Vantage Gear Pulling

[Nate J]

I want to hear your stories of gear pulling at Vantage (or elsewhere, but especially Vantage).

 

Please include the following:

1. description of fall (amt rope out, fall distance, how far above piece(s) that pulled)

2. what failed?

3. your assessment of placement

4. your assessment of rock quality where gear was placed (including rock type)

5. did anything break? (wires, slings, biners, rock?)

6. lesson(s) you learned

7. anything else you think is interesting

 

I'm curious to see if there are any common themes.

 

-Nate J

[JosephH]

There's nothing particularly unique about the basalt there - are you thinking there are some sort of viable alternatives beyond pilot error or column shifts?

[mattp]

The cracks there tend to be rather smooth and uniform in their internal surfaces. Cams walk as a result of variations in the tension on the draw or no draw attached to them, and they sometimes skate out of the crack when loaded in the event of a fall.

 

This may not be unique in comparison to basalt elsewhere, but it is fairly unique in comparison to other local climbing areas. I often seek to double up pro at Vantage more than I might at other local destinations.

[JosephH]

Yeah, nothing about that strikes me as at all unique, sounds more like a case of climbers not used columnar basalt having trouble reading the pro and, as you say, doubling up when necessary..

[BirdDog]

I haven't persoannly witnessed any gear pulling at Vantage; however many of the cracks have a reverse taper, meaning they get bigger towards the inside of the crack. If your cam walks it may get into a part of the crack that is larger than the cams range and fail if fallen on.

[Buckaroo]

You have heard the story of Goran Kropp?

 

You would have to ask his belayer if the gear was placed properly.

[jon]

Gator posted an investigation on here somewhere about the Kropp incident. I believe the first piece that pulled was too small.

[jon]

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=1&Number=190294&Searchpage=1&Main=13163

[boadman]

There was a fellow who pulled a piece and broke both ankles, or heels or something similar a year or so ago.

[kevbone]

There's nothing particularly unique about the basalt there -

 

You mean other than it is all WAY loose?

[markwebster]

I have personally not fallen on my gear there, though I've done plenty of hanging. My friends have taken short falls on gear, like 8 feet on George and Martha at the crux, and the cams have held fine. I've watched people fall off Bob's your Uncle, gear has held. I think it's similar to Smith. Back up your gear. Don't trust any one cam or stopper to keep you off the deck. It's not index granite.

 

But definitely wear a helmet. I've rained handholds on my belayers, and I've been rained on...stoned is a better description.

 

I cringe when I watch people lead Red M&M's. A better question would be has anyone ever survived a whipper off that death route?

 

 

The bottom line is this: in the winter, Vantage is the only dry, warm rock around. The cracks are simply too good to resist.

[G-spotter]

 

The bottom line is this:

 

Vantage is a choss pile. Climbing at Vantage bears the same relation to climbing at anywhere good as bestiality does to sex.

[selkirk]

 

The bottom line is this:

 

Vantage is a choss pile. Climbing at Vantage bears the same relation to climbing at anywhere good as bestiality does to sex.

 

words from one who would know

 

I've never fallen there on gear, so no words up or down from me. Taken some falls at Tieton and everything held fine My impression is that the rock quality for mid range gear (fingers and up) is fine.

 

Not sure I would trust it sub-finger size though.

 

my .02

 

 

[Jens]

No time to type right now, but lots of gear pulling over the years at Vantage. Basalt shattering around placements, you name it.

 

You are better off clipping bolts and trying to catch some rays at Vantage.

[Pete_H]

The Sunshine Wall is actually pretty solid these days. Used to be a lot chossier and rockfall was very common. Most of the routes see a lot of traffic and have cleaned up quite a bit.

 

Some of the cracks there are still pretty dirty, some aren't very parrelel sided and the gear just isn't very good.

 

Semper vigilans.

[Quarryographer]

I've caught my friend Micah several times falling at the crux of Red M&M's. He weighs roughly 180lbs, I'm tipping the scale at 200lbs. The gear was a small brassie in what looked like fractured basalt. The Coulee isn't the prettiest rock in the state, but at least it's rock. I feel better about gear in that stuff than the "world class" dirt clod down in Bend... My .02 =)

[obwan]

I took a "screamer" ( a fall where you have lots of freefall to be able to scream) out of Pat's Crack at Vantage just to the right of Ride em' Cowboy in about 2004-5.

In Frenchman's Coulee book by Ford&Yoder, it's listed as a 5.8 hand crack; in Whitelaw's book "Weekend Rock" it's a 5.9 with gear needed to 4 inches.

As noted above, gear has a tendency to pull or walk in that type of smooth basalt - Matt P. described it properly, and other threads have noted that hexes in desert rock sets better. I had been climbing cracks everywhere for years and thought this was going well, I was mostly using BD and Metolius cams, and seemed to be running low. I was so comfortable with the spacing and actually reached down to move a piece up so I would have enough to top out. I was up about 85-90 ft, then the next piece was a BD gold, and now I was about 30feet above the last pro (but had sufficient gear in the first half). Again feeling in control and over confident - I clipped the piece and was moving the rope out of the crack - and the piece walked out, just as my hand slipped out of the crack. And what a ride - about 60-65 feet and possibly 5-10 feet more with rope stretch and belay dynamics. It was actually a soft fall, and I was about 10- 15feet from the ground - and did not come in contact with the rock. The good news it was Tony B. brand new rope (oops). So the stars were aligned in my favor, having an experienced belayer able to pull in some slack, and the next piece held - a metolius #5 quad/black. Also in my favor was that the amount of rope out (maybe 90-100ft) accounting for a low fall factor, additionally being only a buck twenty lbs helped. Tony also put an opposing nut setup at the start of the climb. It happened so fast, it took me a while, and a lot of campfire beers to figure out what went wrong. I really let my guard down, and felt pretty bad about the new rope. What I learned was - do not remove any good placements, and stitch the hell out of it with sometimes doubles at the crux as mentioned, or Don't Fall! I was lucky, as the Fall Factor was about .66 (length of fall/length of rope out) - so the trick is to reduce the length of the fall by placing lots of gear and more so in the first half of the climb.

 

p.s. In mid 2003 I volunteered some of my cams to the Kropp testing done by Mike Gautier, as he needed the same type and vintage cams. That is his analysis in the above link by Jon.

Edited March 13, 2012 by obwan