Lead belay question

[Rollo]

Loompa had my number for a while... those tens are very comprable to roadside's tens







....but i never fell on Oompa.

[KD]

I think I was belaying him

[pigsteak]

he didnt fall on Oompa..his inattentive belayer pulled him off...sorry man.

and you said 'no offense" twice in your post...must mean stuff really sux....lol

[dustonian]

Careful out there tomorrow, Kipp...nothing is worse on the shoulders than bolting IMHO.

[Shamis]

To those that mentioned tying down belayers, I have some experience with this (since I'm fat), and some tips.

First I'll state that tying a belayer down is very problematic for sport climbing and shouldn't be done unless you really need to do it. It creates 2 potentially serious problems.

1. If the belayer is tied in with no slack, then they have no room to move to avoid rockfall etc, and it dramatically increases impact forces on the leader. Depending on the route, this might not be an issue, but needs to be considered.

2. If the belayer is tied in with slack, you need to figure out where the belayer will end up when the system goes taught. If the belayer is likely to be spun quickly, or tossed into an odd position, there's a good chance they could drop you, especially if they are not using an auto locking device.

In either scenario, spinning the belayer is a very bad thing, and can cause disasters. Whether you have slack in the tether or not, you need to make sure that they aren't going to spin badly when the system is loaded.

And lastly, my strong recommendation is to take all your spare gear, and load it into 1 pack, and then clip that pack to the belayer (preferably on the front belay loop). have enough slack so the bag can rest on the ground, but not much more. This allows you to keep the benefits of a dynamic belay for reduced impact forces, gives the belayer the ability to move (although somewhat encumbered), and prevents any nasty spinning that could cause the belayer to lose control of the brake line.

[pigsteak]

shamis nailed it...

[dustonian]

Yeah, the 20-25 lb backpack "anchor" works great... static anchoring to a tree, not so much.

[Brentucky]

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, but has anyone ever seen the opposite of that attempted? As in, attach that backpack anchor to a rope, stickclip it through the first bolt, and attach the other end to the heavier belayer to lose some load with the climber stickclipped to the second bolt. That has Gumby Genius written all over it, but mostly gumby.

[Flyinlow]

Since you wouldn't be changing the actual mass of the belayer, I think it would have little effect on the initial catch. it might extend the fall by a foot or two toward the end of the event after most of the force was dissipated, but would do relatively little to the peak force.