JosephH

Well put, definitely a matter of subjective experience vs. objective reality.

I suspect the lesson is one around 'familiarity' and it's subtle effects on all of us. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that Joseph Bohlig might himself have warned less experienced folks of the dangers of getting too close to the edge up there. The losses of each passing year should teach us that every one of us is capable of the same kind of mistakes and it's well worth remembering that if nothing else. No matter how you look at it, it's yet another tragedy and won't be the last among us - stay sharp and don't get too used to anything no matter how many times you've done it.

If there's a 'moral' in there somewhere it sounds like a pretty sad one...

Missed this somehow. Great work you guys - all that local aiding pays off.

I don't believe from the posts above that he has survived. Condolences. Sounds like we're lucky you're still here. Glad you weren't preoccupied with another task and had quick reflexes.

Coming from a family of test, military, and commercial pilots I know the origin of the phrase. And while solid conventional wisdom and good advice for a commercial flying career, it was never meant for the Chuck Yeagers of the world.

With you here... but then you completely blow it here. This just comes off sounding like the ongoing suburban homogenization of the sport and more of the very reason the sad term 'adventure climbing' exists at all.

You're clearly a danger to yourself and everyone around you if you haven't been belay certified and especially so if you weren't so certified by someone who is AMGA Single Pitch Instructor qualified.

I do. I don't like being choked to death when I'm trying to lead up a line at some reasonable pace, or seconding / TR with a belayer leaving big loops of slack between whenever they decide it's time to belay again and lock off. I've had both happen and don't care for either.

I would, not much into granite personally - a character defect I know - but I'm addicted to sandstone and basalt.

Looks like a good new spot for the chair belay given the long lag before the first clip...

To each his own. I like a mostly continuous, non-locked off belay when I'm climbing, locking off only while I'm placing pro.

I didn't say it was dangerous. If anything it's a fundamentally too overly cautious approach to belaying - more about risk management over a broad demographic than about belaying per se. I see it as a sign and natural consequence of attempting to stretch the demographics of the sport; hence the notion of it as a lowest common denominator form of belaying that assumes you're an idiot and in the tidal flow of bodies a gym sees that's probably not inappropriate.

Forgot my harness and ATC last fall and still mananaged to do Blownout out at Beacon and rap it with just the end of the rope and a couple of biners. Still completely doable even in the face of all our pretty baubles and contraptions. Can't say that wiregate biner brakes make for much fun rapping, however.

I also learned belaying with hip belaying. In fact, it was years before we'd trust stitch plates or devices of any type. Did lots of hard multi-pitch that way and caught endless falls, plenty of them long ones. The difference is we used a single, non-locking carabiner on the harness for the rope coming from the climber. Locking off - with or without a carabiner is best done by taking the rope not across the body, but diving it between your legs, essentially over / around the brake-side upper thigh with the hand rolled down and out (palm down) so the rope goes across the butt of the palm forming another lock. It's also important that the rope be on the hips and not around the waist. Done this way, hip belays are utterly reliable for any level of climbing, even over vertical, overhanging terrain, and roofs. In this more 'technical' use of hip belaying in hard multipitch climbing, though, stancing also became incredibly important, if not a craft in it's own right.

Not sure this isn't one of those 'if you have to ask' sort of deals and I'm really not trying to be mean here. But since you did, it's a real 'binary' system for beginners and particularly for when the climber is going to be doing a lot of unexpected falling and hanging. Attempt to move fast on multipitch routes with someone doing that the problems will become self-evident and there are also times (albiet not a lot of folks encounter them) when belaying gets fairly technical requiring all manner of subtlety where that kind of 'locked off' belaying is worthless. Last, try translating that to doubles and you'll have a real 'binary' system. Again, not something I'd want to ever see a partner doing. But as Dave noted, I'm an archaic curmudgeon...

Intelligent hip belaying is never 'cross body' and a belaying with munter is so lousy and hard on ropes I'd never consider it except in an emergency scenario. There are a few ways to employ both hands to belay such that one is never off the brake side of the device, the one in that video is patently ridiculous. I'm not getting near a rock with anyone doing that. Again, that's about as lowest common denominator excuse for belaying as I can imagine - kind of a sad indicator of a general 'lowering of the bar' in climbing.

That's a completely retarded way to belay. Must have been developed as a desperate response to the hordes dropping each other in gyms. Grigris are a good belaying idea for [untrustworthy] beginners when what you're teaching is holding hanging climbers as opposed to belaying, unfortunately it's a lousy device for teaching beginners how to lower people.

Great TR, well done.

Just watched 57 and 63 year old relatives go out in the slowest, meanest, and ugliest way possible in December, both from cigarettes.

Was a doctor involved, xrays / MRIs ? Any joint damage? Etc, etc...?

JayB, that one issue alone is a real drag on the system - our medical establishment has become expert at agressively keeping terminal patients alive for extended periods. Many, end up with more medical expenditures in their last two months then they did over the course of their lifetimes prior to those last two months. It's built into both our culture and legal system - no giving up. Crazy. My wife and I have end-of-life instructions and medical powers-of-attorney specifically so we don't end up in one of those situations (mine can basically be summed up in the phrase "the deader, the better"). Having just watched a relative die a lingering death in the ICU as her lungs died from smoking we're reviewing what we have again to be sure it's all good and still effective. Ugh!

Is there anywhere that this doesn't happen - outside of a ghetto anywhere in the world including the U.S.? Do you think our elder care system (languishing in nursing homes) is particularly humane for the individual involved or their families or one in which someone isn't making such decisions now?

- Inefficient delivery - Overhead of thousands of duplicate administrative systems - Profit-taking by insurance and hospital corps

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