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healyje
Jul 26, 2006, 9:32 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: ive caught some screamers. no slippage. as soon as you see them peel (you should be watching them if possible, if not read the rope movements) lock down, no reeling in s--- (from a hanging belay, if standing on ground run back if possible) and let it happen. i wouldnt say gloves are mandatory at all, just change belay devices. ive never seen someone belay with gloves. Run back?! Do this with EXTREME caution, as you may send your leader swinging into the rock and break their ankles...or their face on an overhang. Run back only if it's mandatory, such as your leader may hit a ledge and you must real in as much rope as possible to avoid the ledge fall. Otherwise, (typically in sport climbing) it's advised to "jump" a little. Always be ready, don't sit down, don't lay down. I see this crap more and more everyday. ..Dynamic belay.. Running back - doing this on bolted routes is one thing - on trad routes don't even think about it unless you know absolutely for sure the the first piece is a completely bomber omnidirectional placement.
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el_layclimber
Jul 26, 2006, 9:46 PM
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I'm not an engineer or a physicist, but I would say that a factor-2 fall is almost entirely avoidable. If one is at a belay on a multi-pitch route, the leader's first piece ought to be a biner or draw off of the belay anchor to redirect the impact force. The further down from the belay anchor the belayer is, the greater the reduction in fall factor (and the added benefit of a decreased likelihood of being lifted above the anchor and pulling out all your gear). There is a great picture of Dale Bard sending Butterballs being belayed by a hip belay that illustrates this principle quite well. (Isn't my property-didn't post it).
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antiqued
Jul 26, 2006, 9:49 PM
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A lot of organizations include a "bucket" test in their climbing training. [A roughly human weight block of concrete or stone is hauled up, then dropped, while the noob tries to keep it off the ground] The FF is obviously less than 1, but there is only one biner (minimal friction) in the system, and the rope is really old and stiff (who uses a new one for this???) Does anyone know if any of these organizations have the students catch bare handed? *My bucket test was around the waist, with goldline. I can't remember for sure that I had a glove on, but I do remember that the goldline snuck up under my jacket, and cut both my t-shirt and the skin on my back. And no rope ran through my hand.
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scotchie
Jul 26, 2006, 9:56 PM
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The first time I caught a whipper, I burned my non-belay hand. I was locked off with my right (belay) hand, and there was no rope slippage. But I also instinctively death gripped with the left hand on the climber side of the belay device, which I had been using to feed rope. The stretch on that section of rope was probably < 1/2 inch, but it rubbed the fingerprint-pattern off the skin on my fingers and was painful for a day or two. All things said, I don't think this was a bad outcome or a mistake. The leader was caught. Falls happen too fast to get distracted thinking about belayer comfort. But based on this, I believe that if there were any slippage on the break-hand side during a whipper, it would not be a good situation.
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healyje
Jul 26, 2006, 10:55 PM
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In reply to: My bucket test was around the waist, with goldline. I can't remember for sure that I had a glove on, but I do remember that the goldline snuck up under my jacket, and cut both my t-shirt and the skin on my back. And no rope ran through my hand. It is important when hip belaying that you pay strict and continuous attention to where the rope is running on your body and you don't want it doing any "sneaking" - you want it to stay somewhere between the bottom of your butt and approaching, but not on, the top of your hips. You don't ever want it on your waist proper above the hips.
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the_pirate
Jul 26, 2006, 11:20 PM
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post moved to a different thread.
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andypro
Jul 26, 2006, 11:35 PM
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Woohoo! I finally get trophies! And one goes to Rgold for his thoroughly informative post. I've caught some pretty big falls, but never an FF2. The closest I've come is maybe an 8 foot fall on 6 feet of rope...not too bad, but I do remember it effin hurt. Quite a shock, but the rope didn't slip. It pulled me up about a foot, so I'm sure that lessened the impact tot eh belay device. A question I'm wondering, though, is how does swing come into effect here? What if there is a traverse off the belay and, for instance form above, there's 6 feet of rope out. It's obviously no longer an 8 foot fall, even though the actual arc is going ti be longer than 8 feet. Any idea's on this one?
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jt512
Jul 27, 2006, 12:16 AM
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In reply to: A question I'm wondering, though, is how does swing come into effect here? What if there is a traverse off the belay and, for instance form above, there's 6 feet of rope out. It's obviously no longer an 8 foot fall, even though the actual arc is going ti be longer than 8 feet. Any idea's on this one? In theory, only vertical fall distance and the total amount of rope out should affect the fall factor, and hence the maximum impact force on the belayer. The horizontal fall distance shouldn't affect the impact force (except insofar as it partly determines the amount of rope out). Jay
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stymingersfink
Jul 27, 2006, 2:14 AM
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In reply to: In theory, only vertical fall distance and the total amount of rope out should affect the fall factor, and hence the maximum impact force on the belayer. The horizontal fall distance shouldn't affect the impact force (except insofar as it partly determines the amount of rope out). Jay I would think true for the belayer, but not so for the faller... Two aid climbing scenarios, would you rather have to deal with? 1: You lead out from a bomber 3-bolt anchor, placing a #5 nut followed by a .75 camalot. The crack pinches off to an incipient seam, and you're looking at a short string of #2 copperhead placements with rusty wires. Since you'd rather avoid needing to re-place them in the event of a fall, you don't clip any of them with your rope as you move up (which you commend yourself on in retrospect). Moving from the fifth nest of manky c-heads to a solid-looking #3 aluma-head, you breath a sigh of relief and begin looking forward to a fixed pin two moves away. As you step higher in your ladders, the head comes unpasted and you go for the ride... 50' vertical fall into free air from 20' above your second piece off the anchor. or 2: The following pitch begins in daylight, but may not finish till after dark. You've already moved out of sight of the belay, most recently having clipped an Arrow nailed into the back of a small left facing corner. This corner grows and arches overhead as it moves higher - you can see the next belay in the twilight - 45' higher and 20' left of your position. Although you're kind of light on cams, the overhang lends itself to cam hooking quite nicely, allowing you to leave every third piece as pro. You have leap-frogged your cam-hooks and are getting ready to place a #1 Camalot, however when you reach behind the overhanging flake several bats fly out, startling you enough to throw you off balance. You are momentarily caught in your fall by the cam-hook before it opens up and sends you on your (not-so)merry way. The pendulum at the end of your fall throws you violently into the left-facing corner. It was only about a 10' fall, but the impact with the rock knocks the wind out of you. Your entire right side immediatley begins to *hurt*. REALLY hurt. or is my train of thought going down the wrong tracks? My guess is the belayer would rather the second, though the faller would prefer the first.
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jt512
Jul 27, 2006, 2:18 AM
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In reply to: In reply to: In theory, only vertical fall distance and the total amount of rope out should affect the fall factor, and hence the maximum impact force on the belayer. The horizontal fall distance shouldn't affect the impact force (except insofar as it partly determines the amount of rope out). Jay I would think true for the belayer, but not so for the faller... I basically agree, which is why I said "on the belayer." Jay
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rgold
Jul 27, 2006, 5:12 AM
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In reply to: I'm not an engineer or a physicist, but I would say that a factor-2 fall is almost entirely avoidable. The rub comes with the "almost." The glove argument is one that takes the "almost" seriously.
In reply to: If one is at a belay on a multi-pitch route, the leader's first piece ought to be a biner or draw off of the belay anchor to redirect the impact force. The debates on whether this is always a good idea are endless. If a fall happens, doing this almost always subjects your anchor to a higher load than the factor-2 fall. If the anchor is a less than perfect trad anchor, redirecting could be the wrong call. As far as gloves are concerned, redirecting through the belay anchor has no effect on the argument. Any fall greater than factor-1 with very little friction in the system is likely to force rope through the belayer's hands. Such falls are rare but not impossible.
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stymingersfink
Jul 28, 2006, 1:25 AM
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Agreed! You'll find little fluff in there. One of the half-dozen or so posters who consistently post solid information in an easy to read and respectful manner. I have a feeling this list is artificially shortened.
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pastprime
Jul 28, 2006, 7:06 PM
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In a swinging fall, say with 20 feet of rope tight and horizontal from the last piece to the faller at the time he/she comes off, the force on the belayer and top piece is much less than if the fall were vertical. Think of a 100 pound person on a playground swing, hung on 20 foot chains. If you stopped the person at the top of a really high swing, then let them go, the force on them and the chains at the bottom of the swing would be their weight plus some centrifugal force. Most of the energy of the descent is transferred into the horizontal direction, and that is what lifts them up as the continue past the bottom and on up again. If you lifted them straight up and then dropped them, the force would be much, much higher when they hit the end of the chains at the bottom of the fall. If you put a cement wall at the bottom of the swing and let them swing into that, the force on the chains would be no greater, but the energy of their horizontal movement would have to be dissipated at the instant of impact, and would not be a happy moment for the swinger. This is the kind of situation you have if the leader falls off of a traverse into a corner, which was discussed in another thread a while back. It is not a good thing to have happen, even though the force on the pro and the belayer is less than it would be in a vertical fall.
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pastprime
Jul 28, 2006, 7:41 PM
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Should also have said, in a mixed vertical the swing fall, such as you would have if the leader were horizontal from their last pro with a bunch of slack, I'd be willing to bet the forces on the pro, rope, and belayer, are fairly close to what you would get if you work out the fall factor of the vertical portion of the fall, before the motion translates into swinging. Say the leader has 20 feet of slack as he/she begins a traverse, with another 20 feet going back to the belayer. If she falls after only 2 feet of the traverse, she falls vertically almost 20 feet, and it is virtually a factor 1 fall. If she traverses over to a point where she falls 10 feet vertically before hitting the end of the rope and beginning the swing, the fall factor is about 1/4, with the resulting forces. The energy of the remaining portion of the fall is translated into horizontal motion, and is not felt by the belayer, pro, or rope. If she almost reaches the end of the traverse before falling, and only falls 1 foot before the swing begins, the impact forces involved are going to be pretty close to what would be experienced if she/he had fallen 1 foot on 40 feet of rope, and whole bunches of the y remaining potential energy is translated into the velocity of the swing. As said previously, that energy of the swing is either dissipated in swinging back and forth, or suddenly as he or she hits the wall of the dihedral. In either case, the energy of the swinging velocity is not felt by the pro or the belayer or the rope. As to the original question, I think wearing gloves is one of those things where you certainly are fine most of the time not doing it, but the longer you climb, the greater your chances of someday having an occasion when you either are glad you were wearing them, or would be happier if you had been. Kind of like wearing a helmet, except with (usually)much less serious consequences if you do end up on the "wish you had been" end of the scale.
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stymingersfink
Jul 29, 2006, 7:32 PM
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^^yes, you've understood some of the underlying points I was trying to make. One of them being the forces felt by a belayer vs. the leader in two contrasting scenarios. (In scenario two, some of the force is absorbed by the faller, rather than the equipment. A situation to avoid in my book) Regardless, I would tend to agree with RGold's underlying premise (as I understand it) that to pick and choose when you will belay with gloves is like playing dice. This, coupled with the assertion of a certain Mr. Murphy, a logical conclusion by even a semi-safety-conscious individual would indicate that there are NO times belaying where the use of gloves would be counter-indicated. Or, 'Tis better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
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