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Japanese death anchor

Dtb

2-Apr-2012
11:20:32 PM

A friend and myself were having a lovely climb up Syrinx at Arapiles a few weeks ago.
We had just reached the second belay when a young man, his wife and their 9 yr old started tearing up the climb behind us.

He missed the first belay and kept coming straight at us, yelling that he had missed the belay his reply was "ok, ill make anchor with you!"

alarm bells rang out and I made a quick lead to the third belay. The gentleman in question set an 'anchor' up next to my partner and quickly got his family scrambling up the rock towards him.

belay anchor of death, he had both his wife and child on belay at this point!

My partner started climbing and within minutes this moron started to climb as well. This was not on and we both started yelling at him to wait until we had at least reached the belay, all smiles, ignorance and stupidity he stated he would just climb past. More abuse was hurled down that he would stay their and with self preservation kicking in we decided to anchor ourselves at pitch three and let this kamikaze family get the hell away from us.

We let him pass and ignorant of the perilous danger he was putting his family in, flew past us with smiles and thankyou's.

Dumbfounded we finished our climb in relative peace and safety once they were a few pitches ahead.

If anyone was down at Arapiles 2 weeks ago, did you run into this family and if so, did they get out ok? When we cautioned him about his climbing and anchors he just smiled and motored on.
We were watching his protection (or lack of), anchors, poor choice of pro, big runouts, etc and were sick at the thought that we were about to watch an entire family deck from 60 mtrs!

Not a pleasant way to spend a beautiful day at Araps

sliamese

3-Apr-2012
1:08:44 AM

The anchors total bogus, but people climbing over slower parties is something thankfully rare within australia, quite common in some places!

Guess all you can do is politey point out a better way. It is part of the age old conundrum, at what point are you justified to say something, hmmmm.....

One Day Hero

3-Apr-2012
1:14:08 AM

On 2/04/2012 Dtb wrote:
>He missed the first belay and kept coming straight at us, yelling that
>he had missed the belay his reply was "ok, ill make anchor with you!"

This is a strange Japanese tradition which roughly translates to "linking pitches"......not a natural concept to your western bumbly mind.
>
>The gentleman
>in question set an 'anchor' up next to my partner and quickly got his family
>scrambling up the rock towards him.

The little girl was 'scrambling' much more gracefully than you and your mate.
>
>My partner started climbing and within minutes this moron started to climb
>as well. This was not on and we both started yelling at him to wait until
>we had at least reached the belay, all smiles, ignorance and stupidity
>he stated he would just climb past. More abuse was hurled down that he
>would stay their and with self preservation kicking in we decided to anchor
>ourselves at pitch three and let this kamikaze family get the hell away
>from us.
>
As annoying as it is when climbers from crowded countries climb over you on a quiet day at araps, I find this type of sanctimonius ownership of the route even worse.

>Dumbfounded.............

Yup, you're coming across that way

>If anyone was down at Arapiles 2 weeks ago, did you run into this family
>and if so, did they get out ok?

I'm pretty sure I walked past the bottom as the family were starting up behind you. Unfortunately the whole family passed away in a shocking accident the second you stopped micromanaging their climbing. Turns out that your critical vigilance was the only thing keeping them alive up until that point.

>
>Not a pleasant way to spend a beautiful day at Araps

You shoulda heard what they were saying about you guys.........especially the little girl. Such language at that age!

One Day Hero

3-Apr-2012
1:33:13 AM

On 3/04/2012 sliamese wrote:
>The anchors total bogus

Its pretty amusing rigging, but if the pieces are good it'd be totally safe. There's 2 nuts pointing in the right direction and on independant slings (that's as much as I have a lot of the time). The nut at the bottom of the photo would take up about 5cm after the failure of the one above it. Looks like a cam and a nut towards the top of the photo which would come into play after about a meter of slippage, but that would require the other 3 nuts to fail first............and the wife probably weighed about 40kg and the little girl about 15kg, and they were on toprope!

No one was about to die, except the O.P. from blowing his pooper valve.

kieranl

3-Apr-2012
8:50:53 AM

On 2/04/2012 Dtb wrote:
>A friend and myself were having a lovely climb up Syrinx at Arapiles a
>few weeks ago.
>We had just reached the second belay when a young man, his wife and their
>9 yr old started tearing up the climb behind us.
>
>He missed the first belay and kept coming straight at us, yelling that
>he had missed the belay his reply was "ok, ill make anchor with you!"
>
Why were you making a fuss about him missing the first belay - many parties run the first 2 pitches together.

>alarm bells rang out and I made a quick lead to the third belay. The gentleman
>in question set an 'anchor' up next to my partner and quickly got his family
>scrambling up the rock towards him.
>
>belay anchor of death, he had both his wife and child on belay at this
>point!
>
Sounds like he was pretty efficient and they all knew what they were doing. Can't see the gear placements properly but there's nothing baddly wrong with the anchor.

>My partner started climbing and within minutes this moron started to climb
>as well. This was not on and we both started yelling at him to wait until
>we had at least reached the belay, all smiles, ignorance and stupidity
>he stated he would just climb past. More abuse was hurled down that he
>would stay their and with self preservation kicking in we decided to anchor
>ourselves at pitch three and let this kamikaze family get the hell away
>from us.
>
What was the problem with him climbing below your partner? Why start yelling abuse over that.
>We let him pass and ignorant of the perilous danger he was putting his
>family in, flew past us with smiles and thankyou's.
>
Sounds polite.

>Dumbfounded we finished our climb in relative peace and safety once they
>were a few pitches ahead.
>
>
>Not a pleasant way to spend a beautiful day at Araps
>
>
Hate to agree with ODH but it looks like you over-reacted fairly badly. It sounds like they were very efficient, fast and knew what they were doing. About the only thing you could criticise the party for was for lead-climbing past your second on the third pitch. Maybe there was a problem with English?

anthonycuskelly

3-Apr-2012
9:08:35 AM

I was on The Eighth at the time, we were going to do Syrinx but Dtb & friend beat us by about 10 minutes.

The issue I could see (as in, the only time we saw both groups) was on the 3rd (guidebook) pitch, the Japanese gent was starting to lead while the second of the group in front was still climbing, and it's not exactly a large ledge. I guess I'd start over-reacting too if someone was climbing up on top of me.

I wouldn't call it an anchor of death (as ODH points out, plenty of gear), but it looks like it's been rigged by someone who hasn't completely thought it through.

bl@ke

3-Apr-2012
9:48:41 AM

And of course they were totaly Kamikaze's. Did they have their headbands on? Just because they are Japanese. Tut tut tut.

I got overtaken by some Iraqi climbers the other day. Shit anchors and dangerous climbing. I thought I had better let these suicide bomber climbers get past me.

Friggin hell!

ZERO

3-Apr-2012
10:13:49 AM

Not as bad as the Kiwi on Touchstone last year who was abseiling down and brazenly clipped into the harness of another climbing party at the belay point.

Duncan

3-Apr-2012
10:53:14 AM

On 3/04/2012 STEALTH wrote:
>Not as bad as the Kiwi on Touchstone last year who was abseiling down and
>brazenly clipped into the harness of another climbing party at the belay
>point.

Ha!

j.l.d

3-Apr-2012
10:36:45 PM

It's a pretty whacky looking anchor, but as others have said, it would most likely be fine to catch a fall.

Yelling out abuse because he wanted to climb past is the f#cked up part.

Climbing past slow climbers happens all the time in other countries. Go climb in the US for a while and see how far abusing faster climbers gets you!

patto

3-Apr-2012
10:47:23 PM

On 3/04/2012 kieranl wrote:
>Hate to agree with ODH but it looks like you over-reacted fairly badly.
>It sounds like they were very efficient, fast and knew what they were doing.
>About the only thing you could criticise the party for was for lead-climbing
>past your second on the third pitch. Maybe there was a problem with English?

I second this in both respects.

I too dislike being in agreement with ODH but it does seem that if there was a NOOB on the cliff that day he wasn't Japanese.

Climbing confidently, quickly and string pitches together does not strike me as the normal behaviour of the incompetent. Passing slower climbers is fine if done appropriately, politely, with good communication and not by putting others at risk. It seems he only failed at one of these aspects and by the sound of it he did TRY to communicate.

The anchor has a couple of ways that it could be improved. It certainly isn't ideal. However it is functional, and seems to be safe. Accidents from anchor failure are extremely rare, accidents, epics, injury and even death from SLOW climbing are in fact more common.

Ben_E

3-Apr-2012
11:04:52 PM

On 3/04/2012 j.l.d wrote:

>Go climb in the US for a while and see how far abusing faster climbers gets
>you!

Really? In my 5 years living in California (only sort of the US, arguably) I rarely if ever got overtaken without first being politely asked... except by Europeans, who tended to be a tad more aggressive about passing.

Not that it bothers me much one way or the other... if another group or individual can pass me without horrendously slowing me down, I'm usually happy to let them. Nevertheless, next time it happens I'll try some abuse instead and report back (in the interests of science).

It does sound like there may have been some overreaction to this Japanese family, who by all accounts were moving quickly enough and probably had some idea of what they were doing, even if the anchors were not exactly a John Long Anchors how-to diagram.

j.l.d

3-Apr-2012
11:14:42 PM

maybe you are a reasonably fast climber?

Ben_E

3-Apr-2012
11:26:15 PM

On 3/04/2012 j.l.d wrote:
>maybe you are a reasonably fast climber?

Nah, I'm rarely accused of that.

Must be the fact that I'm a 6'6'' gorilla with prison tatts and a "Born to Cut Ropes" t-shirt that brings out the politeness in folks.

pmonks

4-Apr-2012
12:42:48 AM

On 3/04/2012 Ben_E wrote:
>On 3/04/2012 j.l.d wrote:
>Really? In my 5 years living in California (only sort of the US, arguably)
>I rarely if ever got overtaken without first being politely asked... except
>by Europeans, who tended to be a tad more aggressive about passing.

+1

Americans are (mostly) polite while climbing. Eurotrash (with the exception of poms), on the other hand, are total fsckwits on the cliff. Basque folk in particular are total @$%*ing a$$holes!!!!!

IdratherbeclimbingM9

5-Apr-2012
5:44:29 PM

It is certainly an interesting anchor, but if the individual pieces making it up are good, then all it would benefit from, would be putting some clove hitches into the blue sling at the gear connection-points to make for better redundancy by minimising any shock loading due extension if placements failed; ... particularly if the doubled up left hand end one/s blew out!

It is not exactly a 'typical death triangle' if the loading point is where the hand is, as the angles in the sling are within recommended safe loading spec.

There are 16 messages in this topic.