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Stop saying 13-Jan-2015 At 10:52:47 AM simey

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On 12/01/2015 shiltz wrote:
>I guess I tend to chat a bit if I have a clear line of sight to my partner
>but once I get out of sight I tend to revert to the minimum of calls.
>This is because I find I end up in situations where it is difficult or
>impossible to hear my climbing partner pretty often due to wind or cliff
>shape. And in those cases keeping the number of calls to a minimum is
>essential.
>e.g. get to the top of the pitch, build your anchor, take in the slack,
>put them on belay and then call "on belay fred". If you don't hear a response
>just give 3 big tugs on the rope to indicate the same.

I reckon communicating with tugs on the rope never works. If you anticipate poor communication, then as the lead climber you simply rig the belay and start hauling rope. If the belayer can't hear you, they simply feed the rope to you through the belay device until there is no more rope left. Takes a bit longer, but it is not as time consuming as screaming and tugging and getting frustrated because you are trying to communicate in a cyclone. From the belayer's point of view, once there is no more rope left to feed out, you can pretty much assume your partner is ready to belay you (maybe give them a minute to thread the rope through their belay device). Once you start climbing just make sure that they are taking rope in, otherwise stop climbing until they do.

>e.g. get to the top of a sport route, clip in hard, thread the anchors,
>weight the rope and yell "lower away fred". Since your partner knows it
>is a sport route with a lower off they'll lower you sooner or later even
>if they can't hear or see you.

I'm not so sure about this idea. If I was the climber who had just threaded the anchors and I wasn't able to communicate with my belayer I would start pulling the rope up from my belayer and effectively lowering myself. If you were really paranoid you could actually put your own belay device on the belayers rope and lower yourself whilst pulling up rope from your belayer.

>And I agree with patto, "off belay" is a question that requires an "ok"
>before you actually do it.