Another accident today (7/14)

I thought I was destined to be the next Wasatch casualty, when I found myself making silly mental errors (but catching them) all last week, and after scrambling toward Schoolroom rappel Saturday (never been there) from Tingey's and having darkness fall. 5/6 rappels later I did land at the base of Schoolroom itself and was alive to greet the official start (midnight) of the next day.

Undaunted and climbing again this morning at Challenge, a pair came down the trail from above (Steort's, Glass Ocean?) and I just happened to make out through the trees that one was limping. Asked if they needed help, they said no (I was on belay), that it was a clean break ("snapped right in two") and they were headed straight to the car. Leaving the canyon later, I noted an ambulance at the UTA lot.

Lastly, throwing in yet another topic, I've been watching an accident thread from my "home" crag of Enchanted Rock, TX, and now the Maple Canyon thread here and I think that the misuse of "auto-locking" belay devices is becoming epidemic. I have yet to see a substantiated report of one "failing", but user error leads me to weigh in on the side of reserving these devices for experienced, ATTENTIVE belayers that do not treat them as "hands-off" tools.

I would take it a step further and say we should reserve belaying for experienced, attentive people.

Tom,

Your response is well reasoned, but, I think, impractical. You've managed to exclude several whole categories of belayers; girlfriends, Scout Masters, and half the Wasatch Mountain Club.

And now I've managed to offend them in an effort to get a laugh...sorry girlfriends.

How do you become experienced if you're never allowed to do it?

Steve Pulver wrote:How do you become experienced if you're never allowed to do it?

Texaswal can you please briefly elaborate, based on your observations and/or experience, how an auto-lock can fail (user error) outside of your belayer not paying attention..?

thanks in advance

kirra wrote: Texaswal can you please briefly elaborate, based on your observations and/or experience, how an auto-lock can fail (user error) outside of your belayer not paying attention..? thanks in advance

Texaswall, hilarious!

Seems common that folks don't use a brake hand when using an autolocker. The method of feeding the rope slack out defeats the auto lock feature, it seems. So, when folks use the pinky finger style grip on a gri gri to keep it from camming (or whatever other method) to feed rope, if they don't release this and use a brake hand, and the device is open to feed rope, it will.

I've heard of folks being pulled into the rock, or, having a auto locking device get pushing into them, and have the thing stay open. Also, if you have gear clipped low on the route and you get sucked into it, the biner can keep the gri gri from auto locking. Etc.

Was a recent incident at the gym where a guy hit deck from the top of a route, being belayed by a gri gri. No brake hand, pinch to feed slack kept the device from locking. Only takes a second.

Anyhoo, see especially 3A and 3D:

en.petzl.com/ProduitsServic…

-Brian in SLC

Can someone cite some sources for all of these Gri-gri accidents that are supposedly happening? There seems to be so much hearsay about their safety that I'm not sure what to believe.

Put THEM on the sharp end.

The only two times I've ever been dropped were with inexperienced belayers using grigris. They were both in a gym, if you can imagine that.

has anyone tried out the new auto-lock device by SUM? The product is called Fader? or something like that. It is supposed to eliminate some of the problems that Grigri's have, i.e. threading backwards, clamping down the camming device to feed rope, etc.

And what d you think the results of the same inattention described above would be while using a stitch plate or ATC?

I do agree that people need to be more attentive, but in the majority of uses, an autolock belay device is far superior.

I knew I shouldn't have thrown in that last tangential topic. I don't want to read about personal experiences and preferences with fadereddygricinches. I want to hear from people that are out there climbing in the Wasatch with frequency, not folks that spend their employed (or unemployed) hours trolling and extolling on the climbing forums.

I wanted someone to chime in on what happened above me yesterday in the Dead Snag or beyond, because I'm curious.

Also, I was wondering why, especially after reading the description below regarding the walkoff from Tingey's Terror, being pretty darn sure that I finished the Terror right at the big pine on the "regular" route, that I was so clueless as to where to go, finding no obvious path to a rappel station.
Someone placed three new rap stations on the walkoff to the schoolroom raps and disguised it as a 5.2 route (with lots of bolts between stations). Kind of an eyesore IMO to see a bunch of bolts and chains all over up there on such easy ground. I know the walk off sucks...but its not THAT bad. mountainproject.com/v/utah/…

sorry to have taxed you tex

Texaswall said, "I thought I was destined to be the next Wasatch casualty, when I found myself making silly mental errors (but catching them) all last week, and after scrambling toward Schoolroom rappel Saturday (never been there) from Tingey's and having darkness fall. 5/6 rappels later I did land at the base of Schoolroom itself and was alive to greet the official start (midnight) of the next day.

Also, I was wondering why, especially after reading the description below regarding the walkoff from Tingey's Terror, being pretty darn sure that I finished the Terror right at the big pine on the "regular" route, that I was so clueless as to where to go, finding no obvious path to a rappel station."

Hmmm. Done the route a few times. There's really not a path per se. Seems like I've always walked on low angle slabs over to the standard rappel off Schoolroom (which won't ever leave a path). Its way further over than you'd think. Most likely, you didn't go far enough. Pretty hard to discern its exact location from above and to the east if you've never been to it before. Helps to note that the rappel station is on the west side of the buttress, and, you come off right across from the Green A area (like, almost straight across from All Chalk, Touch Up, Perhaps). Used to be, most folks were "shown" the route to the standard rappel.

So, you kinda end up cutting across the top of the Hook, etc, all the way over until you can scramble down loose and non slab type terrain but not so far you go to the edge of the abyss. Down until you hit the ledge that the rap anchor is on, or, you dodge to the climber's left and down climb sans rope (fixed rope there last I checked).

Really helps to suss out the location by climbing Perhaps, etc, or, doing one of the routes that go up to that anchor, or, Hatchet Crack etc.

-Brian in SLC

Bryan,

You're absolutely right and you're absolutely one of the people that I hoped would weigh in. Like most accidents and epics that are the result of human error, it's not one, but a series of unforunate events that ultimately lead to that outcome.
I started the route relatively late. I went straight up from Tarzan and was unwilling to traverse below the roofs into the gulley below Terror, electing to have my second go to the trees. He was unwilling to runout the black streak to get directly below the three-bolted face and I was unwilling to do the traverse from the chain anchors, instead going up the rotten right facing flake to the chains below the 5.9 face variation. We rapped down to Fudd's and I insisted on finishing Terror. I've never done Schoolroom to its finish or Hatchet Crack and assumed it would be relatively easy to figure out the scramble to Schoolroom rappel, scaring my partner as we soloed up and then over above the finishing Terror-tree.
Even experienced climbers make mistakes and those of us that are grade and fear challenged can really pay.

In regards to trying the SUM Fader - I tried it last year. Hard to feed rope. Far from smooth. I tried it side by side with the Eddy and Gri Gri. I thought it was the least smooth and had an overt amount of friction when pulling the rope in and out.

I saw a gri gri accident in the gym this past winter (I happened to be looking right over when the accident occurred). Two experienced climbers. Belayer not paying attention, blindly feeding out slack during a clip when the climber came off the severly overhanging route. Climber fell 30 feet sideways to the deck, bounced. Immediately stood up and then sat back down thinking it better to see if there was any damage. I looked over at the belayer after 5-6 seconds - he still had a grip on the gri gri cam and a jaw on the floor.

Seems most of it is inattentive belaying. Climbing is dangerous. Its easy to forget that fact. The gri gri is a good device, people just get lazy belaying.

Matt

if the accident was up at the glass ocean I wouldn't doubt if someone decked on the ledge about a 1/4 of the way up. Pretty good ankle breaking ledge below some crimpy climbing if your not doing the ocean proper.

probably not something in attentive belayer's control.

Well, I was the wasatch casualty that was limping out of the canyon the other day. I was about half way up High Dive (just before the first bolt) and took what should have been a clean fall (12 footer)with no ankle breaking ledges but....I came off and happened to tweak my ankle on a protruding feature and snapped my talus (apparently that is the bone I broke). Just goes to show you can have fall after fall with no problems and then some freak thing eventually happens. However, I did get very good at crab walking and hopping on one foot all the way back to the parking area. I can't wait to get out climbing again and finish high dive..Probably be a month or two though..

paintrain wrote:In regards to trying the SUM Fader - I tried it last year. Hard to feed rope. Far from smooth. I tried it side by side with the Eddy and Gri Gri. I thought it was the least smooth and had an overt amount of friction when pulling the rope in and out. Matt

Matt, thanks for the info on the SUM Fader. I have been using a grig for 13+ years and will continue to do so until an improved device comes out.

Shaun,

Thanks for the details on the accident and satisfying my morbid curiosity. I wish you a speedy recover. I left Challenge Buttress feeling guilty in hindsight that I didn't insist on assisting. You guys did seem to be focused on the task at hand, amazingly calm and in control.

paintrain wrote:In regards to trying the SUM Fader - I tried it last year. Hard to feed rope. Far from smooth. I tried it side by side with the Eddy and Gri Gri. I thought it was the least smooth and had an overt amount of friction when pulling the rope in and out.

The SUM sucks on ropes >10mm for feeding, but if you use it for a proper sporto rope (~9.5mm), it feeds better than any device out there by far. I can dump a stack of [9.4mm] slack out with my SUM 2X faster than with any other device.

It's a matter of using the right device for the right rope: Gri Gri's for thicker cords and a SUM/Eddy for thinner cords. A 10.5mm rope feeds fine in a Gri Gri and barely moves through a SUM; whereas, a 9.1mm rope won't lock up in a Gri Gri and is perfect in a SUM. There is no "one size fits all" autolocker.

It would be pretty challenging to load a SUM backwards too. The whammy bar would be on the bottom, and you'd really have no excuse for such a mistake. The Eddy loads the opposite of a Gri Gri however so you gots to pay some attention there.