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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Author
Injury at Spurt Wall
hikingoz
28-Apr-2015
10:26:10 PM
Just after the Easter break a friend of mine took a whipper on Dial-a-lama at Spurt Wall. She fell from the near the clip at the fourth bolt and just barely missed the ground breaking her ankle on the wall.

Anyone else taken a serious whipper on this route?


nmonteith
29-Apr-2015
8:23:22 AM
A friend of mine broke his ankle on that route many years ago. It was caused by a too hard catch from the belayer.
By pulling tight on the rope in a fall the climber was flung hard against the rock.
MichaelOR
29-Apr-2015
12:45:36 PM
Yeah, a friend of mine badly bruised both ankles/feet in taking the fall up high on the route. It certainly wasn't a hard catch, it was just the angle of the wall when he finally made contact. Pretty much unavoidable I would think. It was a decent fall off the hard bit up high.

harold
29-Apr-2015
1:24:20 PM
http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/tnb-eight-ways-to-avoid-braking-bad-the-art-of-the-soft-catch
An article from rock and ice on soft catches. Of course if you're worried about the climber decking it might not be possible, but soft catch is pretty essential to avoid smashing ankles.
Compare Dave Mcleoud's ankle smashing whipper on Rhapsody with a fairly static belay, and then subsequent repeats taking the same whip but with soft catch and their belayors getting launched up.
The worst combination is pushing away from the wall as you fall and then a heavy belayor locking off tight on a gri gri.
kieranl
29-Apr-2015
1:59:13 PM
That would have been a long hop out
Rawpowa!
29-Apr-2015
6:01:13 PM
On 29/04/2015 harold wrote:
>http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/tnb-eight-ways-to-avoid-braking-bad-the-art-of-the-so
>t-catch
>An article from rock and ice on soft catches. Of course if you're worried
>about the climber decking it might not be possible, but soft catch is
>pretty essential to avoid smashing ankles.
>Compare Dave Mcleoud's ankle smashing whipper on Rhapsody with a fairly
>static belay, and then subsequent repeats taking the same whip but with
>soft catch and their belayors getting launched up.
>The worst combination is pushing away from the wall as you fall and then
>a heavy belayor locking off tight on a gri gri.

What are peoples views on this from the article:

2) No slacking. Do not throw out any extra; that only increases the force. As one person posting on Mountain Project puts it, “A longer unchecked fall is not a softer catch. It's what you do to decelerate the climber that softens the catch.”

I've always thought it was better to keep a tight belay so the climber wouldn't generate as much energy that needs to be dissipated. People have told me that giving out slack is better, but my feeling is that they are being pulled off their feet by the higher energy generated and giving a soft catch that way. Whereas because I'm a large guy and belaying typically malnourished climber types I generally have to try to jump to give a soft catch, and if I didn't and just paid out heaps of slack the chances of breaking ankles would be much higher. It seems slightly controversial.
mikllaw
29-Apr-2015
7:14:53 PM
The reason there's so much confusion is that there are 3 different, and often conflicting things you are trying to do:-
1) stop someone hitting something, lock it off, giving high forces. If you're falling off overhanging rock, you will slam in
2) give a soft catch (mostly on poor trad gear). Letting the rope slip (or jumping up if you're light) limits loads, and slightly reduces slamming in on steep routes
3) Reducing slamming in- in a simple world it's best done by giving a metre of slack rather than by giving a soft catch. The lower you are when the rope comes tight, the less the angle of the rope and the less inwards force.


This gets less clear cut when you consider that a soft catch also reduces the vertical force F which drives the horizontal component.

Which combination of slack (3) and soft catch (2) actually works best depends on many factors, climber and belayer weights, rope stretch and drag, climb angle. Both work better than locking off (1).
Rawpowa!
29-Apr-2015
7:53:11 PM
Wouldn't the extra distance fallen lead to a higher force component? Sorry I couldn't actually work out the actual forces. Interesting though, I never considered that.
hikingoz
29-Apr-2015
9:47:57 PM
I heard the belayer took in a length of slack and sat down on the rope to avoid a ground fall so obviously it was a hard catch. I'm more interested to know whether anyone else has had a problem with the distance between bolts on Dial-a-lama.
One Day Hero
29-Apr-2015
9:56:58 PM
On 29/04/2015 hikingoz wrote:
>I'm more interested
>to know whether anyone else has had a problem with the distance between
>bolts on Dial-a-lama.

Nope, I have no problem with the bolt spacing. If you think the bolts are too far apart, go to the blue mountains, or kalymnos, or thailand. Not every cliff is for every climber.
dalai
29-Apr-2015
10:19:11 PM
Found this lovely bum shot on the crag



Are you saying she fell off clipping the 4th bolt or above the 4th bolt? The 4th was already relocated lower and in that section are still pretty close together. There was some intentional spice in the spacing on the crux up higher but this section was retrobolted since so not sure how much closer you want the bolts?

Sorry your friend got hurt but sounds like user error...
hikingoz
29-Apr-2015
10:46:08 PM
I wasn't trying to assert anything One Day Hero. You go to Kalymnos.

I actually haven't been on the route. She fell from near the fourth onto the third. If the bolt spacing is good enough it sounds like an unfortunate mistake.
One Day Hero
29-Apr-2015
11:23:56 PM
On 29/04/2015 hikingoz wrote:
>You go to Kalymnos.

Nah. The climbing looks pretty good, but it's way too trendy and I'm something of a climbing hipster.

>If the bolt spacing is good enough it sounds like an unfortunate
>mistake.

Define "good enough". If the bolts were 30cm apart, your friend would still have a functioning ankle. Of course there's some social status gained by saying that you led a route, but if you never have the bolt below your nose you aren't really leading, are you?

One of the things I quite like about the confused mess that is sport climbing, is how many participants seem to seek the 'esteem' of leading (which was justifiable back when most climbing was dangerous), whilst simultaneously assuming that they are never in danger of physical harm.
Wendy
30-Apr-2015
6:35:06 AM
On 29/04/2015 hikingoz wrote:
>I heard the belayer took in a length of slack and sat down on the rope
>to avoid a ground fall so obviously it was a hard catch. I'm more interested
>to know whether anyone else has had a problem with the distance between
>bolts on Dial-a-lama.

I don't remember feeling like it was that close on the fourth clip? 4th bolt up is a long way up to be worried about a ground fall. Of course, pulling rope out to clip adds to that risk. I almost always feel like falling whilst clipping is not an option on short sport routes. I did a bunch of fall training on that route a few years ago, but it was onto the 5th bolt I think.

On the topic of soft catches - I like to be watched fairly closely because there's something very disconcerting about falling further than you have in the back of your mind that you should be. However, being little, anyone other than little belayers tend to step forward as I come on to the rope to spread some of the impact. I have seen some enthusiastic belaying way away from the cliff in order to really step forward a lot, and I find that rather disconcerting (as well as rather problematic on trad routes). Another technique that Ihave heard worked for others is using an atc style device and having a small amount of slack between the device and the brake hand, so there is some slower running of rope through the device before the actual catch.
kieranl
30-Apr-2015
9:58:32 AM
On short sport routes consider using double-rope technique. If you've got 60 or 70 metres of skinny sport rope there's a lot of spare rope available on a 12 or 15m route to let you treat each end of the rope as a separate rope. This can pretty much eliminate the groundfall risk while clipping. Of course your belayer won't be able to use their grigri (for fun you could use 2 belayers with a grigri each). There are even sport routes where this is recommended (Living with a hernia)
Hikingoz
30-Apr-2015
12:22:19 PM
Thanks everyone for the info
gfdonc
30-Apr-2015
1:49:14 PM
Or clip it first with a sling (so you can clip at waist height, without pulling in rope), then reclip a shorter draw.
Pulling up rope to clip above head height adds a surprising amount to a fall - nearly decked once doing just that when my foot popped as I was about to clip.
BBSR
30-Apr-2015
2:23:55 PM
On 30/04/2015 kieranl wrote:
>On short sport routes consider using double-rope technique. If you've got
>60 or 70 metres of skinny sport rope there's a lot of spare rope available
>on a 12 or 15m route to let you treat each end of the rope as a separate
>rope. This can pretty much eliminate the groundfall risk while clipping.
>Of course your belayer won't be able to use their grigri (for fun you could
>use 2 belayers with a grigri each). There are even sport routes where this
>is recommended (Living with a hernia)

Only thing to be wary of when using single ropes in this way is that if you clip them both through one biner, and they have the same length out, they will pull tight at the same time in a fall, and give a harder catch (and more force on the gear) than one single strand of the single rope by itself. Lots of things you can do to manage this issue (stretchy ropes, care at high fall factor points, alternating clips etc).
kieranl
30-Apr-2015
3:03:30 PM
On 30/04/2015 BBSR wrote:
>Only thing to be wary of when using single ropes in this way is that if
>you clip them both through one biner, and they have the same length out,
> they will pull tight at the same time in a fall, and give a harder catch
>(and more force on the gear) than one single strand of the single rope
>by itself. Lots of things you can do to manage this issue (stretchy
>ropes, care at high fall factor points, alternating clips etc).
>
Correct but clipping both ropes into one piece is mixing twin and double-rope technique. Double rope technique is alternate clipping. There's nothing inherently wrong with clipping both ropes into one piece but you're defeating the purpose of using 2 ropes on a short sport route. You're trying to minimise the fall-risk and maintain a soft catch. If you stick with alternate clips your belayer can anticipate what you are going to do. You need to practise with your belayer too. Paying out 2 metres on one rope while not paying out on the other, and maintaining the belay integrity takes some practice.
oodlesdownhere
1-May-2015
8:42:49 AM
Mikl,
If you claim giving slack reduces the impact on the wall, where does the extra energy from the longer fall go? If you claim it is absorbed by the rope, what are the calculations that determine how much is absorbed? What impacts would occur with a less stretchy rope?

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