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Sciurus
Sport climber
St. George UT
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 23, 2013 - 08:54pm PT
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The folks over at Rock&Ice Magazine decided to publish an article on the general incompetence of the newer generation of climbers (using the death of Tito Traversa as their foot in the door. The link can be found here: http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/dumb-climbing);.
Not quite satisfied with their over-generalizations, based no doubt on much hearsay and personal anecdotes, they then decide to add a picture of Colette McInerney at an anchoring station and ask their readership to spot all the mistakes in Colette's set-up. I guess someone over there felt it was time to put the younger generation in their place (which presumably is well below the exalted station of the old-timers). Why the need to humiliate a public and inspirational climbing figure such as Colette? The same points could have been made with many other pictures that did not have to humiliate anyone.
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mtnyoung
Trad climber
Twain Harte, California
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:20pm PT
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... Why the need to humiliate a public and inspirational climbing figure such as Colette? The same points could have been made with many other pictures that did not have to humiliate anyone.
It's always a stupid move to knowingly embarrass someone. I agree that they should have made their point (it's got some validity) with an anonymous photo.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:31pm PT
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Easy to bitch about, what you don't know or fully understand.
Not that publically embarrassing anyone is gonna help but the converstaion might. Sad to see people get hurt or die climbing from really stupid, fundamental mistakes.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:33pm PT
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better embarrassed than dead?
if you can't take constructive criticism, no matter who you are, then you're going to be in a world of hurt...
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Sciurus
Sport climber
St. George UT
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 23, 2013 - 09:41pm PT
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"...better embarrassed than dead?"
Sure, if those were the only two available options, which of course it is not.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:41pm PT
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^^^^ funny you say that!
I think the "new generations" are only as smart as the old generations teach them.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:47pm PT
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Perhaps the first thing we have to be clear about is that any change to the status quo, is going to take a lot of time. We have no magic bullet.
I read the R&I article. It made a mistake in naming any single person, but we need to get by that. People as old as myself came before the pursuit had been changed by commercial pressures and most of my cohort learned from mentors. Mind you in the 60's we saw articles very like that in R&I. While the pressures are different now, the problem is as old as climbing.
That said, I think we might usefully direct our thoughts to three approaches:
1. Simplicity
2. Redundancy
3. Visualization
How so?
Wherever possible protection devices and systems should be simple. The draws that failed Tito used a rubber keeper strip, as has been discussed on ST. Its value is minimal compared to the negatives associated with the loss of simplicity it engenders. Be aware here on ST we have gone on endlessly about equalization. Any time one is so unsure of one's anchors as to need equalization, re-planning your belay spot is needed. And even careful consideration of the reasons you are where you are. Is the climb worth it?
Little attention is paid to the value of redundancy. You have got a bolt, right? What more is needed? You have seen ten others whip up that line. Your are just number eleven. The inherent lack of redundancy in a rappel is making that activity a disaster area. We should be learning something from all these deaths.
What's this visualization thing? Stay with me here. The great majority of the failures I have seen professionally in physics came about because the experiment was planned by a person who was interested only in showing they were right about the physics. Now all of that could have been avoided if the designer had asked themselves a simple question, before doing the experiment.
What am I going to say when it does not work out as I expect?
When a climber starts a climb we hear only that they need to assume success if they are to "send". On the other hand if they want to give themselves a high chance of surviving, they need to do something quite different. They need to visualize what the ropes and protection will be doing when they fall.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:53pm PT
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we all do what we can do... I don't hesitate to question things I see out at the crag... and I do teach people about anchors and all that.... I'm not a publisher but if I were I'd use that as a platform for this discussion like Duane Raleigh has in R&I...
I once wrote an email to Patagonia... they had a great image of someone rapping off a single anchor in some heinous, ice chocked, snowing, grey and, presumably cold, gully or some such desperation. It was a great image (aren't they all) but my beef was there was no reason to show the anchor, it was a bad example...
...it's one thing to have to make that decision in various situations, it's a judgement call and anyone's who's been climbing for a while has had to make those decisions, but to show it in a popular venue with no comment makes it seem like normal, when it wasn't.
I could care less if Patagonia was embarrassed, they they just needed to know it wasn't the right thing to do... and they should be more careful with what they print.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:54pm PT
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It would be more productive to have shots of their own staff making mistakes. Sort of a "this can happen to anyone" kinda deal. Picking on the kids lulls the geezers into complacency.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 23, 2013 - 09:56pm PT
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...like hip belays...
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
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Jul 23, 2013 - 10:00pm PT
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The older generations of climbers would never do something stupid like set up a bad anchor or climb drunk/high. These new kids have no respect for their elders and the hell they went through. What if the first people to climb the Nose did nothing but drink wine and use substandard equipment the whole time? Unacceptable.
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RDB
Social climber
wa
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Jul 23, 2013 - 10:08pm PT
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...like hip belays...
so wtf is wrong with a proper hip belay?
or climbing with all passive pro or without a helmet
or with a swami if the situation is "safe"?
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jul 23, 2013 - 10:10pm PT
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Meh
Recently I got corrected on my belay technique. Somehow I had allowed a lazy habit to creep in and my hand tended too lock off to close to the device. Some random guy came by and got on me about it. My first instant reaction was a bit of embarrassed "hey kid I've been belaying big falls since before you were in diapers" But a few seconds later I simply had to admit to myself that the kid was right and I should be thankful for the correction.. and I am thankful.
From what I have been seeing at the gym lately I'm all for whatever it takes to get this discussion going. I like the Gri-Gri it's a fantastic device at times, but at the gym it has become a substitute for proper brake hand technique. I started actually counting the number of terrible belayers and it came out about 50%.
Its actually scary to contemplate the future if this continues.
I'm glad the first belay I learned was the Hip Belay... If you can do that well you can belay anything.
The ole bowline on a bight is pretty handy for a quick toprope at times too.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 23, 2013 - 10:11pm PT
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nothing wrong with a hip belay, but the younger generation climbers that see me doing it are aghast, "is that safe?"
they've never seen anything like it
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Jul 23, 2013 - 10:19pm PT
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We all make mistakes and those reading this have lived through them.
Climbing is dangerous. To approach it as a "sport" is feeble. Blow a tackle on the football field and the other team gets a first down. Blow it on a climb and people can die.
I don't read this as an attack, but as a cautionary note that climbing is not all sunshine and daisies. Kids are kids, easily distracted and need some over sight. Would you cut a 12 year old loose unsupervised in Porshe?
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matlinb
Trad climber
Albuquerque
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Jul 23, 2013 - 11:00pm PT
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Ok, all things considered I thought her belay was fine. It appears she was into the anchor pretty short, using a rope and redirected to an atc with a draw. I do this all the time.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jul 23, 2013 - 11:10pm PT
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The hip belay is always available when everything else has failed; say you've dropped your belay device, or your figure-8 "O" ring rappel device?
How do your belay your partner then?
My early days of climbing, the RMRG (Rocky Mountain Rescue Group) and CMC (Colorado Mountain Club)had their Spring Rock Climbing schools, and a belay session in the field house at CU routinely had a cement block weighing 160 pounds that was dropped from an about 10-15 foot height onto an anchor of a suspended carabiner 30 feet off the ground. Everyone taking the class was required to catch the falling weight with a HIP BELAY in order to pass the course. I frequently was the instructor for this training, and I caught this falling weight MANY time to demonstrate the technique. We always used leather gloves and a leather pad around the hips (also furnished to the students). The "lead rope" was usually trashed by the end of the rock school, normally a 1/2" Goldline that was actually glazed smooth from the heat generated by several hundred falls. During the course, I usually demonstrated this at least 5-6 times, as did Jonathan Hough and John Lewis.
IMHO, everyone should be able to hip belay as a fallback technique.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 23, 2013 - 11:17pm PT
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Ok, all things considered I thought her belay was fine.
There's several critical mistakes in that belay.
They are subtle.
If you can't see them then you better study it thoroughly.
The mistakes are all potentials that can rear their ugly heads.
You'll see these subtle mistakes all the time these days.
They are not obvious.
Always be on guard and look for them ......
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Jul 23, 2013 - 11:18pm PT
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I think the forces at work in climbing affect everyone, not just the younger generation, and are of two types.
1. Generally better technology which, however, requires ever more faith from the user, involves complexities that lead to unexpected results, and continually distances climbers from simple methods that are subject to elementary judgements.
Cams are surely the primary example of this phenomenon, but anything that automates some aspect of climbing practice fits in here. When we don't understand clearly and deeply, we fall back on faith-based assumptions that lead far more quickly to complacent practices. For example, I've climbed with up-and-coming climbers who (in my opinion) overuse small cams, placing them in lieu of genuinely bombproof nut placements available in the same general vicinity. From my perspective, their trust in the technology is far too broad-based, but it is in the nature of technology we use but don't fully understand to produce acceptance that lacks nuance.
2. Sport and gym-climbing environments that enable climbers to progress to very high levels without acquiring anything beyond the most rudimentary equipment skills---this is Duane Raleigh's point. Bolt-protected climbs have been around for more than a half-century, but only far more recently has it become possible to climb nothing but day in and day out. The problem here is that the climber, young or old, really has no choice but to have faith in gear installed by others; it is pretty much a case of blind faith for everyone, and if your entire context for climbing involves blind faith in gear, then growth of the healthy scepticism appropriate to many safety concerns can be seriously stunted.
In both these categories, the effectiveness of the gear is part of the problem. Things work most of the time, so worries seem increasingly hypothetical, and the intrinsic dangers seem remote. Look at the propensity of people to text while driving for an example of a total disconnect between practice and the reality of the situation.
Grouchy old trad climbers have a way of forgetting that there have always been people who have been apathetic, lackadaisical, perfunctory, and even unconcerned about what would seem to safety basics, not to mention the fact that folks don't agree on what those basics should be. But by and large (with some notable exceptions), reality had a way of tempering the more extreme attitudes. Now the opportunity for reality checks has been greatly reduced. Paradoxically, this both increases the safety of the sport as well as helping to produce attitudes that, for lack of exposure, are not appropriately conscious of the attending dangers.
I think it is a mistake to view these considerations as part of a generational divide, even though that is to some extent true by virtue of the change in the nature of climbing in the last forty years. It is inevitable that people exposed the most intensively to the results of newer technology will be disproportionately subject to the drawbacks that technology brings, and so there is the appearance of a generational divide which is, in fact, just an artifact of engineering progress. Younger climbers need to understand that there is a dark side to technology that works against them, and casting this reality as the grumblings of an older generation can only help to keep the dark side dark.
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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Jul 23, 2013 - 11:34pm PT
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Duane Raleigh's commentary is not an article; it's an editorial.
As an editorial I think it's great.
Needs to be said. It's not at all "putting them in their place", it's called heightening awareness.
The only commentary I saw about the photo was one query - can you count the mistakes. Why are people projecting their own emotions onto her possible reaction? How do you know that she's embarrased? Why do you feel she should be embarassed? It's just a teaching point.
phyl
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