I brought my oldest, crustiest cam out of the retirement bin for a trip to Indian Creek last week and lobbed on it. It held. Feels good and bolsters the trust in gear knowing your B team can step in and do the job when needed.

Took a 15-20 foot 'surprise fall' on a 3.5 forged friend yesterday. God damn I love forged friends.

I'm of the point of view that this thread is silly. Of course it holds, unless the rock completely explodes out (ie: solft sandstone), it holds pretty well holds pretty good whippers.

I belayed a guy who is 180lbs on a pretty good whipper on Shotgun at Paradise Forks when he whipped onto the metolius equivelent of the BD purple 00 C3 (whiich is the piece I place there). I also belayed him when he took a 25fter on Paradise Lost at Paradise Forks on a Metolius (placed where I place a purple BD 0.5 C4.

While doing Terminator at the Waterfall I kept missing a key footchip at the upper crux and took enough whippers to be embarressed about it (I am officially trying out for the NFL as a punter). This entailed 15-20fters onto a blindly placed green BD 0 C3 (since I was using a 9.1mm, the stretch made it feel like 25ft.

I find the thread silly because if a piece fails it was either the rock failed (ie: soft sandstone) or most likely driver error (the vast majority of the cases).

Perfect argumentative essay format.

Intro w/ thesis -> specific example in body paragraphs -> conclusion with restatement of thesis.

your english teacher would be proud!

Placed a #5 sized older nut off my partner's rack as my first piece, whipped on it. When I got back to the ground he responded "wow, I booty'd that a while ago, did you see how messed up the swage is?" Pretty sure I got the first fall in 10+ years on it. It worked.

A few years back I was cranking up this flared tips lieback on Challenger in Red Rock- I didnt have any cams small enough for it, so I fiddled in this #4 HB and went for it. About 10' above it as my fingers slid into the lock my feet popped and I went for the ride. I was thinking the whole time that it was going to be the big one- 60-70' or so to the good camalot far below but damned if that tiny nut held like a champ.

I'm still shocked it held- it was in soft red rock that should have blown. Good karma that day. Sent the pitch next go.

Had one cam rip on me at poohs corner in vedauwoo. As I climbed past it stood on it accidentally witch of course made a bomber placement turn into a big? So I kept climbing and while I was placing my next cam my hand blew and I went sailing. The peice I stood on blew and my first cam (that I thank god placed high) a #3 c4 caught my inverted fall just before my head hit the ground. I hen stood up on tiptoes and said off belay completely unhurt. That #3 is my favorite cam ever. And that was probably like. 15 to 20 foot whip

check out this video. Ron takes a fall on a 000 C3. The placement is not ideal but it still holds.

www.karstendelap.com/karstendelap/Blog/Entries/2011/6/9_BD_C>>>

I love the idea of this post. Most often we're hearing all the negative stuff. Sometimes it gets to the point that you hear so much negative stuff that one would start to think that that is all that happens.

Anyway years ago I fell on a #2 BD nut. A short fall but there wasn't much rope out. Solid.

I took two 30 footers. One onto an undercammed #1 Mastercam, and one onto a small DMM offset nut. The nut I expected to hold, but not that cam.

I've probably taken 10-12 falls on gear so far, and haven't popped any pieces (not including those that got "back-cleaned" by rope drag!) Place well, then climb with confidence!

scared to climb over bad pro? maybe your'e just scared to climb.
I'm out of beer

30 footer onto my .5 the other weekend! I love you bd

I feel like as climbers we always exaggerate the size of our falls. It's amazing how many people took 30-footers right around the time this was posted!

I actually just took an 80-footer onto a copperhead about ten minutes ago.

I fell from like two feet above a purple C4 the other day. First fall on gear! Whooo!

I like Toby.

I placed a stopper in a small flake last weekend, just before the crux of the route. As I climbed by, I thought, "just don't kick the stopper out on your way by". I then proceeded to do just that. In haste, I placed another stopper in front of me. It wasn't a great placement. You know, the kind that sets on 2 points of the stopper and allows it to rotate easily. I didn't think it was very good, but I had a good cam about 10 ft below the previous stopper and it was a fairly clean steep face, so I kept climbing. As the questionable stopper was at my feet, I came off. I was somewhat expecting it to pull and to go for a longer ride, but the stopper held fine and it ended up being a short fall with gear around my feet.

took my 3rd fall the other day on the first pitch of pear buttress at Lumpy learning to crack climb (first crack ever) took a 10'er on a .75 c4. fun times and I love granite.

Humans fail infinitely more than our gear. Address the real threat, not what we create as "untrustworthy". The system is designed to work, and it does, assuming there's no pilot error that is.

I'm going out to practice falling on gear this evening. I've never fallen in the 6 months I've been doing this, and I climb 5.10. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Took what I was hoping to be a 10 foot fall onto a tipped out #1 power cam that ended up being a 20 footer onto a #4 powercam. Didn't need courtesy slack after that, feet were on the ground. Gosh, that #4 held like a dream.

took a good one on a slung chockstone, solid 2 body lengths above it when i fell.
i thought the webbing was white, after a closer inspection, a light pink.
then after the fall and a bit of scrutiny i realized it was originally red.

Grey TCU held after a 20 footer in Cochamo...but then I was dumb enough to try it again and it didn't hold the second time.

TCU after the whip. Submitted By: Josh Cook on Jul 8, 2011

Bent TCU Submitted By: Josh Cook on Jul 8, 2011