back clipping

What is the nastiest result you have seen happen from an un-noticed back clip?

Scoffing/heckling from the belayer plus a general loss of climber credibility.

In the gym: being called a newb, laughed at, failing the lead test.

Outside: a yelp from belayer if its noticed

Kia Marie wrote:^^^^ ditto. is back clipping a legitimate concern? i've always been told it is and correct it when i back clip by mistake, but i had a friend tell me the other day that he doesn't worry about it. is he being dangerous, or am i being uptight?

It is absolutely dangerous. Specially with bent gate caribiners. If whoever taught you how not to didn't expain, and show you why, then I would ask around for a demonstration. It is really easy to explain in person, with a draw in hand.

Kia Marie wrote:^^^^ ditto. is back clipping a legitimate concern? i've always been told it is and correct it when i back clip by mistake, but i had a friend tell me the other day that he doesn't worry about it. is he being dangerous, or am i being uptight?

Kia, you are not being uptight. Your friend is either an idiot or lazy (probably both). Backclipping is no big deal in the same way that climbing with your leg behind the rope is no big deal. Neither of these things are a problem 95% of the time. The problem is, when it is a problem, you are probably going to get hurt or worse.

Ask yourself this: If your partner falls at the third clip (before clipping...say 25 feet up) and the second draw unclips itself from the rope and your partner decks, are they gonna be f'ed up from that 25 foot fall onto jagged rocks at the base of the climb?

Besides, it takes next to zero effort to make sure you are clipping correctly and keeping your leg out from behind the rope. Is your friend's laziness so complete that he cannot manage this simple task? And you let him belay you? Hmmmm.

Ian has it on the dot.

It's a legit concern just like what not you are tying in with or how you setting your nuts in that crack (if you do it that way). You won't die because you back clipped and climbed the section to the next pro w/o falling. Similar as if you place a crappy piece of pro and then place a better piece 5 ft up. For the majority of the time it doesn't matter if you don't fall on it.

like many many things in our world, its a simple, 1 second thing to do that elimates what may be argued is a small chance of something bad happening.

Kia, it's pretty scary when you see how it works. Try this:

Hold a biner horizontally in front of you, and bring the end of a rope UP through the biner. When you pull the rope down, the biner will catch the rope.

Now, hold the biner in front of you again, but this time thread the rope DOWN through the biner, and then back up on the outside of the biner alongside the gate. (This is what you are doing when you back clip.) This time, when you pull the rope down and if you cross over the biner, there is a good chance the rope will wrap around the gate and pull it open, and in the process drop completely out of the biner.

Is this going to happen every time you fall on a draw that has been back clipped? No, but why risk it at all, when it is so easy to clip a quick draw correctly?

It's simple to avoid, and can have disastrous consequences just like others have said. When I demonstrated (standing safely on the ground) the unclipping that can result from a back-clipped draw, my buddy just stared at me with his eyes bugging out. About 10 seconds later he mustered up this timeless line: "Holy sh*t!"

Will Anglin wrote:Clip correctly, it's just not worth it.

Nobody's advocating back clipping here.

I would add, however, that this is most important when sport climbing or using quickdraws where the dogbone is stiff enough to keep the carabiner in position. With a thin 60cm runner and a carabiner that's flopping every which way, I don't worry about it so much.

I've seen a back clipped chain draw with a wire gate unclip in a fall, it was not the top draw though.

A groundfall.

my first lead (try) when i was a kid, i got to the fifth clip in the gym, back clipped it, fell. when i fell, the back clipped draw puked out my rope but my end of the rope clipped all the rest of the draws on the way down. it was kind of funny, but i learned my lesson.