Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Exploding Rope 6-Sep-2005 At 4:53:51 PM armyiain

Message

To get a fall factor of 2 you have to fall PAST the belayer - and if you can do that on Integral, well, OUCH! I didn't notice a big hole one could fall into out there last time! This website has a pretty good explaination

http://www.southeastclimbing.com/faq/faq_fall_factor.htm#whatis

"The maximum fall factor generated in climbing situations is 2. A quick look at the math is just a little misleading. A climber can't fall farther than the length of the rope, right? So the length of the fall can't be more than the length of the rope, right? 1/1 = maximum fall factor of 1, right? Not, quite.

Actually, it IS possible for a climber to fall farther than the length of the rope. In a worst case situation, the climber can fall TWICE the length of the rope out. The diagram gives the classic example. Two climbers are hundreds of feet up a cliff face. The lead climber leaves the belay and climbs 10 feet above his anchored belayer. When he falls, he falls not only the 10 feet he climbed above his belayer, but continues to fall another 10 feet until the rope comes taught. Though he climbed only 10 feet, he falls 20 feet.

Fall factor = length of fall / length of rope (edit - length of rope paid out from belayer to leader)

Fall factor = 20 feet of fall / 10 feet of rope

Fall factor = 2