Todd Skinner

[512OW]

While they're designing safer harnesses, after a 1 in a bayjillion incident, I sure wish they'd design safer rocks to climb on. The current ones hurt my fingers everytime I grab em. I'm pretty sure at least 3 people have been hurt from rocks fallin down too.... so we should definitely make em safer.

[L K Day]

Done already. They call these safe rocks gyms.

[512OW]

Even the old schoolers are confused....

Those are plastic, Larry.

[L K Day]

The only safe rocks are plastic rocks. And sometimes even they're not so safe.

[Day]

OK, Time for me to eat some crow. I've never been crazy about belay loops and still think they should a replaceable component. I've always been worried that some poor climber would push it too far, and that this is the kind of thing that would happen. That said......

This may be the first known failure of a belay loop, period.

First hand report from those on the scene was that the failed belay loop was hideously worn, obviously unsafe, and failed at the webbing itself, not the stitching.

For me it was unthinkable that a climber of Skinner's experience would make this kind of a mistake. Just goes to show you.

[rhunt]

still that's why I don't use belay loops esp to belay. That whole, tri-loading the biner is stupid. Plus during my "old school days", I was taught to minimize the links in a system thus not using the belay loop to belay. If these belay loops when brand new are so strong then why don't we tie into them? The only reason they are there is to keep the two sections of a harness together. The only time I use them is for holding my rope when cleaning anchors.

Todd was a super guy. I met him at a slide show he and Paul Piana were doing years ago after the crazy big wall stuff they did in Canada. After the slide show a friend and I talk to Todd for about 20 minutes about Hueco. This was before
Hueco was barely on the map. Todd was SUPER psyched about Heuco and was giving us kinds of beta about the area and how to train for a trip there. I remember him telling us to bring some kind of crash pad like a couch cushion if we couldn't afford the only crash pad on the market (cordless) at the time.

Anyways I thought Todd was a great guy, I am sorry he is gone and that his life ended this way.

[Saxman]

Gee, I guess the really smart people at Black Diamond and Petzl who say tri-loading is bad are just a bunch of idiots. If it is no big deal, why does Petzl put out full page ads in the mags every so often explicitly showing tri-loading as wrong? You don't tie in to the belay loop because it creates too small of an arc for the rope to run through, not to limit links in the chain. If the belay loop were larger and thicker, you could just tie into it.

[Canuck]

Also, you don't tie in to a belay loop, because the loop and rope will move relative to each other. This isn't a problem with metal-on-nylon (when the belay loop and a biner move relative to each other) but is for nylon-on-nylon.

[tomdarch]

If it is no big deal, why does Petzl put out full page ads in the mags every so often explicitly showing tri-loading as wrong?

One reason might be "lawyers".

I suspect that there are two reasons why clipping in through both the leg loops and the waist loop (instead of the belay loop) only increases the risk of failure a very slight amount. First of all: how often does a belay biner get loaded enough to fail even in a 'worst case' tri-axial loading situation? (I know Petzl has a bunch of info, but I can't find it on their website immediately.) I'd be interested to know how often a normal sport climber experiences more than a 2kn force as a belayer.

The other problem with worrying a lot about triaxial loading of a belay biner is the fact that most of the loading will be between the rope at one end of the biner and the leg loops at the other, with the waist loop exerting very little off-axis load. (Unless you're doing something like belaying while laying down)

I suspect that clipping the belay biner into the leg loops and the waist loop, instead of the belay loop, does increase risk of failure, but only very, very slightly. The tradeoff is, of course, that belay loops do fail (as we probably saw in Skinner's death). A fair question to ask is "which one is more or less risky?"

[Eric]

tying into the belay loop also makes it much easier to flip upside down since the belay loop provides an easy pivot point.