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Stupidest thing youve seen? 13-Aug-2006 At 8:16:30 PM hotgemini

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So I was busily running a few new climbers through belaying a toproper 101 and further down the cliff I spied, out of the corner of my eye, another belayer (belaying a leader) take both hands off the rope. Watching for a moment I thought perhaps it was a once-off slip or I'd been mistaken, but no he proceeded to take both hands off the rope and turn and talk to a girl.

At first I made the next reasonable assumption, it was someone with a gri-gri/cinch etc and bad habits but closer inspection revealed that no, he was in fact using a regular tube-type belay device.

Periodically the belayer would pull through a few more armfuls of rope to avoid short-roping the leader who was (unbeknowst to himself presumably) busily soloing his was up the cliff. As the leader hauled over the crux and stood up to clip the anchors he got short-roped a bit so called for slack, the belayer responded by hauling through perhaps 4 or 5 metres of rope (the rope ran from his belay device, down to the ground, across for 3 metres and then up the cliff) and returned to his (hands free) conversation.

Whilst terrifying this story in itself isn't hugely special in its own right but the one fact, the belayer responsible is the main guide for one of the Kangaroo Point based commercial operators. I audibly gagged when later the same day I heard him explaining to a client how he knew everything for climbing because he had his Cert III in outdoor rec.