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General Climbing Discussion

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Extreme sports and kids... 22-May-2015 At 12:36:22 PM Wendy

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On 22/05/2015 Snacks wrote:

>
>Yikes... you sound very anxious about all this... do you have some as
>yet identified climbing beginners lying at the base of a climb somewhere
>or something? ...
>
>If you instructed someone to unclip their safety without them having another
>point of attachment and they fell and hurt themselves in a teacher/learner
>situation then yes, you'd be negligent...
>
>The prosecution can have an ugly time of demonstrating what is best practice
>within a given recreational community but for a particular act once this
>is established from testimonies/manuals etc. then the instructor's advice
>would be compared against this. The above example I gave is fairly clear
>cut.
>
>It is partially comforting that people can be held accountable for demonstrated
>negligence. I understand that it is equally distressing, but I guess that
>is kind of the point? Yes?

You seem to have missed the bit where I said I was all for instructors being accountable? And I spent many years being a very thorough and cautious instructor.

Even you example is not so clear cut. Take soloing down Ali's. I don't do it with beginners at all, I don't think anyone should do it whilst guiding and plenty of rec climbers probably shouldn't either. but the guidebook suggests you just down climb it. You see people do it all the time. Say some recreational climber sends their friend off down Ali's as many people have already done that day. Friend slip and fall. Negligent? Is the guide book author negligent for suggesting soloing it?

Lets try another situation I saw the other day. Guy leads group up Diapason. Firstly, he made the strange decision to go up the squeezy chimney finish when I would always go the face finish, it's way easier for new climbers. By the time I saw the group, his last climber was struggling in the squeeze chimney. The next piece of gear was out left of her on the face. So if she fell out of the chimney (aside from being inflicted with the unnecessary terror of facing a swing should she fall) she could have swung into the wall, broken her arm and would this person be negligent? Or are they just demonstrating a very common practice of not protecting well for seconds? As I think the person was a trainee guide, I think it's especially poor practice - and I would say that if they were a fully trained guide, this would be a mistake that a reasonably skilled guide should not make. As a recreational climber, it's still poor, but it's also bloody common. What happens most of the time, is the poor seconder gets scared but doesn't fall off. Occasionally the get scared, fall off, have an exciting swing and don't get hurt. Once in a while, they do get hurt. Is it really a legal problem in recreational climbing? Is rec climbing improved or made safer by it being a legal problem? I don't think so. I think it is a general skill problem, and we need to address the general skill problem.