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advice on runouts 19-Nov-2017 At 8:50:01 AM BA

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On 18-Nov-2017 gnaguts wrote:

>Ay BA what do you reckon with your back in the day viewpoint , rough guess
>, of all those you know of that dropped outa climbing , would you say runouts
>were a major contrib factor? Care to give it a percent factor?

I don't think it was an issue back then, it was part of 'climbing'. The first time I did Bard was with 5 pieces of gear, all slings, with home made 'nuts' made from brass hexagon rod of different sizes (on 3 of the slings) and made in the machine shop where my father worked. Take out one for each belay and you had 3 slings to protect each pitch if you could find somewhere to use them. I seem to recall there was no gear on pitch 3. Even if you were a "gear freak" back then you wouldn't have had much more gear, and if it was it probably would have been mild steel pitons and you would have 5-6 of those.

If the beginners got through the "beginners course" they normally hung around the climbing scene for 2-5 years before moving on to something else like careers, family etc. The runouts were usually on 'easier' ground and were just part of climbing. I'm not aware of anybody giving up climbing because of runouts.