To be honest, I haven't totally bought into the idea of "safe" falls on gear.
[..]
I'm not sure that a casual attitude towawrd falling is a good place for a smart one for a moderate traditional climber to work towards.

Rather, for trad climbing you build an anchor of gear with pro leading up to it and climb above your anchor then fall, and you check your anchor each time. On bolts, you set a long sling from at least one bolt above the one you plan to fall on and make sure the forces are equal on the top bolt and the falling bolt.

It wouldn't hurt to lead normaly and clip all teh bolts
under your falling bolt either.

As for falling on an anchor in trad not being a real situation, are you really going to go after a hard move on one piece when you can set two and equalize? This is commonly done. Especially if you are going to run it out in a crux section, prudent climbers place a few pieces when possible. Some equalize and some just make sure the pieces will share some load, but making sure your runout or crux is well protected is just good sense.

So yesterday I fell about 4-5ft onto a number 4 stopper while trying to flash Orange Peel at Enchanted Rock.

It was pretty nice. I still intend to do some controlled falls on some cams at some point, but this was pretty helpful for trusting gear.

Arno: Good point that embracing falls and trusting pro are different issues. My issue is definitely one of learning to trust my gear. I have no problem taking routine falls on bolted sport routes, for example, except when they are pretty runout (this probably can be cured just by taking some nice long, clean falls), or on significantly less than vertical rock (for this I just need to practice falling on slabs so I don't hurt myself when it happens). The fall isn't what I fear mainly in trad though; it's the gear pulling.

WRT the RWW and falling; I don't think a "casual" view is taken in the book. Choices and Accepting Responsibility reccomend an honest assesment of the risk you are taking, and what the fall-consequences are, and acceptance of the risks is left as an open question. Some falls are not safe, and every fall is at least slightly dangerous; no one can say how an individual should decide whether to risk an unsafe fall, and I don't think RWW overstepped its bounds there.

dirtineye:

I know this is frequently done; however, I was thinking about it from a RWW perspective (I almost started a thread here, so I'm glad you mentioned it)---it seems to me that if you place a bomber piece, and are also safe under the at-least-2-pieces-between-you-and-disaster rule (i.e. your last piece down functions as a backup), placing another piece right there and equalizing it seems to fall under the category of placing more gear than you need to in order to safely protect the fall, out of irrational fear that your bomber cam won't hold. If you're placing from a no hands rest before the crux, though, this might not be as clear-cut, because it costs you nothing except time to place the extra piece (or build a full SRENE anchor).

The other thing, is that people usually use a sliding X knot when equalizing mid-route, because most of the time other methods are too slow for 1 hand (though if the pieces are even, you could just use 2 slings and have them equalized). The X has been deprecated for use in anchors because it sucks (namely, it simultaneously assumes both that the pieces could pull, and that they also couldn't pull (because otherwise it will extend), and it apparently doesn't actually adjust under sharp changes of fall direction as advertised); so the question is, is the extension issue null because there's so much dynamic rope in the system when you do it mid route? If not, maybe the equalization (if you would use an X) is not worth doing.

-Jordan

FIrst, to answer the question about whether placing another piece for a mini anchor is anti WW principles, no it isn't. In fact, if you have the opportunity to protect a crux very well and don't, then maybe that is against ww principles.

If you get Arno's don juan dvd, you'll see him move out under the crux roof-to face move and place several pieces, and he even says something about it if I remember right. When it costs you nothing to place a little more pro, especially after a runnout of before the crux anticipating a runout, it is wise to place more that one piece.

Even if you have two pieces between you and disaster as you put it, for one thing, two pieces might not be enough, I've read many accouts the go like this: "... two pieces pulled adn so-and-so died.". For another thing, if just one piece pulls, you are taking a lot longer fall than you had to.

As for it assuming both pieces will pull and also that they won't pull, that is not it. The sliding x principle is that if one piece pulls, you still have some pro, but probably sind you have true dynaic equalization, the piece will not pull, and the anchor will sustain more impact than one piece would..The fact that this one piece fails problem allows maybe two feet or extension shouldn't matter because of the dynamic rope, assuming you are smart enough to no set up such a systen where an extre two feet drops you on a ledge! (OOPS!)

Where have you seen anything about the sliding x not working as advertized?

That's not the issue I'm getting at though. The question is whether the crux was already very well protected before you spent that extra bit of energy putting in more pro. Ironically, the extra stamina wasted placing pro, could *cause* the fall. This point seems to be made several times in RWW (I don't have page numbers handy) when Arno talks about avoiding placing too much pro.

The issue is really about placing unneccesary pro when it does cost you something. As I mentioned earlier; if you are placing the gear from a no-hands rest or other comfortable position, it's probably a null issue.

I agree, after a long runout placing two pieces, so that your pro remains a system with backups, is the correct move. But what I'm really getting at is where people put another piece in and equalize it simply because they think a fall is likely in the next section.

For example, take a scenario where you have totally bomber pro the whole way up a nice overhanging hand crack, which has strenuous moves the whole way and a hard crux at the top. You're placing pieces often enough that there's always at least two between you and the ground. You get to the crux, and place a piece below it because you won't be able to put in pro during it. Now let's say you have 3 bomber pieces keeping you off the ground after you placed that last piece. If you put in another piece and equalize it, would you not grant that you are going against ww principles?

Ok; s/two pieces/two bomber pieces/g.

And include any unacceptable fall consequences as "disaster" (i.e. hitting anything). Long falls are not by definition worse.

It's pretty well established now that the sliding-x is no good for use as the anchor masterpoint, so I'm not going to argue it again here.

The question still stands about dynamic rope eliminating the problems when you use it in the middle of the route. Maybe I should ask in another forum though...

MFOTH 7th edition page 175. "Current test data indicate that in the event of severe loading, the system essentially locks; the carabiner fails to slids on the runner and does not accomplish the intended equalization of force ....".

They do not give a reference to the "current test data" source, and I have not heard this anywhere else. And FOTH 7th does have at least some incorrect information in it (e.g. the retire all dropped gear stuff is still in there). So I don't know if this is actually true ;).

However, I don't buy the argument that you can never be sure that a piece is bomber.

-Jay

Nobody said never.
I did say this:

"I thought I made it clear that you can't really know what "bomber" is sometimes. We just have to go with what we think is right, based on our risk assesment."

If you've ever had a piece fail that you thought was good, the game changes a little.

With a little bad luck, you only have to be wrong once to pay a big price. Sometimes our best judgement is going to be wrong, and we don't know when that will be.

When it comes to big falls, I can get pretty gripped. I'm convinced that some of our reaction to this can be controlled, but a significant component of our reaction to fear is biological.

So, I now agree that it is possible, on at least some climbs, to be truly relaxed about falling. The question is, can I replicate this?

I'm optimistic that we both can! I've experienced the same thing. It's a matter of realizing and reinforcing that our fear isn't really the fall--its what you might hit during or at the end, right?

Do you think that because its a pretty primal sort of fear response, it takes diligent, regular efforts to counteract?