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Re: [csproul] First fall on gear:
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cracklover
Aug 5, 2009, 10:08 PM
Views: 3050
Registered: Nov 14, 2002
Posts: 10162
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csproul wrote: See, here's the thing: fear is not always rational. Of course every competent trad climber knows that a clean fall onto good gear should be safe.
Argh! You make my point! So this is what the WW teaches you, and I think it's a bunch of bull! In real life climbing, a clean fall onto a single piece is not necessarily safe, and brainwashing yourself into 2+2=4 maybe might help you send routes at your absolute limit, but it's just not good long-term plan IMO. Besides which, it seems unnecessary to me.
Look, fear management in trad climbing basically boils down to three elements, for me:
1 - being in a zone in which gear is not available, and you must choose to climb without falling, or back off. This is a serious choice, and your life may depend on the ability to keep your shit together. To my mind, the best practice for keeping your head together in this situation is soloing.
2 - being in a zone in which the climbing is easy enough, and speed is a necessity (storm or darkness approaching) that the right choice is to choose to run it out. This is very similar to #1, except that at any point when the wigginess gets too great, you can plug in some gear to reset the scare clock back to zero. It's a scary situation, but not a serious one, so long as you're careful. I think the best practice for this is just lots of mileage on the sharp end.
3 - being in the zone where continuing to go up means committing to a hard sequence you're not sure you can complete. This is the case where you guys are the most prescriptive, but this is the case where I really don't think there are any across-the-board one size fits all solutions. Every time this happens, for each person, things are different.
At the beginning of this season, I "took" my way up a climb, placing tons of gear. It was abysmal. Now in theory, I could have placed much less gear and taken lots of clean falls. According to the WW, I did just the wrong thing, right? But the reality of the situation was that on that day, on that climb, I just barely had the power to pull three feet in a row, plug in a piece, and hang on it. What good would it have done me to go four or five feet instead, and then fallen ten feet?
On the other hand, I recently did an FA on crappy desert sandstone in which I knew that some of my pieces might pull, rock might come loose, etc. I did my best to ameliorate the dangers, but when the inevitable falls came, I took them in stride, worked the moves, lowered to the start of the pitch, recalculated, and gave it another shot. Those falls were needed in order to get to the top cleanly. There was no other way, for me, that day, to free that route.
This whole falling/trust/gear issue is just not black and white. It's just way too situational. I just don't buy that.
In reply to: But sometimes rational logic just doesn't matter. One can still have a hard time committing to difficult moves over gear, even when you are convinced it is safe. This is the target audience.
Rational logic? Convinced it's safe? I dunno, most of the time it's not very safe, but you go for it because you want it that bad. Other times, you just don't have it in you, safe or not. The whole way you frame the discussion is just totally anathema to the way I see it. You're saying you're incapacitated by fear, in a safe situation when you've got lots of good gear, clean falls, and plenty of strength in reserve? I just don't see what that's about.
GO
Edited to fix the quote/end-quote.
(This post was edited by cracklover on Aug 5, 2009, 10:10 PM)
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Post edited by cracklover
() on Aug 5, 2009, 10:10 PM
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