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jt512
Mar 27, 2008, 7:02 PM
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rasoy wrote: jt512 said -- "Nobody in climbing backs up their harness. I can't even imagine what backing up a harness would mean." I've seen a lot of backing up of the harness over the years, so you obviously haven't been around the block yet.
Care to explain to me how that's done, under what circumstances, and why?
Jay
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majid_sabet
Mar 27, 2008, 8:01 PM
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dingus wrote: Watch this vid: http://www.tcm.com/...5&titleId=400726 Priceless. I'll post the link somewhere else in a separate thread too as this will surely be the LAST WORD on this risky bullshit. DMT
Great movie
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eastvillage
Mar 27, 2008, 8:26 PM
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Hell yes: check this vid from another thread.
http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=141875&titleId=400726
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tolman_paul
Mar 27, 2008, 9:18 PM
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Interesting discussion, but what hasn't been looked at and is most pertanent is first definging what risk is.
Risk is the chance, or probability of something bad happening.
Whether one is top roping, clipping bolts every 5 feet, or free soloing, has absolutely nothing to do whether one activity is riskier than the other. There are vast differences between what the consequences are in all those situations, but it doesn't make one activity riskier than the other.
What does affect risk is the climbers ability to quantify what bad outcomes are possible, and mitigate them based on their physical and mental capabilities and application of safety equipment as needed.
One has to be able to recognize danger and mitigate to be safe. Honestly I think many of the new sport climbers are at greater risk climbing outdoors than the older traditional climbers, as they haven't learned to climb where a recognition of danger was essential. The current approach is to say oh climbing is very safe.
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Tree_wrangler
Mar 27, 2008, 10:02 PM
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In reply to: One has to be able to recognize danger and mitigate to be safe. Honestly I think many of the new sport climbers are at greater risk climbing outdoors than the older traditional climbers, as they haven't learned to climb where a recognition of danger was essential.
Agreed. The current "in vogue" is...bolts=safe gear="risky" when in fact, every situation is unique. Only experience (and a brain) give a person the ability to recognize what risks are present on any climb, and to recognize how they differ from situations already within the climber's realm of experience. I've been on old gear routes that were not risky, and on sport routes that were.
In reply to: The current approach is to say oh climbing is very safe.
I believe that has become a "canned response" to a general populace that regards climbing as a "death sport" It's a defense mechanism...as in, "no, I'm NOT crazy. It's actually very safe".
But that's been going on for so long, that climbers themselves forget that it really isn't a given that the sport is safe. Risk remains integral to the sport.
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dingus
Mar 27, 2008, 10:25 PM
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tolman_paul wrote: Interesting discussion, but what hasn't been looked at and is most pertanent is first definging what risk is. Risk is the chance, or probability of something bad happening. Whether one is top roping, clipping bolts every 5 feet, or free soloing, has absolutely nothing to do whether one activity is riskier than the other. There are vast differences between what the consequences are in all those situations, but it doesn't make one activity riskier than the other. What does affect risk is the climbers ability to quantify what bad outcomes are possible, and mitigate them based on their physical and mental capabilities and application of safety equipment as needed. One has to be able to recognize danger and mitigate to be safe. Honestly I think many of the new sport climbers are at greater risk climbing outdoors than the older traditional climbers, as they haven't learned to climb where a recognition of danger was essential. The current approach is to say oh climbing is very safe.
You're saying the probability of something going bad has nothing to do with the activity - doesn't ring true to me.
The probability of something going bad is inherently higher for free soloing than top roping. I don't see how you can make the case any other way.
Sure a talented climber can work to manage or reduce those potential outcomes or conversely bumble along like me and make them much worse.
But come on! Using your own defintion, the possibility of something going bad definitely relates back to the style in which someone is climbing, it has to.
DMT
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rgold
Mar 27, 2008, 10:40 PM
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It is difficult to define what exactly risk is supposed to mean, much less quantify how much it has changed. But it is beyond question that things are very different than they were. Restricting my attention just to trad climbing: (1) Protection is now far better and far easier to obtain then it was 30 or more years ago. (2) Gear is far more effective and more robust while being much lighter. (3) The level of information about climbs that aren't new has increased enormously, or to put it another way the unknown element has decreased enormously. (4) The level of information about climbing and safety technique has increased almost beyond comprehension. (5) The ongoing tendency to equip climbs with permanent anchors has increased everyone's speed and decreased the level of commitment required.
Although it is possible to eschew new equipment and consciously avoid the multiple sources of information, only a tiny minority of climbers do this to a significant extent. Almost all of us are climbing with immense advantages over what was available, say, 30 years ago.
I do think that all the extra support now available has encouraged and enabled people to climb, people who would never have left the ground 30 years ago. I've actually been told this directly by someone I climbed with, who said they would never have gotten involved in climbing when the gear was more primitive and when less information about how to do things was available. I also think that the gym -> sport climbing -> trad climbing path that many climbers now follow provides an overly optimistic view of the safety of the sport. At the same time, the wealth of information about safe practice seems to me to be replacing, more and more, the idea that safety ultimately resides in the climber's personal skill and judgement with the idea that safety can be obtained by strict adherence to the procedures currently understood to be best practice.
I had some interesting experiences about these changes on some recent climbs. On one, we were caught up by an extremely fast and very experienced British party. These guys were superb mountain men, but as I watched them set up non-equalized anchors, belay palm up and down, use one hand then the other as a braking hand, wander unbelayed along exposed ledges to soak up some sun, and so on, I couldn't help imagining the shellacking they'd take on forums such as these. Personally, I'd cast in my lot any day with these guys over any of the dour "super safe" adherents of the modern American approach. Their immense climbing competence and infectious good humor made the whole ascent a delight.
A day later I was rappelling past some very slow parties who were strung out below us on a route. The typical clusterfucks applied, and at once stance a climber offered to thread our rap lines through the anchor bolts, since we were standing around unanchored on a comfortable ledge to the side of these anchors. I agreed with thanks, but was immediately engaged in a discussion about whether this guy should put knots in the ends of my ropes. The wall below was a nightmare of knobs, flakes, and especially cracks that could eat a rope from above and trap it. Moreover, we had a 150 foot rappel on a pair of 200 foot ropes and so would have to somehow go 50 feet past our target ledge to rap off the ends. I was treated to miserable tales about how his girlfriend had died after rapping off the ends, and I finally had to say that, as sorry as I was to hear about that genuine tragedy, I was not going to rap off the ends and he was not allowed to put knots in them. A further fuss-up occurred as I made the fourth-class traverse, unroped and unanchored, over to the rappel lines. He wanted to weave those lines around all kinds of anchors and tethers so that I could clip into them first. I refused, trying to make light of it by saying, "you youngsters are just too safe," to which he replied, without a touch of humor, "you can never be too safe." I can't say how much I missed my British companions of the day before at that point.
When we got to the next stance, safety-man had clipped the two neophytes he was escorting up this climb (at a pre-global warming glacial pace) into the ends of the rap chains rather than the bolt hangers, which meant, in principle, that we couldn't rap until both of these climbers had left the ledge. The ledge was commodious and had cracks and boulders you could wedge behind, and after arranging the new climbers in positions of utter security, I took some pleasure in moving their anchors from the chains up to the hangers, leaving them, at least for a moment, to the security supplied by their own positioning, in violation, I hoped, of the principle of never being too safe.
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shockabuku
Mar 27, 2008, 10:44 PM
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dingus wrote: tolman_paul wrote: Interesting discussion, but what hasn't been looked at and is most pertanent is first definging what risk is. Risk is the chance, or probability of something bad happening. Whether one is top roping, clipping bolts every 5 feet, or free soloing, has absolutely nothing to do whether one activity is riskier than the other. There are vast differences between what the consequences are in all those situations, but it doesn't make one activity riskier than the other. What does affect risk is the climbers ability to quantify what bad outcomes are possible, and mitigate them based on their physical and mental capabilities and application of safety equipment as needed. One has to be able to recognize danger and mitigate to be safe. Honestly I think many of the new sport climbers are at greater risk climbing outdoors than the older traditional climbers, as they haven't learned to climb where a recognition of danger was essential. The current approach is to say oh climbing is very safe. You're saying the probability of something going bad has nothing to do with the activity - doesn't ring true to me. The probability of something going bad is inherently higher for free soloing than top roping. I don't see how you can make the case any other way. Sure a talented climber can work to manage or reduce those potential outcomes or conversely bumble along like me and make them much worse. But come on! Using your own defintion, the possibility of something going bad definitely relates back to the style in which someone is climbing, it has to. DMT
I think the consequences of an incident relates to the style. The risk of having an incident is pretty similar. For example the risk/possibility that I will slip off a slab climb isn't significantly different if I'm top roping or if I'm soloing. The consequences may be hugely different however, death vs. nothing. Semantics.
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dingus
Mar 27, 2008, 10:51 PM
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shockabuku wrote: I think the consequences of an incident relates to the style. The risk of having an incident is pretty similar. For example the risk/possibility that I will slip off a slab climb isn't significantly different if I'm top roping or if I'm soloing. The consequences may be hugely different however, death vs. nothing. Semantics.
Only when we're all sitting at our desks. On the stone steep grade these aren't semantics.
DMT
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tolman_paul
Mar 27, 2008, 11:43 PM
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How can you say climbing unroped makes you more likely to fall then being tr'd????????????????????? That is what the argument about likely ness is about.
The likeliness of falling entirely to do with whether or not you are at your physical, technical and or mental limit. I'd say the probability of falling on a toprope is orders of magnitude higher than when free soloing, however the very important differnce is the consequences of being injured on tr are generally infinitesimal, while free soloing is most likley fatal.
If I free solo 10,000 feet of various climbs and never am injured, it wasn't risky. If I tr one climb, which is a deep roof, swing out and crack my head on a tree and die, the tr was much riskier.
The difficult task in discussing risk is it is much more complex than a simple statisical model of likeliness of occurance and severity of occurance.
The likelyness of something bad happening is related entirely to the abilities, or lack of abilities of the climber vs the climb.
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dingus
Mar 28, 2008, 12:05 AM
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tolman_paul wrote: How can you say climbing unroped makes you more likely to fall then being tr'd?????????????????????
I didn't say that. You did, just now. You made it up.
In reply to: That is what the argument about likely ness is about.
Umm, I don't even know what that means!
In reply to: The likeliness of falling
There you go again. Allow me to remind you of YOUR OWN statement:
In reply to: Risk is the chance, or probability of something bad happening.
Do you see the word falling in there?
Now allow me to refresh your memory of my reply:
Dingus wrote: The probability of something going bad is inherently higher for free soloing than top roping.
You will again note the word falling isn't there. So the rest of your point about falling:
In reply to: entirely to do with whether or not you are at your physical, technical and or mental limit. I'd say the probability of falling on a toprope is orders of magnitude higher than when free soloing,
Has absolutely NOTHING to do with anything. Moving on:
In reply to: however the very important differnce is the consequences of being injured on tr are generally infinitesimal, while free soloing is most likley fatal.
Ah! Please reconsider my statement quoted below for your convenience:
Dingus wrote: The probability of something going bad is inherently higher for free soloing than top roping.
You just said that top roping holds much less potential for having something bad happen. YOU YOURSELF earlier said risk was related to the
In reply to: chance, or probability of something bad happening.
Therefore you MUST AGREE with the power of your own argument that free soloing is more risky than top roping. I agree. Thanks.
DMT
(This post was edited by dingus on Mar 28, 2008, 12:09 AM)
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Truck
Mar 28, 2008, 12:24 AM
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I don’t believe too much risk has been taken out of climbing. Sure new materials have advanced far beyond what the old farts used but the risk that comes with those of us who choose to climb is the same. Back when pounding a hunk of metal into the rock and calling it good was the only way to protect ourselves from decking in the event of a fall, the chances of falling were not really that much greater when you look at the level of climbing compared to todays. Anyone climbing at the higher levels of whatever era they are climbing in is no more or less exposed to unforeseen or unexpected consequences than a climber of a different era. Gear that will hold a given fall might be easier to place and remove but good gear then and good gear now are the same. If the gear fails you die. Engineers can’t change that.
Compare it to being an astronaut. Back in the day, they would sit you in a can and shoot you up into the air on an ICBM, heading off to orbit the moon or land on it or whatever. Engineering by the seat of their pants compared to today if you will because the unknowns were far more numerous than the knowns. Today they have these really cool space ships with wings that can land like a plane and are reusable and the space engineers know far more than they did back when they were shooting Armstrong and Glen and the bunch in those tin cans. Space ships still blow up and astronauts still die. It is unavoidable no matter how much you try to engineer risk out of the equation. If the thing fails you die. Engineers can’t change that.
The Ark was built by a amateur…the Titanic was built by experts
Truck
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dingus
Mar 28, 2008, 12:46 AM
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That was beautiful, thanks. He climbed in a very dynamic style. I was mesmerized.
Thanks again
DMT
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majid_sabet
Mar 28, 2008, 1:04 AM
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dingus wrote: That was beautiful, thanks. He climbed in a very dynamic style. I was mesmerized. Thanks again DMT
What kind of a rap device is he using ?
A biner and a bar ?
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curt
Mar 28, 2008, 1:50 AM
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tolman_paul wrote: Interesting discussion, but what hasn't been looked at and is most pertanent is first definging what risk is. Risk is the chance, or probability of something bad happening...
I'm afraid that you are the one confused here. Risk is not merely the chance or probability of something going wrong. Risk, in and of itself, involves both the probability of something bad happening and also the consequence of that occurrence.
Curt
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k.l.k
Mar 28, 2008, 1:59 AM
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rgold wrote: The typical clusterfucks applied . . ..
You're obviously been here too long-- picking up the rc.com technical jargon.
I now expect to receive hectoring lectures from n00bies when I show up at the crag in a swami. It's become part of the natural landscape.
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curt
Mar 28, 2008, 2:13 AM
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k.l.k wrote: rgold wrote: The typical clusterfucks applied . . .. You're obviously been here too long-- picking up the rc.com technical jargon...
Let's start a pool for the date Rich first uses fucktard in a post. 
Curt
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yokese
Mar 28, 2008, 2:19 AM
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curt wrote: k.l.k wrote: rgold wrote: The typical clusterfucks applied . . .. You're obviously been here too long-- picking up the rc.com technical jargon... Let's start a pool for the date Rich first uses fucktard in a post. Curt
A pool? 
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moose_droppings
Mar 28, 2008, 2:53 AM
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In reply to: The Ark was built by a amateur…the Titanic was built by experts
Surely if you believe it was built by Noah, than it follows that it was designed by god.
The Titanic was designed by experts of the day, but built by journeymen and laborers.
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shockabuku
Mar 28, 2008, 3:40 AM
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dingus wrote: shockabuku wrote: I think the consequences of an incident relates to the style. The risk of having an incident is pretty similar. For example the risk/possibility that I will slip off a slab climb isn't significantly different if I'm top roping or if I'm soloing. The consequences may be hugely different however, death vs. nothing. Semantics.Only when we're all sitting at our desks. On the stone steep grade these aren't semantics. DMT
I didn't mean the consequences were semantics, I meant arguing about defining risk. I need to stop reading this forum; it's killing my writing.
I have to agree with Curt's summation of risk however; it's a convolution of probability and consequence weighted by whomever's brain.
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miavzero
Mar 28, 2008, 4:37 AM
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I can still climb with similar equipment, in the same style, and with the same ethics as I did 20 years ago.
Not that I would want to.
I think that what we see in climbing is just a reflection of what is happening nation(world?)wide. In more affluent countries people are lazier and fatter than they have ever been, and don't want to take responsibiltty for their actions.
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hugepedro
Mar 28, 2008, 5:08 AM
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Well, if we want to get anal about all this risk management mumbo jumbo . . .
Yes, Risk = Rate of Occurance * Consequence, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
You can think of a Risk Event as the combination of a Vulnerability and a Trigger that exploits that Vulnerability. And a single Risk Event can have a range of possible Consequences.
So in calculating a Risk you have to look at the probability of each Risk Event (Vulnerability/Trigger combo) occurring, as well as the probability of each of the possible Consequences for each Risk Event. If you can eliminate a Vulnerability, or all possible Triggers that might exploit that Vulnerability then you can reduce the Risk to zero.
A Vulnerability in climbing would be a fall while free soloing, or a fall while top-roping, and even these would be further subdivided into various Vulnerabilities based on potential fall distance, obstacles, etc. A Trigger could be a hold breaking, exhaustion, rock fall etc. So, assess the probability of all these possible Risk Events, and the probability of the possible Consequences for each, and you will know the relative Risk of each.
So what is the higher risk activity, free soloing or top-roping? My gut tells me that free soloing is riskier because the probable Consequence is so high, and although in top-roping the Rate of Occurrence is very high, the probable Consequence is very low. Or is it? A few years ago ANAM was reporting an inordinate number of climbers being dropped by their belayer while lowering. That particular Vulnerability (being dropped a long distance will top-roping) has a high Consequence and it seemed a higher Rate of Occurrence than falling while free soloing.
So what is the answer to the question? I’m not aware of anyone who has the data required to answer it quantitatively. So it comes back to gut feel (or qualitative risk assessment instead of quantitative risk assessment). I know if I only climb with a competent belayer when top-roping I can eliminate a Trigger, thereby eliminating all of the Risk Events that have high Consequence (as one example, another would be rock fall and paying attention to possible rock fall situations as one way to eliminate a Trigger). I also know that if I only climb well within my ability when free-soloing I can eliminate Triggers that are within my control, thereby eliminating many of the Risk Events that have high Consequence. But I cannot eliminate the Triggers that are outside of my control, such as rock fall, or lightening strikes, or surprise encounters with stinging insects, etc. So assuming that I always climb with a competent belayer when top-roping, and I’m knowledgeable enough to virtually eliminate all the other possible top-roping Risk Events that have high Consequence (like anchor failure, or rock fall), then I believe free-soloing is riskier.
Having said all that - if you think climbing isn’t risky enough you’re not doing it right.
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curt
Mar 28, 2008, 5:14 AM
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Hey PTPP, is that you?
Curt
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shockabuku
Mar 28, 2008, 5:14 AM
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hugepedro wrote: Well, if we want to get anal about all this risk management mumbo jumbo . . . Yes, Risk = Rate of Occurance * Consequence, but it’s a little more complicated than that. You can think of a Risk Event as the combination of a Vulnerability and a Trigger that exploits that Vulnerability. And a single Risk Event can have a range of possible Consequences. So in calculating a Risk you have to look at the probability of each Risk Event (Vulnerability/Trigger combo) occurring, as well as the probability of each of the possible Consequences for each Risk Event. If you can eliminate a Vulnerability, or all possible Triggers that might exploit that Vulnerability then you can reduce the Risk to zero. A Vulnerability in climbing would be a fall while free soloing, or a fall while top-roping, and even these would be further subdivided into various Vulnerabilities based on potential fall distance, obstacles, etc. A Trigger could be a hold breaking, exhaustion, rock fall etc. So, assess the probability of all these possible Risk Events, and the probability of the possible Consequences for each, and you will know the relative Risk of each. So what is the higher risk activity, free soloing or top-roping? My gut tells me that free soloing is riskier because the probable Consequence is so high, and although in top-roping the Rate of Occurrence is very high, the probable Consequence is very low. Or is it? A few years ago ANAM was reporting an inordinate number of climbers being dropped by their belayer while lowering. That particular Vulnerability (being dropped a long distance will top-roping) has a high Consequence and it seemed a higher Rate of Occurrence than falling while free soloing. So what is the answer to the question? I’m not aware of anyone who has the data required to answer it quantitatively. So it comes back to gut feel (or qualitative risk assessment instead of quantitative risk assessment). I know if I only climb with a competent belayer when top-roping I can eliminate a Trigger, thereby eliminating all of the Risk Events that have high Consequence (as one example, another would be rock fall and paying attention to possible rock fall situations as one way to eliminate a Trigger). I also know that if I only climb well within my ability when free-soloing I can eliminate Triggers that are within my control, thereby eliminating many of the Risk Events that have high Consequence. But I cannot eliminate the Triggers that are outside of my control, such as rock fall, or lightening strikes, or surprise encounters with stinging insects, etc. So assuming that I always climb with a competent belayer when top-roping, and I’m knowledgeable enough to virtually eliminate all the other possible top-roping Risk Events that have high Consequence (like anchor failure, or rock fall), then I believe free-soloing is riskier. Having said all that - if you think climbing isn’t risky enough you’re not doing it right.
I didn't quite get that. Do you think you could put it in other terms?
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k.l.k
Mar 28, 2008, 5:45 AM
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curt wrote: k.l.k wrote: rgold wrote: The typical clusterfucks applied . . .. You're obviously been here too long-- picking up the rc.com technical jargon... Let's start a pool for the date Rich first uses fucktard in a post. Curt
Bite me.
Yeah, ok, he's held out longer than I did, but he'll crack.
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