^^^^^^^^^

Rob's so old that at the time of his birth people were still actually speaking Latin.

Jay

sunday i was rapping off a trad route and realized my ends weren't even.. i stopped on a ledge, placed a piece, clipped in and fixed it. 1 cam, good ledge.

This accident was pure and simple partnership failure. Don't like it, don't climb with partners. Just solo.

It creates an unnecessary danger lowering the ropes so that the ends are not even. There's no excuse for doing that. Minimally, it's inefficient, and maximally sets the stage for a serious accident. Of course, one should know how to fix uneven ends while hanging in space during a rappel without the benfit of a convenient ledge and gear placements.

rob.calm

no shit, i didn't do it on purpose. I took much more care the rest of the weekend on that rope (no middle mark) to tie knots and feed the ends together more carefully. trust me i was not happy with how it went.

Pure and simply false.

While I actively disagree with anybody in this thread who says buddy checks are worthless, I agree with this statement, patto. The lack of a buddy check was certainly not the root cause of this accident.

While I actively disagree with anybody in this thread who says buddy checks are worthless, I agree with this statement, patto. The lack of a buddy check was certainly not the root cause of this accident.

When I, as the climber, consider the buddy check as part of the routine, it leads to complacency, since it gives me a 'safety' that is my partner's responsibility, not mine. So, if I don't get it right, that's okay. (forgive me for spelling out what may be an obvious cause of complacency)

Setting up a rap, double or songle rope... You thread the station, tie knots in the ends, and toss your line(s) over... You ask someone at the bottom if your lines are on the ground (buddy check).

Good practice, or not?

Or, someone on the bottom climbing a route next to you offers up that your lines are or are not reaching the bottom (buddy check)

... etc.

Your examples are fine in as much as they demonstrate how a buddy check can help, but a buddy check can never be the first line of risk management.

Your examples are fine in as much as they demonstrate how a buddy check can help, but a buddy check can never be the first line of risk management. This is what I hear Jim Titt arguing. There are several normally occurring scenarios in relation to your examples in which a buddy cannot see the rope ends or what you are doing on the wall. I certainly appreciate it when someone calls those things to my attention. However, it is still my reposnibility to have my "stuff" together.

Best practice (as opposed to good prcatice) is to avoid needing the buddy check altogether. Anyone who has climbed for long enough can easily document cases in which a buddy has caught potentially fatal errors. In any of those cases, we would each have said "oops" because we failed in our Best Practice of self-check. Yes, we make mistakes, but the buddy system should be considered good practice as a secondary system to a best practice primary system in which we are individually responsible to check, re-check and final check. Best practice avoids the possibly false assumption that "someone has your back."

What Jim originally argued, and what a few others have echoed, is that teaching buddy checks to beginners builds a complacent beginner. To me that sounds off—that teaching vigilance somehow equals the opposite of vigilance.

But whatever. I think we all have enough common ground on this issue that it's not so much an outright disagreement as it is a nuanced one.

I have to disagree here. This whole argument about teaching beginners to do buddy checks builds complacent beginners. If you even have the vaguest clue of how to teach you make sure to entrench the model of self sufficiency. I do it all the time with my clients and beginners I sometimes climb with. A classic example is when I do basic classes. After the initial knots portion is done, they have to tie it themselves. Of course we check them, but when they ask "How does this look", or "Is this good enough", I always answer the same way.

"Is it good enough for you?".

Sorry, but buddy checks are essential and important, and the lack of them was a mitigating factor in this accident.

I think a self check should be more emphasized than a buddy check. a bit overkill but a friend of mine used to check his buckle, leg buckles, knot and ask for a "click test" from his belayers biner. It made him sure that he was tied in correct and had his harness doubled back (before speed buckles). A simple knot check and a look to see it's through both tie ins would be a good habit.

a solid self check would have prevented this one as much as a buddy check.

How about this. If both self checks and the "buddy" system were in place, this accident would not have occurred.

Honestly? It would have been less likely to have occurred.

Jay