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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Gris Gris banned at Sydney Indoor 28-Jun-2006 At 3:48:35 PM ironmike

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I use a standard Black Diamond belay device and for the life of me cannot understand why a climber would prefer to use a Gri Gri. Surely relying on something mechanical takes away the security you have in your belayer being on the job. The belayer trusts the device and the device fails - the rope has too much velocity for the belayer to get anything back.

In my case, I'd much prefer climbing with someone who uses a manual belay device, you keep the anchor on and the climber goes nowhere ... certainly seems better than ... you think you've got the anchor on and the rope slips through and climber falls. Imagine paying the bucks for a Gri Gri just to get out of a little extra manual work ... it says nothing about peace of mind, and probably more about taking short cuts.

Then again, I've never used one and am probably going to be shot down for shooting off without appropriate knowledge or experience. With that in mind, I have seen two serious falls myself, each time the belayer was using a Gri Gri. Coincident or ...