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dingus
Sep 3, 2008, 1:42 PM
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Do you believe this statement - 'if you do things right (in climbing, of course) you won't get hurt?
There are two levels to this question imo... do you believe this statement in general (for all climbers) and as or perhaps more importantly, do you believe its true for yourself?
Its a simple statement and not a trick - I'm curious as to attitudes of perceived risk and self-assessment approaches.
If you do things right you won't get hurt? What say you?
Cheers
DMT
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olderic
Sep 3, 2008, 1:48 PM
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Not true in climbing, not true in life, not true for me, not true for anyone else.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
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j_ung
Sep 3, 2008, 1:48 PM
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Unless you extend "do things right," to include "opt not to do things at all," I disagree. If you're going to climb, you're going to be exposed to objective hazards. You can usually mitigate those risks somewhat, but you can never eliminate all of them.
Edit to add: I'm going to be awfully surprised if anybody thinks otherwise.
(This post was edited by j_ung on Sep 3, 2008, 1:51 PM)
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robdotcalm
Sep 3, 2008, 1:48 PM
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If you do things right, you lower your chances of getting hurt. However, once you're 10 feet off the deck, you are in a harsh environment.
Gratias et valete bene!
Rob.calm
_______________________________________________________
'Tis better to have trad and failed then not to have trad at all.
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mturner
Sep 3, 2008, 2:11 PM
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I agree with this in most of the injuries I've had and seen. However, theres always rocks falling at random, holds breaking, weather, and gear failing (without human error).
Also, this statement says nothing of the people you climb with who often have your life in their hands.
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rgold
Sep 3, 2008, 2:16 PM
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Some people take not getting hurt as the definition of "doing things right," so if you are unfortunate enough to get hurt, you must have done something wrong. As soon as an accident occurs, we pile on the analytical wagon, searching for things "done wrong," at least partially, I suspect, in order to preserve the fantasy that we are totally in control of our destinies while climbing.
Reality, of course, is a different matter. Of course there are the objective dangers that one has little control over, but they are the least of it. More central to the problem is, first of all, that it is often not clear what the "right" thing is, since almost every safety procedure comes with advantages and drawbacks, and second of all, that the "right" things don't necessarily work as they are supposed to ("bomber" cams failing, for example).
The upshot of all this is that it is only possible, in many cases, to know what the "right" thing to do is in retrospect; at the time the climber is faced with choices and has to make them, later on it may turn out that those choices were inspired or disasterous.
The central feature of the various genres of trad climbing is uncertainty, and even though the spread of beta and sport-climbing influenced practices has enormously decreased the level of uncertainty many climbers embrace, you still can't come close to controlling all the unknown factors that are at play on a route.
When one of these bites you in the ass, you can be sure the internet experts will be quick to determine that your accident was the result of "doing things wrong" and so preserve the illusion that doing things right is an impenetrable shield against harm.
Shit happens in the real world. We hope it doesn't happen to us, we do everything we can to diminish the chances of it happening, but in the end that whiff of danger is an integral part of trad climbing, and as I told my daughter years ago when she was beginning to get into organized sports, don't play the game if you aren't prepared to lose.
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carbonrx8
Sep 3, 2008, 2:19 PM
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If "doing things right" is concomitant with, and necessary for, not getting hurt, then yes, I believe that doing things right will ensure you do not get hurt.
Next time I see someone get clocked in the helmet by a fist sized rock kicked off by some dummy farther up (hopefully not doing to much damage), I will promptly shout up "HEY! YOU THAT JUST GOT CLOCKED IN THE HEAD! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"
EDIT: DAMN POST JUMPERS!!!
(This post was edited by carbonrx8 on Sep 3, 2008, 2:20 PM)
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chossmonkey
Sep 3, 2008, 2:25 PM
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dingus wrote: Do you believe this statement - 'if you do things right (in climbing, of course) you won't get hurt?
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jungle_george
Sep 3, 2008, 2:45 PM
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No way, man - case in point, last weekend I was leading a route doing everything "right" and got attacked by an angry hummingbird. I'm not even kidding.
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mushroomsamba
Sep 3, 2008, 2:46 PM
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if you dont fall, what do you have to worry about?
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granite_grrl
Sep 3, 2008, 2:51 PM
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Climbing in an inherently dangerous activity.
I'll go one step further and say I have heard some experianced climbers make statements like: if you belay right, you'll NEVER accedently drop your partner. Yes, it limits it a huge amount, but never say never.
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climbingaggie03
Sep 3, 2008, 2:55 PM
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Generally I do agree, there are things you can't control, like nature, but I think most accidents can be avoided. Sometimes the way to avoid is to not climb that day or climb somewhere else (like if someone is already on the route you wanted to do, instead of climbing under them)
I think most accidents can be prevented if you do things right.
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dingus
Sep 3, 2008, 3:06 PM
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Good points and posts so far... keep em coming.
An additional consideration - do you consider 'falling' to be 'doing it wrong' (ie if you don't fall you won't get hurt notion) or are there situations where falling or even the distinct possibility of falling are part of 'doing it right?'
DMT
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reg
Sep 3, 2008, 3:37 PM
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dingus wrote: Good points and posts so far... keep em coming. An additional consideration - do you consider 'falling' to be 'doing it wrong' (ie if you don't fall you won't get hurt notion) or are there situations where falling or even the distinct possibility of falling are part of 'doing it right?' DMT
NO! re-dick-uless
mushroomsamba wrote: "if you dont fall, what do you have to worry about?"
son, u need some edumacation!
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reno
Sep 3, 2008, 3:45 PM
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dingus wrote: Do you believe this statement - 'if you do things right (in climbing, of course) you won't get hurt?
Disagree with that statement. I've made a living taking care of people who didn't do anything wrong in life other than get up and go to work one day.
Random chance happens. It can happen to you, too, someday.
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j_ung
Sep 3, 2008, 3:45 PM
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dingus wrote: Good points and posts so far... keep em coming. An additional consideration - do you consider 'falling' to be 'doing it wrong' (ie if you don't fall you won't get hurt notion) or are there situations where falling or even the distinct possibility of falling are part of 'doing it right?' DMT
I don't think I'll ever consider falling to be, "doing things right." But there are certainly times when doing things wrong may have no consequences (otherwise merely tying in would be a virtual death sentence). As mentioned above, however, we really only recognize those times in hindsight. On the spot, it's an educated guess at best.
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el_layclimber
Sep 3, 2008, 3:47 PM
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If I want to have a day of enjoyable climbing without any 'oh shit' moments, I top rope. Done right, you won't get hurt on a TR. (Scrapes, gobies and minor bumps to the noggin are not injuries).
There are always boulder-trundling rednecks, but for me that falls in the category of random chance that is out of my control.
Outside of the TR, even if you do things right, you can get hurt climbing.
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Gmburns2000
Sep 3, 2008, 3:47 PM
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dingus wrote: If you do things right you won't get hurt? What say you? Cheers DMT
No. There are too many outside factors to take into consideration. There's just no way to know if that butterfly flapping its wings in China is going to cause the erosion and, thus, rockfall on that route that has always been stable until that fateful day you decided to climb on it. The same goes for walking down your stairs at home. There's just no way to know when the wife curled up the rug enough to cause you to trip first thing in the morning when your eyes aren't open. Too many outside factors to deal with.
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drector
Sep 3, 2008, 3:51 PM
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dingus wrote: Do you believe this statement - 'if you do things right (in climbing, of course) you won't get hurt? There are two levels to this question imo... do you believe this statement in general (for all climbers) and as or perhaps more importantly, do you believe its true for yourself? Its a simple statement and not a trick - I'm curious as to attitudes of perceived risk and self-assessment approaches. If you do things right you won't get hurt? What say you? Cheers DMT
No. There is no "right" way to do things. Not for any activity. Even the "best" way to do things is far from perfect and far from providing a guarantee of safety.
Dave
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lena_chita
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Sep 3, 2008, 3:59 PM
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dingus wrote: Good points and posts so far... keep em coming. An additional consideration - do you consider 'falling' to be 'doing it wrong' (ie if you don't fall you won't get hurt notion) or are there situations where falling or even the distinct possibility of falling are part of 'doing it right?' DMT
Well, in sport climbing, falling does seem to be considered part of 'doing it right'.
In trad, I have encountered people who are still very firmly in the "leader must not fall" camp, and those who think that falling on properly placed "bomber" gear is not a big deal. ( however, the "bomberness" of the gear is often decided post-factum when it didn't fail during a fall... )
Goes back to those "personal level of acceptable risk" threads.
And as far as your original question, no, of course "doing everything right" doesn't guarantee that you won't get hurt while climbing, but does give you relatively bigger safety margin compared to someone who cuts corners.
I personally know people who have broken ankles in falls, both roped and bouldering, have gotten rope burns, etc. Some of it was their own error, some of it was due to belayer/spotter errors. But these are "minor" injuries, I guess.
I personally know two persons who got much more seriously hurt in trad falls with pulled gear, etc. Runouts, poorly placed gear, etc...
In each case, we can use our 20/20 hindsight and see what went wrong, and come up with alternate scenarios that would have prevented it. ("the belayer should have run back." "the climber should have watched his rope" "the belayer needed to give out more slack" "the leader shouldn't have gotten off-route" etc.)
The thing is, all the rest of us, who have not (yet) gotten hurt, have also probably made the exact same decisions at some point in our climbing.
Have I ever clipped a bolt where falling while pulling out slack would have resulted in 25-30ft ground fall? Yes.
Have I ever gotten a rope badly behind my leg, so the fall would have probably resulted in a bad fall with flipping over and/or serious rope burn? yes.
Have I ever placed gear that I knew was bad, and yet I decided to push on and keep climbing above it? Yes.
And each time I knew: whew, that was close, that was stupid, I should be more careful. But the luck of a draw is, I have gotten away with it. I didn't fall any of those times, and when I did fall in other scenarios, the worst I have walked away with was a palm-sized bruise. How many times can I get away with it, and when would be that one time when I won't get away with it?
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j_ung
Sep 3, 2008, 4:00 PM
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el_layclimber wrote: If I want to have a day of enjoyable climbing without any 'oh shit' moments, I top rope. Done right, you won't get hurt on a TR. (Scrapes, gobies and minor bumps to the noggin are not injuries). There are always boulder-trundling rednecks, but for me that falls in the category of random chance that is out of my control. Outside of the TR, even if you do things right, you can get hurt climbing.
You just contradicted yourself. In my book a random encounter with a redneck-trundled boulder most definitely qualifies as "hurt." Toproping or free soloing or cuddling a rattlesnake -- it makes no difference to the boulder.
(This post was edited by j_ung on Sep 3, 2008, 4:07 PM)
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cfnubbler
Sep 3, 2008, 4:14 PM
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I'll add another thought to ponder, if I may.
If there was some way one could climb with absolute assurance of safety, how many of you would bother?
I don't consider myself a thrillseeker by any means, but without some level of uncertainty, the essence of the game is lost.
Rich Goldstone's advice to his daughter up-thread is somewhat reminescent of a Winston Churchill quote (which I may be paraphrasing here): "Play the game for more than you can afford to lose. Only then will you learn the game".
-Nubbler
(This post was edited by cfnubbler on Sep 3, 2008, 4:24 PM)
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jmeizis
Sep 3, 2008, 4:21 PM
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A simple answer to a simple question. If you do everything right then you will not get hurt by anything you can control. Of course there are a lot of things in climbing you can't control. There's also the problem that you won't always do everything right. It just doesn't happen. On a long enough timeline we will all make a mistake. Just hope that it doesn't end your climbing.
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dingus
Sep 3, 2008, 4:44 PM
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jmeizis wrote: A simple answer to a simple question. If you do everything right then you will not get hurt by anything you can control.
Often in these kinds of discussions (and this one is no different it seems) the difference between objective and climber induced hazards is discussed.
Over the last two years I've made a habit of rereading some of the classics in Euro-alpinism, as well as the biographies of many of the protagonists involved.
I think of Bonatti, perhaps the greatest alpinist of all time and certainly well within the top 5.... he had partners DIE OF EXHAUSTION AND EXPOSURE tied to the other end of his rope.
The thing that struck me reading his tales... over and over he and his mates chose to climb up into serious objective hazards KNOWING the hazards (or at least thinking they did).
They were young and anxious to knock off the great prizes before them, resurgent nationalism, pride of accomplishment after the fall of WWII, competition, LOTS of things propelled them to take these chances.
It streeuck me with blinding clarity - the so-called objective hazards outside a climber's control?
MYTH.
ALL RISKS ARE WITHIN THE CLIMBER'S CONTROL, whether we choose to assume that authority or not.
DMT
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