Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Should GriGris be alllowed in climbing gyms 10-Feb-2011 At 3:20:27 PM garbie

Message

On 10/02/2011 nmonteith wrote:
>My 'worst case scenario' is that the leader rips off a big block and then
>also falls off - the block then brains the belayer, and then the leader
>gets caught by the rope at the end of the fall. In this situation you obviously
>don't have the ability to downclimb - as you are already falling. I've
>taken quite a few big falls in my time with holds breaking, and I've certainly
>dodged a fair few flying rocks on belay. Even if the belayer doesn't gets
>knocked unconscious - I can see that being hit by even a small falling
>rock will cause extreme pain and obviously 'distract' the belayer from
>holding the rope! With an autolocker this isn't a problem*
>
>This isn't an argument about sport vs trad. Loose rock and big falls happen
>in both trad and sport. Even on trade routes.
>
>* Peter Monks disclaimer - obviously not 100% of the time.

I'm generally with Neil on this. Rock-fall is rare at the gym, but holds sometimes break (less often now with urethane holds) and can either hit or distract a belayer. More often its other distractions - people chatting to you, or wandering around without much on...