Saturday climbing crew
Scott the "Hold-skipper" made it to the rock gym since he got his grant submitted. It was interesting to watch him climb the same routes we had climbed using half the holds we used! Kenway made him run laps on a 5.6 to compensate. All the n00bs tangled with the Jugs of Wrath (5.9) but we all burned out 3-4 moves from the end. Kenway got the 5.12 up front dialed in, expect him to send that one next time. Eric and I spent the last half of the day tangling with some 5.9+s and 5.10s that left us barn-dooring, scrunching, stretching, confused and finally begging for mercy.
Also started learning (teaching in Kenway's case) lead technique by setting up position to clip well and opening the gate on quickdraws on Safety Meeting (5.8). I found that the extra few seconds spent at each draw made the climb seem much harder.
Also started learning (teaching in Kenway's case) lead technique by setting up position to clip well and opening the gate on quickdraws on Safety Meeting (5.8). I found that the extra few seconds spent at each draw made the climb seem much harder.
Good info on leading sport at Spadout:
4 comments:
Kenway, the draw in the photo wouldn't be backclipped if the rope to the leader traveled to the left of the dogbone, correct? It would still go front to back, but the dogbone would prevent unclipping. Is there still something wrong with that? Drag? Bad habit to mix directions?
Nice find on the lead info.
Yeah, the case you describe is mostly bad habit. In the great outdoors, i always place my draws so the gate at the bottom faces away from my direction of travel (ie. i place as shown in the picture if my line goes from below right to above left - makes it such that IF i backclip, it's less likely to self-unclip if (when) i fall). Keep in mind that the biner can flip itself around so the gate is facing the other way, in which case you still have a similar concern with unclipping.
If you get in the habit of both placing your draws correctly AND always clipping properly, you'll minimize the overall chance of coming off that draw...
This is most important in sport climbing when you're close clipped to a bolt and the draw is rigid like shown. When you place runners on a trad placement, especially if you extend them, the large amount of floppiness in the system (which you want to decrease the chances of the cam walking or the nut being dragged out) also increases the unpredictability of the eventual biner orientation - ces't la vie...
Thanks. That explains why all the bottom gates on Safety Meeting were facing left; the climb travels up to the right so any clipping configuration allows the rope to travel along the biner spine.
The World of Adventure Sports on NBC today is about climbing K2 (1-3pm). Funny quote:
"Many people come down from summiting Everest and have an empty feeling. Well ya, of course, it isn't hard enough."
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