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General Climbing Discussion

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The consequences of belaying 8-May-2017 At 8:25:25 PM JMK

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We all know what happens with bad belaying and with good belaying.

Good belaying and everything is sweet right? Not always - I once spent a year learning to walk again even though my belayer did everything right. They caught me, I just unluckily hit a ledge on the way through. Of course good belaying can be like the weekend, sweet soft catch when a foot unexpectedly blew and the wire was below my foot.

Bad belaying means disaster right? Actually mostly not. Bad belaying needs to coincide with a falling climber for disaster to happen. I met the results of that on the weekend. Nice bloke with a horror story and a lifetime of pain ahead. Full respect for coming back after what happened. Just what you see after years of surgery would dissuade most.

Now bad belaying is not the exclusive domain of the noob. Some of the worst belaying I have seen has been from long time climbers who take their hands off the trail rope while using an atc. Similarly I have seen other long time climbers using a gri gri with the brake hand holding it locked open to facilitate feeding with the other hand. They were NOT using it in the recommended manner - I looked. I guess they must be psychic as they know when their climber will fall even if it is unexpected.

I also recently saw someone using a gri gri to belay a trad route viparete at mt York in the blueys. Now, while I don't recommend gri gri with trad, use for me would be restricted to routes with bombproof gear and a very active awareness of stepping up if the climber falls. This was not happening in the example, belayer was casually standing hands on hips and not preparing to jump up if needed. I also note that some of the gear on this route is only as good as the shallow rock around it..........

My point: belaying is a huge responsibility and needs to be treated as such. Just because nothing has gone wrong it may still if not done properly. So everyone please check and see if you and others are doing the right thing and tactfully remind them. I sometimes don't - thanks Daniel for the reminder and best wishes.