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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Exploding Rope 6-Sep-2005 At 5:17:12 PM pensionerpower

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"The maximum fall factor generated in climbing situations is 2."

That's a common misconception. In fact you can generate a fall factor arbitrarily greater than 2. Just proceed as follows.

1. Rig a vertical cable to use as protection. Attach that cable to a wall at regular increments: say each 3 meters. So the cable is attached to the wall at ground level (A), 3 meters up (B), another 3 meters up (C), and so on.

2. Now use a 1 meter line to clip yourself to the cable. Climb up to attachment B. Move past it (unclipping then reclipping your line), and continue to attachment C. Climb past C so you can reach down to unclip your line & move up past it.

3. Now fall off - and die!

You will fall the 1 meter that you have climbed past C, then 3 meters down to B, then another meter down past B - for a total of 5 meters, ON ONE METER OF LINE. This is a factor FIVE fall.

I'm not entirely positive, but I think that harnesses & peices will simply blow apart with the forces generated by a factor five fall. If they don't just change the attachment interval from 3m to 5m, to get a factor SEVEN fall, & so on.

This is why you need special equipment (zypers etc.) on via ferrata, or the harbour bridge climb.

Folks, I am just an indoor junkie - I dislike outside (too many flies; no carpets!), but I do know my fall factors!