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Climbing fall.
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SpinFree Member
Not looked at ukc for over 10 years. Just looked and all the big hitters back then are still at it.
Nah, all the real big hitters (whatever that actually means) got banned. UKC has a much heavier hand with the banhammer than STW.
whitestoneFree MemberUsed to be on UKC a lot but basically gave up climbing about four or five years ago and UKC a couple of years after that. Climbed solidly for over thirty years as my shots on the “what did you do in a past life” thread showed.
Often the most dangerous routes are those well below your standard where you don’t concentrate as much or don’t put much/any gear in and the rock is less than vertical and has lots of ledges and protrusions. A 20 metre fall through air on an overhanging crag is fine, a 5 metre fall on something easy angled hurts. Have done both, don’t fancy repeating the latter: dislocated elbow, broken wrist and chipped vertebrae, my only accident in thirty years.
martinhutchFull MemberUsed to be on UKC, this place takes itself far less seriously (for the most part). 🙂
Swim left, right or take your chances with the sharks?
Is that a UKB reference?
mattsccmFree MemberThat clip reminds me of having to run down hill when a mate popped off and stripped his gear. His neck was longer than his experience with little wires really warranted. I heard the scrapping of his Galibiers as he went, and as I was expecting something from his whinging, looked up and started moving. Good job I did as his top bits popped and he ended up face down about 3 feet from the ground. He didn’t get back on as it seemed a bad idea as he was getting married the next morning. That crappy little slabby crag up the Pass from the Mot. Craig cwm Beudy Mawr?
YakFull MemberAh, must be the big hitters I knew in real life that are still there.
Whitestone +1 . My one serious fall was on an easy route on a wet day. Hold snapped and I fell 50ft, clipped a ledge, flipped the wrong way and hit the face with my head, but luckily a bit off the ground. Helmet broke (early adopter) Lost vision for a while and concussed. Lucky to get away with that tbh. Being the young idiot version of me, I declared me fit to lead by pitch 3, then went to the pub, before falling into the river near the Vaynol. Not my finest moment.
dazhFull MemberA better biking analogy would be sanitising natural trails to make them safer or more accessible.
Not really. The analogy to that would be chipping extra holds, which we can all agree is deeply wrong. Making something slightly safer doesn’t detract from the route. This whole thing about having to risk death or serious injury to climb a route is a stupid macho thing borne of tradition. It should be possible find a compromise. I’m not talking about bolting 3 star test pieces or classics, more the esoteric mid-grade E2-E5s that are not technically difficult but never get climbed.
YakFull MemberThe analogy would be putting padding on trees or rocks so the consequence of getting it wrong isn’t death. So it has it’s place – dh. Full bore, but you get to live. Sport climbing – same.
boxelderFull MemberThe belayer could have a ground belay/anchor, stopping him being pulled off the ground. Not that I do very often.
dazhFull MemberI’ve always thought mountain biking and climbing are very similar. They’re both as dangerous as you want to make them. Climbing obviously has higher consequences, but the calculations of risk vs ability are pretty much the same. The bolting debate though is a strange one I’ve never got my head around. Why for instance is a gritstone outcrop in Derbyshire too precious for bolts when the the Dawn Wall on El Capitan isn’t? The taboo around bolting grit is very strange and illogical IMO.
Edit: After years on UKC (and being flamed for it) I can’t believe I’m in the same debate here 🙂
teamhurtmoreFree MemberBoxedler – I was thinking the same thing. One of the first thing we taught as CCF instructors
TimothyDFree MemberGrumbling about ‘old duffers’ going on about tradition, *on a different forum* to the one they post on, has got to be a level of daftness higher than whatever it is one doesn’t think is a decent tradition to continue with I reckon. One might as well shake a fist at the sky. 😉
Dazh: Looking for logic in things like climbing traditions, like anything which humans do, is fruitless because humans are essentially illogical. Having grown up going Trad climbing on Derbyshire grit, that’s my reason for not wanting bolts on it, as memories of my Dad teaching me to lead are tied up with Trad climbing on gritstone at Stanage and Burbage and places. It’s my own personal reason, and I’m happy that climbing tradition is in line with it. I don’t claim it to be a logical one. 🙂
Edit: If I had to find a reason which wasn’t to do with personal memories, it’d be something like the beauty and intricacy of gritstone itself, is mirrored in the intricacies of figuring out how to protect a climb using traditional gear, and that I think something of the experience of climbing on gritstone could be lost if bolts were place. I find gritstone a beautiful kind of rock, and having to pause and contemplate placing protection – in looking at the rock as a part of doing this, can make one appreciate the beauty of the rock more, I think.
TimothyDFree MemberIf one was able to cruise up easily clipping bolts, the nature of the climbing could be less contemplative in nature, and less focused (by necessity) on the natural details. I find working out how much bigger than the rock grain the nut I’m placing is, and how far back into a narrowing crack it needs to go, means I can’t help but absorbed the nature of the rock…it’s colours and patterns and how it’s formed.
SpinFree MemberThis whole thing about having to risk death or serious injury to climb a route is a stupid macho thing borne of tradition
You don’t have to. You can choose to do an easier or safer route. If you feel under pressure to risk your life for a route you need to examine your own motivations, not the ethics of the sport.
The best and boldest climbers I know are not stupid and macho. They are quiet and contemplative individuals who understand and appreciate the benefits and risks of their chosen pastime.
SpinFree MemberThe analogy would be putting padding on trees or rocks so the consequence of getting it wrong isn’t death. So it has it’s place – dh. Full bore, but you get to live. Sport climbing – same.
No, that’s analogous to trad gear because you can remove the pads afterwards and no one will ever know they’ve been there. Bolting is more like chopping the trees down to avoid crashing into them.
dirksdigglerFree MemberNot a climber, so the technicality of the belay job is lost on me, however I am stunned by the impressive speed of reaction to be prepared to what appears to me to be the intention to immobilize the climbers spine.
He caught him on the first bounce!whitestoneFree MemberThere’s the assumption that naturally/trad protected routes are all death on a stick, some are but it’s actually a continuum from that to routes that are safer, have more protection than a sports route. These days with every route documented and discussed on the web, it’s rare to get on a route that you don’t have some idea of its seriousness.
The adding/chopping down trees analogy is a good one, in trad climbing you can pad as few or as many as *you* want! the next person along can do the same but might choose to pad deifferent trees.
It amuses me how some will trust bolts placed several years ago by persons unknown with possibly no training but won’t trust gear that they have placed themselves.
newrobdobFree MemberI know absolutely nothing about climbing but that bloke on the ground had an impressive reaction, just what needed to be done in a split second. Very impressive.
globaltiFree MemberI am stunned by the impressive speed of reaction to be prepared to what appears to me to be the intention to immobilize the climbers spine.
It’s the instinctive protective reaction of one brother or mate towards another that touches me as I used to climb and cycle with my own younger brother, which brought us very close.
SandwichFull MemberThe belayer could have a ground belay/anchor, stopping him being pulled off the ground. Not that I do very often.
That has it’s own risks with seconds being killed by dislodged rock and unable to avoid the debris.
I can concur that it’s the easy routes that catch you out. My only ground fall was at Bircham. The back of one leg bum to knee turned black due to landing on a no.8 Hex.
aracerFree MemberThe belayer could have a ground belay/anchor, stopping him being pulled off the ground.
Delayed response as I wanted to check the video again to be sure. If he had, his brother might well be dead now – he didn’t get pulled off the ground as the rope tension hit, he jumped first so that his weight came back onto the rope at the right point. Incredible reactions.
chickenmanFull MemberI used to think trad climbing was 50% head, 30% technique and 20% head. Even to be a good onsight sport climber your head is as important as strength. The climbers who have made the transition from climbing walls to elite level trad/sport/winter climbing are pretty damn impressive these days (because they are so fit)but they are a not exactly common; the head part of the equation being much harder to acquire than the other parts.
As someone who was weak but good at the other bits I used to often try and fail on routes that were too hard for me (didn’t like grit as failing often means decking out!). Being weak meant I was good at trad and useless at sport climbing and bouldering.
What I like about mountain biking is that you don’t ever really fail; maybe you got off and pushed on the climb when you shouldn’t have or took the chicken line on the descent but you’ve still done the route (you set your own parameters if you like, you don’t just go home having failed on a route).bencooperFree MemberThat was scary.
I still get goosebumps thinking of some of the sketchy things I’ve climbed. Only serious accident though was on an indoor climbing wall, I was belaying a friend, she slipped and whacked her knee in an odd way – didn’t fall far, jsut a bad angle. Lowering someone down who’s screaming at the top of their voice isn’t something I’ll forget. She’d dislocated her kneecap, made a full recovery in a few weeks.
tangFree MemberDD did you ever climb with my brother Pete Carlyon from Stroud? I’m sure he used to climb with a friend called Rob. We lost our younger brother in a falling accident.
deadlydarcyFree MemberHey tang…I may have…but to be honest, it was all so long ago…and I didn’t do a massive amount of outdoor stuff with Rob. He just took us on the easy stuff as we were newbs. Then I moved to Bristol and mainly stuck to sport stuff at St. Werburghs. He used to do the scarier stuff with other guys. I’d sometimes meet them at the house but you know what house shares are like – you’d end up knowing your housemates’ mates by first names only. Rob used to go out with Tanya – she died years ago from Hodgkins Lymphoma – she might only have been in her early/mid thirties – they married just before she died. He climbed regularly with Roger, a Porsche driving BA pilot, also Tanya’s dad. Other than that, I can’t really remember his mates’ names now. AFAIR he was a pretty good climber – certainly got up to some tough stuff. He was into property development/building as a job I think. His surname was Barr.
tangFree MemberA good chance he climbed with my brother, he lived in Stroud then and a very talented experienced climber. He still climbs now but lives in Briz, I’m mildly haunted by the tragic loss, and have stuck to two wheels firmly planted on the ground.
steverFree MemberIs that a UKB reference?
Sadly not that clever, good one though 🙂
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