Not necessarily. But if you use the pinch and slide method (which is what I have taught) there definitely is a transition to make between locked off and lowering, and a brand new belayer may need to be coached through this transition several times before it starts to come naturally.

Are you sure that she didn't get her hand sucked in too close to the belay device, getting a sudden sharp pinch, and letting go before she realized it? With a surprise pinch, by the time you realize it and clamp back down, the rope is moving pretty fast.

I say again: Two hands on the brake side of the rope, and this incident would not have happened.

Jay

Amen! Problem solved.

d.

...a case of the belayer having had only one hand on the brake side of the rope, and the accident almost certainly would not have occurred if she had had both hands on the brake side of the rope, as one always should have while lowering.

Jesus, is this what belaying has come to - lowest common denominator techniques? If that's serious advice, then what passes for belaying instruction these days is really shooting for the idiot compensation factor. Yet another good indicator many of the annual tidal flow of gym 'climbers' simply shouldn't be...

Most professional instructors phased out the "pinch-and-slide" method a long time ago...

Here is what I think: I think you owe it to Amy, and to yourself, to take the time to teach her. Explain to her that it was a mistake on a learning curve, that both of you made - while she could have done a better job in lowering you, you could have done a better job in making sure she was comfortable and supervised, and that it takes a while and lots of practice to be a good belayer. Walking away from her now is going to give both of you the wrong message; but you have the opportunity to do right by her (you're the one person who can really salvage it, for her) and by yourself.

Jesus, is this what belaying has come to - lowest common denominator techniques? If that's serious advice, then what passes for belaying instruction these days is really shooting for the idiot compensation factor. Yet another good indicator many of the annual tidal flow of gym 'climbers' simply shouldn't be...

Do you actually think it is preferable to lower with only one hand on the brake side of the rope, because that opinion would be utterly indefensible.

Jay

What's indefensible is the lowering of competency standards in an attempt to sell climbing to people who clearly shouldn't be.

And just how is insisting that the belayer keep both hands on the brake side of the rope when lowering her partner an "indefensible lowering of competency standards."

The problem comes from teaching that this is necessary and sufficient when it is neither.

Keeping both hands on the brake side of the rope while lowering should be considered "necessary" (I'd phrase it as "mandatory"), and in this case it probably would have been sufficient to prevent the accident. Nonetheless, no one in this thread has even remotely suggested that instruction on lowering should be limited to keeping both hands on the brake side of the rope, although, what the fuck, there's not a whole lot more to it than that.

At some point you do have to take that chance and trust a newbie belayer.

Give her another chance, it's not like she could do any worse.

Please provide some documentation for that. So far as I'm aware, the pinch-and-slide method is still considered safe, and should be taught, especially for lead belaying.

if you use the pinch and slide method (which is what I have taught) there definitely is a transition to make between locked off and lowering, and a brand new belayer may need to be coached through this transition several times before it starts to come naturally.

No, the pinch-anbd-slide should not be taught! While it is still considered safe as a method of belaying for the experienced, it should not be taught.

This happened about 2 weeks ago, and I wanted to really think about it before posting a little report to make sure I address whatever details seem necessary.

Since moving to DC, I've been naturally looking for new partners. I've been lucky enough to find some great people and a few people who are new to climbing. One of the latter essentially dropped me a little over 20 feet on a TR in the gym a few weeks ago; I say “essentially” because it was actually a case of out-of-control lowering, believe it or not.

I met "Amy" through a friend who is a competent and safe climber. Amy had TR’ed before outside, but according to herself had never really learned how to belay. Essentially, her BF took her TRing a few times and basically she climbed and he belayed. My friend invited her to a gym session one afternoon and she asked if I would teach her. I'm not a grizzled, 40 year veteran of hobnails and manila ropes, but I've been climbing long enough to know what not to do and have learned my lessons well. I've taught people how to belay, etc. in the past, but wouldn't call myself a guide. I've never been overly comfortable in a teaching role, though I’ve had people tell me that I explain things well, and while I'm happy to help where I can, I've always told people who question me to find a qualified guide if they really want to learn. But since we were just TRing in the gym that day, what better time to teach a little belaying?

The nice thing about my friend is that she learned things a bit differently from me, so while she was no less safe, she was able to provide a second point of view for Amy to compare and deduce what might work best for her. I stressed that belaying is personal thing and while there are several methods, the most important thing is that the brake hand never leaves the rope, and should always be in braking position unless you are taking in rope. It was a little awkward for her at first, but she picked up the motions pretty quickly.

More sessions followed, with Amy mostly climbing, practicing her belay technique with no climber involved, and just generally getting the feel for it all. She seemed to be doing just fine. A few sessions later, she took her belay test and while she did it correctly in terms of not taking her hand off the brake line, she did neglect to return to the brake position once after taking in some rope and was failed. So we spent more time going over it with her until she had it wired as far as we could see.

Not long after this last session, I strained a shoulder and didn’t climb for about a month. Amy didn’t climb either, but told me that she would practice her technique in the downtime. The first time back, we met at a different gym and she passed the test with flying colors. I wasn’t present for it, but she said she’d practiced and felt she had it down.

I had previously been tested by the gym owner, and while he was quite thorough, he wasn’t there at that time and wasn’t the one who tested her. It was a young girl, who was giving another. Since it had been a while since I had climbed with her, after I tied in I asked Amy to show me her belay, which was fine, so I hung off the rope. She held me, no prob. So then I climbed up a little ways and took a short “fall” onto the TR close to the ground to confirm that she was all set. She caught, held and lowered just fine. I, like most, never really like breaking the ice with a new belayer no matter how solid they seem, but we’d worked together for a while, Amy had passed the test and was holding me fine, and, after all, there comes a point where you have to actually climb something. It doesn’t get much safer than a 30 foot TR in the gym, so I got on an easy route I had climbed several times and knew I wouldn’t fall off of, confirmed I was on belay and started climbing.

I stole a couple glances down as I was headed up and Amy seemed to be doing fine. I reached the top, and looked down.

“Got me?”

“Yep!” She locked off the device.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Yes, you’re all set.”

“Ok, I’m on you,” I said, and leaned back. And she held me.

“Ok, go ahead and lower me,” I called down, and started to relax.

She started to slowly lower me and I started thinking about my next route when things started to speed up. Then they got faster. At about the 10 foot mark, just I was passing a slight overhand in the wall, looked down to see Amy start to struggle with controlling the descent. Feeling it start to really slip, I managed to say “Easy!!” before hearing the line zing through her device and falling the last 20 feet to the (heavily padded) floor; The friction caused by the TR and her device, as well has her attempt at recovery, rendered it into an extremely rapid descent, and not quite a free fall, but she had pretty much lost all control of the belay (and me).

Amy was clutching her brake hand and repeating “I’m so sorry!” over and over. Her hand was significantly burned by the rope.

I couldn’t believe it. We had spent several full afternoons on belaying, I had explained things to here over and over, had a second qualified source show her another method for comparison, etc. How many people get dropped while being lowered on TR?

I immediately tried to ask her what exactly happened, but she couldn’t really give me a complete answer. I still don’t really know; all she said was “my hand slipped.” I’m guessing that while adjusting the angle of the break line in relation to the device so to ease up friction in order to lower me, her brake hand slipped on the rope and couldn’t recover fast enough, causing the rope to burn her hand, which in turn caused her to loose control of the rope.

Things I Did Wrong:
I should have probably used a fireman’s belay, and would have if my friend had been present, but she wasn’t there that day and there was one other couple in the gym. To be honest, I’ve never really had the need to use those in the first place, one because, like most, I climb in pairs, and two, if I feel someone needs it I usually just don’t have them belay me. It’s a nice backup and was probably a mistake on my part, but by all accounts Amy seemed to be doing fine and TRing a climb that I knew wouldn’t fall is the next logical step. In the event that I was leading with someone who has never belayed a leader, I would definitely always use one, but haven’t run into this circumstance yet. And again, I probably would choose not to climb instead. And, even in a strictly backup environment, I didn’t really like the idea of asking some random dude to hold the rope in case my belayer fucks up.

Even though I stressed all along that she should really take a lesson if she wanted to learn, like I and many people I know have done, I still feel partially responsible for what happened. I’ve climbed with many people, caught more falls than I can count and have never dropped anyone. Especially not while lowering,

Some people may shout “Gri Gri!”, but I think it’s best for people to learn how to belay properly.

Things She Did Wrong:

Well, she dropped me for one.

Afterward, she said she wasn’t “super comfortable” belaying, despite having passed the test. Thanks for letting me know ahead of time :roll:

This is probably a stretch, but the girl who she said passed her didn’t really strike me as all there, if you know what I mean. That doesn’t alleviate responsibility, but it definitely doesn’t help.

I just received a call from her a few days ago, she took a class with the gym on basic climb techniques and wants to go climbing. She feels “all set.” When all is said and done, I know it was an accident and feel like I should give her another chance…after all, no matter how long we have been climbing, we are all capable of mistakes. If this weren’t true, we wouldn’t hear about guides rapping off the end of their ropes, etc. I I, for one, am nowhere near perfect, and don’t feel I should immediately blacklist her as “unsafe” She made a mistake on the learning curve; how is it fair to say “sorry, game over”?

On the other hand, I know that no matter if she eventually is capable of catching a 100 foot whipper with her pinky toes, a large part of me will al