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Ground fall at St Peters monday night 26-Aug-2014 At 6:31:20 PM BA

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On 25/08/2014 One Day Hero wrote:

>Climbing experience is measured in meters,

Here we go again - some one who cannot tell the difference between a measuring device (a meter) and a unit of measurement (a metre). If he can't tell the difference between those two why should I believe any statement he makes?

>I guess belaying experience is mostly measured in falls caught, it's not like just >standing there and holding a rope teaches you anything. This is majorly misunderstood,
>especially by old farts who've "been climbing for 30 years" but never really
>done anything of note.

When I was asked to do an interview for Chockstone (many years ago) that is the argument I used i.e. I've never done anything of note. I've climbed in, NSW, SA, Tassie, NZ, England, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy and had a bloody good time with a lot of bloody good people, but that obviously counts for nothing. Give it another 4 years and it will be a half century that when I first started climbing, none of this thirty years nonsense. The biggest falls I ever held and were held on were "waist belays" (see M9's post above), as the technology improved the falls became smaller (the gear was closer together). To get into the MUMC "Fallen Angels" club back then, a fall had to be over 10' (that's feet for you youngsters out there, or 3m) to be even considered as a fall (and I was an aRMpIT, not an OXO).

>I always used to wonder how someone could be so
>experienced yet so shit at climbing.........took a while to work out that
>a lot of people never progress beyond being bumblies, and just shuffle
>along in their insulated bubble of incompetence for decades.

When it comes to defining "bumblies", what is the definition? When I started climbing in Victoria the hardest grade was HVS, and no, I'm not going to say what that translates into modern grading because the poster (ODH) has already implied his knowledge of climbing (from 30 years ago) is greater than mine. Just because I'm talking about 15 years earlier does not let him off the hook. He has set himself up as the fount of all knowledge. I have led that grade and been on stuff that was grades harder, where I learned new skills like how to pinch grip bolt heads, dyno for slings that Kieran left behind after he had dynoed for the hold (and snared it) and I started working on a design for two handed krabs.

I am a bumbly, and I'm out and proud. When I started climbing we found it interesting that Chris Dewhurst and Bruno Zielke trained, and I mean they did things like bench presses and the like, nothing specifically for climbing (but they were competitive).

Climbing with Kieran has probably saved me from potentially fatal embarrassment and my name being left off some important FFAs (due to the above mentioned new "skills") He climbed harder that my normal climbing partners and thus honed my belaying skills, especially with two ropes.

But I will be happy if I ever get back into the "insulated bubble" that ODH mentions above. Climbing without those mates from the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and into the naughties, means for me, that I doubt that I will ever take to climbing seriously again. My climbing years are probably over. My climbing was about who I was climbing with and not about the grades. Doing a 60m pitch on Ben Nevis (Scotland) with a 50m rope? Done it. Doing an FA on a waterfall during a drought? Done it. Repeating a route on Rosea where the second used the stars to work out what direction to head in? Done it. Nothing of note there. Now move along, nothing to see here.

So, ODH, I humbly suggest that you pull your head in and increase the circle of climbing acquaintances that you have, the best ones are the ones that enjoy climbing, not the ones whose success is measured by their belaying ability. After all, they're success is measured by your failure. Inside my bubble I never dropped anybody and nobody ever dropped me. I am sure there are other people living inside their bubbles who have the correct belaying skills and have never done anything of note, except, perhaps, for themselves and their climbing partner.

(And yes I'm feeling a bit angry at the moment, a non-climbing friend has been recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease and the above comments seem so, so trivial and irrelevant and demeaning that I'm surprised that I haven't resorted to being more overtly abusive.)

Over to you ODH.