the only person I saw deck did so on a peice that popped on his first ever lead fall. The route was a 10b-cish..... I was shocked that this guy had been climbing long enough (and he had been climbing for several years) to climb 10b-c trad but had never fallen on gear. He had weighted peices before but never fallen. Looking back on the accident he had a crappy peice that he even said something to the effect of "thats for looks...."--I wonder if his attitude would have been different if he had engaged in a fall on gear before.

Folks - not falling is an eccentric proposition at best. Not falling on gear is a simply matter of some combination of a lack of self-confidence, craft, experience, and/or judgment (gear pulling is usually for the same reasons). It is also about most of you folks learning to lead on bolted routes. Most climbers were all winging it fairly madly before the advent of sport climbing and cams. Falling on your gear was a completely normal deal and you heard people yelling "falling" all day long in places like the gunks and eldo (versus hearing "take" yelled all day long today). Just the idea of never falling means you will seldom even approach your physical/emotional limits when climbing. As much as it gets disparaged as a myth, there actually was a time when 'climbing' only meant trad, and putting up FA's ground up with no dogging often meant dedicating yourself to logging some serious air time.

Part of the problem these days is that in gyms and on sport routes peoples' climbing skills advance way faster than their craft with placing pro. In the old days climbing abilities and craft with pro advanced together in more or less a lockstep. You may well have to back down just a bit and figure out what placing pro is all about, but it is well worth the time and effort to get it dialed. If you devote the time to getting your craft dialed then placing pro and knowing what you can dive on is not all that big a deal. It's only a big deal today because it isn't the "norm" or how people learn to climb anymore.

The fall is clearly not "staged" - no one wants to take a zipping ride like that for any reason. Smooth-sided creek splitters are notorious for spitting cams and this is a case where you simply "slam" cams at your peril. Paying real close attention to [very] small placement details and your overall approach to protecting a route can make a big difference between decking and not decking. This well known phenom was also the reason Metolius put out Fat Cams.

From a post-mortem perspective, if you look very closely at the first photo the cam at his waist is already well on its way to rotating up and out towards the horizontal as the climber moves past it. In the second and third shots all the lower pieces are well rotated to the horizontal. As a result, and as each piece in turn becomes the next one holding the fall, they have to rotate from that horizontal orientation back down to a near-vertical orientation. In well-constricted placements this might not be a serious problem, but in smooth, parallel-sided cracks, and particularly in [slightly] flared placements (which the second piece down likely was), this sets up a bad situation. This is because as pieces ride up to the horizontal they essentially "walk" the cam out of their initial [static, loaded] placement. Then as pieces pop each new top piece has to rotate back down to a near-vertical orientation to load. This rotation puts the cam into play and you can get screwed as you are now expecting the cam lobes to re-catch and re-load despite the fact their faces are individually in motion against the rock and collectively rotating in a plane parallel to the crack. Asking cams in play across two [smooth] dimensions to hold a fall instead of simply staying in motion is asking a lot.

Scenes where a line of cams load first to the horizontal and then back to the vertical like this are extremely common on splitter routes and 99% of the time people get away with it - this time someone didn't. This can also be a problem with dogging on the top piece (that the lower ones then rotate horizontal). Fat Cams, doubling up before cruxs, keeping that first placement down with opposition, belaying close to the wall, and slinging pieces so they don't rotate up as you go by them (or in a fall) are all good ideas. But most folks, particularly folks more accustomed to clipping bolts with sport draws, typically just slam, clip, go, and hope for the best - which is usually, but not always, what they get...

[Edited to transform from incoherent babble into moderately confused rant...]

This post is just about perfect. I suggest all you short slingers and cam slammers out there read it and take it to heart.

The fall is clearly not "staged" - no one wants to take a zipping ride like that for any reason.

Scenes where a line of cams load first to the horizontal and then back to the vertical like this are extremely common on splitter routes and 99% of the time people get away with it - this time someone didn't. This can also be a problem with dogging on the top piece (that the lower ones then rotate horizontal). Fat Cams, doubling up before cruxs, keeping that first placement down with opposition, belaying close to the wall, and slinging pieces so they don't rotate up as you go by them (or in a fall) are all good ideas. But most folks, particularly folks more accustomed to clipping bolts with sport draws, typically just slam, clip, go, and hope for the best - which is usually, but not always, what they get...

So in the given picture, I wonder if the climber put the cams too near the edge of the crack. If the cams are small (finger sized or less?). If the rock was soft (too soon after a rain?) and/or dirty. Did the cams shear when they rotated up and then back down (I had an occasional partner who pulled 3 small cams and all showed damage/shearing on the heads.

Avoidable at best, tragedy at worst. Thankfully he fell (no pun intended) somewhere in the middle. (ok, maybe the pun was intended)


Oh, and BTW, the first piece he had placed would matter if it had un-zipped from the bottom-->UP, but this had nothing to do with that now did it?

So in the given picture, I wonder if the climber put the cams too near the edge of the crack. If the cams are small (finger sized or less?). If the rock was soft (too soon after a rain?) and/or dirty. Did the cams shear when they rotated up and then back down (I had an occasional partner who pulled 3 small cams and all showed damage/shearing on the heads. Longer slings probably would have saved a groundfall).

However, I agree that manufacturers slings are too short and this tempts climbers into clipping them direct. I had my cams resewn longer.

In addition to having a first piece placed in opposition, that first cam needs to have a shorter sling. If all the cams have the same length sling, when the top piece is weighted, all the lower cams can still rock up.

This would lead me to deduce that the cause of the failure is once again -SUPRISE! PILOT ERROR.

Tipped out cams can not be relied upon.

Oh, and BTW, the first piece he had placed would matter if it had un-zipped from the bottom-->UP, but this had nothing to do with that now did it?