Big Fall. looking for critique

Kyle Cobbler wrote:at some point I found myself wondering if leashes would have saved my ass, I believe they would have.

If by leashes, you mean umbilicals (e.g., BD Spinner) I would caution you against that. Umbilicals are ONLY meant to keep you from dropping a tool, and are neither designed, nor mean to catch a fall. Best case scenario there is you break the tether and still fall (they're only rated to 2KN). Worst case, it pulls your tool and now you have a tool flying towards you as you fall.

Overall, my rule is this: Never lead what you wouldn't solo. I've found that mentality has kept me well grounded as I approach different climbs.

Glad you're ok.

I would add separately that it is really important, as part of being patient, to take shakes and rests when and where you get them. Keeps you from getting pumped and/or frozen hands. Gives your calves a rest too.

I like to use that time to look around and do a little planning as far as what is coming next.

And it is kinda hard to tell from the picture but it looks like the ice near and left of your 2nd screw (that pulled) is highly chandeliered (i.e. bonded icicles), which is not so bueno a place to be placing picks and pons, never mind place gear.

Guessing that your screw may have pulled for that reason.

Just a thought. If that screw held, you may not have decked and you may have a tib-fib break to show for it.

Kinda puts feeling beat up for a few days into perspective.

As for why you fell, it's because you climbed. Same reason any of us fall.

@jwong I was attempting to place the screw at chest/stomach level. I believe you are seeing my axe that is above my head in the top pic.

Glad your OK (relatively).
That's a burly first lead! From what I can see it looks like you're through the hardest part, was it just being pumped? Perhaps a higher and very solid placement with your left axe would've helped, as you could've hung straight-armed instead of being kinda of scrunched in that position. On another note, I've been leading a lot of ice lately and my calves tend to get more pumped than my arms....perhaps that coupled with wobbly legs did the trick?? As far as placing more screws its all relative. (more screws takes longer therefore you're pumped quicker)
Keep climbing!
Nick

What route were you on?

I was for sure through the hardest part, a better left axe probably would have helped, I believe it moved? just before I fell. It was more a slip because of sloppiness as I fumbled to place the screw than it was the climb being to hard for me, like I said I have TR climbed this many times without issues. That said it obviously was over my head for a lead climb, because, well, I fell. Route has sensitive access and therefore will not be shared sorry.

Kyle Cobbler wrote: I am not entirely clear what happened next but I slipped.

How was your heel? Was it up or down? Are your crampons a good fit? Were your secondary pts engaged?

Kyle Cobbler wrote: Heel was up and down and all around, I was at that spot for too long, and the flash pump was getting to me, almost dropped the screw a couple times and knew I was a little up shit creek at the time, but thought I had a good enough stance to place gear. Crampons are a good fit, secondary points were engaged.

When your foot slipped chances are your secondaries werent engaged and your heal was up. I think Will Gadd just posted something about this. Not to break rule #1 but for the longest time I thought I had could fitting crampons until I really found out what good fitting crampons are. Look at blogs from Dane on Cold Thistle. Lots of good literature. Really glad your okay, good rule of thumb is 100+ pitches of TR before leading ice.

Glad you are ok. A few thoughts:

1. You were relying on one piece of gear to keep you off the ground. People do this way more than they should. Placing screws every 10 feet (or any equal interval) puts you in a lot of risk. Screws should be placed close together at the bottom of a climb and above ledges, as someone else wrote above. I'm always asking myself what will I hit if I fall, what will I hit if the piece below me fails.

2. More miles of ice climbing on TR would help. Gadd suggests 100 pitches before you lead. Sounds like a lot, and it is, but not that hard if you have a good partner and you devote 5 to 15 days of just getting in lots of pitches on top-rope. I've been climbing ice for over 20 years, and I still have top-rope sessions where I try to climb over 1000 ft. Did one yesterday and have another planned for thursday to get me tuned up to lead steep lines at Lake Willoughby. Even pro climbers do this...no better training.

3. Devote some time to practicing placing screws. You can do this by yourself right off the ground. With practice you can place and clip one in well under a minute.

4. Was your screw perfectly sharp? Little burrs on the teeth can make screws MUCH harder to place. Likewise new style screws (manufactured in the last ~ 8 years by BD and Petzl) are WAY better than older versions.

5. Think about why your screw failed. No way we can tell from the picture. Of course, the ice was not strong where the threads were.

6. That spot you fell from is a rest for experienced climbers. They stand sideways on their whole foot, they stem, they kick out at little ledge for the whole foot, etc. Practice finding those rests. You can do this just bouldering around a couple feet off the ground, while you practice placing screws. Practice french technique.

7. My guess is that you fell because your foot blew. This is a technique thing.

8. Do you next leads soon, but on something REALLY easy. No need to be spooked by leading.

Bottom line is (A) more practice in a more controlled environment, like on TR or a couple feet off the ground bouldering. And (B) read up on best locations for screw placements.

Glad you are OK.

Several tips

From the pic you shared... you are not on some thin delicate thin ice smear.
If you are getting tired (mistake #1 leading) slam that tool in the ice and clip it to your harness. Don't be afraid to chill and relax on a led.
I have gotten two screws up before deciding my boot was too loose, slammed in my ice tool clipped it with my PAS (gahh yes I use those) it re-did my boot on lead. Find ways to build personal anchors on lead, what I mean is make a safe place to chill out while. drive a screw in clip your ice tool or something. then you can scope the route, shake off a pump or what ever. There are many way to attach your self to the ice.

Keep the heels down. looking at the top picture you heels are too high. And not just down use your shin muscles to physically pull you toe upward. You can and should be able to feel the stability of the crampon. it its feeling sketchy you probably didn't have the secondary points in the ice.

If you can Not get the secondary points engaged than you crampon are not adjusted properly.

Try to not place screws in the middle of the crux or at the top of bulges(or other awkward movements). Place screws in a safe and stable stance and fire through the hard part and then place another screw.
Placing more screws may have simply made for a smaller fall. You have balance the pro out so you are protected but don't place so much you tire your self out.

Congrats that you were not hurt, now your next challenge will be to overcome your new fear of falling on lead and not let it rob you of the joy of leading.

What Jeff J has to say is very important. Ice is not a gym or sport climb....doing it clean or without a take is not important. Do what you have to do to be sure you don't take a fall and to collect your nerve. You escaped this time and many of us have at least once, but remember the odds of escaping twice without major consequences in an ice fall is very high.

You are a good man to share at the risk of ridicule. Very selfless and commendable...I would climb with a person of your character anytime.

Sorry to hear about the fall, glad you're okay

My $.02 (besides that which has already been said vis a vie leading ice should be thought of as free soloing with a pretty rope below you) comes from Rock Warrior's Way - rather than climb crux to crux, climb rest to rest. Especially with ice climbing, one should always know where the next rest (hopefully) is, and where / when you're going to place your next piece of pro.

Also, some quick physiology for you (3rd year med student here, can't resist) - when you start feeling panicked / nervous, your body dumps loads of epinephrine, cranking up your sympathetic nervous system (aka fight or flight), which will allows grandmas to life cars off grandkids, but for our discussion has the delightful side-effect of giving truly debilitating tunnel vision. Good screw placements, ideal resting positions, etc, are simply unable to be seen unless they're in a 1-2' circle smack dab in front of your eyes. This is further exacerbated by the fact that it becomes a feed-forward system: the more nervous you get, the more the sympathetic system is activated, narrowing your field of vision, cranking up your internal "oh s--t" meter, which in turn makes you more nervous.

Deep, slow breaths and Valsalva maneuvers (attempting to breath out against a closed mouth, just like when try to take a big dump) will activate your parasympathetic nervous system (aka rest and digest) and help to counteract the vicious symp chain. It's obviously easier said than done, but my guess is that you had a good few seconds of "oh bad, oh s--t, oh bad" before the fall. Next time (hopefully there will be a next time, only real way to conquer the fear), when that cycle begins, try breaking it with parasymp activation techniques. These have held me in good stead when I'm pushing my limits on ice or rock.

Good luck, hope the recovery goes well! If there's anything medical that you're not understanding (there's a ridiculous amount of jargon that can get thrown around), feel free to PM me.

Thanks for posting

Lots of good points here, and some I don't agree with (don't lead what you wouldn't solo is the worst imho), but whatever.

One thing that stands out for me in the first picture: are you actually not holding onto any of your tools? In general that is a really, really bad idea. It's quite easy to get off balance, especially with the occasionally significant forces you need to exert on the screw to place it. Place the screw with one hand, including the trickiest initial part of getting it to bite. If you're struggling with the placement and your on-the-tool hand is getting tired, or your calves are getting pumped, or whatever is sketching you out, then take a break, swap hands (or even hold both tools), rest, and then get back to your one-hand placement. Basically, a solid hand on a solidly placed tool will stop you from falling if your feet slip, or even if you just lose balance.

(There will be cases that warrant both hands off the tools, but even if you think you're in one, you should stop and think very carefully about it, and then be extra cautious with every body movement, fingers, breath and all.)

If it's hard to think about it in terms of ice but you climb trad, think of being on a slab, on semi-tenuous footholds and no handholds, and trying to place (and clip) gear. (Good) ice allows you to avoid this delicate balancing act altogether.

Thanks for posting this kyle. if more people actually posted without fear of being flamed by some of the assholes who use this site we would have a lot more good discussions about how to prevent accidents. Heres a list of some things that you probably could have done differently

1. Pick an easier climb
2. theres no reason to be getting extremely pumped on ice. you can rest and shake out at almost any point.
3. you got scared (like everyone does on thier first couple leads) and probably overgripped and got a littel tunnel vision and forgot about making good foot placements. your left foot is bad and your heel is way up.
4. your screw blew because you didnt clear away the ice from the surface. 13s are only good when placed in cold ice, anything brittle or wet isnt going to hold a fall. longer screws penetrate more deeply and get to the good ice. Also if you hit a pocket of air while placing the screw its a bad placement.
5. keep a hand on your tools at all times

but also shit happens sometimes. Pushing the grades and leading on ice and mixed is inherently dangerous. plenty of skilled and pro climbers have taken falls, learn from your mistakes and be happy it wasnt worse. glad youre okay and glad you chose to share this. good luck with your recovery!

Hi Kyle,
I have been leading ice for 15 years. I started on Water ice 2, and 3. I made sure the conditions were good and I placed allot of screws, 17cm- 22cm.
I feel fine soloing WI 2 now, but still place screws in WI 3.
Many people say here, don't lead if you think you might fall, are pumped, or sketched out.
That is really true, but sometimes I still might find myself on a WI 5 or 6 that has me pumped and sketched out. I have learned to down climb to a good stance. Or in desperation clipped a draw to my tool and my belay loop ( I use leashless/ tetherless) making sure it is a bomber placement.
I have seen Canadian climbers use a aluminum rap ring attached to bottom of tool with webbing for an easy thing to clip, having a pre gurthhitched sling on belay loop.
As someone else said, have patience and get allot of TR time in.

Kyle, can't help you on the ice advice, but if you're looking for some recovery reading material you might want to check out Steve Roper's Camp 4 Recollections book if you haven't already read it. Interesting history some of which was covered in Valley Uprising, but also his own brief and nearly tragic foray into ice climbing. Get better and learn and the ice will be back next year. In the meantime get some more scratches on that link cam than I did! Sorry to read about that GriGri mess too. Take care.

Hi Kyle, glad you're OK given the circumstances.

Many good comments here. Agree to most of them. This looks pretty stout for a first-lead, and it sounds from your description that your technique was not fully up to the task.

I'm a quite new leader myself, and I find that good foot-placements are key. If you get pumped while screwing you don't have good enough feet. They need to be leveled for you to be in balance, and unless its very steep (WI5) you should be able to have most of your weight on your feet. This will both keep you from getting pumped, and simply make you relax a bit more as you are in balance. If I'm getting stressed I try to get good feet.

When in balance with weight on your feet you can focus on the screwing (without freaking out), change hands and shake it off, or clip a quickdraw into an axe. In this way you always have a "plan B" if things are starting to get out of control. I always have a quickdraw attached to my belay-loop when leading, just in case.

This realization has certainly made leading more doable for me. If I'm not careful with my foot-placements it'll come back to me immediately.

A good exercise is to find a pillar and screw in all the screws you got on top rope, practicing screwing (right and left hand), feet, etc etc.

Wish you a good recovery!

Just to echo what others have said, that looks pretty stout for a first ice lead. A better choice might have been something more in the WI2 or really easy WI3 with lots of ledges to place from. If it does not seem laughable easy to climb then it is probably to stout for a first ice lead.

One thing I would really emphasize is focusing on your feet, and more specifically getting off your front points. Early ice leads really should not involve placing screws while on both front points. Chop or kick yourself a little ledge for one of your feet if none exists. Get one foot flat and the whole world seems different. Get both feet flat and it is all puppy dogs and butterflies.

I started ice climbing back in the '90s with gear that was much less user friendly than today (but light years ahead of the early stuff). One of the things that went along with that for me was learning some of the old school techniques that were developed back in the '70's and earlier when boots and crampons were no where near as supportive and front pointing up everything would wear out even strong climbers. Learning some of the early crampon techniques has given me a bag to tricks to apply and get rests easier. Age has made me fat and weaker, but given me a big bag of tricks to call on.

While you are recovering check out:
Yvon Chouinard's Climbing Ice
Yvon Chouinard's Climbing Ice

It is often found in public libraries and has been in print for 30 years+

If you can find the Jeff Lowe Waterfall Ice DVD/VHS it would be a great resource as well. The section on gear is very dated, but the techniques are great. Onece you get back on the ice try top roping a bunch of stuff with one or no tools. Great way to work on footwork.

Best wishes for a fast recovery!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Kyle!

One thing I haven't read that might be in here somewhere would be get proper instruction. Not from books or us monkeys here on MP either. Hire a guide or find a mentor when you get back in your feet. You'll learn proper technique which saves energy. You wouldnt get as pumped if you use good technique.

Good luck.