Am I being too conservative in term of gears placement?

I'm a Gunks climber with experience leading over 150 pitches up to 5.7. When I lead, I’m always conscious of the distance between me and the ground or any ledges, making sure my gear placements reflect that in terms of spacing and redundancy. Typically, I place my first piece of gear 10 to 15 feet off the ground, and then space placements about 7 to 9 feet apart until I'm around 50 feet up. After that, I might space them 10 to 15 feet apart, and when I'm higher up and more confident, I sometimes stretch that to 20 feet.

My reasoning is that a fall can double the distance between my last piece of gear and where I am on the rope. If my most recent piece fails, the one before it should still keep me from decking. I’ve taken a few falls on my gear, and it’s always held without issues.

I’ve noticed other climbers placing gear as much as 20 feet apart, regardless of height. It makes me wonder—am I being overly cautious, or are they just that skilled?

In theory ‘keep two pieces between you and the hospital’ is a good rule of thumb.

In practice sometimes this means you can run it out on terrain where you are very comfortable. If you are well below your limit you may only place a few pieces on a pitch but if you are looking at a potential fall then your consideration of the distance between the pieces as it relates to the distance to the ground is something to keep in mind. 

I think it’s a question of risk tolerance. On easy terrain where the risk is low, despite the consequences, I’ll run it out but it also depends on how I’m feeling at the moment.  You gotta do what feels right.  As long as you’re not running out of gear for the anchor (where necessary) you’re not placing too much

B U wrote:

I'm a Gunks climber with experience leading over 150 pitches up to 5.7. When I lead, I’m always conscious of the distance between me and the ground or any ledges, making sure my gear placements reflect that in terms of spacing and redundancy. Typically, I place my first piece of gear 10 to 15 feet off the ground, and then space placements about 7 to 9 feet apart until I'm around 50 feet up. After that, I might space them 10 to 15 feet apart, and when I'm higher up and more confident, I sometimes stretch that to 20 feet.

My reasoning is that a fall can double the distance between my last piece of gear and where I am on the rope. If my most recent piece fails, the one before it should still keep me from decking. I’ve taken a few falls on my gear, and it’s always held without issues.

I’ve noticed other climbers placing gear as much as 20 feet apart, regardless of height. It makes me wonder—am I being overly cautious, or are they just that skilled?

 

what you describe seems quite reasonable and ultimately it's your call and what you feel comfortable with.  i wouldn't worry too much about how others run things out or sew things up.  

there are a number of considerations, but decking, length of fall/consequences, likelihood of falling, quality of last placement, and next opportunity of (quality) placement are definitely on top of the (at least for me) list.

Great responses above.

I recall an older climber talking about a mentor he had early in his climbing career.  He said the best thing that mentor taught him was when to not place gear.

After about 20 years of climbing with a preference for long multipitch, the above has aged well for me.

JF M wrote:

I think it’s a question of risk tolerance. On easy terrain where the risk is low, despite the consequences, I’ll run it out but it also depends on how I’m feeling at the moment.  You gotta do what feels right.  As long as you’re not running out of gear for the anchor (where necessary) you’re not placing too much

This guy did the same thing.  Ken Anderson - Squamish

Your approach makes sense and I'll echo that ultimately it comes down to  1) what you're comfortable with, and 2) whether or not you have enough gear to maintain a placement every X number of feet for the entire pitch.

It's a highly personal thing that's generally influenced more by somebody's risk tolerance than by logic, and that applies to me too. For example, 2 people might lead the exact same pitch and let's say they are equally strong. Climber A is more confident and has a better mental game, so Climber A placed 8 pieces over a 100' pitch. Climber B, though equally skilled, has a weaker mental game and places 16 pieces over the same 100'. They both send the pitch. At the end of the day, as long as they both placed protection where it was needed to protect from a ground fall and to protect against falling on a ledge (if there was one), neither person is in the wrong. You could argue that climber A has the benefit of more gear available for their anchor and has the option to link pitches but neither of those factors is always applicable, especially is it's a bolted anchor and/or you're doing single pitch climbing.

All that to say, don't worry about what others are doing. Do what makes you feel safe, so long as it isn't excessive to the point where you're shooting yourself in the foot by the end of the pitch because you over protected the bottom.

From the point of view of the forces on the anchors during fall arrest, Steve Attaway develops an argument for placing the next piece of gear no more than 1/4 of the distance between the belayer and the current piece of gear. So if your fist piece is at 12', the 2nd should be at/before 15'. The next by ~19'; then ~24'... I did some arbitrary rounding to get those numbers. Many assumptions are quite conservative; the 1/4 rule does not account for the possible failure of the top piece, so maybe the conservative assumptions more-or-less balance out the possibility of ripping the first piece of gear as you go by.

The analysis says nothing about how comfortable you'll be (after) taking the fall that is 1/2 the distance belayer and the top piece.

My 2 cents about climbing on easier ground is to become efficient at recognizing bomber, easy to place/remove options for intermediate anchors. Yes, it's a little slower than just running things out, but maybe the resulting peace of mind will allow to climb more efficiently and maybe it'll help you avoid a big fall as per the Anderson/Squamish article. My life is always better if there's a backstop.

B U wrote:

I'm a Gunks climber with experience leading over 150 pitches up to 5.7. When I lead, I’m always conscious of the distance between me and the ground or any ledges, making sure my gear placements reflect that in terms of spacing and redundancy. Typically, I place my first piece of gear 10 to 15 feet off the ground, and then space placements about 7 to 9 feet apart until I'm around 50 feet up. After that, I might space them 10 to 15 feet apart, and when I'm higher up and more confident, I sometimes stretch that to 20 feet.

Placing gear 20 feet apart just because you're higher seems like it could be quite run out in a lot of circumstances.  That would be a 40 foot fall if you were to come off, which is pretty huge.  If the climbing is very easy, that's one thing, but if it's difficult and a fall is possible/likely, I would place quite a bit more often regardless of height.

I bet 5-10 feet between pieces is typical for me, unless I'm in a very easy alpine/multipitch type of situation.  I also often place my first piece lower than 10-15 feet; if the climbing is difficult, I might place it at arms reach from the ground (6-8 feet probably).

I just looked at gear beta for some recent projects, and I use ~10 pieces on one 100' climb and 12-14 pieces on a different 80' climb.  So definitely less than 10 feet on average.

I’ve noticed other climbers placing gear as much as 20 feet apart, regardless of height. It makes me wonder—am I being overly cautious, or are they just that skilled?

I do not climb at the Gunks, but that is definitely not the norm in my experience with many different partners and climbing areas.  That's more run out that many old-school spicy sport routes, I don't see any reason to purposefully do that unless the gear isn't available.  Gear every 20 feet seems like a borderline PG13 situation on many routes.

I remember asking John Stannard a very similar question in the early 70s. His answer was that the climbers doing the long runouts on easy ground were 3rd classing. It took me years to make sense of such a simple answer.

Most trad climbers do not protect for the possibility of a piece ripping or a hold breaking. You are doing that. Keep doing that. I hear so many bad stories both from friends and online where someone breaks an ankle or whatever and say "yeah what a freak accident, shit just happens sometimes" when in reality they weren't being very responsible with their gear placements. Everyone gets to choose their risk tolerance and that's fine, but if you don't want to risk breaking an ankle or a leg then you need to place gear in such a way that breaking an ankle or a leg isn't possible, which most trad climbers don't do. 

J W wrote:

There’s only one way to guarantee this; unfortunately, it doesn’t involve climbing. We can minimize the risk, but we can’t eliminate it.

Of course, and I sometimes take on runouts where breaking a leg or worse is mandatory to do the climb at all. None the less, there is a huge amount of mitigation of risk that 80%+ of trad climbers choose not to do as they see potentially breaking an ankle as more desirable then adequately protecting highly protectable routes to prevent against ledge and ground falls. 

I'm not telling anyone what their risk tolerance should be, but if you don't want to break an ankle in territory where there's no reason to break an ankle, then do not climb like the vast majority of trad climbers who take on large amounts of risk routinely completely unnecessarily. 

Anecdotally speaking, most of the broken ankle stories I hear are not on runouts; most trad climbers just value speed over safety. 

most trad climbers just value speed over safety

Speed can be its own safety component on long routes particularly in high mountains. Often it is a balance of risks and acceptable mitigations. One thing I've learned is don't expect to treat long route multi-pitch risk mitigation the same as you would single-pitch crag risk mitigation. Taking forever can get us killed.

cowards live longer, that's what i say.

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

Speed can be its own safety component on long routes particularly in high mountains. Often it is a balance of risks and acceptable mitigations. One thing I've learned is don't expect to treat long route multi-pitch risk mitigation the same as you would single-pitch crag risk mitigation. Taking forever can get us killed.

Hard agree. One can get pretty quick at placing gear though. And the best way to get good at placing gear quickly? Placing lots of gear. 

I have seen two climbers lead the same route back to back with extremely different times taken on the route not due to significant differences in speed of climbing, but speed in placing gear. Getting good at placing gear quickly is a massively underrated skill that allows one to protect climbs in an extremely safe manner while being fast. 

If one desires to climb multis both quickly and safely then IMO this is a skill that deserves time invested in practicing this skill specifically. Aiding C1 cracks is a good way to do it. Or just climb a lot of trad. 

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

Speed can be its own safety component on long routes particularly in high mountains. Often it is a balance of risks and acceptable mitigations. One thing I've learned is don't expect to treat long route multi-pitch risk mitigation the same as you would single-pitch crag risk mitigation. Taking forever can get us killed.

People say this kind of thing a lot, but how many people have been killed or injured from being out a couple hours longer? and how much time does it really add to place more gear? placing a few more cams per pitch couldn't add that much more time to a climb, realistically. 

if you're ABOUT to get caught in a storm that's one thing, but even then, we all have quick and easy access to accurate weather forecasts 99% of the time. maybe just don't go out climbing a long route if there's a storm coming in and you don't even have enough time to protect the climb properly.

OK, I concede the point that if a team climbs fast, they climb fast, the number of gear placements notwithstanding.

But climbing fast in the high mountains is important, particularly in the ranges where weather patterns can be expected most every day in the climbing season. (RMNP for example)

B U wrote:

am I being overly cautious, or are they just that skilled?

I love that the only two options are "You're not brave enough" or "They're better at this than me" 

Maybe they're not being cautious at all?

Maybe, and this is going to blow your mind, two different climbers might climb the same route and use the exact same placements, and one climber might be high skill and low caution whereas the other climber might be low skill and ignorant of caution, and the best part is, their placements will look exactly the same! Never attribute skill to something that ignorance and/or apathy can equally explain. 

Here's the thing. Caution is based upon your comfort, not your skill, not your strength. Even when you're running it out and are in a low risk/high consequence situation (or even a high risk/high consequence situation), you should be "comfortable" with taking the risk associated with the runout before you commit to it. Each person's comfort is their own. Yes, your skill and your strength will impact what you're comfortable with but it's the thought process that you have right now that you'll continue to use throughout your climbing life to temper the certainly-not-chill every now and then that your skill and strength will try to convince you is chill. No one is having fun when they suddenly discover that they're in a situation they hadn't anticipated and internally agreed to ahead of time. 

Falling "twice the distance" of the last piece is not very realistic, especially in trad climbing. 

It's 2x distance + slack + rope stretch + movement of the belayer. 

Check out the dynamic elongation numbers on your rope. 30% + is not uncommon. If you have a lot of rope out, like at the top of a pitch, that should be a major consideration.

20ft between placements, at the top of the climb, could mean a 60 footer...

People usually fall farther than they think they will. Instead of calling take try falling and see how far down you end up. It's not uncommon to fall 15ft with your last piece at your feet.

An attentive belayer may be be able to pull in some slack in, but that raises impact force, makes a harder catch, and can swing you into the wall and break ankles. 

The best way to mitigate that risk is to place more gear. 

There's a proliferation of videos with high skill climbers on heroic routes placing a piece like every 30 or 40 ft. That isn't necessary "wrong" but these climbers are on terrain well below their limit, often on pitches they have climbed before, and they are basically professional climbers. They could fall past their belayer despite being well up the pitch. That is fine for them, but not example to follow for sub 5.12+ climbers. 

Should you never run it out? Of course not! But it should be a mindful and conscious choice to do so based on the terrain. Unexpected things happen. It's easy to get off route, someone bled in the perfect jam, rocks are loose, shoes get damaged, the "good crack for pro" further up is broken and flared, rain comes, you hit a drip, there's rockfall, a raptor attacks, there's a snake in the crack... 

Anyway, I space my gear out more as I get higher above the ground and ledges. I occasionally run it out 30+ ft on easy terrain. However, when there is even a remote chance I'll fall on I try not to exceed two body lengths (12ft). More often then not I'm placing every 10ft or less. That means I almost always climb with a double rack, which gives me 20+ options for pieces of pro at a weight that does not slow me down unreasonably.

J W wrote:

That would effectively shrink already short alpine rock seasons down to very few days.

As there’s a nontrivial possibility of afternoon thunderstorms no matter what the forecast says, I think one is better served by gaining sufficient fitness and climbing skill (including placing protection) to be able to move quickly.

You may at times still need to retreat, but retreat is also faster as fitness and skills improve.

I got out a lot in RMNP this year (while working a 9-5) and I don't think I had a single day where I was racing a storm. And even when I kind of was, all that meant was that I picked a shorter or easier objective and didn't fuck around at the belays. I've never been like "I need to place less gear because that's actually LESS risky because there will be a storm in 90 minutes"

I HIGHLY doubt you are regularly climbing 20 feet between pieces. It might FEEL like that piece is 20 feet below you but that is a a loooong ways for a fall.

If you really are commonly going 20 feet between pieces you should reevaluate your risk. For weekend warrior/average joes (like myself) the risk is not worth it. Be smart, place some more gear.