Yet another cinch warning (yes, i dropped him 20+ feet)

Disclaimer:
To essentially walk the line on rule#1 here, I'd like to preemptively state that i'm not interested in useless remarks dealing with who was right/wrong. This is a near-accident report/account and warning. Just an fyi for any not already enlightened; accusations and blaming through web forums are about as productive as hockey flippers. Believe me, i'm beating myself up bad enough over this so save it. So that being said, on with the story.

Yesterday, while taking turns on a route with a 10' or so roof system about 25' up i was belaying my partner on a 9.8mm {very smooth maxxim} rope with a cinch using the cover down method. Now I've been using the cinch in this manner for about 6 months after being showed how to do so at the orifice wall by a fellow climber. This is the method by which you rig up the cinch and hold it as if were hanging down from your locker with your right thumb on top of the hinge point for the whammy bar; the rest of your hand/fingers wrapped around the top and the ring and pinky fingers on the brake end of the rope. I've caught dozens of falls like this and been told they were some of the best/softest catches ever. Up until yesterday, i was in love with the smoothness that you can feed rope through and catch so quickly with the cinch using this method. Well...

My climber dislodged a rock with his right foot however i didn't see it until it was about 6' from smacking me in the mug so when it silhouetted against the sky and i saw it, i quickly reacted by ducking forward to let my helmet deflect it. The next thing i knew i was on my way up to the wall (only 4' away). Folks, we're talking less than a second here. I looked up to see how far my climber went expecting to see him hanging 6 or so feet below the cieling but saw nothing but rope. Yep, he was right behind me staring me in the eye. His feet were a mere 5 or 6 feet off the ground.

My very first thought was how in the everliving f$#@k did you get down here so fast?

Another climber immediately asked me "what happened?!?" and I honestly couldn't answer at first. However, i've had a good 18 or so hours to absorb and re-live this thing in my head a thousand times over and now i know exactly what happened. Hence my posting it here so that anyone else belaying using this method is aware of the dangers involved. And to be perfectly clear i am not violating rule #528.50 of climbing which clearly states "thou shalt not blame the gear". I'm not. I am to blame 100% for his 25' fall and owe him lots of beer and apologies... well, okay.. just beer.

What happened:
The beauty of the cinch in the cover down method is, as anyone knows that uses one like this, that it feeds rope like a dream. Yeah, no kidding. Well, the problem is that if something happens that causes you to look away (eg. dodge a rock) the natural reflex for the right hand is to make a fist [read:grab rope]. Well, to hold the cinch like i was doing, you're not holding just the rope, you're holding the cinch open. I've seen people belay like this all over the place and thought "no big deal"... it's safe, right? Like i said before.. my fault. I should have slid my hand off the back of the cinch like I've done dozens of catches before and allow the cinch to do what it does best. Apparently, I'm not perfect.

Well, since i've started climbing in 1990, i have been when it comes to belaying. Again, my fault. I was trying to avoid short roping and pulling him off the crux so I wasn't about to make sudden jerky move with the cinch locked. He had just come off of a rest and i hadn't even pulled out a little 'movement slack'. His knot was still at the draw before the fall.

However, i will say this... After thinking through exactly what happened with my hands, the rock, the [very] uneven ground, the fall, the belay method,.. i truley believe this would not have happened with an atc/tube or a grigri. When i leaned forward to dodge the rock, i lost balance on the upward ramping trail. When i think back on it, it was all just a very unfortunate series of events. And when i think about the most essential thing that went wrong i come to this: I had too much faith in that device to do what i thought it would do if something screwy happened. That's the bottom line.

The climber and others have said various wise and insightful things to help me not beat myself senseless over this and they all make perfect sense but I've never had to deal with the feeling of nearly hurting another climber because it's never happened. If i would have done something stupid years ago and experienced this guilt, i wouldn't feel so horrible but I'm pretty screwed up from it right now. ..hence the disclaimer.

Once again, I'm not boasting how no one should be lead belaying with a cinch. I AM saying that if you are, you better be damn sure you understand what it's capable of in the capacity you're using it. I've watched Malcolm's instructional video and seen the Trango - recommended technique. Honestly, that technique also causes you to disable the cinch's braking capabilities by changing the orientation of the device. It seems to me that a panic situation could cause the exact same result if using the method in the video.

Since yesterday, it seems that everyone i've talked to has seen someone dropped or heard of a friend of theirs being dropped or nearly dropped with these things. I've seen the posts on here and thought "Bah, I've been climbing forever... that sh!t will never happen to me".

So, for the climber and I, it was an accident free day but with lessons learned. He was very amicable about the event which isn't surprising given his personality. Personally, I would have thrown me over the side of the bluff behind us then said "i forgive you". The grigri/cup method is coming back out of retirement and the cinch will be for top roping only.

So thanks for reading and please, for the benefit of those wanting to learn from this incident, let's keep it on track. If this post results in preventing a single dropped climber, it was worth every minute it took to write up.

As a follow up regarding the instructional video. The cover down method i described earlier differs only in the position of the thumb to the method in the video. Either way, if you see the fall, you can be about 99% certain that you are going to catch the fall. Watch the section of the video where he's just sliding the slack out through the cinch and imagine her falling while he's just watching the camera and someone scares the crap out of him from behind or something else causes him to look away clench/grab the cinch.

The obvious retort here is that, as a belayer, and regardless of what device you're using, you should never take your eyes off your climber. True, but who can honestly say they've never, ever, for one second looked away from the climber while lead belaying? Truth is that it happens.

Again, just be very very aware of the device you're using and it's capabilities. Can't beat that horse enough.

I'm having a little trouble envisioning what it is that you think happened here? Could you better describe how you were holding the Cinch such that it is held open? The way that I hold the Cinch with my brake hand; pinching the pivot between the thumb and index finger and running the brake strand of the rope through the remaining fingers (as is shown on the Trango website picture and videos trango.com/prod.php?id=102), I can't imagine that I could hold the device open in a fall. This is also the same position I keep my hand in when feeding slack.
PS, I just noticed that you're from Sierra Vista. I lived there when I was in grade school and into junior high (early 80's). I haven't been back since...its must look very different now!

Hey Daryl, search the forums and you will find another story like yours that I posted about a year and a half ago. Lots of good information. No time to look at how you are using the cinch but try to find that thread I posted.

csproul wrote:Could you better describe how you were holding the Cinch such that it is held open?

In the pictorial instructions from the link you sent there is a picture next to the "belay" caption. That's basically how I'm holding the device with my hand just slightly more on the cinch. Had i been more like the picture, the event may not have happened the way it did. However, I'm not 100% sure this is true because when you change the orientation of the cinch like that to allow the rope through it, it's just functioning like a straight tube. When oriented as in the photo, the rope movement over the cam that engages the brake is not causing enough friction at that angle to cause it to lock.

When you see the fall, you instinctively grab the rope and move your brake hand which changes the orientation of the cinch in regard to the moving rope causing the lock. If you miss the fall, the rope burns through that thing like Grant through Richmond.

csproul wrote:its must look very different now!

Can't imagine what it looked like back then but they are just breaking ground up off of the 90 bypass for a Super Walmart (of all things). Rumor has it they're making the old Walmart a Sams. If you ever come back in town look me up for some climbing.. i'm a great belayer. ;)

Eric Rhicard wrote:Hey Daryl, search the forums and you will find another story like yours that I posted about a year and a half ago. Lots of good information. No time to look at how you are using the cinch but try to find that thread I posted.

Thanks Eric, I did a search before i posted because i seem to remember a few posts similar to this but couldn't find the ones i was thinking of. I'll go back further and see if i can find it.

Oh, and one more thing i just thought of. One of the most insightful comments I think I've heard so far was "well, think of it this way: this will never happen again". That was very accurate because, as they said, I'm not just blowing it off. It's hitting me hard and I've been going over it again and again trying to understand exactly what went wrong so it never happens again. I do believe close calls like this make us better climbers, belayers and partners. Just never thought something like this would happen because of me.

I got a slight burn from catching a gym fall that occurred mid-clip. I had been nudging the lever while feeding slack. Since then I have taken the advice of another MP user:
- hold the device per normal (pinching the hinge)
- pull slack by way of a 'stab yourself in the gut' motion instead of rotating the device or pushing the lever.

Unexpected falls pull upward, locking the device - even while you are pulling out slack. It works.

FOr what it is worth, I've been 'dropped' twice. Both by pretty experienced climbers. Once the cause was never resolved to my level of comfort (end of climbing relationship) and once by a very experienced climber who was belaying me on a gri-gri and fisted it like you apparently did.

Thanks for the input guys. Gregger, i'm going to rig up here at home and give that stabbing thing a go. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks for the honesty, I actually wonder why this doesn't happen more often. Same thing could (and does) happen with a gri gri. Congrats on still keeping your buddy off the deck too. Use of a atc as noted above sounds great, but had the rock headed your way and conked ya, well, I'm just saying that an ATC isn't an end - all/ be - all solution. Lots of ways to get the chop. For myself, I don't climb with anyone who hasn't been climbing outside extensively for at least 2 years. Which isn't an end-all be-all either. It all helps.

Take care all!

Daryl Allan wrote:Disclaimer: To essentially walk the line on rule#1 here, I'd like to preemptively state that i'm not interested in useless remarks dealing with who was right/wrong. This is a near-accident report/account and warning. Just an fyi for any not already enlightened; accusations and blaming through web forums are about as productive as hockey flippers. Believe me, i'm beating myself up bad enough over this so save it. So that being said, on with the story. Yesterday, while taking turns on a route with a 10' or so roof system about 25' up i was belaying my partner on a 9.8mm {very smooth maxxim} rope with a cinch using the cover down method. Now I've been using the cinch in this manner for about 6 months after being showed how to do so at the orifice wall by a fellow climber. This is the method by which you rig up the cinch and hold it as if were hanging down from your locker with your right thumb on top of the hinge point for the whammy bar; the rest of your hand/fingers wrapped around the top and the ring and pinky fingers on the brake end of the rope. I've caught dozens of falls like this and been told they were some of the best/softest catches ever. Up until yesterday, i was in love with the smoothness that you can feed rope through and catch so quickly with the cinch using this method. Well... My climber dislodged a rock with his right foot however i didn't see it until it was about 6' from smacking me in the mug so when it silhouetted against the sky and i saw it, i quickly reacted by ducking forward to let my helmet deflect it. The next thing i knew i was on my way up to the wall (only 4' away). Folks, we're talking less than a second here. I looked up to see how far my climber went expecting to see him hanging 6 or so feet below the cieling but saw nothing but rope. Yep, he was right behind me staring me in the eye. His feet were a mere 5 or 6 feet off the ground. My very first thought was how in the everliving f$#@k did you get down here so fast? Another climber immediately asked me "what happened?!?" and I honestly couldn't answer at first. However, i've had a good 18 or so hours to absorb and re-live this thing in my head a thousand times over and now i know exactly what happened. Hence my posting it here so that anyone else belaying using this method is aware of the dangers involved. And to be perfectly clear i am not violating rule #528.50 of climbing which clearly states "thou shalt not blame the gear". I'm not. I am to blame 100% for his 25' fall and owe him lots of beer and apologies... well, okay.. just beer. What happened: The beauty of the cinch in the cover down method is, as anyone knows that uses one like this, that it feeds rope like a dream. Yeah, no kidding. Well, the problem is that if something happens that causes you to look away (eg. dodge a rock) the natural reflex for the right hand is to make a fist [read:grab rope]. Well, to hold the cinch like i was doing, you're not holding just the rope, you're holding the cinch open. I've seen people belay like this all over the place and thought "no big deal"... it's safe, right? Like i said before.. my fault. I should have slid my hand off the back of the cinch like I've done dozens of catches before and allow the cinch to do what it does best. Apparently, I'm not perfect. Well, since i've started climbing in 1990, i have been when it comes to belaying. Again, my fault. I was trying to avoid short roping and pulling him off the crux so I wasn't about to make sudden jerky move with the cinch locked. He had just come off of a rest and i hadn't even pulled out a little 'movement slack'. His knot was still at the draw before the fall. However, i will say this... After thinking through exactly what happened with my hands, the rock, the [very] uneven ground, the fall, the belay method,.. i truley believe this would not have happened with an atc/tube or a grigri. When i leaned forward to dodge the rock, i lost balance on the upward ramping trail. When i think back on it, it was all just a very unfortunate series of events. And when i think about the most essential thing that went wrong i come to this: I had too much faith in that device to do what i thought it would do if something screwy happened. That's the bottom line. The climber and others have said various wise and insightful things to help me not beat myself senseless over this and they all make perfect sense but I've never had to deal with the feeling of nearly hurting another climber because it's never happened. If i would have done something stupid years ago and experienced this guilt, i wouldn't feel so horrible but I'm pretty screwed up from it right now. ..hence the disclaimer. Once again, I'm not boasting how no one should be lead belaying with a cinch. I AM saying that if you are, you better be damn sure you understand what it's capable of in the capacity you're using it. I've watched Malcolm's instructional video and seen the Trango - recommended technique. Honestly, that technique also causes you to disable the cinch's braking capabilities by changing the orientation of the device. It seems to me that a panic situation could cause the exact same result if using the method in the video. Since yesterday, it seems that everyone i've talked to has seen someone dropped or heard of a friend of theirs being dropped or nearly dropped with these things. I've seen the posts on here and thought "Bah, I've been climbing forever... that sh!t will never happen to me". So, for the climber and I, it was an accident free day but with lessons learned. He was very amicable about the event which isn't surprising given his personality. Personally, I would have thrown me over the side of the bluff behind us then said "i forgive you". The grigri/cup method is coming back out of retirement and the cinch will be for top roping only. So thanks for reading and please, for the benefit of those wanting to learn from this incident, let's keep it on track. If this post results in preventing a single dropped climber, it was worth every minute it took to write up.

JLP wrote: [...]I have never heard of someone being saved by a self locking belay device after the belayer was hit in the head. I have, however, heard about dozens of people getting dropped.

The belayer didn't get hit in the head on this one - but I imagine the climber was thankful for the Cinch in that case.

JLP wrote: Yes, there are lots of ways to get the chop, but also probabilities associated with each of them. I have never heard of someone being saved by a self locking belay device after the belayer was hit in the head. I have, however, heard about dozens of people getting dropped.

Many many many of which are from people using the device incorrectly. You can't blame the car for someone crashing it. Also a friend got dropped on an ATC a few weeks back... belayer error.

people rap off the ends of their rope.. gunna blame the ATC on that?

I tend to only squeeze the cinch while i'm feeding rope.. more so while they are clipping. Then put more fingers down onto the rope. I had it slip once during a fall while feeding and i haven't had an issue since.

obsessed wrote:For what it's worth, I was dropped to the deck from about 3/4 of the way up the wall at the BRC about 6 months back. He was using a Gri-Gri and he wasn't paying attention. He apologized, but he seemed more concerned with his rope burn, then he was with me hitting the deck. The fall screwed up my back (again) for a couple of weeks.

Just wondering about how many feet that would be? I'm glad that you were not more seriously injured and that you seem to be doing better now! Really sucks that your belayer was that lame!

I too have decked from a less than attentive belayer using the cinch from around 20 feet off the deck. Luckily for me; I was in a gym with good 6" padding everywhere at the time and not outdoors! So I was fine, little whip-lash to the neck, only sore for a couple days. My belayer was using the same method that Daryl explained. It was a great learning experience for both of us and we still climb together all the time.

Lesion learned: When belaying, you are responsible for another persons life no matter the difficulty involved in the climb. (Rocks break, etc.) The belayer must be attentive 100% of the time that the climber is off the deck. (ie: never let go of the break hand. keep an eye on the climber whenever the climber is visible)

Red wrote: When belaying, you are responsible for another persons life no matter the difficulty involved in the climb. (Rocks break, etc.) The belayer must be attentive 100% of the time that the climber is off the deck. (ie: never let go of the break hand. keep an eye on the climber whenever the climber is visible)

I couldn't have said it better. This is why climbing is different than any other sport. Daryl, thanks for sharing, as I'm not familiar with using the cinch. Even in the gym, I use a Gri-Gri as if it is an ATC type device, always keeping a brake hand on it. Glad your buddy is safe. Don't beat yourself up over it. Things happen.

hey daryl-

good to hear that both of you are ok, and thanks for posting up the warning.

don't beat yourself up, either. this kind of thing happens with these devices frequently, and you've been really cool with sharing your experience and warning others about the issue.

most of the time i simply use an atc or reverso to belay, but on the occasions when i use my grigri, i've adopted a technique that keeps my hand on the brake strand. i also do not hold the device "open", which is more easily accomplished with narrower ropes. once in a while i have to place my thumb on the cam to pay out rope quickly, but i really try to avoid this. by doing this i hope to reduce the chances of an event like you're describing.

the bottom line, i think, is to keep familiar with the pros and cons of whatever device you own and adopt the best practices you can with it.

hope you're doing better daryl!

-geir

JLP wrote:If it's the belayer and not the device, why are there so many more accidents with these self locking devices? This logic you stand behind escapes me. The point is that when something is more difficult to do, you're more likely to mess it up.

Because using an assisted locking belay device allows the belayer to become more complacent than if they were using a NON-assisted locking belay device. (too much trust in the device) Belayers need to treat all belay devices the same, assisted locking or not.

Daryl,

I have a question for you.

It appears to me from your explanation that you were doing two contradictory things at once. First, because of the way you were holding the rope that allowed the rope to go through the device, but for the rope to go through the device you couldn't be holding it.

Something doesn't make sense to me here.

Bruce

JLP wrote: The point is that when something is more difficult to do, you're more likely to mess it up.

This statement means that it is user error, not device error.

A car is a complicated machine also, but you wouldn't blame most accidents on the car now would you?

Bruce Hildenbrand wrote:Daryl, I have a question for you. It appears to me from your explanation that you were doing two contradictory things at once. First, because of the way you were holding the rope that allowed the rope to go through the device, but for the rope to go through the device you couldn't be holding it. Something doesn't make sense to me here. Bruce

Really good input here, everyone. I'm stoked that although there's some differing opinions, it's all been productive. Bill and Geir, thanks for your positive words. I'm not devestated but i'm pretty shook up.. more so than the poor victim on the other end of the rope. ;)

Bruce, you touched on an interesting and vital point. What I've come up with is this: If you've used a cince/grigri you know that when your climber is coming off of a take, you have to force the cam off to pull a few inches of slack for movement. I was in this position when it happened and therefore not on the brake as much as i normally am during lead climbing. Then, during my dive forward movement, the natural tendency was to put my hands out in front of me since i was on a upward-ramping trail (40 deg or so). Between this and wanting to grab the rope [brake], i ended up somewhere in the middle grabbing the cinch for just a split second before sliding back onto the brake completely which is what engaged the brake and stopped him.

It was only a brief moment of me not sliding back onto the brake but that's all it took to burn 15 feet or so through the device. The remaining feet was momentum pulling me up to the wall base.

Bystanders and the climber both noted it wasn't a full 20' plus freefall then sudden jerk, but rather it slowed considerably to a soft-catch stop as you might imagine. So there was friction toward the end; that and then me going up to the wall. The climber could better give an idea of the distance of the actual free fall before any friction or locking but i'm guessing around 12-14' before any friction (??). Then another 10 of braking/slowing.

Gregger Man wrote:I got a slight burn from catching a gym fall that occurred mid-clip. I had been nudging the lever while feeding slack. Since then I have taken the advice of another MP user: - hold the device per normal (pinching the hinge) - pull slack by way of a 'stab yourself in the gut' motion instead of rotating the device or pushing the lever. Unexpected falls pull upward, locking the device - even while you are pulling out slack. It works.

This is the only way to go. The trick is "stabbing" yourself in the gut rather than "handing" your partner as you pay out rope

The(one of the) advantages of a cinch over a gri is that you never have to hold the cam down to smoothly lead belay.

The pinch and stab method is great. I actually take it a step further and hold the brake end in my pinching hand with a large loop of slack. Then I alternate feeding slack and pulling more slack through the loop with my left hand. That way, you never let go of the break hand. It sounds complicated, but it is actually very convenient.

Evan

Evan1984 wrote:I actually take it a step further and hold the brake end in my pinching hand with a large loop of slack. Then I alternate feeding slack and pulling more slack through the loop with my left hand. That way, you never let go of the break hand. It sounds complicated, but it is actually very convenient. Evan

This is key: keep a hold of the brake strand. That way, if the brake assist is somehow defeated, you still can stop the person as you would with a plate device (atc, reverso, etc).