RRC Archives

caribe wrote:

climb2core wrote:He had never lead trad? Or he had never lead period?

I overestimated him... My lesson from this is: BABY STEPS ALWAYS.

Yep, had the exact same take away message after my newbie hit the wall. She was afraid to practice falling despite my many requests to start trying. I let her skip a step. No skipping steps... or what you said.

arthur..you are just shell shocked.....this and the Phil incident have scarred you....perhaps Yahweh is telling you to give up trad....when we are resistant, the "hints" must be stronger.

Art, as the experienced member of the group you really need to be vocal about getting more gear in early, particularly if he's wavering a bit. I'll be very blunt with people and tell them straight out that if they go any higher they risk a groundfall. And don't forget the rope stretch...especially for the fatties like me

Glad to hear you both are relatively unscathed.

i know i've wondered at how any of us can still be alive. information via mentoring is great but so many people seem to need to make the mistakes themselves...

anyway, one aspect- i know when i was trying to learn it helped to bump up against limitations is [sic/edit-'in'] money/gear, experience, knowledge about crags/location, and my own physical weaknesses. because i didn't have gear i could only solo stuff that i felt ok about, it was on me and i got to know my fears and comfort levels. or, when i found a partner with gear, they were WAY reluctant to let me touch it (unless i was cleaning) and then, finally, on embarrassingly easy stuff. but it was always up to me ...

i'm saying maybe climbing has gotten to [sic/edit-too] easy for the inherent risk involved. it is fantastic to mentor someone; but i think it is easy to blur the line and the apprentice can rely too completely on the judgement of experience while ignoring/downplaying one's own instincts. likewise, it is easy for a mentor to be supportive/encouraging and glance over details.

Caribe, from what you've said, it sounds like you did about as good as can be done. i just wonder, in trying to be helpful, your partner was lured into a sense of security that he had not fully developed for himself?

Always better to do a mock lead so you can assess your mentee's gear placements before he gets in over his head. You would also have been able to monitor his rope management from the ground. This is standard operating procedure when guiding someone who wants to learn traditional leading. Just glad to hear you guys didn't add to the already ridiculous injury/rescue tally in that particular region.

i liked the way i learned trad: TR belay AND a lead belay. when i was safe enough off the deck, i would take intentional lead falls on my pieces. originally i had 2 belayers (one for each rope), but when craig leuben did it, he managed to belay both ropes himself.

sorry it was a shaky experience & glad you're both ok

dustonian wrote:Always better to do a mock lead so you can assess your mentee's gear placements before he gets in over his head. You would also have been able to monitor his rope management from the ground. This is standard operating procedure when guiding someone who wants to learn traditional leading. Just glad to hear you guys didn't add to the already ridiculous injury/rescue tally in that particular region.

Dustonian, please help me understand this, what is a mock lead as distinguished from what Caribe described? And, how is it that you determine that Caribe could not have monitored the rope management, or are you speaking theoretically? And, for 'standard operating procedure', wow, really? If this is true, is this privileged information or can you share the source? Or, what in your mind makes it 'standardized'?

I will do a mock lead next time.
Clif, Dusti is talking about two ropes.
I have belayed people mock leading trad before, but it is very similar to TR if you ask me. Still a good idea. The climber has to use the other hand to place gear.

hmm. if gear placement was the question...

two ropes v. tr burn seems a niggling distinction, esp. before the first piece is clipped v. lots of rope out.

Man, glad you guys are okay; having a kid should (or did in my case) made me a little tentative to get after it, I'm still not good with a lot of whippers and he's 2 now so I guess it might just be me; but this reminds me of eons ago when we were climbing in a big crew with a new kid (19 in this case).

Kid was hot stuff; tr'ed couple 10, 10+ and even an 11c his first day, no falls iirc, because you couldn't get back on. End of the day, mandatory climb back out (5.9 bolted)-long story, some gorge place way out west- and 5 guys, sandbaggers all imo are trying to get the kid to do his first lead.

Me the voice of reason, listing out why not---no mocks, no knowledge of how to clip really, end of the day, blah blah, but does the kid listen? You can guess not. After all, one of the baggers just led it in Tevas....

At least I was belaying, hesistantly though...knew it could get ugly...to his credit he made it past the grounder at the 2nd bolt looking shaky, but got to the third, rope behind leg, can't pull to clip, can't move, can't do anything by shake shake shimmy until he blew off, taking a spectacular head firster, slamming back in as soft as I could make it without any chance of cratering---still pretty bad. Black and blue, swole right up, we got him out okay and I didn't really climb much with that crew afterwards...

I think the way Josephine describes is "best practice"...

Just witnessed a super clutch catch, saving a broken leg for sure...new leader missed anchors, ran out a wide section, placed their only big piece and then couldn't clip. Went for a flyer! nearly cratered on the ledge, but so cavalier about it. Definitely would have been a trip to the hospital with a "rifle aka red" loop....stay safe folks!