Helmets ?

[G-spotter]

I have a massive purple helmet I take everywhere with me.

[chris]

That's not what she said.

[pink]

only when i spray

[pink]

I have a massive purple helmet I take everywhere with me.

 

 

dose it have a retractable membrane

Edited October 7, 2010 by pink

[LostCamKenny]

I noticed that my partner and I were about the only ones wearing helmets at the Lower Town Wall in Index this Saturday.

 

I always wear mine. It's cheap insurance.

 

If my partner wants to go without one on lead, it's their call. But I believe that it's good etiquette to always wear one when belaying. You've got somebody's life in your hands.

absofrigginlutly - one is stupid - let me say that again, STUPID - for not protecting oneself in the easiest way. accidents happen even at sport crags, and gravity works everywhere, so rockfall is always a concern. of course, the helmet won't make one look as cool as they could look when shooting for those magazine cover shots

[billcoe]

It's not about cool, it's often what is inside of the skull that will keep you safe. In fact on hot days, having a helmet on a long route might help cause heatstroke and be totally counterproductive.

[LostCamKenny]

bullshit! go to ozone and see how many are wearing helmets and then tell me that it isn't about "cool." i love my helmet and wear it every time i climb, but i know that it doesn't in any way fall into the "cool" category. if helmets were cool then everyone would wear one!

 

and if it is going to be that hot out that a helmet might make me overheat, then i'll drink a little more water and suffer til i make it to the ground.

[kevbone]

Kenny...I think you just got trolled by Bill. lol.

[Sherri]

It's not about cool, it's often what is inside of the skull that will keep you safe.

 

Exactly. It's what's inside my skull that tells me to where a helmet.

 

 

[wdietsch]

belaying - always

ice - always

on rock/alpine ... it depends on conditions/situation

 

[laurel]

I've had some close calls but Index is the only place that I've actually been hit on the head with a rock! Luckily (or ironically?) I was the only one in the area wearing a helmet. Apparently rockfall happens even at places where it's "not chossy".

 

(was pulling my rope from Thin Fingers. It was a decent sized rock and did not hurt very much so it couldn't have come from very high up. there had been some cleaning activity on a route next door so I'm guessing there was a rock precariously balanced in a bush or something that my rope snagged on the way down)

Edited October 8, 2010 by laurel

[Dannible]

When I was 16 or 17 I helped recover the body of a guy who was killed by rockfall. A helmet would not have saved him, but I bought one soon after. My helmet has protected me from injury by rock and ice fall a few times, and maybe from death from ice fall and from slamming my head on rock features while soloing a few times. Recently I almost killed some people when I had a foothold break off and send a bunch of rock down at a popular spot near Ltown. I like my helmet and rarely forget it; when I do I feel naked.

[Noodle]

I always wear a helmet on rock.

 

Local crag = no approach, why not wear one.

 

Alpine = pain to carry it in, but consequence of injury is higher (though a rock to the head at your local crag is likely to be serious as well).

 

Honestly, the Petzl Meteor is so light and breathable it leaves few excuses.

[markwebster]

I always wear a helmet, as do my wife and both kids, who also climb. If my partner chooses not to wear one, I don't complain, though it makes me sad.

 

All you need to know about wearing a helmet is here:

http://paulbaileyinfo.blogspot.com/

 

Paul fell off a 5.8 move in Australia. The story from his belayer is here:

http://www.edgeworksclimbing.com/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1260472569

 

Had he been wearing a helmet, it is likely he would be recovering from badly broken hands, instead, he is blind from the head injuries suffered from not wearing a helmet.

 

Pictures of Paul at jtree, 6 months before the accident:

http://www.websterart.com/html/jtree2008.html

 

But hell, it is a free country. Wear a helmet, or not, I don't care. But damn, I miss Paul. He was an awesome partner, and a true friend, and now he is blind, because he fell on his head, without a damn helmet.

[selkirk]

always, always and always.

I wear a helmet because while climbing occasionally shit falls from the sky (Rocks, carabiners, open pocket knives, ice, flakes, goats, cams, and occasionally me.) and I like my head without holes in it. Any way you cut it, unexpected shit happens and when things go bad they go very very bad very very fast.

 

1) First trip to Smith I saw somebody kick off a dinner table size flake from 1/2 way up a 1 pitch sport route and nearly squish his belayer.

 

2) Another trip to Smith I was topping out on in Zebra Zion, and pulled off a fist size chunk of rock and luckily held onto it. I distinctly remember looking down at all the people at the base of the Sunshine Wall lounging and sport climbing without helmets, and thinking, "that would be bad".

 

3) Scrambling on the approach to the Boulder Glacier (approach mind you) a buddy got clipped in the head with a fist sized rock while scrambling up the rock step (party induced rockfall). Turned out OK, but he had a splitting headache for a good day or two.

 

4) Way too many goats way too high in the Cascades.

[tomtom]

Always (except TRing in the gym).

 

Seen belayers get hit by falling rocks.

 

Seen lead climbers fall awkwardly and smack their head.

 

Had folks kick off rocks randomly from above.

 

Ice chunks are always flying in the wintertime.

 

Banged my helmeted head on roofs when climbing around them.

 

Helmets like the Petzl Meteor fit well and weigh little.

 

I can't waste any more brain cells.

[jon]

When I was 16 or 17 I helped recover the body of a guy who was killed by rockfall. A helmet would not have saved him, but I bought one soon after.

 

Yeah ditto on that, Chair Peak 1993ish when I was in SAR. Same one maybe? Guy had his helmet in his pack.

 

One of my partners took a pretty bad groundfall at the Feathers about 7 years ago, remarkably only broke his collarbone, but suffered pretty bad head injuries, some of which he recovered from, but still has speech and motor function problems. He had a helmet that was in the car and I'm pretty sure that if he had it on his head trauma would have been less severe. I don't climb, ski, or bike without one now.

[luvshaker]

Rock-Yes, cracked one

Alpine-Dumb question

Cycling-Shattered one

Kayaking-Duh

Sex-clipped and married

Basejumping-the point?

 

 

[sobo]

I’ve been at this game for nigh on about 26 years now, and it has only been within the last 7 years (once I got my first kid) that I started to religiously wear a helmet. Now I wear one at all climbing venues (crag, alpine, ice, volcano slogs, trad, sport, single or multi-pitch) except in the gym, as well as while biking and WW kayaking. I skip it for sea kayaking, cuz the water’s deeper. For some reason, I still don’t wear a helmet while resort skiing, but do in other ski venues (trees, BC, etc.). Don’t ask me why I don’t, cuz I don’t know.

 

I have taken many bad leader falls and been hit by shit many more times than anyone in this game should have been without getting seriously injured. Some of you here may remember my “Superman” jump off a falling column at Frenchman’s Coulee many years ago. That’s right - I wasn’t wearing a helmet, and somehow managed to escape serious injury after a 30-foot or so swan dive to the talus. I’ve laid down my road bike several times and my old motorcycle a couple of times. I was clocked by the boom once while sailboat racing, saw nothing but stars, and nearly went overboard as a result.

 

I've watched other folks take headers and come away as near-vegetables, or at the very least a blithering idiot for months/years. I have a good friend and former regular climbing partner who lives in a wheelchair, and another climber friend who can't remember names anymore (phasia) after taking a shot to the head. And since I've been involved in mountain rescue since 2003, I've seen some pretty f'ed up people who got dinged in the head while not wearing a helmet.

 

Through all of this, I’ve never broken a bone in my body (knocking on wood). My worst injuries have been torn knee ligaments (skiing), sprained ankles (that was the gentlemanly game of tennis), and a dislocated pinkie (rope got wrapped around my finger in a crevasse fall). Call it “just lucky, I guess.” But I finally determined that I can’t live on luck forever. So now I always wear a helmet. It’s just like Sherri said, it’s cheap insurance.

 

Climb on, and climb safely!

[bearbreeder]

trad ... always

alpine ... always

ice ... always

sport/top rope ... depends on the rock itself ... not usually in squamish granite ... always in the rockies

 

 

[ZimZam]

Always. I know I look like a dork sometimes, and the cool people from Boulder snicker at me but head injuries are no joke. I've used up my eight lives already.

[kevbone]

head injuries are no joke.

 

[kinnikinnick]

a couple summers ago my friend got beamed in the dome by a rock kicked loose by a climber rapping off the great northern slab. he was fine, ended up getting 7 staples, but seeing that shook me up and i almost always wear a helmet now.

[Buckaroo]

Always, except at the gym. I've been saved too many times on the motorcycle and bicycle. I've watched rocks go winging by too many times at the crags and alpine.

[Choada_Boy]

"Normal Accident Theory:

 

When we try to understand the causes of technological accidents, it often turns out to be very difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong. The reason for this is that technologies are intrinsically complex and depend on many things working closely together: Materials and components of different quality are structured into tightly engineered sub-systems, which are operated by error-prone humans in not always optimal organisational structures, which in turn are subject to production pressures and all kinds of managerial manoeuvring.

 

Failure in just one part (material, sub-system, human, or organisation) may coincide with the failure of an entirely different part, revealing hidden connections, neutralised redundancies, bypassed firewalls, and random occurrences for which no engineer or manager could reasonably plan.

 

This is what 'Normal Accident Theory' is about: When a technology has become sufficiently complex and tightly coupled, accidents are inevitable and therefore in a sense 'normal'.

 

Accidents such as Three Mile Island and a number of others, all began with a mechanical or other technical mishap and then spun out of control through a series of technical cause-effect chains because the operators involved could not stop the cascade or unwittingly did things that made it worse. Apparently trivial errors suddenly cascade through the system in unpredictable ways and cause disastrous results."