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Trolling or looking for serious answers? Because if you're looking for a list of recalls, IIRC Mountain Tools has a fairly decent one. |
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I think the op is talking about trad gear placements failing, not necessarily gear breaking due to a defect in design or manufacturing. This could lead to some interesting stories... |
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Gotcha. Sorry about that, Brassmonkey; I took "gear failure" to mean the piece, not the placement. |
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I took a ~50 footer at Seneca last April. I was climbing off-route near Orangeaid (closer to the last pitch of Castor) and fell on a runout after my fifth placement. From what I've pieced together, I pulled out the top placement (a .75 cam) and cross-loaded the biner on my second placement (an offset nut), resulting in at least a 50 ft whipper that put me 15 ft below the belay. I nocked my head on the catch and was unconscious for roughly a minute thanks to my plastic helmet. Once I came to, I climbed up to the belay only to realize that something in my wrist was broken (articular radial fracture). My belay (who had been crying, thinking that she had seen me fall to my death) was adamant about bailing the gear I'd left up, so we proceeded to rap down and hike out with my bleeding head, swollen wrist, and my limp (I also nocked my heel on a ledge). |
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I've had a few cases of gear/rock/placement failure. Nothing too unexpected or due to faulty gear, but just for grins... |
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Glass Tupperware -> The crossloaded biner was bad fortune, though I've heard of other people having issues with the same biner (Mammut Moses). |
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A nosed hooked carabiner can fail at less than 2 KN |
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How about accidentally pulling a decent looking pin out of a rap station by hand while cutting tat off it? |
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My buddy was linking p2 and 3 of Vertigo on Cannon. After the pendulum, he fell in the crux moves right before the end of the pitch. A medium nut pulled, and he fell onto a green c3...total fall distance was probably 25 ft with rope stretch. |
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Eric Chabot- I'm confused about the quickdraw on a nut thing, is this not common practice? |
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mountainproject.com/v/gear-…
I remember reading this in the forums a while back. A very interesting scenario and lucky everyone was okay. I also believe that this was featured in Rock & Ice's accident report; however R&I was pretty vague and left out some critical elements of the story. Go figures... |
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This one is more of a close call than a a big whip but it potentially could have been a fun time for my partner. He was leading the nipple pitch on Zodiac and popped a nut placement about halfway through, taking a nice little 15ft whip onto a #2 BD nut that held just fine. |
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I dont trust anything up to and including a purple camalot by itself
That's silly. Agree with you that Link Cam failures are common enough to not be surprised by anymore. One broke on me in a short fall - one of the cams itself cracked in two just above the axel, causing the placement to fail and a fall that scared me off of pushing my limits for about a year. Those pieces are garbage imo. I've posted about this many times before but it always feels worth it to me. If I can convince even one of you Link Cam using bastards to table 'em, I'll be glad. This is the piece that failed, green Link Cam. This is the piece that saved my life after the Link Cam failed, yellow C3. And it's smaller than a .5 BD. Had this not caught me, I would have decked head first from 40 ft up. BD for life. |
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I believe he was talking about making the first piece of pro a nut.
See this thread for some more info: rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/fo… got it, i thought he was insinuating there is something wrong with clipping a quickdraw onto a stopper. |
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Clipping a shitty nut with a quick draw sets you up for having a bit of a down and out pull instead of straight down, possibly causing the nut to pop out. Always runner a shitty nut with a long sling so, when weighted, its a strait downward pull. I usually always runner long on the smaller nuts, unless they're completely bomber with no chance of popping. This also prevents them from popping out from the rope drag as you climb above them. |
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One of the main items I teach regarding crack climbing is extension. Way too many sport climbers transition into trad climbing and want to directly clip their passive and active pro to the rope. When I trad climb, I carry 6-8 shoulder length runners along with a few draws. Some kids now days just rack a ton of alpine draws which is great too, just make sure to extend them more often than not. Pro cannot be allowed to start slippage=failure. Instant downward force is what is desired. |
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Sirius wrote:I dont trust anything up to and including a purple camalot by itself That's silly.heres a purple camalot pulling ... ive indicated that i dont trust up to and including the purple as a sole piece a while ago ... people said i was crazy then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwZQZSwgOj8 mountainproject.com/v/falli… just because a yellow C3 held you in a particular placement, doesnt mean a small cam should be trusted as the sole piece Sirius wrote: Agree with you that Link Cam failures are common enough to not be surprised by anymore. One broke on me in a short fall - one of the cams itself cracked in two just above the axel, causing the placement to fail and a fall that scared me off of pushing my limits for about a year. Those pieces are garbage imo. I've posted about this many times before but it always feels worth it to me. If I can convince even one of you Link Cam using bastards to table 'em, I'll be glad. This is the piece that failed, green Link Cam. This is the piece that saved my life after the Link Cam failed, yellow C3. And it's smaller than a .5 BD. Had this not caught me, I would have decked head first from 40 ft up. BD for life.ive whipped on all my links several times ...none of them have broken the small purple link cam has seen 10+ whippers to the point the plastic handle is wearing through link cams are fine if used and slung properly ... mine have seem 20+ whippers in all 4 sizes total any gear can "break" ,,, heres a nut from the most "reputable" nut company around ... its seen many whippers ... it held one final fall, but as you can see the thing is toast the DMM brass offsets if cleaned improperly will result in kinked wires which will reduce the strength ... with enough poor cleaning and kinking, the wire can break even on a fairly moderate fall ... like having to place the link cams properly, cleaning brass offsets have to be done with those design limitations in mind as to extending ... i extend almost every piece unless theres a good reason not to .. failing to extend the pieces enough and having them pull or walk is one of the more common beginner errors i see remember that the more drag and zags you have, the less the rope can work for you ... the more the impact force on the gear ... ;) |
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Dow Williams wrote:Pro cannot be allowed to start slippage=failure. Instant downward force is what is desired.18 years ago I decked from 30 or 35 feet off of Rain in Eldorado Canyon. I had slipped and believing I was falling on a bomber larger (#10+) stopper I didn't fight the fall at all. I believe that because I had a short draw on the nut and had climbed to the side of it that what was a bomber placement failed because of the indirect sideways pull on it at the start of the fall. With the lack of good gear on the route I thought it was better to use the shorter draw. The strangest thing is how relaxed the experience was. I thought the piece would hold so I didn't tense up at all and stuck the landing like a gymnast. Bruised heels were and a sore lower back for a week or two were my only ailments. |
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When camalot juniors were introduced I bought a set. I started leading the 2nd pitch of a climb. About 10 feet up I place a red tricam in a crack and then about 1-2 feet higher I placed a camalot junior. When I got just above the camalot junior, the hand hold I was using broke off and I fell. The rope came across the trigger pulling the trigger as I fell causing the camalot to come out. The tricam stopped the fall with me about 1 inch above my belayer's head. The trigger on the camalot was demolished leading me to believe that the rope pulled on the trigger. |
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Sirius wrote:This is the piece that saved my life after the Link Cam failed, yellow C3. And it's smaller than a .5 BD. Had this not caught me, I would have decked head first from 40 ft up. BD for life.Ha! A BD .5 failed on me and a green alien is what kept me from decking. CCH for life! |