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Stupidest thing youve seen? 18-Feb-2008 At 9:37:12 PM micko

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I had a similar feeling when setting up a top rope. The group which seemed to be under some instruction had two climbers at the top of a route on a block. The two learners had set up a top rope point and were going to abseil down to the others. I was on another block about 3-4 meters away and so could not really see everything they were doing, but I could hear them talking about their gear. The main focus of their worry was that the belay device did not look right to them.
At this point I take a little more interest. I could see that they had switched one of the ropes going through the belay device so that the free end of the rope came out the opposite side to the free end of the other rope.

So what do you do?

I let the two learners continue, to give the trainer the chance to correct the situation. But as he was on the ground talking and could not see I did not think he would realise. So...

I just mention that it did not look right and that I thought they should try it again.

They just needed the little bit of a push and they got it right the second time.
I feel better but of course it did not stop there. They sort of start waving their abseil point and say that it is a long way down before they would hanging on the anchor. They had done the right thing in light of the top rope, by allowing it to hang over the edge. But this made for an exciting start to the abseil.

This was starting to get to much to do over a 4 meter gap so I said that they need a prusik tied into the free rope. Has the trainer showed you how to do this. They say yes. So I let this go and say good luck.

At this point the trainer solo'ed up to see what they where doing and I was thankfully relieved of my training duty.

I believe it was right to try and stop them from using the belay device incorrectly. In a normal situation if they had forgotten this detail, and I was the trainer, I would have re-checked everything. Which I could not and did not want to do. The trainer never checked the abseil point or placements. The two learners where encouraged by trainer and so abseiled off. They survived.