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Is trad climbing safe if you're fat?
NickMartel wrote:I am 6'1" and 235 or so and the times I have fallen on gear it has held with the exception of a micro nut that I knew was not that good and standing a KB on an aid climb. As many others have said if you place solid gear it will hold. However, as a heavy climber you WILL put more force on the gear so mediocre placements will be in greater danger of blowing. Maybe consider using screamers on anything questionable or just on everything if it really worries you. I outweigh my wife and partner by 110 pounds and we are fine climbing together. She usually elects to belay me with a Gri-Gri and on trad routes she will usually anchor with 6-8' of slack (so that she doesn't end up ripping the 1st piece out if she gets yanked up to it, which is not an issue on sport routes). If climbing is your primary activity then yes loosing weight would potentially help you, however, it sounds like climbing is more of an occasional recreational activity for you. Don't let the scrawny climbers pressure you into loosing weight if you are happy with you life and body. For all we know loosing weight might risk your NFL paychecks just to tick a few more routes :)Thank you. Your post is 100% the information I'm looking for. |
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YER-GONNA-DIE |
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There are a couple of other instances where climbing with a trad fattie are totally safe -- zombie apocalypse and bear attack. I think some are way too dismissive, failing to realize the trad fattie importance when trying to outrun the onslaught, and we need not necessarily outrun the attacker in question but our more than welcomed safety net of a, uh, climbing partner. |
Mike Belu wrote:Agree with the last post about hitting ledges. Know the area and route as much as possible. Some areas are notorious for having ledges and nice rests, then 20ft of 5.10 climbing, but since most of the route is easy, grade is still 5.6 or 5.7.What areas don't grade the route by the hardest moves? That would be retarded. Even if it's 190ft of 5.4 climbing, if you can't make the 5.10 moves you shouldn't be on the route. I've never seen a place that doesn't grade based on the hardest move. Sometimes there is also a paranthesis like 5.9 (5.4 X) to indicate that the hardest moves on the climb are 5.9, but there is a section of 5.4 with deadly fall potential. In fact, places like the Gunks might use a +/- sign below 5.10 to indicate if a route is sustained or just a move or two. A 5.6- might be 5.3 with a move of 5.6 and a 5.6+ might be a lot of 5.6 climbing. I think the British system might grade like you think the YDS is graded, only they account for the most difficult move + the overall difficulty. But I'm not familiar enough with that system to make blanket statements, just my interpretation of the the way it works. |
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Kirby, I have a question for you: how much weight do you need to bring to dive (assuming you have a dry suit in your line of work) ? Assuming you dive steel I am very curious about that. Does your present body weight hurt your career? |
Kirby1013 wrote: Thanks for all the replies and good advice! I enjoyed the silly comments and advice I didn't want too. I should've thought out a better title! I wanted something catchy but now I see it sounds like I'm asking if trad climbing is safe. Haha.. I really just wanted to know if well placed gear will pop out because I'm 270. I was hoping to hear from guys close to my weight that have fallen on gear. Might be waiting while on that one. Nicelegs, Matt's right.. You come off like a real d*ck. You are right none the less.. I should lose weight. The last 80 pounds isn't functional for climbing but climbings not my entire life. I think if I put more efffort into wanting to be a better climber I would lose weight. My friends love to climb with me. They catch me just fine on bolts.The heaviest I've been is about 205, and I've taken lots of whippers and never pulled a piece. |
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Serpico, my point was to know the area you're climbing in, and be aware of sandbagged routes. 5.6 or 5.7 rating with 5.10 moves was probably too exaggerated. |
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Looks like I either misread or you didn't write it well. |
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270? Yeah, so I'd pass on belaying you. Good luck to you. |
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Its probably been said, but in all seriousness, you are probably going to die. |
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About gear "popping out"... |
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if someone is trying greenspit, the hardest crack in euroland ... they probably know how to place cams  coolclimbing.com/rockgearbr… from metolius and steph davis .... When using micro gear, the order of the day is to place many backup pieces…so that if you blow out the top two, the third backup piece may hold your fall. Sometimes you will place up to 5 or 6 backup pieces above a crucial crux section (& know that you have some full strength pieces below those should they all fail!) Retreat is (almost) always an option! And for the beginning /intermediate climbers the wise one. Only seasoned experts have the judgment to gun for the anchors when running it out over micro gear. And even they must carefully weigh all the consequences and determine what if the piece(s) do pull, what will I hit, is it a clean fall, etc? So units that are rated below 9kN aren’t necessarily aid pieces, but as pieces in the equipment chain get smaller and smaller…the consequences of their integrity should be heavily questioned. And at a certain point…the smallest pieces (micro gear) should really be thought of as able to hold body weight only (or referred to as aid pieces) – for safety’s sake! highinfatuation.com/blog/sm… and we wont even talk about limestone ... heres a well placed DMM gray dragon (same as camalot #4) ... youtube.com/watch?v=MW1teH6… to the OP ... small gear fails, rock fails ... your weight will increase the odds of this happening somewhat ... as to MPers who always place perfect gear ... its like those who say they drive perfectly and never get into accidents ... it may be true, but that doesnt mean it wont happen to you or them eventually ... the more you fall the higher the chance and if you are at your true limit, especially on pumpy onsights ... you WILL place less than stellar gear on occasion again ill post up the actual data and modelling that folks ignore in favor of "gear wont pull" ... the actual PMI tests and the subsequent modelling shows that each ~25 lb increase may add another KN or so to even less severe falls  of course in real life we arent steel weights, wear harnesses and are quite squishy ... but the basic premise remains ... the heavier you are the more force you will be putting on the gear AND the rock on a bomber #3 camalot in a perfect granite placement at the end of a straight pitch this may not be a concern on a #0 TCU in soft sandstone off the belay ledge i would be quite concerned ... |
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Bearbreeder, thanks for all the information and links. I appreciate all the advice you've wriiten past and present. |
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As has already been pointed out, the gear is a issue but it isn't the issue. |
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nice post bearbreeder. |
Ray Pinpillage wrote:As has already been pointed out, the gear is a issue but it isn't the issue.Haha, I always enjoy your comments. As I already pointed out I'm looking for as many stories I can read about big or fat guys falling on gear. I'm looking to boost my confidence by hearing these stories. I know what needs to be done from placing good pro to me losing weight. As I said before I was trying for a catchy title. I understand it's not 100% safe to trad climb at any weight. I guess I should've titled the thread "I wanna hear about your trad falls if you weigh over 200" Wish me luck! I'm leaving right now to going climbing this weekend. One of my partners is 52 and 140 lbs. He catches me better than my friend who weighs 210. Eric, good way of summing it up. I'm more of the placing a #2 on a 5.5 than doing a finger crack placing no 1 tcu. |
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Sounds like you're perfectly comfortable leading on ice... I'm usually more concerned about ice screws blowing out than trad gear. But maybe I'm backwards. I'm about 190 and haven't blow anything yet. |
J. Serpico wrote: What areas don't grade the route by the hardest moves? That would be retarded. Even if it's 190ft of 5.4 climbing, if you can't make the 5.10 moves you shouldn't be on the route. I've never seen a place that doesn't grade based on the hardest move. Many/most places don't grade by hardest move (any more). This isn't saying that if the climb is, as you suggest, almost all 5.4 with a single 5.9 move it won't be graded 5.9. This is saying that if you have a climb that is a series of continuous, without rest, 5.9 moves for that 190ft, that climb will be noticeably harder to do than the climb which is all 5.4 moves except for a single 5.9 crux. And that the continuous series of 5.9 moves climb would, actually, be graded harder than 5.9 -- probably at least mid 5.10. Yet, if you graded both of those by "single hardest move" they would both be 5.9 climbs -- distinctly under-grading the sustained series of 5.9 moves climb. J. Serpico wrote: In fact, places like the Gunks might use a +/- sign below 5.10 to indicate if a route is sustained or just a move or two. A 5.6- might be 5.3 with a move of 5.6 and a 5.6+ might be a lot of 5.6 climbing. I think the British system might grade like you think the YDS is graded, only they account for the most difficult move + the overall difficulty. But I'm not familiar enough with that system to make blanket statements, just my interpretation of the the way it works.Generally the +/- is not used to indicate sustained/not-sustained at the grade, but easier/harder end of the grade in question. Historically, YDS was single-hardest-move grading. That has fallen by the way-side, and was on its way to history even 20 years ago. The British trad grading system of adjectival grade (e.g. HVS) combined with number rating (e.g. 5a) does include hardest single move. The adjectival is an overall "how difficult does this feel", including exposure, quality of gear, difficulty of moves, sustainedness of moves, etc. The letter grade is a single-hardest move grade. There is a general expected match-up between adjectival and hardness grades, and if they vary from that, they can give a feel for the climb. |
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I use getting puckered over RP's in Eldo as motivation not to eat shitty food. I too would trust a micro cam or some brass before ice screws, but that's not a fair argument. A good screw is as good as a good cam. |
Kirby1013 wrote: Haha, I always enjoy your comments. As I already pointed out I'm looking for as many stories I can read about big or fat guys falling on gear. I'm looking to boost my confidence by hearing these stories. I know what needs to be done from placing good pro to me losing weight. As I said before I was trying for a catchy title. I understand it's not 100% safe to trad climb at any weight. I guess I should've titled the thread "I wanna hear about your trad falls if you weigh over 200" Wish me luck! I'm leaving right now to going climbing this weekend. One of my partners is 52 and 140 lbs. He catches me better than my friend who weighs 210. Eric, good way of summing it up. I'm more of the placing a #2 on a 5.5 than doing a finger crack placing no 1 tcu.You brought up being fat, I only said weight. I would be more concerned about your belayer than the effects of your weight on the gear. |
