
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Fuckin A bro. Couldn't have said it better. 
