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Ground fall at St Peters monday night 23-Aug-2014 At 12:28:08 AM sbm

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I can confirm the belayer was NOT bultitude. In his own words, he can't afford to climb at St Peters these days (he spends all his money on plane tickets to nz).

> my mother suffered a diagnosed 'minor whiplash' in a minor*car accident in her younger years...it is paying her back big-time in her elderly years, read fused vertebrae / rods inserted etc.
> I fell about 3m in the same fashion - X-rays later showed compression fractures to L1 and L2

Aw no. One thing that's become clearer in the last week is exactly how lucky I've been.

I did get a lumbar x-rays and they didn't see anything they were concerned about. I promise I'll continue to follow up, I had very minor pain at the physio today.

> I presume ATCs will be banned now and the waist belay is the new standard.
> Is it true Gri Gri's are still banned at St Peters? How many ground falls/near misses is it going to take before they relent?

I think if we make that joke too much, the next step would actually be to ban lead climbing...

At first I was all "Grrr if we'd been using my grigri this wouldn't have happened" but now I'm not so sure. You can screw up any belay device. Grigris are great if you read the instruction manual but maybe more dangerous if you don't (and nobody does, this is a problem with western civilization)

> One thing you need to do is never again climb with the person who was belaying you. They have proven that they can't be trusted...Thankfully, the arsehole gave up climbing so can't endanger anyone else.

I knew I'd see this attitude...obviously the trust has been broken and it will take a lot to rebuild. But I sympathize a lot with the belayer, they reminded me a lot of myself in my first year of climbing (that's why I climbed with them). I don't have it in me to cast the first stone.

> I only allow a few people I know and trust to belay me

I've been a complete belay whore at St Peters, and also had a rule that I'd never say "take" and would climb until I pumped out fell unexpectedly. In hindsight, that was a bad combination and an accident was probably coming to me.

> various comments about calling peoples technique out

It's easy to call people idiots, but also in my experience belaying instruction for beginners is complete sh!t, and their mistakes are forgiven by high friction indoor TR setups and become bad habits.

I've got to rethink the way I teach it for sure.