Yes, trad climbing is far more dangerous, particularly on a multi-pitch route.TradMike wrote:If you do have to tie in leave some slack in the tie-in; enough so you don't hit something and enough to cushion the fall. The loads do skyrocket when there's no slack for the belayer to move up during a fall. The less rope you have out the higher the load. A fall factor 1 low on the route is much worse than a fall factor 1 high on the route. Add a rope that hasn't recovered from a previous fall and it's much worse. Multi-pitch trad climbers even have room to move up a few feet from a belay unless they placed a directional to stop that. My old partner weighed 220 and I'm 175. We started popping trad gear and breaking rock when I tied in tight without any slack to move up if it was a fall low on the route. More than likely wouldn't fail a bolt though. It's not usually one thing that get's you but those perfect storms where several factors come together that are a bitch.
If I fall past the belayer without much rope out then I think I generate between 8-12Kn depending on how close to fall factor 2 I am. Which means every nut smaller than about a 9 is going to break or pull. That's why I place tons of gear when first coming off the belay.
This is also why I was saying tying off a belayer on a sport route would be better with slack. Give them however much slack you can, so that they don't hit stuff.
The reason why soft catches are so important in sport climbing is because people don't let the ropes recover between falls. But the only real harm that will probably come from it is the climber will have a sore back, the gear still shouldn't fail unless maybe the bolt isn't placed well, or the sandstone just sucks. Or maybe if the draws have been hanging out in the sun for 9 months....
I think the only signifigang danger with tying off the belayer on a sport climb, is that they lose some mobility on the ground, which can be really bad considering most sport climbers don't bother with helmets. So make sure they have enough room to move, or make sure they're out of the line of fire.
