RRC Archives

fill us in...who decked, who was belaying, and why was the SUM involved? On Ale8 is all I got. And are they alright?

The season has officially begun, were perma draws the root cause? Those things are a menace.

Yes, the SUM was the device that was being used. The climber broke his leg in several places, but he is okay and is already on the road to recovery. Perma-draws were NOT the root cause of the accident. The climber is a very competent 5.12 climber.

Names! We need Names!!!!!! Like Piggy wanted, NAMES!

Caribe must be asleep since we haven't been chastised to use a Click Up.

Saxman wrote:Caribe must be asleep since we haven't been chastised to use a Click Up.

. It really is a passion-free analysis. You might feel better to see me as an extremist zealot. I don't think that I am . . . I hope I am not. Our friendship over the years should get you thinking. I remember climbing with you that day when we first saw someone tie into a rewoven bowline. We are both climbing on that knot today. The advantages are obvious.
. . .
I used the ATC exclusively for a few years. The Grigri has obvious advantages in the autoblock. The disadvantage is the belayer can disengage it and it is routinely disengaged during operation. The clickup autoblocks but does not suffer from the latter disadvantage. It is therefore an objectively superior device. So I choose it over the Grigri.
...
I lose religion pretty quick. I can easily envision being introduced to a new device and making the same analysis and giving up the clickup.
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I was in this argument with a religious fellow one time. At some point in the discussion he accused me of simply choosing the position that was easiest to defend. I said yes, that is all I do. Sometimes deciding which position is easiest to defend is a bit dicey. Therein lies the content.

So back to the point. It really sucks that someone was hurt, I am truly sorry to hear that and glad he is alive. I always wonder how likely it is that it will be me in that spot someday. It is important to learn from these incidents.

The climber made it through the ranks to the mother load. Had the belayer made it past animal crackers?

Dang Caribe, that was nicely written.

I'm going to chime in here. I don't often post on here, I read through some of the endless posts here and enjoy some of them but really a lot of it is just a bunch of people giving each other crap, gossiping like 13 year old middle school girls, or just giving each other a good laugh, which is all well and good. Sometimes there are situations that people feel are necessary to post about and I guess we needed to have another post about decking so here are the facts since I was there, climbed frequently for several years with both people involved, used the belay device in question, and helped get the climber out with the EMT's and quite a few willing volunteers. The climber was solid at the grade and had climbed Ale-8 the week before several times and was close to sending. He fell at the last bolt and the belayer locked off the way the manufacturer says to lock off and the way he (as well as the climber and I) had locked off and caught many falls before. However, the belay device (It's called a Sum, good design, obviously not fool proof. A little info here, http://www.bluedome.co.uk/trailwalk/tra ... &subcat=32) never caught, which resulted in the climber decking. The belayer had caught the climber and I earlier that day from the exact same spot as well as many times on many routes and he is a pretty experienced climber himself (3 years outdoor climbing). Obviously I'm refraining from mentioning names because I don't think things need to escalate any more and I think in reality there's no reason for this post to continue. The point is that this can happen to anyone. We use equipment and participate in a sport that no matter how well things are tested and people perform there is always room for error. So the moral of the story is check your gear before you climb, belay and climb safely, and understand that anything can happen. Again, this post really doesn't need to go any further, there are plenty of other topics to create drama about but this involves a situation that could've been a lot worse and really wasn't the fault of the climber or belayer. On that note I'm going to hopefully let this post rest in peace, goodnight.

yeah, since i've decked and it was mostly my fault i'll throw my weight behind the need and use for understanding exactly what happened.

thanks for posting. i clicked the link and read:
"Cons: None"

engineering/device failure or user failure would seem to be the two choice explanations, you are saying there is a third?