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General Climbing Discussion

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Top roping at indoor walls 24-Aug-2010 At 12:45:53 PM hangdog

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The trend towards 2 locking biners came about for the climbing centre that I am involved with around 9 years ago.
At that time we decided that it was appropriate to use a safe and simple dual attachment method. We had attempted to use the clip and tie in method i.e. single figure knot that was in situ and was threaded by the climber. This was backed up by a single locking biner. It became obvious that a lot of people were having problems tying/rethreading the figure 8. This created greater safety issues than were being solved. We decided then to install a second locking biner to replace the figure 8. At some later stage a dual attachment method became part of the NSW Workcover Code of Practice. It could be either dual lockers or single locker and figure 8 knot.
Single biners are unsafe as they can quite easily come undone (even on occasion when initially locked). I believe there were accidents as a result of single biners disconnecting. I have seen on several occasions single locking biners opening and in one case (outdoors) a climber disconnected from the rope and suffered a severe injury when he hit the deck.
I believe that the dumbing down occurred many years ago when climbing centres first became popular with people with no previous climbing experience. The majority of people using climbing centres are unlikely to go outside and climb. If they decide to do this then appropriate instruction would be recommended. I don’t think any climbing centre would state that after completing a belay induction indoors then they would be suitably qualified to take it outside. We all know it’s not really belaying but I haven’t found another word that works!
I hope this goes someway to answering your questions and being a Chockie forum I am certain others will put their comments to the questions as well.