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Re: [socalclimber] 30 ft fall to the ground:
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notapplicable
Jan 1, 2011, 8:06 PM
Views: 7551
Registered: Aug 31, 2006
Posts: 17771
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socalclimber wrote: notapplicable wrote: BrianO wrote: Now you have time while you are recovering to figure out what could be done to avoid or lesson injury in the future. I have been reading The rock warriors way and the author in that book says to practice falling on a regulor basis. I know I will follow that advice after hearing your story. May you have a speedy recovery. I'm not sure where you are going with this. Why do you think taking pratice falls will help avoid this kind of accident/injury? Boy that one sure got deleted fast didn't it?!
Well, I'm not entirely sure he was wrong but I'm also not sure he was right. Thats why I asked where he was headed with that thought. I also don't like the term "practice" falls because there's no such thing IMO. An announced fall can be just as dangerous as an unannounced one.
Typically a new climber with experienced partners will quickly witness, take or catch a number of falls under different circumstances and should develop the ability to judge fall distance pretty quickly. A new climber who only partners with other novices during that first 6 months could be in for a rude and possibly dangerous awakening when it comes to how far a climber can fall given the right (or wrong, if you like) set of circumstances. Even when only a few feet above the last bolt/gear placement.
As a nOOb, I only climbed with other nOObs and we pretty much read some books and made the rest up as we went along. I never really took any announced falls, I just took a bunch of baby falls and progressively got more comfortable/confident in taking longer falls. The same thing goes for catching falls and I was honestly surprised by how far I was lifted off the ground and how much the rope stretched the first time my brother (who outweighs me by 55 lbs.) took a long fall. I've since learned how to evaluate all the variables that contribute to fall distance and how to safely belay a heavier climber but I'm also probably lucky that I didn't get that crash course, so to speak, on catching a heavier climber while he was trying to clip the 3rd bolt.
If we had deliberately taken announced falls with an eye towards evaluating all the factors that contribute to fall distance, perhaps we would have been safer climbers, or at least better belayers. Perhaps it's just luck that a "surprisingly" long fall didn't plant one of us on a ledge or in the ground during those first 6 months.
Now that I'm the relatively experienced one, I make they new guys take an announced fall or three and I do the same for them. And doing so paid dividends just the other week, or at least I'm inclined to think it did seeing as how it was just my hair sweeping the ground and not my head bouncing off of it...
(This post was edited by notapplicable on Jan 1, 2011, 8:07 PM)
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Post edited by notapplicable
() on Jan 1, 2011, 8:07 PM
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