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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 14, 2007 - 12:17am PT
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"Back in the early 20th c, most technical manuals told folks that the key to a safe swami was wearing it high on the chest, just under the armpits-- that way, if you fell and hung, you were less likely to suffocate."
Chest harnesses were a European enthusiasm; they never caught on here. As for hanging in a swami, conventional wisdom was that you'd be dead in 15-20 minutes. I know of at least one death that occurred that way when someone rapelling off just their swami (we all did that) got hung up somehow.
Of course, there was a way to avoid death; you simply turned upside down and hung that way (try this with an El Cap rack sometime). Actually, while you were hanging upside down and trying to keep from dropping all you gear off your shoulder slings, you grabbed a runner, twisted into a figure-8, threaded it on your legs so that it passed in front of the rope, and then righted yourself---instant sit-harness.
Please do not ask why we didn't think to install leg-loops permanently. I remember thinking when people first started using them that they'd be impossibly cumbersome in general and that in particular you'd never get up wide cracks with them in the way and the rope pinned immovably at your navel.
Oh, and as for the original question, I fell 30' on two different occasions with a swami belt on. These remain the longest falls I've taken, and since both of them ended inches above the ground, I'm happy that none were any longer.
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BeeHay
Trad climber
San Diego CA
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Aug 14, 2007 - 12:20am PT
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Good stuff, Tar, dig 'too tall' in the leisure suit. M. Cathedral?
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john hansen
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2007 - 12:24am PT
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Wow, this is amazing,,
Largo said he used a swami on the first NIAD and Rgold gave us a bit more of history for the super T.
You getting this CS?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 14, 2007 - 12:29am PT
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"Karl--That bolt is gone? Guess I won't head back up this fall! "
I hear the route has been re-bolted since then. Let's hope they checked the topo and found the dead bolt.
peace
karl
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 12:36am PT
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Yes Bee Hay:
Too Tall on Stoner's Highway.
For off width and tight squeeze, it is really nice to be able to move the rope to the side and the swami belt accommodated that rope position.
It is very rare that a harness significantly gets in the way on an off width/squeeze, but I do sometimes notice it scraping along.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 12:43am PT
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RGold:
That whole inversion/sling maneuver with the swami belt: we called that the monkey hang and it was required self rescue curriculum at Yosemite Mountaineering School in the 80’s.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:01am PT
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rgold-- rapping off a swami shows your age-- before the fifties, most folks used a dulfer. later, most folks improvised leg loops. we're talking, what, late fifties-early sixties? single biner-over-the-shoulder or biner brake?
tb--we used to call that inversion-sling maneuver a baboon hang. i actually had to use it once.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:13am PT
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Yez yez... the baboon hang.
The monkey hang was something Jeff Lowe said you were supposed to do from ice tools.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:41am PT
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My longest swami fall was about 10 metres, at Squamish in 1974. A fairly steep route. My glasses kept going, but I stopped.
We didn't have 2" tubular webbing here, so made our swamis out of 2" seatbelt webbing. Doesn't hold knots as well, but did the job. When rappelling, we added a diaper sling made from a double length 1" runner. Plus belay seats for hanging belays.
There were also some tied and/or sewn sit harnesses and chest harnesses, based (I think) on a design from the Mountaineers and using 1" tubular. We sure were happy when the first commercial sit harness, the Whillans, appeared in 1975. Like the EB, it was much better than what preceded it, though looking back I'm not so sure. Perhaps we need a Whillans harness thread?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:47am PT
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mh-- whillans thread? the english emasculator? my partner wore one. i met a girl in jtree in 1982, hobbling around on crutches. forty-footer on a slab and that single thread between the legs had loaded her pelvis right above the socket. it helped to reinforce my swami chauvinism.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:48am PT
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Mighty Hiker:
If you search the forum you'll find about a year and a half ago we had a pretty good swami thread, followed by a Whillans harness thread.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:51am PT
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The biggest fall I ever took was in a Whillans harness; maybe 50 feet, fell off West Crack at the top of the first pitch. My last piece was a fixed angle, and when I was done flying through the air I was a good 25 feet below it.
I switched to a to a 2 inch swami after that...
'Never wanted kids anyway.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 14, 2007 - 01:56am PT
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Well, I took any number of falls on a Whillans harness, without physical harm. The longest perhaps 20 metres, but low angle. Tying into them properly took a bit of effort.
Tar - yes, I probably read if not contributed to said swami/harness threads. Pretty obvious topics, given our demographic. But now we've got these guys showing up who tied in with the end of the rope - pretty hard to top.
Edit: I confess to learning to rock climb with a bowline on a coil, and body rappelling.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 02:01am PT
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Well Anders,
I really did take a 50 footer in the Whillans, but I was kidding about the ball buster part.
There's a thing here in Boulder called the Ooomf Slot in Boulder Canyon. I couldn't quite do it because of my harness, so I came down, stripped off the harness, tied directly into the rope 'n shimmy'd straight up that sucker.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Aug 14, 2007 - 02:15am PT
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Nice Kevin.
Much the same story for me on West Crack.
I was skating around in those case hardened PA's, needed to re-think my moves.
So I attempted one move of down climbing in layback position and I was away...
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 14, 2007 - 02:47am PT
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ok-- since we aren't getting big stories--
1982 winter. i'm in jtree, in my k-mart sleeping bag and mec bivouac bag. no car, no bike, no food, no likker, nos crib. it snow, epic, at least for jtree, monumental-- maybe a bit more than a foot. i wake up and hv is empty. no rangers, no tourists, no climbers. i put on all the clothes i own and crawl up on top of a boulder.
hours pass. the snow falls.
i wake up to a big "CRASH." a tiny beater car has careened into the dumpster at the "cube" campsite. it sits there for maybe three or four minutes. then the passenger gets out, looks at the front of the car/rock, and returns. a few minutes later, the driver gets out, checks the damage, then returns.
i'm freezing. but i notice the BC plates on the beater. since i used to live in Vancouver, and learned to climb in Squamish (which has maybe 17 climbers total), it's a safe bet I know the owner. So I climb down, knock on the window, and sure enuf, it's Peter and Hamish. I pile into the car to prevent frostbite (trying to ignore the lettuce atmosphere and endless homophobic/philic jokes nttawwt)and wait out the storm.
me: This blows.
peter: If it stops snowing, we'll climb.
and climb we did. It heated up to at least 38 degrees and so we drove off to Wangerbanger (since something that faced northeast was clearly indicated) and Peter led it. He looked just slightly less than south of casual, and that was a warning sign. Hamish declined to follow. So I tied in and cast off.
ten feet up my hands were numb. i kept stuffing them into the crack. but I had no idea what they were doing. it was as if someone had surgically attached chunks of defrosting horsemeat to my wrists. i pitched. and the top-rope jammed.
(HERE IS THE SWAMI PART) Peter had f*#ked up the anchor. So there I was, swinging in the winter breeze, numb, hungry, cold, sober and in serious pain, and yet only twenty feet off the deck and no one to witness my heroic sacrifice.
I held out my frozen meat hooks, and Hamish, while holding down the belay, valiantly tried to toss up a runner. God knows how cold he must have been. It was like the ringtoss at the circus. Meanwhile, Peter ran up top to fix the clusterf*#k. Finally, I speared the runner, inverted, and executed the baboon hang which I had seen only in Ament's "Rockwise" (as demonstrated at Horsetooth Reservoir.) Peter got to the belay; I pulled in for along enuf to fix the damn thing; and lowered off.
A few hours later, the sun came out. It was classic Josh. The sun shone. The snow melted. The temps popped from forties to seventies (at least in the sun). And it was perfect for climbing.
So Peter and Hamish told me it was too "hot" to climb, and they took a nap.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Aug 14, 2007 - 03:17am PT
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Late to the party, but here it is:
About 30 feet, on steep Absolutely Free handcrack.
The key was knowing that an asian, karate-type mentality, just before the rope-bounce, was how to best take the impact of a fall.
And every fall I've ever taken since was on this basis, asian, karate, and it seems the way to fly.
To Wit:
Mind relaxation at the moment of fall/release, followed by a carefully-timed muscle-contraction in the core at impact, seems to be the best way to ride it out.
If you take a punch to the body, you tense up, to take it.
Same thing, on a whip.
But, you also have to control yourself to not hit, or try not to hit things, on the way down.
Falling is an art.
I am SO glad I am not a master of that art.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 14, 2007 - 09:56am PT
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Last time I tied in directly with the rope was...last year at Poko-Moonshine in the Adirondacks. Left my harness in the car, not that far away, but we'd have to give up our place at the head of the line so...bowline on a coil for me. Without a belay loop and several coils around the waist, I gave up on my belay device too and reverted to a hip belay.
Climbers around probably thought they were watchin' some dedicated old-school nut who just wouldn't give up his prehistoric ways, as opposed to the actual semi-alzheimic turkey fumbling around that day. Had to use a carabiner brake and fabricate a swiss seat for rappelling, which served to remind me just how much more comfortable harnesses really are, especially when compared to leg loops made from dental floss runners.
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horst
Trad climber
Lancaster, PA
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Aug 14, 2007 - 10:28am PT
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Took a 40 footer in 1981....and I blame some of my current lower back problems on it (although it's more likely the decades of running). Or, perhaps, I should blame my childhood heros at the Gunks (Bragg, Goldstone, Mac, Williams, et al.)...they all wore a swami belt...so I had to wear one too!.
BTW, here's an interesting (er, embarrasing) side-by-side "past-present" photo of me atop Devils Tower (1981 w/ red swami, running shorts, tube socks, and fro!)
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Aug 14, 2007 - 10:38am PT
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early may 1982....
end of my senior year of H.S. in Lake Tahoe...
Rob Miller and i cut class to go climbing @ 90' wall..
I am leading my first 5.9 and i get near the top where you bust left into a wide crack and your are done. Now i was never one for wide cracks so i saw this thin crack on the arete and so i start going up that to finish. crack runs out, i am pumped and don't know what to do so i pump out and fall.. i have a swami and no leg loops and rob is giving me a waist belay (standard in those days)...
and i keep falling and falling and falling, thinking so this is it and i am done before i really got to climb some cool stuff...!
Somehow rob manages to catch me about 15' off the deck and on my way down my left foot taps a ledge and i break my ankle...He was soem horrendous rope burns on his hands and back and we are both in a lot of pain and we are a mile or so from the car...
but...
happens to be that two very large climbers are there to witness my first 5.9 attempt lead and my first lead fall~!!!
So these two guys haul me on their back to the car, but Rob does not know how to drive!
So....
I use the tire iron rod to push in the clutch, and operate the gas and break with the right foot, Rob changes the gears and we manage to get home. My Mom was a sub at my school and she returns home to see me on the couch in pain and wondering where i was that day.
I went through graduation on crutches and managed to rehab pretty quickly that summer and finished that summer leading my first 5.10's, skipped 5.11 and did my first 5.12 and 5.12 leads @ snowshed wall...
swami's were state of the art (Frog) until Johnny Woodward built the the first harness for BD in 1986 or so....
Swami's were another reason you never really fell unless there was no other option...
KS
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