RRC Archives

pigsteak wrote:you have Pigsteak, Ray-dawg, ScoBro, and the click-up as your gods. please choose.

Commandment 1: put no gods before Pigsteak.

Its like saying that because you were texting while driving (being inattentive) and you crashed your car and someone got hurt, its not your fault because EVERYBODY texts while driving, besides other things could've happened that could have caused you to crash, road conditions, other traffic... ad nauseum.
Truth is that you may get away with texting while driving a thousand times, but that one instant that it counted, you were somewhere else (at least in your own mind). The truth is that there are the possibilities of other 'mitigating' circumstances, but if you had been present in both body and mind, you would have seen the possible combinations of circumstances that would have led to failure, in the least you would have been able to lock down your belay device at the onset of the catastrophe and kept the climber off the ground. There's no excuse for dropping a climber to the ground.

The only instance that it could possibly not be the belayers fault is if the belayer was an abject gumby or incapable of comprehending the consequences of action/inaction and the CLIMBER WAS FULLY AWARE OF THESE INADEQUACIES and chose to climb anyway.

As usual, you are missing the point. I was never trying to make excuses for the inattentive belay. I could give you a hundred scenarios where you were doing everything right and shit still went wrong.

And even then... I am not saying it still isn't your fault.

Clevis Hitch wrote:
Truth is that you may get away with texting while driving a thousand times, but that one instant that it counted, you were somewhere else (at least in your own mind). The truth is that there are the possibilities of other 'mitigating' circumstances, but if you had been present in both body and mind, you would have seen the possible combinations of circumstances that would have led to failure, in the least you would have been able to lock down your belay device at the onset of the catastrophe and kept the climber off the ground. There's no excuse for dropping a climber to the ground.

I like your post, Clevis and it's what I've been saying for awhile now. You may have texted or talked on the phone a thousand times, but in the case of an emergency, your attention is divided and reaction time may be delayed.

The same situation applies to talking and belaying.

I am definitely guilty of the talking and belaying, but it is starting to bother me. I hate it when I am cruxing and my belayer is fully concentrated on their conversation. Its a problem.

Andrew wrote:I am definitely guilty of the talking and belaying, but it is starting to bother me. I hate it when I am cruxing and my belayer is fully concentrated on their conversation. Its a problem.

Way too much talking going on at the crag. When we were at Solar Collector last week it was hard to hear my climber at times because of so much talking/noise going on. And yeah, people need to learn not to engage the belayer in conversations and the belayer needs to learn to not engage in conversation.

Andrew wrote:I am definitely guilty of the talking and belaying, but it is starting to bother me. I hate it when I am cruxing and my belayer is fully concentrated on their conversation. Its a problem.

You should make your cruxes more interesting than your belayer's conversation, Andrew. Problem solved.

any suggestions. I already make weird noises.

so this weekend at rocktoberfest, let's all do our duty, shut the trap while belaying, and politely ask those around us to concentrate on their climber so we can all stay safe.

pigsteak wrote:so this weekend at rocktoberfest, let's all do our duty, shut the trap while belaying, and politely ask those around us to concentrate on their climber so we can all stay safe.

or run to the Obed with our curly little tails between our legs.