ken4ord Posted September 20, 2007 Share Posted September 20, 2007 Some of you sure put a lot of faith in gri gri's. In my opinion those things do nothing but teach bad habits and are especially dangerous in the hands of a beginning belayer. They are counterintuitive in that you are supposed to basically do nothing when your leader falls and in order to feed slack for a clip you have to hold the camming mechanism in place. I've heard other stories about accidents with these things and I personally know someone who shattered his calcaneous (heel bone) in the gym of all places because of one of these things. He blew a clip while his girlfriend (an inexperienced belayer) was holding down the camming mechanism to feed him slack. Her reaction was to tense up and hang on tight when he fell, thus the rope fed freely and he decked. I can't count how many times I've been walking around at Smith or other sporty areas and seen many belayers standing around jawing with no hand on the rope at all. They have their place, but I personally don't think it's with new belayers. If you can't figure out how to use a Gri-gri, then you probably have difficulty learning how to belay. There is more than one way to skin a cat, just like there are many ways to belay. The more methods you know the better off you are. Then you are able to choose which method may be most appropiate for a given situation. The situation/accident you described was not caused by the device, but by the inexperience that the belayer had. Given a different device, yeah this person may have been able to stop a fall or they may not have, it is all speculation. Dropped and fall not stopped using all kinds of different devices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hefeweizen Posted September 20, 2007 Share Posted September 20, 2007 I agree that the more methods you are familiar with the better. It's all about having well rounded knowledge. My point is mainly that I don't think gri-gri's are the best method for a beginning belayer because of the bad habits and lackadaisical (sp?) attitude people seem to have while using them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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