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MisterE
Trad climber
My Inner Nut
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The most disturbing part of this picture is the hanger appears to have NO BOLT!
Aside:
Some jerkwad once glued some hangers on a wall in Leavenworth Washington back in the 90's, I guess in the hopes that some sporto would clip without looking...
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slobmonster
Trad climber
berkeley, ca
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It appears that folks forget about the top 'biner pocket in their quickdraws. It is "loose" (i.e. no rubber band thingie) to facilitate spinning the 'biner, and avoiding the scenario pictured above.
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Bump for a real, non-trivial, non-recycled climbing topic.
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thedogfather
climber
Midwest
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slobmonster, I always assumed the loose end of the draw allows the draw to freely hang below the biner vs the tight end that could cause some leverage issues. I don't think draws like this Petzl one would really facilitate rotating the biner every time you clipped.
I would still like to know if it matters which direction you clip a draw into a bolt that is oriented the way the one is above.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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This is such a cool thread. I love gear failures.
Really.
Looks like geometry played a big factor.
Juan
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jbar
Mountain climber
Inside my head
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Clearly the butterflies in thedogfather's photo were contributing to his protection.
Clint's pics are awesome. I clipped short once. Once. Thinking of the leverage tearing the biner open is scary.
I also have often wondered about the biner position in the newer bolts like in Wbraun's photo. To me the 45 degree angled bolts just didn't make sense. Harder to clip and it seems like they would have more of a tendency to twist under stress.
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slobmonster
Trad climber
berkeley, ca
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quote
"I would still like to know if it matters which direction you clip a draw into a bolt that is oriented the way the one is above. "
It only "matters" if you fall, right?
A few years ago BD began selling all their draws w/ the 'biners facing the same way. They included a fairly cogent explanation as to why... someone will probably dig this up, I think the(ir) primary concern was the bolt-end 'biner unclipping from the hanger. On a route that veers right, everything gets clipped w/ the gates facing left.
(I've always had my draws with biners facing in opposite directions. This allows for easy spinning of the bolt-end biner, so (if needed) the narrow side of the biner's offset shape is hanging off the bolt.)
As for "why" bolt hangers are commonly installed with a counter-clockwise bias, this is so they won't spin loose when loaded. Still happens, unfortunately, but this would be a discussion for another nerdy post.
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dwm
climber
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Slobmonster --
Based on your post I emailed BD and received this reply from Jeff Maudlin at BD (note disclaimer that this correspondence is personal
opinion and NOT an official statement of Black Diamond Equipment Ltd.) --
Hi Dave,
Thanks for writing. Must have been scary for sure. I'm glad everyone was ok. Mammut is a great company and I'm sure they will have some good info for you.
I dont believe we have an "offical" stance on the quickdraw orientation matter...other than that's the way we package and sell them. I also don't recall us ever stating a reason to do it one way or the other in any catalog. There are decent arguments to have draws oriented with top biners in both directions depending on the situation and scenario in front of you.
Personally I like the gates of both top and bottom biners facing the same way. I always face the gate on the bottom (ie. rope) biner the opposite direction of the way I'm climbing (ie. route goes left, I face the gate to the right). Reason why I like both the biners with gates the same way is it's then easy to know which way to clip the bolt or piece of gear, etc with the top biner as a reference.
We don't spend alot of time testing all kinds of orientations in terms of a carabiner in bolt hangers, or have any data to share on the subject. Generally our feeling is that backclipping and interaction with the rock (in an adverse way) should be the foremost thought here and is always to be avoided. So this should always be your prime consideration no matter how you set up your draws. If there was EVER any concern that a gate may open, a locking carabiner should be used.
Carabiners can break for many reasons, generally related to weaker gate open strengths (gate not fully closed during loading). This can include:
* sticky gate action (very common)
* caught in a bolt hanger
* caught in a quickdraw or piece of gear
* rubbing against rock during loading causing gate to slightly open.
Here is a very dated discussion (about quickdraw orientation) here:
http://www.tradgirl.com/climbing_faq/safety_2.htm#unclipping
You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it. There are even some thoughts there from one of our former QA Managers, Chris Harmston, on the topic.
Best Regards,
Jeff Maudlin
BDEL
Jeff Maudlin (jeffm@bdel.com)
http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com
Black Diamond Retail, Inc. (801) 278-5533 (phone)
2084 East 3900 South (801) 278-5544 (fax)
Salt Lake City, Utah 84124
DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise indicated, this correspondence is personal
opinion and NOT an official statement of Black Diamond Equipment Ltd.
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Thanks Jeff --
That's helpful. If you don't mind, I'll paste that in to the Supertopo discussion thread where others can profit from it as well (with your permission).
Best regards,
Dave
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Dave - it's fine. There's not really anything here that isn't true or common knowledge. It's possible that if this was in a catalog sometime I just don't remember it or it was a "tech tip" something like that. For sure we've never said you HAVE to set up your draws specifically this way or that way. It's a judgement call at some point. I'd rather people pay attention to keeping the action on their biners smooth (no sticky gates), avoid backclipping, and judge how the rock could interact with a carabiner if loaded it (not always easy to do). Hope it helped you out.
Jeff
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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that weird points-of-contact thing was exactly what i was talking about with the biners that have a rope dent in the big side - the dmm prowires and oxygens on my rack have them, and you do have to clip them a certain way to bolts or you see that 2 pts of contact leverage action for sure...
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Plenty of excellent-brand/model of biners have broken in real climbing situations. Excellent input from many sources here. Short version seems to be:
1. Most biners are strong enough with the gate open for anything but a really severe fall (many have the same gate open rating as the max impact force for most lead ropes).
2. The most likely way to failure is the biner getting twisted and loaded simultaneously. If the gate is being impinged upon sufficiently to be pushed open, then you've also got a twisting load which is probably much more critical than the open gate.
3. Much less likely, but still presumably possible, would be loading with two points of contact such that the biner kind of locks in place, then you have leverage on it and pdoink! more air.
All of these problems are by far more likely to occur if the wide end (gate) end of the biner is at the bolt (piton, or ice screw). Flipping the biner over takes maybe a couple seconds - say five to eight minutes over the entirety of a 15-pitch climb. But it also matters which way you're headed (and of course much more so if you don't flip the biner): for firmly fixed pro (bolt, pin, or screw), this should be away from the gate, see the butterfly photo above. If the biner tips upward in the direction of the gate, you can definitely result with the last image in Clint's series, with the gate caught on the edge of the hanger: pdoink! more air
Read also the comments on the link in Clint's post, self-unclipping of the rope is not uncommon at all if you use the full-tacked dogbone draws. I have a bunch and use them, but cautiously.
And don't fall so much!
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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"1. Most biners are strong enough with the gate open for anything but a really severe fall"
OK, so far so good....
"(many have the same gate open rating as the max impact force for most lead ropes). "
BUT That last bit is not a correct way to think about this.
THE rope will ONLY allow it's max impact force to be felt by the faller, no matter how much force there is in the fall. PLUS, the rope WILL NOT BREAK. That's WAY DIFFERENT from a biner breaking at the max impact force of a rope.
And don't even try to say the biner bears the same force as the faller, cause the rope is thought the biner, so there is not quite but close to 1.6 times as much force on the biner that holds the fall (until it breaks anyway) as on the faller.
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dwm
climber
San Mateo, CA and now Paso Robles
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Oct 12, 2008 - 02:06am PT
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well -- that was the only fall either of us had on that climb.
In the interest of fleshing out the "TR" part of the thread, here are some photos from that climb besides the broken biner part.
Here's a photo of Sugarloaf and Kyburz, taken back at the end of June on a day we went to Lovers Leap:
Here is the Scheister route, showing the belay stations:
Here is the view from the base of the route. What I really think is cool about this route is the way the granite column hangs over your head up to the second belay station. You can see which column is which in this photo, where the "profile" of the route matches up with the way it looks as you are climbing it:
Here is Mike leading through the chimney (photo taken from base of the route):
Here's the view upwards from the first belay station (marked with a small "1." on the photo showing the route). You can see the way that big granite column leans over the Scheister route, and that you are much closer to it on the second pitch.
Here's another view of the route looking upwards from the start of the second pitch (Mike leading):
At the second belay station, you are even with that top of the column, as you can see here in this photo looking outwards from the belay station marked with a small "2." on the route photo. Here's Mike at the second belay station:
Unfortunately, we don't have too many photos from the third belay station -- we were busy with the broken biner at that point.
Here is Mike at the end of the route:
And here's me at the end of the route:
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pcousar
Sport climber
White Salmon, WA
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Jul 13, 2009 - 07:00pm PT
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did you ever hear back from Mammut??
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labrat
Trad climber
Nevada, CA
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Jul 13, 2009 - 11:26pm PT
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Bump
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Paul_in_Van
Trad climber
Near Squampton
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Jul 14, 2009 - 02:39am PT
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Bump, would also like to hear a resolution on this one.
P
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Jul 14, 2009 - 02:51am PT
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Would orienting the biner down and out be a better option? I guess you still run the risk of the runner or dog bone sliding off, but may prevent the breakage.
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Zoo
climber
Fremont, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2009 - 03:47pm PT
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Sorry that I forgot to post this when I received the email from Dave at Mammut. Here is his response from November of 2008.
"Hi Michael,
I just got back from Switzerland where I was able to discuss the broken carabiner with the product manager there and see some test results. The metal on the biner was fine, and both the original batch test results and a new set all came back fine.
Based on the type of break exhibited by this carabiner all signs point to an open-gate failure caused by the carabiner being opened by coming into contact with the rock during the fall, possibly with the load occurring farther away from the spine than usual for the same reason.
They are waiting for the next production batch to come available (a few weeks) so they can run some comparative tests, and will compare the breaks during testing of the new batch with yours to determine a final cause of failure and forward some close-up photos of the breaks to me to illustrate for you their reasoning.
I'll keep you posted, but at the moment we think this was a fluke accident that could have happened to any carabiner—let me know any questions.
Dave"
I haven't been in contact with Dave since then.
MikeZ
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labrat
Trad climber
Nevada, CA
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Jul 20, 2009 - 05:02pm PT
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Thanks for the update.
At least they got back to you.
Erik
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Jul 20, 2009 - 05:38pm PT
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It seems to me that no-one ever answered this question:
With gear, I'm 85 kg. My belayer is about the same, belaying from a standing position with a Guide ATC off his harness. Fall was about 3-4' on about 15' of rope (9.4 mm Beal Stinger). If someone can calculate the load on the biner from that, I'd be grateful. It is hard to estimate the time over which the impact on the biner occurred, but maybe there are some empirical charts out there that can help. Zander pointed me to some information in J. Long's anchors book that I haven't had a chance to look at yet. He thought that 2-4 kN seemed reasonable for this fall. The biner is rated 23 kN with gate closed, 8 kN with gate open, and 8 kN in the short direction.
So - to answer it now: If your fall was four feet before the rope started to catch, the climber side of the rope would feel around 4kN, the belayer would feel around 3kN, and the top biner would feel around 7kN. That's close enough to its gate open strength that if the hanger was slightly off-center, I could easily see it snapping the biner with no defects whatsoever, so long as the gate was open.
And to answer what I think is the underlying question - the same thing would happen to virtually any biner on the market, if the gate had gotten pushed open on it.
GO
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Jul 30, 2009 - 03:11am PT
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final final word?
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!