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mntnman1973
Feb 1, 2005, 6:48 PM
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I have not had this happen to me, I am very careful of placing my anchor pieces so this does not happen.
I am interested in finding out if anyone has had an anchor piece pull and what the circumstances were that led to the piece pulling. Any injuries?
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healyje
Feb 1, 2005, 7:03 PM
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I haven't and I can only imagine a few circumstances where you might have it happen:
1. Incompetence (possibly due to physical/mental deterioration from exposure)
2. Unanticipated Lousy Rock / Inadequate Placements (probably an new route or emergency)
3. Lack of appropriate pro at the point of anchor (probably new route or emergency)
4. Unanticipated heavy shock loading on anchor (many possible and equally unpleasant scenarios)
Do a google search on [climbing "belay failed"]...
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forkliftdaddy
Feb 1, 2005, 7:37 PM
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I have not, hwoever I have seen a piece pull in an anchor. It was very scary, as you might imagine. The route seemed casual for the leaderer -- 10a, short crux -- but the second fell at the crux. The force of the fall ripped one of the pieces in the belay and dropped the 2nd a bit more. Everything got very serious very quickly. I scrambled to slap in another piece (or two, I can't remember) for the belay. The leader got those rigged in and all was okay.
Finding good gear atop that route takes a bit of time and care. I was talking to the leader as he set up the belay. I probably distracted him, and I feel like a jerk for that. But I think he also underestimated the difficulty his partner would have with the route and was casual with the belay therefore.
It made me think about some practices I've used in the mountains. I've often belayed off only two pieces when the gear was good, the climbing easy, and my partner strong. We did that 50 crowded classics route on Pingora with only 2 pieces in almost every belay. It was fast, and we chose our belays carefully, but would I do that again? Maybe.
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onbelay_osu
Feb 1, 2005, 7:38 PM
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wow yea i have NEVER had an achor blow out on me, and wow that would be a big factor one fall for that to happen... WOW
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dingus
Feb 1, 2005, 7:54 PM
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Ahem.
Burl leads the 2nd pitch of White Punks on Dope (he was). Establishes the belay and brings up Angus. I follow 3rd since its my lead next. I get to the belay and Burl has some cams stuck up in this little ceiling. He was a fairly new leader at the time and not the most mechanically inclined either. I didn't like the smell of his spaghetti works so I reached up and tugged on his mainstay piece, a big cam behind a suspicious looking block.
The cam landed in my lap!
Burl got a good dose of Dingusitus that day, the whole
"I have kids waiting at home" speech too. Right there at the belay. He short dicked the lead too and I ran out of rope below the next belay stance to boot! So he got another cussing before I finally settled down.
He's had more than one occasion to pay it back, and a Burl ass chewing has to be experienced to be appreciated, but never have I assembled a 'self-cleaning belay' like that one and never again has he! (at least, not when I was around...)
DMT
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billcoe_
Feb 1, 2005, 8:09 PM
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crap, I didn't answer the question.
NO.
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vincent
Feb 1, 2005, 8:23 PM
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yo billcoe are you like the grim reaper of climbing?
this is the second time you've posted about fatal accidents happening in you prescence.
remind me to stay the fuck away from you whilst climbing.....
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billcoe_
Feb 1, 2005, 8:49 PM
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In reply to: yo billcoe are you like the grim reaper of climbing? this is the second time you've posted about fatal accidents happening in you prescence. remind me to stay the f--- away from you whilst climbing.....
Sorry, I didn't answer the question, I read it as just pulling pieces the first time, and pulling pieces in an anchor the 2nd time. So I changed my post.
As far as staying away from me, I'm OK with that. I didn't know any of those people, but always feel a responsibility to help someone in trouble, even if they are strangers. You get some of that in 30 plus years, shit like this is gonna eventually happen to someone in the general area you're climbing, especially at a crowded zoo like Smith Rocks.
What can you do? Can't turn your back and not help. That guy having his Aeorta rip out of his heart was in fact beyond help, but you only learn that stuff after the fact.
MO.
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snoopy138
Feb 1, 2005, 9:00 PM
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I saw an anchor pull out completely once, luckily not too much came of it. I was at the bottom of Something Interesting at the Gunks, and there was a party heading out on the Dangler.
Turns out the belay anchor was not built to hold a sideways pull, so when the leader fell off trying to pull over the roof, both (I think it was 2 pieces) pieces blew, and the two climbers were left hanging off of the pieces the leader had placed in the Dangler crack. Fortunately the belayer stayed locked off, and no serious damage was done.
Unfortunately I have no idea what gear was used in the anchor, or how an anchor so poor was constructed.
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skateman
Feb 1, 2005, 9:18 PM
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Holy Cow Snoopy! That person that set the anchor should be plastered on the sides of milk cartons with a caption that reads "do not climb with this person"
Scary Stuff!
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troutboy
Feb 1, 2005, 9:25 PM
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In reply to: wow yea i have NEVER had an achor blow out on me, and wow that would be a big factor one fall for that to happen... WOW
If a person can't set an anchor to hold a factor 1 fall, they should not climbing !
Did you mean to say factor 2 fall ????
TS
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mother_sheep
Feb 1, 2005, 9:27 PM
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OH MY GOD!
Yeah, if you've ever had a piece pull from your anchor, please post here so I can be sure to never climb with you.
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csproul
Feb 1, 2005, 10:07 PM
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I am ashamed to admit it, but yes I have had a complete anchor failure. The anchor was made up of a solid cam, a nut, and a not so solid ice axe hammer being used as a nut. They were connected by cordelette and although I don't remember the exact configuration I think they were all connected by sliding x instead of a power point. I also don’t remember if I was belaying straight off my harness or from the anchor. Let me also relate that this was after an unplanned bivy in very bad weather and we were off route. We were definitely having problems with hypothermia and frostbite so our judgment and recollection was not real sound. Anyway, my partner was seconding the pitch and having a lot of trouble and had decided to ascend the rope without telling me. I had not tied off the rope and he had not set up his prusiks properly. To this day I’m not sure how he came off his prusiks, but he did and after he had put ~ 20 feet of slack in the rope. So he fell back down to that amount of slack and the rest is kind of conjecture but here is what I think/remember happening: The sudden load on my crappy anchor pulled the axe first and then the additional extension pulled the stopper and finally the cam. The cam was very deformed and had rock bits and gouges in the teeth so I think it blew out the rock. The rope then came tight on me and pulled me off my stance and tore out a few pieces of pro. A slung chock stone finally caught both our falls and I had kept my brake hand on the rope so we were counterbalanced with my partner tied on one end and myself caught on the other end with my belay device.
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csproul
Feb 1, 2005, 10:08 PM
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I am ashamed to admit it, but yes I have had a complete anchor failure. The anchor was made up of a solid cam, a nut, and a not so solid ice axe hammer being used as a nut. They were connected by cordelette and although I don't remember the exact configuration I think they were all connected by sliding x instead of a power point. I also don’t remember if I was belaying straight off my harness or from the anchor. Let me also relate that this was after an unplanned bivy in very bad weather and we were off route. We were definitely having problems with hypothermia and frostbite so our judgment and recollection was not real sound. Anyway, my partner was seconding the pitch and having a lot of trouble and had decided to ascend the rope without telling me. I had not tied off the rope and he had not set up his prusiks properly. To this day I’m not sure how he came off his prusiks, but he did and after he had put ~ 20 feet of slack in the rope. So he fell back down to that amount of slack and the rest is kind of conjecture but here is what I think/remember happening: The sudden load on my crappy anchor pulled the axe first and then the additional extension pulled the stopper and finally the cam. The cam was very deformed and had rock bits and gouges in the teeth so I think it blew out the rock. The rope then came tight on me and pulled me off my stance and tore out a few pieces of pro. A slung chock stone finally caught both our falls and I had kept my brake hand on the rope so we were counterbalanced with my partner tied on one end and myself caught on the other end with my belay device.
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ambler
Feb 1, 2005, 10:29 PM
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As night was falling, my partner finished his lead and hammered in some piton anchors. We were about halfway up some Harding route in Yosemite, making the second or third ascent. I cleaned on jumars, and reached his station in the dark. We began fussing around to get out our hammocks, the old 2-point Robbins style, and set up for the night.
"How are your anchors?" I asked in the dark, hoping to be reassured.
"The bottom two aren't much, but this top one is real solid," he answered. Not quite what I wanted to hear. We settled into our hammocks and started passing around salami and cheese.
Just then, that "real solid" top pin shifted, dropping both of our hammocks about an inch. Instantly frightened in the dark, imagining the big fall that could begin any second, we began grabbing pitons off the rack and hammering them into any seam we could feel. Soon we had half a dozen more A3 placements spiderwebbed together, and began to breath easier. It wasn't a restful night, though, hanging from nothing that looked good.
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gunked
Feb 1, 2005, 11:15 PM
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Although I never had an anchor piece pull during a fall, I had my only piece for an anchor fall out on it's own. Actually, I'm pretty sure there was a small bug behind it that pushed it out!
True story: Goes something like this.
I was leading Twinkle Toes Traverse in the East Pinnacles.
Instead of making the traverse, I kept going up and then out right. In hindsight, I was obiously off route. However, being my first time in the Pinnacles (East or West) I decided to keep going assuming that I'd find something for gear somewhere and make an anchor out of it.
I quickly found my way into a sort of angled (leaning on it's right side) low-angle chimney that faced out right.
I kept climbing up...well...dirt and loose rocks, ever vigilant that although the climbing was easy, there was ALOT of rope out and no gear to speak of.
You see...the chimney was more of a bowl shape towards the inside. It had a couple of pockets filled with dirt. Hell, the whole cliff (Machete Ridge) is pretty much just a pile of dirt surrounded by a thin flaky crust.
I'm sure a good rain storm will melt the cliff someday!
Gotta make a long story, short as my girlfriend wants to leave! :roll:
I finally found an open pod in the corner that looked like the most solid thing that I've seen on this section of the route so far. Oh yeah, that and I was about to run out of rope (Yes 185 or so feet and my last piece of pro was easily over 100 feet ago)
Good thing this seemed like 4th class. I placed the only thing on my rack small enough to fit in there. My #11 HEX.
The other anchor was ...........welllll................ME!
I yelled down to my partner that "falling was not an option!" with all of my might, knowing full well that he couldn't understand a thing I said around so many corners.
I then spent the next 20 minutes getting a good foot/butt/head jam and continually pushing the #11 HEX that kept falling out every time I farted.
That's my story! Gotta Go NOW! or I'm in deep doo-doo with my woman!!!
Oh yeah...almost forgot...except for the A1 off of the mankiest leeper 1/4 inch buttonheads and bolts I have ever seen and rappel off of 2 bolts (one of them in a loose boulder the size of a medium microwave oven), the rest of the climb was pretty uneventful!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!8^)
-Jason :D
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dirtineye
Feb 2, 2005, 4:02 AM
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You guys crack me up.
Great stories.
Maaaa sheep, I'll climb with you any time-- the sheep pig.
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healyje
Feb 2, 2005, 8:33 AM
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I didn't have an anchor fail. But once I did a [short] FA of a pretty good roof that turned to an off-width for another 20 feet or so with the whole route maybe 50-60 feet tall max. My one buddy couldn't second it so another less-than-mechanically-inclined friend volunteered to belay me while I cleaned the route (also this was back in the days of a hip belays and harnesses made from the rope itself and in our first year of teaching ourselves to climb).
I managed to clean and get through it to the top and when I de-pumped I surveyed the scene and it wasn't pretty. My fried had tied the end of the rope to a tree about 30' back and then belayed me from right on the edge from a bight in the rope as a harness; the problem was there was a coil of the majority of the rope laying on the ground between him and the tree! Had I fallen he would have been launched and we both would have decked.
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climbingaggie03
Nov 8, 2005, 4:51 AM
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I had a piece fail on me this summer, We were top roping a route at Eldo, and decided to do the harder route next to the one we were on, which had bolts for a top rope anchor. Instead of setting up a real anchor, I slotted a bomber hex as a directional, and we climbed on that. I was the fourth (and heaviest) person to go up, and I fell when I was about 7-8 feet off the deck. The rock the piece was in broke, and I went for a little ride, I stopped 2-3 off the deck and everything was ok, but I learned not to do that anymore.
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thegreytradster
Nov 8, 2005, 5:26 AM
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I've had to tell seconds to stop so I could put the pieces back in.
Didn't tell them that. :?
I've also had anchors with no pieces. Even held seconds falls on them.
The concept of the Stance seems to have been lost.
At one time the idea was to set yourself up so that only the most extreme fall would weight the anchor.
It's still good practice to set yourself up that way. Even on a bald and sloping J Tree summit you can usually find a divot to place your feet or butt
so that it would take a high factor fall to even come close to weighting the anchor. And if you are a reasonably attentive belayer, that ain't gonna happen. (that's no excuse for geting sloppy with your anchors! :evil: )
Belaying a leader on multi pitch wiht bad anchors, that's another much more gripping story. (just keep reminding him not to fall in as calming a manner as possible!!!! :shock: )
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ksolem
Nov 8, 2005, 5:59 AM
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"..The concept of the Stance seems to have been lost..."
Amen, Word, and all that stuff.
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wonderwoman
Nov 8, 2005, 9:47 PM
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I have witnessed 1 itty bitty cam of a 3 piece anchor come out when weighted. Luckily part of the anchor was a tree! :lol:
It was still a shocker and made me afraid to lean back on gear. I decided that the best way to prevent this from happening was to learn as much as possible about gear placement myself and to practice anchors from the ground.
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grayhghost
Nov 8, 2005, 10:09 PM
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During a particularly sketchy ski decent my friend and I roped up.
He "lead" the pitch which consisted of a 60 degree slope, about 5 feet wide which terminated in a 600 foot drop off. He traversed the slope and set up an anchor around the corner and I followed, cleaning his gear.
I turned the corner to find him belaying me off of three pretty-good looking cams sunk up to the trigger in the black rock. The rest of the decent looked easy enough so I said "clean that anchor and let's get out of here." He preceded to grab the equalization point and pull the whole rig out of the rock in a shower of limestone. I looked at him horrified and he said:
"it was mostly for show, I didn't want to freak you out."
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speedywon
Nov 8, 2005, 10:30 PM
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I think these are the points in friendships where friend and enemy become interchangeable.
Good stories!
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takanhase
Nov 9, 2005, 12:05 AM
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I had one pice rip out when I was learning to place pro a few feet off the deck. but never on a route.
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