slab falls and catches
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To preface, I've been doing this for quite a while, but generally avoid slabs, and when I do slab waddle I keep it pretty mellow. As result, I do not fall or catch others on slabby terrain very much at all. So anyway, due to a recent injury to a partner during fall that I caught, I'm soliciting advice from the slab monkeys out there so that this does not happen again. |
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In my experience, it's best not to climb slab. |
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Agreed...But sometimes, well...you end up on them anyway. |
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Jon Zucco wrote:In my experience, it's best not to climb slab.Or at very least do not fall on slab. |
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I think its all about the climber, soft catch is obviously preferred, but its up to the human meteorite to keep their feet moving and stay squarely facing the wall for the duration of their flight. |
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It is best not to hop on slabs, save that for steep routes. If it's a long run out on slab, the belayer should be trying to reel in as much rope as possible, which could include running down hill if its single pitch. If you want to give a dynamic catch, just take a step forward. |
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I don't think there is a whole lot your belaying can do to help the situation. Unless your at stone mountain or the first pitch of Whitesides and then your best option is to grab rope and run. |
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Jon Zucco wrote:In my experience, it's best not to climb slab.What is wrong with you people? Slab is the most awesomest type of climbing in the history of forever! |
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You can real in the rope, hand over hand..i suggest a back up for this. Soft catch is not allowed. |
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Extending the fall distance is not good in many situations including this one. Since he was near the anchor, there had to be a lot of rope between you and you partner. So it would be a soft catch anyway. |
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If you're on the second or third pitch or whatever, pull as much rope as you can, as fast as you can, through your belay device before locking it off and do not use a Grigri on slabs. If you are still on the ground, and you're not tied in, you definitely want to run for it if you can. (But the guy who knows the most about these kind of situations is John Strand, the Slab King.) |
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Cool, thanks everyone. I do not want to be arrogant and assume that I did everything right, and it sounds like I could have pulled in more rope as he was whipping down. Many years ago I intentionally short roped my wife to keep her from decking after she blew a second clip, resulting in broken foot. In that scenario it was the right decision to keep her off the ground, but I've been very leery about potentially short roping others ever since. |
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What you did was absolutely correct |
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It was his toe that hit, as evidenced by delaminated toecap. There was 100' of rope out, and he fell approximately 30'. It looked like a basic plunge off the wall to me. Afterwards he told me that he tried to push out, but it was feeble because he was gripped, and one of his feet ended up skidding down the wall for the last part of the fall. The slab was steep, just barely less than vertical. |
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the schmuck wrote:It was his toe that hit, as evidenced by delaminated toecap. There was 100' of rope out, and he fell approximately 30'. It looked like a basic plunge off the wall to me. Afterwards he told me that he tried to push out, but it was feeble because he was gripped, and one of his feet ended up skidding down the wall for the last part of the fall. The slab was steep, just barely less than vertical.you did what you could ... if you had belay me i would attribute no fault to you remember with 100 feet of rope out in a dynamic fall, youll get around 10-20 ft+ of stretch from the rope alone an on steeper slabs, giving a hard catch can swing one into the wall partners on fear of flying 11a, classic squamish slab ... people fall on it all the time, ive seen people give hard catches with the climber swinging into the wall i fell on it enough times when i first tried it ... fortunately its fairly blank the other thing to note in squamish alot of the falls you take of cracks (many of whom are lower angle) are basically slab falls ... you can see the crack just to the left which is THE classic 10a in the bluffs ... you did nothing wrong, i would have told you to catch me the same way prior to the climb on these routes i posted edit ... you can see tommy caldwell swing and slam into the dawn wall near vertical "slab" ... at 1:27 youtube.com/watch?v=fpu8cQG… |
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john strand wrote:You can real in the rope, hand over hand..i suggest a back up for this. Soft catch is not allowed.Bingo - except I would suggest "reeling" in the rope - unless you are trying to keep it "real" :-) |