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What would you do?

Original Post
kilonot · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2012 · Points: 0

You are climbing with someone for the first time whom you connected with through the MP partner finder. They claim to have similar or greater experience than you and are leading trad.

You are leading a pitch. You mantle onto a large ledge. Think three feet wide with grass and bushes, but sloping outward. You pause for a minute or two to find a gear placement, plug in a tricam, sling it long and then attempt to start climbing again but suddenly run into immense rope drag, despite the pitch being dead straight. You call down to your belayer asking if they can see what's causing the drag. Since you can't possibly continue climbing with this much drag, even on 5.4, you start looking around for a place to build a belay. You see a tree off to the right and head over to it fighting immense drag the entire way. When you reach the tree, you look down at your belayer and see him texting. Not only is he texting, but to your amazement, he is texting with both hands. You yank some slack through the belay device and he doesn't even look up. You sling the tree and clove to it to make yourself safe and watch your belayer for several minutes, firing off texts with the dexterity of a 13 year old girl. At this point you realize that all that drag was not from the pro but from your belayer not feeding you rope.

In this little story, the rope belongs to the belayer and all the pro, about 10 pieces which were protecting the pitch, belong to the climber. The belayer is using an ATC-XP.

I'll stop the story here and have your opinions on what happens next.

BigJuggsjohnson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2012 · Points: 220

Things like that happen...that's why u weed out. Simple: dump! End of story

Scott McMahon · · Boulder, CO · Joined Feb 2006 · Points: 1,425

bail and rap down on anchors made from his gear.

kilonot · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2012 · Points: 0
Scott McMahon wrote:bail and rap down on anchors made from his gear.
The gear belongs to the climber.
Mark Mueller · · Surprise, AZ · Joined Nov 2011 · Points: 185

piss on him.

Scott McMahon · · Boulder, CO · Joined Feb 2006 · Points: 1,425
ZachR wrote: The gear belongs to the climber.
Oh oops...one eye-ing it this morning.
Ben Brotelho · · Albany, NY · Joined May 2011 · Points: 520

you should DEFINITELY put his name on MP so people know not to climb with this ass-clown in the future.

M Sprague · · New England · Joined Nov 2006 · Points: 5,090

If it was truly that bad, I might even post their name up here. They shouldn't be offering themselves as a competent partner here on MP.

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
ZachR wrote:You are climbing with someone for the first time whom you connected with through the MP partner finder. They claim to have similar or greater experience than you and are leading trad. You are leading a pitch. You mantle onto a large ledge. Think three feet wide with grass and bushes, but sloping outward. You pause for a minute or two to find a gear placement, plug in a tricam, sling it long and then attempt to start climbing again but suddenly run into immense rope drag, despite the pitch being dead straight. You call down to your belayer asking if they can see what's causing the drag. Since you can't possibly continue climbing with this much drag, even on 5.4, you start looking around for a place to build a belay. You see a tree off to the right and head over to it fighting immense drag the entire way. When you reach the tree, you look down at your belayer and see him texting. Not only is he texting, but to your amazement, he is texting with both hands. You yank some slack through the belay device and he doesn't even look up. You sling the tree and clove to it to make yourself safe and watch your belayer for several minutes, firing off texts with the dexterity of a 13 year old girl. At this point you realize that all that drag was not from the pro but from your belayer not feeding you rope. In this little story, the rope belongs to the belayer and all the pro, about 10 pieces which were protecting the pitch, belong to the climber. The belayer is using an ATC-XP. I'll stop the story here and have your opinions on what happens next.
Obviously it'd be time to rap and call it a day.

But for next time, with a different partner, would you have asked more questions prior to deciding whether to meet up with them or not? Gone to a gym with them first?

I recently met up with someone via MP and our outside trad plan got shut down by weather so we went to a gym instead, and another established partner of mine met us there. By the time the drive and the gym visit were over, I was confident that I'd feel very comfortable climbing outside with her, and that turned out to be exactly the case when we went climbing outside the next two days.

Even though I hadn't intended to "screen" her so intensively (her resume looked more than adequate to guarantee a safe belay), I was thinking in hindsight that if I was a little unsure about someone, a gym would be a good place to make up my mind.
Eric D · · Gnarnia · Joined Nov 2006 · Points: 235

I have climbed with people from MP here and there. I have decided that I would rather not climb than climb with someone I don't know.

BigJuggsjohnson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2012 · Points: 220
M Sprague wrote:If it was truly that bad, I might even post their name up here. They shouldn't be offering themselves as a competent partner here on MP.
Silly talk. Everybody thinks of themselves as entitled to be climbed with. Its your responsibility to determine your new partners abilities and is he or is he not full of shit. Like a job interview. That's why there are rules on how to climb with new partners!
BigJuggsjohnson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2012 · Points: 220
Eric D wrote:I have climbed with people from MP here and there. I have decided that I would rather not climb than climb with someone I don't know.
I rope solo or pull people off self belays at gyms ...of course new partner rules always apply. Its a gamble!
Eric Krantz · · Black Hills · Joined Feb 2004 · Points: 420
ZachR wrote:You call down to your belayer asking if they can see what's causing the drag.
What was the response? Was there a response? They didn't feed more rope?

Depending on who drove to the trailhead: Tie the rope around the tree and rap down. Then, "Bye!"
ROC · · Denver, CO · Joined Feb 2003 · Points: 155

Had a similar texting incident happen to me with a long time partner of about 7 years. That was the last time we roped up together.

Sir Spanxalot · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Aug 2012 · Points: 5

I smell a troll, but I heard of a guy in UT getting pretty f--ked up by a belayer taking in slack because he wasn't paying attention (texting) and pulled the guy off!

First, were you outta earshot? I'da yelled "hey f--ko WTF do you think you are doing?". I would have proceeded to get myself safe and get back to the ground by fixing his rope to that tree and single line rapping while pulling my gear. When I reached the ground, I would have proceeded to pound his face with my fist!

I have climbed with strangers, and when I was unable to have another partner their to verify safty from the ground, I went to a crag with a very familiar climb and did the old belay test.

Your lucky buddy, coulda been much worse!

kilonot · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2012 · Points: 0
Eric Krantz wrote: What was the response? Was there a response? They didn't feed more rope? Depending on who drove to the trailhead: Tie the rope around the tree and rap down. Then, "Bye!"
There was no response.

Separate cars.

And leave $400+ of gear in the cliff?
Sir Wanksalot · · County Jail · Joined Sep 2011 · Points: 10

Shit in his backpack when safely back on the ground.

Eric Coffman · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jun 2009 · Points: 735

I had a similar experience meeting a partner over the internet (but many good ones to this one bad one). Only difference was they were honest and told me they wouldn't be comfortable leading. I was okay to lead everything anyways. They turned down weed and alcohol the night before the climb while hanging with me and a few friends but instead snuck off to do some hard drugs (pills? we don't know what but they were out of it 15 minutes after doing whatever they did). I made the decision not to climb with them in the morning and took them home. I hope you made the same decision. We do this to live not to die. I took them home even though I had soloed the multipitch route I had planned to take them up. I let them know they didn't deserve to climb at Tahquitz if they had to hide what they were doing when we were upfront about our party scene.

BigJuggsjohnson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2012 · Points: 220

Its disturbing to hear some responses what people 'would have done' ...excrements aside...get to safety and tell the guy why u think he is not being safe. Be professional about it. Seriously it shows your own character.

Jonas Salk · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Apr 2008 · Points: 10

The term "penalty slack" comes to mind. So what did you end up doing? And for goodness sake, post up the name so no one ends up getting a crappy belay from this person again. Who knows, maybe a public shaming will make them change their ways.

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
Eric D wrote:I have climbed with people from MP here and there. I have decided that I would rather not climb than climb with someone I don't know.
This stance could present some logistical hurdles for a person new to the sport who does not know any climbers.

For what it's worth, I've met 4 of my principal partners online, some of whom I've been climbing with for over 10 years and now are good friends. Glad I didn't miss out on that...you just have go slow and size things up, just like you would with someone you met any other way.
Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

Trad Climbing
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