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korntera
May 20, 2005, 6:58 AM
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I have taken 1 fall on a peice of trad gear before the scary experience i had a week ago today. The first fall i took was on my friends gear with a rope attached to the cam(a #1 rock empire i think) and then a top rope incase the cam pulled. I pretty much trusted cams after this. A month later i had been really getting in to trad and I have been building up my rack, which is now up to 5 cams 2 nuts and a big bro in the mail.
I was climbing up a crack(with the help of my friends full rack) and placed a yellow at about 20 feet, then another 10 feet and another yellow. At this point began the hard stuff, only a 5.8 but my second ever real trad lead. I climbed about 5 feet above the yellow and place a .5 blue in what seemed to be a nice crack. I got a few feet above the blue cam and got a bit shaky and decided i would fall and take a rest for a second and continue on.
I fell on the blue cam, which i had a bad feeling about and looked up and heard a very scary and distinctive, "PING" and saw the blue cam flying out about 2 feet from the wall. I looked down and thought "oh shit" i hope my other cam holds or i will break something. Moments later i looked up and realized i had a blue cam at my belay loop and a lovely yellow cam holding my 20 foot fall.
In the end I only ended up with a 2" chunk of skin missing from my elbow and blood on my knee, head and other parts of my elbow. Hearing that ping and seeing a cam pullout was probably the scarest experience ever.
After the fall I tried to trust my cam placements as I practice aided up another crack, but ever time i took a small step on my aid ladder i was scared to death it would pop out. How can i go back to trusting cams. I thought the placement looked ok but it wasn't, i just can't tell anymore.
-Travis
P.S. after reading all this go check out my follow up post on page 5 before replying. MANY OF YOU are mislead, maybe i worded it wrong i don't know, but before flaming go read my next post.!
-Travis
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the_dude
May 20, 2005, 7:46 AM
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I hope not to come across as a dick, but follow someone else that is good at gear. See what good placements look like. Also aid climb a shit-ton ,you'll see what holds and what doesn't. It also might have been just that individual placement. It's hard to get back on the horse sometimes, trust me, it's terrifing on lead after a big cartwheel. You always gain from the experience(at least that's what I tell myself). You'll be back up there climbing safer and stronger.Take a gulp, saddle up, and get er done!
Cheers
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michelleh
May 20, 2005, 8:39 AM
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I am not a trad climber but have many friends who do and quite a lot of seconding experience. I know that it is good practice to climb within your limits on trad and follow the theory "do not fall". Sport climbing has created a mentality of falling off when you need to, on trad I think you should rather not fall.
That said, I second the suggestion to do a heckload of seconding an experience trad leader. You will learn a helluva lot and you will see his/ her placement choices and this will help you to identify good placement opportunities. In the short term, this also takes the pressure off trying to psych yourself into trusting cams again.
Good luck!
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swede
May 20, 2005, 10:47 AM
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As a newbee you should place gear much more often than 20 feet (or 10 feet) apart.
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nsintros
May 20, 2005, 11:25 AM
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just wondering did the rock break or was the cam just not place properly?
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boardline22
May 20, 2005, 11:41 AM
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second
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piton
May 20, 2005, 12:16 PM
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trad climbing is not like sport you just don't stick a piece in, clip and go. you have to be able to hang out and work your gear in. learn your passive pro also. take it slow and be safe
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euroford
May 20, 2005, 12:25 PM
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you should not take falling on trad gear so lightly. if you pumped out and fell off a 5.8 on your second ever trad lead than buddy, you need to slow it down and lead some 5.4s. like a bunch of them, and work your way back up to 5.8's.
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thorne
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May 20, 2005, 12:31 PM
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Trusting your trad gear is a head game. Leading when you have no faith in your gear is kind of a drag.
I'd say don't rush to get back on the sharp end, especially on challenging routes. Do a lot of seconding. Hopefully your leader will take some falls, showing you the security of trad placements. Start leading with easy routes. Get your lead head back, without pushing it.
Like I said before, trusting your trad gear is a head game. As some point (hopefully), you'll get tired of feeling like a pussy (I speak from experience), sack up and start pushing it again. The monkey on your back won't go away until you take a fall, going for it.
Good luck.
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berkly
May 20, 2005, 12:38 PM
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Im usually pretty mild mannered on these forums, but Id like to say your a fucking idiot for thinking you could fall on any cam safely. Its one thing to rest on gear, its another to climb above and fall just to rest. Tone it down and climb some easier stuff.
Leaders dont fall.
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bill413
May 20, 2005, 12:40 PM
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Well, congrats on taking a lead fall .
It can take some time before you get your head back to be able to trust your gear & yourself on lead. I think a good way is to lead on easier stuff - that way you're gaining experience leading & placing gear, and you can really inspect your placements. Also, place gear every 5 to 10 feet - this may feel excessive, but it gets you much more practice in placing (and, provides redundancy).
Good luck - hope you stick with it.
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tradmanclimbs
May 20, 2005, 12:46 PM
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Don't listen too much to the nay sayers. you did just fine. It sounds like you sewed it up and your second piece caught you. No autopsy no fowl :D You learned a valuable lesson in that you can't take a fall for granted when tradclimbing. It is better to downclimb back to the piece and then take your hang unless the fall is clean, you know the gear is bomber and the next piece is close enough to keep you off the deck if the first one fails. get right back in ths saddle. Keep it to routs with excelent gear and sew it up. When in doubt put another piece in. You can work on getting braver and placeing less gear once you have your gear placeing skills wired but for now the more gear you place the better. put in in and hang on it, take a rest and bounce. get on someting harder and sew that up. Grab gear and yard on it, do a bit of clean aid. You will not learn if you don't try. Finding a mentor is good but don't wait arround for the rest of your life looking for one. Just go out threr and do it. Once you get the gear skills wired then you can work on climbing in better style. Less gear and no yarding/ frenching 8^)
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phlsphr
May 20, 2005, 12:46 PM
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In reply to: At this point began the hard stuff, only a 5.8 but my second ever real trad lead. I climbed about 5 feet above the yellow and place a .5 blue in what seemed to be a nice crack. I got a few feet above the blue cam and got a bit shaky and decided i would fall and take a rest for a second and continue on. I fell on the blue cam, which i had a bad feeling about and looked up and heard a very scary and distinctive, "PING" and saw the blue cam flying out about 2 feet from the wall. I looked down and thought "oh s---" i hope my other cam holds or i will break something. Moments later i looked up and realized i had a blue cam at my belay loop and a lovely yellow cam holding my 20 foot fall.
Do you know why your cam failed? Did it "walk" from your original placement? If so why? Did the crack flair? Should you have used a larger cam? Was the rock bad? It seems like you had (and perhaps still have-depending on the convenience of the climb and the strength of your memory) a valuable learning opportunity. I would want to climb back up and examine the bad placement, and figure out why it was bad, and what I should have done. I also would have downclimbed as much as possible before falling.
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holmeslovesguinness
May 20, 2005, 12:52 PM
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Either your placement was bunk, the rock was crap, or it was some combination of both. Looking back on it now, can you decide which it was?
Maybe go back to that route and look at where you placed that cam and try to recontruct what might have happened. Could the cam have walked because you clipped it too short? Was it too small for the crack? Was the rock chossy?
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thorne
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May 20, 2005, 1:05 PM
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In reply to: Im usually pretty mild mannered on these forums, but Id like to say your a f---ing idiot for thinking you could fall on any cam safely. Its one thing to rest on gear, its another to climb above and fall just to rest. Tone it down and climb some easier stuff. Leaders dont fall.
T-0 :lol:
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tradmanclimbs
May 20, 2005, 1:21 PM
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Cut the guy a break. he is trying to learn.
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j_ung
May 20, 2005, 1:36 PM
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It's eay to pass judgement on the original post (and a few of the replies); I'm guilty of it right now. But instead, I'm going to thank korntera for braving the flames and posting his experience. Yeah, you probably made a bunch of decisions that were unwise. But you're alive and with some persistence and guidance, poor judgment of the past can become wisdom in the future. Hopefully, others in your place -- and there are many on this site -- will also take your hard-earned lesson to heart and tweak their routes to trad leadership appropriately.
I gave you a trophy, since you took one for the team. Be careful, eh?
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csgambill
May 20, 2005, 1:43 PM
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This is a good lesson in learning to place cams properly. Keep practicing. ...And remember climbing is inherently dangerous and all that bullshit.
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happiegrrrl
May 20, 2005, 1:52 PM
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At risk of fearing WWGT (What Will the Gumbys Think), I'd still like to add my input to this thread, being a beginner leader myself.
I also just did my 2nd lead, and though it was much, much easier than the one you took, I can see you and I have(or had) completely different mindsets as to gear placement and climbing past them. For myself, I think that it's all well and good to practice placement at ground level, and to take a look at the leader's placements as I follow, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that my leads are very much also at the "practice" level.
Everyone learns differently, and someone else might be able to understand *good* placements by analyzing other's examples and/or by reading the "how to" books, but for me, I need to do the stuff myself. It's one thing to read the books, and/or listen to someone say "watch out that it doesn't walk" or "don't place with offset lobes," and another thing to put the gear in myself and taste the fruit of my effort while I am preparing to climb past it.
At this point, I think it would be hubris for me to think I know much about what constitutes *good* placement of cams. To intentionally put a fall onto them....um, no(Though I have had a partner who instructed me in falling on gear, and had me place a cam and dive. It held, but he took a good look at the placement before asking me to come off, and the piece was backed up by 3 bomber pieces he had placed below them.).
I think downclimbing is a good skill to use. And also, getting another piece in asap when I don't feel a placement I made was solid. I have also felt a hella lot more confident in my nut placements than any cam, even when I have heard my mind's voice say "yummmmy" (someone told me that we each have some word we say/hear when we think the placement was poifect. Mine's "yummmmy") when the cam seemed like a textbook placement.
So, if I had found myself in the situation you were in (intentionally falling, expecting gear I was not so adept with placing to catch me), I guess I would get back on lead immediately and remember that I am still practicing. And try to remember exactly where it was that I thought I heard/read or got the idea that intentionally bailing onto cams to find a rest stance was a good idea, and relook at that one.
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roshampo
May 20, 2005, 2:07 PM
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You learned a valuable lesson, always keep mulitple pieces between you and the ground. I almost always keep two pieces between me and the ground. I try to keep three or more if I'm coming up on the crux or think there's going to be a good possiblity of a big whip. If i have enough gear and i'm at a good stance, i'll often place two pieces. I this may be excessive, but shit, i'm still alive, and don't feel that this limits my climbing.
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cruxmonger
May 20, 2005, 2:10 PM
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You are very lucky, dude. I would never decide that it was a good idea to take a fall "just to see if the piece held." I guess now you know to take trad more seriously.
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kungfuclimber
May 20, 2005, 2:10 PM
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There's nothing I can say about placing gear and falling on gear that hasn't already been said. However, if you decide to continue trad climbing,
Wear a helmet!
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roshampo
May 20, 2005, 2:16 PM
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helmets are overrated on single pitch stuff. I guess it's a good idea, but realistly it'd be safer to wear a hemlet, kneepads, elbow pads, and kevlar body armor etc. on a causal bike ride, but who does. But usually I'll only wear one on multipitch. If the rock is solid and blocks aren't falling on your head, I'm not a fan of em. Mulitpitch is a different story though.
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mother_sheep
May 20, 2005, 2:19 PM
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In reply to: Tone it down and climb some easier stuff.
Amen
In reply to: Leaders dont fall.
You've got to be kidding, right? Why not? The purpose of placing good gear is to protect you when you fall.
Leaders do fall.
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gat
May 20, 2005, 2:25 PM
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Glad you are ok. Some friendly suggestions...
Rather than just falling, why not try to put in another piece? I know you said you were shaky, but why not try to put in another piece at the stance (or close to) where you fell from? You were obviously confident enough to fall on the last piece, so take this valuable opportunity to practice placing gear in a stressful, pumped out situation. Trust me, it will come in handy later. If you fall while attempting to place the gear, you get that rest you were looking for ;)
The other option is to take the opportunity to practice downclimbing to the last piece, rather than falling on it. Again, this is a valuable skill to practice for that time when you feel pumped but aren't so willilng to fall on the last piece - or can't fall because you have yet to place gear and need to back off the pitch.
Be safe.
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