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adelicious
Apr 12, 2007, 10:52 PM
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euphoriagtrst wrote: It sounds like the grigri was threaded backwards? That seems like an easy mistake to make if you're not careful...
It isn't really EASY at all! You should be in the routine of checking the gri-gri is threaded correctly - give it a tug and test it before you climb. Your partner should be wanting to check your knot too if you do it every time it becomes habit. One of my partners and I have a rule that the climber owes a beer if they were about to start climbing before checking the belayer's set up...
Also keep in mind that those who are experienced have a responsibility to ensure that things are safe. This poor girl was new to climbing and perhaps was in over her head. She was not a "knob". I am not placing or taking away any blame - but when we are climbing we should all be concerned about safety and that our belayers are compedent. There are a lot of climbers that take this responsibilty way too lightly.
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euphoriagtrst
Apr 13, 2007, 1:08 AM
Post #28 of 93
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Let me rephrase..
An easy mistake to make if one allows oneself to get careless- I'm not implying that a grigri is confusing about which way to put the rope in or even how to use it- as one of the above posters stated- the orientation is engraved into the device and the instruction that come with the device are straightforward..it's also easy to double back when buckling a harness and tie a proper follow through on a figure 8. I agree as above- these should ALWAYS be checked by both people before leaving the ground, anchors, etc.
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granite_grrl
Apr 13, 2007, 12:12 PM
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adelicious wrote: euphoriagtrst wrote: It sounds like the grigri was threaded backwards? That seems like an easy mistake to make if you're not careful... It isn't really EASY at all! You should be in the routine of checking the gri-gri is threaded correctly - give it a tug and test it before you climb. Your partner should be wanting to check your knot too if you do it every time it becomes habit. One of my partners and I have a rule that the climber owes a beer if they were about to start climbing before checking the belayer's set up... Also keep in mind that those who are experienced have a responsibility to ensure that things are safe. This poor girl was new to climbing and perhaps was in over her head. She was not a "knob". I am not placing or taking away any blame - but when we are climbing we should all be concerned about safety and that our belayers are compedent. There are a lot of climbers that take this responsibilty way too lightly.
The double check is key, but sometimes climbers get slopy. I'll even admit to threading a Grigri backwards once, but I realized it well before the climber made their first clip and all was well. Me and my partners are normally very good with double checks, but its possible for things to slip through.
But I'd be even more careful it there was a beer on the line!
The impression that I get is that the belayer was fairly new. If the climber was in a position of mentoring and teaching then a lot of the responsibility was on the climber. Again, neither of them were deserving of the accident that happened, but that's the way it goes in climbing. Enough little things go wrong and sometimes people get hurt.
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marcuder
Apr 13, 2007, 1:17 PM
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My mentor used to get mad at me whenever I missed a step in check sequence, and I mean pissed. At first, I felt a bit of resentment - "why doesn't he just chill, nothing bad happened..." Then one day, after digesting a lot of climbing literature it dawned on me how tiny little mistakes multiply and compound until what was a very simple mistake becomes a life threatning situation. Since then I gear up with a certain amount of paranoia which I nurture because, ironically, it keeps me safe.
Indeed, it is always easy to blame the novice, but ultimatelly it is the most-experienced in the party that should shoulder the majority of responsibility for not paying enough attention to those who need guidence... especially in life and death matters.
In the end leadership in rock-climbing is not about being able to bag the hardest route, but to ensure that everyone comes back safe, and enjoyed a fantastic, albeit a dangerous sport...
PS: granite_grrl it's so awesome you've gone back to climbing. You don't know me but we have mutual friends (Easter Saturday in RRG I was the chatty guy with a video camera). I've heard about your injury, and can't imagine how hard it must have been to come back from it. Go go go!
(This post was edited by marcuder on Apr 13, 2007, 1:26 PM)
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m2j1s
Apr 13, 2007, 1:45 PM
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does anybody have info on the alien that "broke"? doesnt sounds very plausable to me seeing as how there would be major discussion about it if it really did happen... a cam that breaks is a little more important that 30 guys talking about putting the rope backwards in a gri gri..
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nnowinowski
Apr 13, 2007, 1:57 PM
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i'm wondering if it just pulled and sort of got conflated with the other failures?
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bishop
Apr 13, 2007, 2:32 PM
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m2j1s wrote: does anybody have info on the alien that "broke"? doesnt sounds very plausable to me seeing as how there would be major discussion about it if it really did happen... a cam that breaks is a little more important that 30 guys talking about putting the rope backwards in a gri gri..
agreed... this thread has been hijacked by the gri-gri topic. Don't get me wrong it's still an important discussion. However, back to the Alien. I can't really discuss the matter in too much detail because it's between the climber / the gear shop / manufacturer at this point. What I can say is that there was indeed a broken Alien involved. Pieces of it were recovered from the crack after the victim was removed from the scene. Other than that... I can't say more.
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wanderlustmd
Apr 13, 2007, 2:43 PM
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Weird, there is that Omega Pacific Link Cam thread over in gear right now as well. Sucker fell apart after 10 no-fall placements!
That is just scary. This sport has enough inherent risk. After proper maintenence and inspection, I don't want to have to worry about my gear randomly disintegrating. The head can be a hard enough thing to keep a handle on after you learn to trust the gear...
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holdplease2
Apr 13, 2007, 3:05 PM
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Bishop:
I agree its important to notify manufacturers of gear failure immediately (even if it was from mis-use, not making an Alien acusation here).
However, if the OP of the "Dimpled Alien" discovery falure would have "Kept it between himself and the manufacturer", based on CCH"s initial response to him, that would not have been good for many of us who were climbing on Dimpled Aliens.
With that in mind, CCH, when do you think you'll be able have an analysis of what went wrong in this situation? (As in: If it was a gear defect or something not related to the gear?)
-Kate.
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jakedatc
Apr 13, 2007, 3:19 PM
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Yea kate... like he actually reads this stuff??
cchaliens:
"Last Logon: Aug 29, 2006, 7:58 PM"
i don't know about you guys but the first thing i think of when i hear about "broken" aliens is they inverted and pulled out.. we dont even have a size to go on so it could be anything. so much hype.. so little info.
On the other note. i think holding the cam open during a fall is super scary.. Yes more rope out will make for a lower fall factor.. but there will still be that sudden jerk when you do load the gri gri. For trad i'll stick to my reverso or atc where some rope pulls through gradually due to the device not being able to give 100% stopping friction..
On sport routes i use my Cinch i'll hop or allow myself to get lifted a bit(usually the case since i'm light) Sport is more for climber comfort than reducing the load on the bolts anyway.
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holdplease2
Apr 13, 2007, 3:30 PM
Post #37 of 93
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Hey JDC-
I agree, tending to think the placement wasn't optimal...until I hear that pieces of the alien were removed from the crack after the fall.
This, to me, is a different deal. This means some part of the cam itself broke. Its not for us to guess why, but it is for us to make sure we get answers, just to be sure.
If we haven't heard a response in a few days, or maybe a week or so, from someone in the know about what went wrong, starting a "broken alien" thread and notifying CCH directly that it exists would probably be a good way to go.
Of course, I don't want to see (another) lynching here. But if a climber hits the ground and broken gear remains in the rock, I don't want to see it swept under the rug either.
I bet that CCH will come forward with some answers when they've had time to figure it out. Lets hope it wasn't a MFR defect.
-Kate.
(This post was edited by holdplease2 on Apr 13, 2007, 3:49 PM)
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shockabuku
Apr 13, 2007, 3:50 PM
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I think the important thing is to get accurate information out to the community at large in a timely manner. It would be very interesting to know the manufacture date of the Alien and if it had been pull tested or not.
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nnowinowski
Apr 13, 2007, 3:54 PM
Post #39 of 93
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second that
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bishop
Apr 13, 2007, 4:43 PM
Post #40 of 93
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shockabuku wrote: I think the important thing is to get accurate information out to the community at large in a timely manner. It would be very interesting to know the manufacture date of the Alien and if it had been pull tested or not.
Agreed.
All the accurate facts need to be brought up and people need to be aware of them. Unfortunately, however, sometimes these things take time. Like I said before this situation is being addressed between the climber the gear shop and the manufacturer.
Climber update.
Good new. The climber is resting well. He is one VERY luck man. He wasn't wearing a helmet and managed somehow by miracle not to sustain a head injury or worse. No major breaks.. a few small fractures and a lot of bruising.
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wanderlustmd
Apr 13, 2007, 6:01 PM
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Glad to hear that he will be ok
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whiskeybullets
Apr 13, 2007, 6:43 PM
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Was the fall on sauders crack or rock wars? it's important to know because sauders is notorious for being an expando flake, where rock wars is pretty solid. from my experience on both routes (twice on sauders and maybe 7 or 8 times on rock wars), i would likely implicate rock quality and not gear failure on sauders crack. although i've seen a lot of people place a lot of bad cams on rock wars too. i've seen at least three instances of gear pulling b/c of poor placements on rock wars. this experience makes me question any conclusions that implicate gear failure as the only cause of a ground fall. given the nature of the routes, it is a more likely scenario that incorrect gear placement was the culprit. and, in anticipation of future comments, i have seen poor placements result in really, really fucked up gear, though never a placement come apart in pieces, as is suggested by some posts.
i just think it should be known that sauders crack is listed as a tr in rrg guidebooks because of poor rock quality.
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reg
Apr 13, 2007, 7:17 PM
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sweet - hang in there brother
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bishop
Apr 13, 2007, 8:25 PM
Post #45 of 93
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whiskeybullets wrote: Was the fall on sauders crack or rock wars?
Souders Crack
whiskeybullets wrote: i just think it should be known that sauders crack is listed as a tr in rrg guidebooks because of poor rock quality.
Very good point.... thank you
(This post was edited by bishop on Apr 16, 2007, 2:17 PM)
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marcuder
Apr 13, 2007, 8:37 PM
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Would this be an instance of the cam fully expanding, catching on a protrusion, and comming appart? From what I know only Camalots are able to catch a fall when fully open due to their engineering... personally however I'm not a huge fan of cams; in a perfect world I'd be able to stick a nut anywhere. Mechanical contraptions potential for breakdown is multiplied by the number of parts required to assemble it. Still, when all you got is is 20 seconds of energy left, with two fingers in a crack and on the verge of finding religion, having something you can put in without a whole lot of fuss... priceless. I dunno...
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pinsandbones
Apr 19, 2007, 12:01 AM
Post #47 of 93
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There was indeed a BROKEN Alien involved in the Easter weekend accident on Souder's Crack. I would have posted earlier, but just recently received surgery to pin my wrist back together. Aside from being laid up for six months, I am very fortunate to have come away from the fall with only the injuries I have sustained. Many thanks go out to all that have helped me with this ordeal. As for the cam, it broke off right at the end if the stem, leaving the head and trigger assembly still set in the rock. It appears to me that the malfunction was due to a manuf. defect. This is being discussed with CCH. I would strongly advise all who are climbing on post recall aliens to be very careful.
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m2j1s
Apr 19, 2007, 1:15 AM
Post #48 of 93
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hmm.. this is a little frightening to hear. i wonder what cch will do about this / what us climbers with aliens should do..
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jakedatc
Apr 19, 2007, 2:02 AM
Post #49 of 93
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Pics of the cam would be nice to see, including the date stamp from the trigger
glad they could put you back together again. (nice screen name too)
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jt512
Apr 19, 2007, 2:23 AM
Post #50 of 93
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carabiner96 wrote: Ok...rumor has it that a gri-gri threaded backwards has about 80% of the power of a regular Tub device...meaning the grip isn't as solkid in terms of friction, but it could still work as such as long as the braking position was properly applied?
I doubt that a grigri has that much friction when loaded backwards. Try it under controlled conditions.
Jay
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