Quickdraw carabiner spines facing the direction of climb

I have heard in recent years that when sport climbing you should make sure the spine of the carabiner on the rope end of the quick draw should be facing the direction of climb. I have never heard of an accident caused by having the carabiner spine facing the opposite direction of the climb. Is anyone aware of accidents that have resulted from this?

I'm going to venture that you won't find any actual data to back up this practice, which frankly borders on obsessive compulsive disorder. I have seen people leading routes with draws pre-placed take the fucking draw off, examine it, and then reverse direction as if that will somehow matter on a more or less straight vertical line with no more than a few feet of side to side wandering. This is all just superstition ultimately. Really, if the route wanders from side to side that much, then it was pretty poorly conceived as a sport route. Just put your locker on the end of that draw, brah.

What you will find to support this idea is countless demonstration videos, endless discussions, inconclusive anecdotes, and other useless dribble. In practice, it isn't worth worrying about. If you wan to do it, fine, orient your draws accordingly. But don't hesitate at each bolt trying to decide which way to do the spine and don't take them off to reverse them like an idiot mid lead.

If you don't do it, death is almost as certain as it is if you don't tie your safety knot after your Figure 8.

OCD is a good call Stich

I've seen unclips occur.

For a normal mostly straight sport route with comfortable bolt spacing then it is barely worth worrying about.  However if it is the old bolt between me and whipping onto a ledge or the ground then I'll take whatever precautions that I deem necessary.   Sometimes that might be even be throwing a locker on it.

Keeping my body unbroken is not OCD.  If I'm clipping a bolt before a 30foot run out then it is hardly OCD to make sure it is good if on the small chance I do take a 60+ foot whipper.

Here is one video I know of where an unclip occurs due to rope/quickdraw interaction.  (along with one broken carabiner and one pulled piece of gear.)  3 pieces gone.

Now this is probably a 1:10,000 type event.  Decent climbers, good rock and reasonable gear.  But shit can happen so protect yourself where necessary.

I’m pretty certain I recall reading about several accidents over the years caused by the rope unclipping during a fall. These would have been accidents reported in Accidents in North American Climbing. It’s a pretty rare occurance. 

patto wrote: I've seen unclips occur.

For a normal mostly straight sport route with comfortable bolt spacing then it is barely worth worrying about.  However if it is the old bolt between me and whipping onto a ledge or the ground then I'll take whatever precautions that I deem necessary.   Sometimes that might be even be throwing a locker on it.

Keeping my body unbroken is not OCD.  If I'm clipping a bolt before a 30foot run out then it is hardly OCD to make sure it is good if on the small chance I do take a 60+ foot whipper.

Here is one video I know of where an unclip occurs due to rope/quickdraw interaction.  (along with one broken carabiner and one pulled piece of gear.)  3 pieces gone.

Now this is probably a 1:10,000 type event.  Decent climbers, good rock and reasonable gear.  But shit can happen so protect yourself where necessary.

Terrifying! But that wasn't caused by rope/quickdraw interaction, at least not the kind that would be prevented by clipping spines in the direction of the climb. From the YouTube description:

1st biner was nose clipped and over an edge
2nd C3 00 cam was placed badly and pulled
3rd long sling was sucked up towards and unclipped by the 2nd piece.

With trad climbing, I've run into lots of situations where it takes some finesse to prevent the gate from pressing against the rock and opening. It's not a problem with bolts (or if it is, the bolts are very poorly placed) but I'm much more concerned about that.

That said, a friend did have his draw unclip from rope interaction on the first bolt of Unimpeachable Groping, which would have caused a serious injury had he fallen. But I'm not entirely sure why that unclipped, or whether it would have been prevented by clipping with the spine in the direction of the climb.

I’ve had draws unclip when orientated improperly with a traverse.  This was in a gym, where reorientating the draws wasn’t an option and the route was poorly set so that the draws on the bolt line were all orientated in the wrong direction so that the rope was lying against the gate.  It’s really not that hard for the gate to unclipped in this situation, which is why I do generally try to be cognizant when hanging the draws.  Luckily, it was a lower draw and there were several draws that remained clipped between it and where I fell, but if it had happened at the draw I was at, I would’ve had a bad day.  That said, I think Tim is more right than wrong and agree that it doesn’t matter on dead straight lines or enough to warrant the level of attention it often gets.

It probably doesn't matter  most of the time.  A potential issue occurs when a slab meets a steeper wall and the rope runs from pro on the slab to pro on the wall.  In this case, tension in the rope can rotate the bottom carabiner of the top draw.  Analogous circumstances might occur when a lower bolt is further out in space from a vertical plane containing the higher bolt.  If the gate of that top carabiner is facing the direction of the route, then the tension-induced rotation will put the gate against the rock and could conceivably open it.  Lotta if's involved though.

Given that one might not notice the circumstances that could cause such rotation, it isn't a bad idea to keep the spines in the direction of travel without going all OCD over it.