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newbieclimber
Dec 5, 2001, 10:03 AM
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Its not a gym, video game, or other controlled enviroment, its not like
"well, I have gone 5.43 ft since my last placement, which I estimate can hold 1912 lb, since I won't reach a terminal velocity, and my fall factor will be .34, I should be able to go another 3.42 ft before making another placement, only operating at 45 percent of the placements optimal yield strength and thereby climbing safely." Just place as often as you can.(chriserickson)
wrong. it actually is much like you describe! a good trad climber controls the part of the environment that she is able to by building a system of protection that will keep her off the deck 99.999% of the time when she should fall. for the rest of you, if you keep at it long enough and take enough falls on your place-gear-whenever-you-can-systems you will eventually end up in ANAM unless you are exceedingly lucky. i aspire to be a good trad climber not a fatality. thank you for your help.
next!
[ This Message was edited by: newbieclimber on 2001-12-05 02:29 ]
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graniteboy
Dec 6, 2001, 1:17 AM
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Newbie: I submit again that you are a fool. I'm one of those people who has been "placing gear when I can", and often doing so while guiding and teaching know it all A$$holes like yourself, for nearly 3 decades. I am not, nor shall I become, a fatality statistic. I, like many of the experienced climbers you disdain in these forum posts, have many thousands of days of hard climbing under my belt. Far more than you will ever have. And I'm still at it. You just don't get it, do you? You come on these forums just to piss people off. In one of your posts, you advocated drying washed ropes in the direct sun, and/or drying them in a dryer. You are knowledgeless. I think we all know what the problem is; you have some serious need for a psychotherapist, partly because your parents raised you poorly, and partly because you are a weakling who can't climb and has no judgement in the mountains. You instead choose to act like an a$$hole toward those who have decades of experience and judgement in the mountains. I'm not supposing anything wrong if I say that I bet you have climbed less than 50 days a year, while many of us are out climbing 200 or 300 days a year. Experience counts, and whining yuppies like you, with no experience at all, make climbing a bad Karma experience for yourselves. Btw; that falling rock and head injury do have your name written all over them. Instant Karma's gonna get you. Please leave my sport/religion, and remove your negative emotions from the climbing community.
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naturalhigh
Dec 6, 2001, 2:13 AM
Post #53 of 65
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ll said Graniteboy!
wigglestick: good point on how to increase the fall factor. I didn't think that anyone would be stupid enough to consider doing that, but there it is. =)
Climbing Nobel Prize to wigglestick
Another climber pointed out that having the rope snag on an edge could also create a fall factor greater than two... i'm having trouble imagining that scenario, unless there was a knot (for somereason) in the rope that got lodged in a constriction after you had already fallen a good distance.. possible I suppose, but the action of a belayer is the more likely scenario.
As for newbieclimber: my "disdain for numbers" is simply a matter of relevance. I can tell you that as someone working on their PhD in Biophysics, that I work with numbers and molecular kinetics all the time. But in real science, (since you obviously haven't spent much time outside of a text book), if you don't know the exact numbers, it often doesn't matter anyways. So, when climbing, I leave it up to the gear manufacturers to design gear that will hold a fall. But, since the placement itself introduces innumerable variables into the system, calculating, or even assuming, a piece will hold so much weight is quite impossible. Therefore, we must rely on observed evidence: Pro does hold falls; sometimes more than it's rated, sometimes less. Basically, it will hold or it won't. That's all there is to it.
[ This Message was edited by: naturalhigh on 2001-12-05 19:29 ]
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graniteboy
Dec 6, 2001, 2:47 AM
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The means of increasing the fall factor thing that wiggle brings up has been used, and will continue to be used. I was talking to Chris Cantwell (author of the "Hall of Mirrors" on the apron) a couple of long whiles ago, and they were looking at some very serious runouts on that thing. To keep from having to take 100 footers all the time, they'd have the belayers (2 of them) yard in rope really quickly if the leader popped. Not too smart, but it beats adding another 30 feet to your fall sometimes. Esp when a ledge is coming up at you quickly.
I've personally chosen to yard rope in when I know my leader is falling and will hit a ledge or flake or other legbreaker if I don't yard rope in. Sounds silly to the uninitiated, but again, in the real world, you have to know that the math is secondary to the reality, or you'll end up in trouble.
Newbie: take up chess, and quit climbing. It suits your mathematical but impractical and pissy whining child temperament perfectly.
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naturalhigh
Dec 6, 2001, 3:30 AM
Post #55 of 65
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Your point is indeed valid graniteboy... i should avoid making such an overgeneralization. Taking up rope during a leader fall does have it's place.
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timhinck
Dec 13, 2001, 3:54 AM
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Newbieclimber:
I can't help thinking -reading many of your previous posts - that with all your number crunching and analyzing, you might be taking some of the fun out of your climbing experience. For me, rock climbing isn't a sience, it's not something that I can calculate and I can NEVER be perfectly sure that I'm not going to get injured or die, but that is part of the experience for me. I try to climb safely, but if all I do is compute the variables in my climbing, I might as well still be in the office.
I hope that soon you get out and find a crack that looks so amazing that you can't wait to sink your hands into it. Then I want you to climb to the top, placing gear where you think it best to, and then, I hope you are overwhelmed by your achievement. I hope you realize that nothing got you up the climb except your skills... no numbers.. not even the rope or the gear. I hope that this accomplishment changes your perspective of climbing and that you learn to stop thinking too hard and start living.
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talons05
Dec 13, 2001, 6:54 AM
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Will this post not DIE???? Aaaaaaaaaaaaa.... I just helped it live.... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....
AW
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clmbngfiend
Dec 13, 2001, 7:06 AM
Post #58 of 65
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thank you JDS100 for your wonderful point.
Newbie i have a question for you. What is the exact amount of weight the granite on El Cap can hold, how about on Whitehorse in New Hampshire, what about the Gunks, what about red rocks, what about J-Tree, what about Patagonia, what about the himilayas. You don't know. If you want to be a safe climber and not one of the fatalities stay in the gym. Climbing outdoors is not a scientific process. Sure you know what a piece of gear will hold in a perfect placement. How many placements are perfect? In fact if you want to be safe don't climb at all. There is a theoretical possibility that your harness buckle could break. You've seen cliffhanger right? In fact why don't you just not leave the house ever. There is a theoretical possibility that you could be hit by a bus walking down a street, or struck by lightning, or robbed. Why don't you turn off your computer. There is the theoretical possibility of lightning hitting your house on a clear day, running threw your electrical wires jumping out of your computer and frying your brain on the spot. Life isn't science, get over it.
Faithfully yours
Climbing fiend
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newbieclimber
Dec 21, 2001, 7:00 PM
Post #59 of 65
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"What is the exact amount of weight the granite on El Cap can hold, how about on Whitehorse in New Hampshire, what about the Gunks, what about red rocks, what about J-Tree, what about Patagonia, what about the himilayas." (climbingfiend)
2000 lbs. was the assumption in the question.
"There is a theoretical possibility that your harness buckle could break. You've seen cliffhanger right?" (climbingfiend)
was that a documentary?
"There is the theoretical possibility of lightning hitting your house on a clear day, running threw your electrical wires jumping out of your computer and frying your brain on the spot." (climbingfiend)
wrong. I have a surge protector.
next!
[ This Message was edited by: newbieclimber on 2001-12-24 22:43 ]
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dhoyne
Dec 21, 2001, 7:33 PM
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I've always gone by the rules of:
Place early, place often.
and
Place whenever you get get comfortable.
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crux_clipper
Dec 24, 2001, 11:36 PM
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I place above me, when me feet are at about the level of the last peice of protection. Although i am 6'1", this means my protection can be between 6-7 foot apart. I find this ample.
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elcapbuzz
Jan 30, 2002, 9:37 AM
Post #62 of 65
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Newbie, why are you asking such stupid questions. If you know so much why ask at all. And whats with this "next" sh#t. People are trying to help you, there spending there precious time to make a difference. Why the attitude.
Ok, either newbieclimber is a hoax that likes to stir up trouble. (Personally, I think your someone who is a some-what experienced climber who likes to mess with peoples heads) Or a complete a**hole that needs to be commited.
Either way, you should stop wasting our time. YOUR HOPELESS.
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madscientist
Jan 30, 2002, 2:56 PM
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I am actually going to answer the question, in a perfect world. My analysis is approximate, and does not take into account that the force the rope feels is not constant. It also completely ignores friction, which turns out to be important. With these assumptions, the force on the rope is (W/e)*f where:
W = weight of climber
e = percent enlongation of rope
f = fall factor.
Let me note some of the problems with this. The percent enlongation depends on the force being applied, so this is not really the number you look up in the books, but is probably close and around 0.1 or 10%. I don't know how they calculate this, but if I did I could use that information to come up with a better analysis. Many years ago, there was something on the internet where someone measured the forces on a rope. This analysis came close to the maximum force in a fall.
The truth is that this science does not work when you are climbing. You have to pay attention to the rock quality, the quality of the placement. The amount the belayer moves, and the amount that the rope slips through the belay device matters. These are things that are beyond our control. There are just too many factors involved outside anything definate about the safety of your gear. Even how well oiled your camms are makes a difference. Just stack the odds in your favor, and enjoy what you do.
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natec
Jan 30, 2002, 4:38 PM
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Newbie,
I have been following this post for quite a while, and I have tried to refrain from posting but there is a serious variable that has been left out of all this factoring.
This post was about how far the gear should be spaced not about calculating the fall factor.
With that said, the factor that has been left out is FEAR. This is something you know nothing about because it is quite visible to all who have read your postings that you have never lead a trad route.
If you want to cut out all possibility of becoming a fatality, don't climb. Every piece of gear that you buy comes with a little warning that you could die while climbing.
If you want to stay relatively safe, place the most solid gear possible every time you feel necessary.
Necessary, by the way, means everytime you poop your pants at the thought of taking a fall from where you are currently located. If you can find pro everytime that happens, consider yourself a lucky man.
I would think its safe to say that the other real climbers (unlike yourself who sits behind a computer all the time wishing he could get his scardy ass off the ground) would agree with this post.
Fear is one of the biggest factors controlling the trad climbing game. Factor it out by giving yourself good gear while available and you won't need your fall calculator.
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passthepitonspete
Jan 31, 2002, 2:49 AM
Post #65 of 65
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Spoken in Arnold Schwarzenegger accent:
"I am nev-ah scared..."
[Read the brown box at the very bottom]
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