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Re: [rockprodigy] Sport climbing. How to get yourself to climb just as hard on lead as top rope?:
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jt512
Oct 28, 2008, 5:05 PM
Views: 2778
Registered: Apr 12, 2001
Posts: 21904
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rockprodigy wrote: I just remembered why I stopped contributing here.... I think it's been long-established that you need to get out more Jay...
I don't know how much more that I can get out than every weekend all year-round, so maybe it is the fact that I get out as much as I do, and actually think about what I am doing, that I am aware of some of the risks that other climbers, like you apparently, remain blissfully unaware of.
In reply to: Given the "lots of situations in sport climbing" that you mentioned, can you give us some examples where "serious injury or death" occured from a lead fall on a sport route? ... You're a stats guy...if thousands of these death-defying feats are going on daily, odds are we should have people cratering left and right.
I can name such incidents, including a broken back that nearly resulted in paralysis. But that really isn't the point. The fact is that the risks are there. If a climber wants to take a risk knowingly that's his business. The problem, though, is the common attitude that you seem to be advocating, based on stupidity and ignorance, that sport climbing is automatically safe.
For example, I know of several routes that start off a ledge, where, should the leader fall above the first bolt and his draw come unclipped, he would miss the ledge and fall to the ground, virtually guaranteeing a serious injury, or worse. Yet most sport climbers would take no precaution against this risk, not because they have assessed the situation and have deemed it acceptable, but merely because the danger has never occurred to them. Sure, unclipping of a draw is rare, which is why we aren't carrying bodies out of sport crags on a daily basis, but unclipping is does happen.* Since I am a stats guy, and you've expressed an interest in a statistical analysis, it is this: although the probability of a failure is low, its consequences are extraordinary negative, and hence the expected value is negative.
Again, what I am advocating is increased awareness of where the risks are in sport climbing. It's difficult to understand how anybody such as yourself could actually be opposed to that.
*Just two days ago an incident of a first clip breaking was reported in this thread at supertopo.com. The climber decked and struck his head on a rock, causing, luckily, only a nasty laceration. It could easily have been a life-trheatening skull fracture, as happened to a friend of mine who fell only 15 feet.
Jay
(This post was edited by jt512 on Oct 28, 2008, 5:22 PM)
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Post edited by jt512
() on Oct 28, 2008, 5:09 PM
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Post edited by jt512
() on Oct 28, 2008, 5:20 PM
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Post edited by jt512
() on Oct 28, 2008, 5:22 PM
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