Off Belay - Life Saved

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 peterneden 23 May 2021

Hi there 

I was at Horseshoe quarry on Saturday 22 May and my belayer unbelievably removed me from the belay device while I was threading the anchors.  Fortunately I spotted this just before letting go.  Unfortunately my belayer froze.  But the team next us stepped in and got my safely back on belay

I'd love to thank them, but just left the crag in shock - please get in touch

If not - Thanks Peter

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 kevin stephens 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden: similar happened to me and I suspect is not uncommon for belayers more used to trad than sport. This can be exacerbated ( not saying it was in your case) by misuse of the trad climbing call “safe”. For sport the only two calls should be “slack” or “take”

Post edited at 11:51
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 john arran 23 May 2021
In reply to kevin stephens:

More robustly, you should never commit to a lower off until you have confirmed you are on belay. A combination of visual/audio confirmation by the belayer and feeling the rope come tight is usual. Letting go, having received neither, is asking for trouble.

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 Jamie Wakeham 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

That sounds like a very close call.  Once your heart rate has returned to normal, it would be very interesting to hear exactly how it happened.  As someone who teachers a lot of beginners, I'd love to know the decision processes that you, and especially your belayer, went through.

Three people logged routes here yesterday - could it have been one of them? https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/horseshoe_quarry-148#ascents

 Cobra_Head 23 May 2021
In reply to john arran:

What John said, we always try to teach, make safe, tie rope to harness, untie know, thread, untie rope from harness, get belayer to take, "That's me", then undo the slings, lower off.

Easy to forget if you've had a long spell off though.

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 Babika 23 May 2021
In reply to kevin stephens:

> similar happened to me and I suspect is not uncommon for belayers more used to trad than sport. This can be exacerbated ( not saying it was in your case) by misuse of the trad climbing call “safe”. For sport the only two calls should be “slack” or “take”

Wise words.  The BMC article Skill Fade seems opportune reading as we all return to the crag after a long lay off. 

At the risk of annoying everyone I tend to shout "have to got me?" quite loudly and eyeball my belayer before committing my weight to the rope. 

 TobyA 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Oddly I was at Horseshoe this morning and was telling my mate about exactly these sort of incidents I've heard of down the years. I guess you were clipped in with a sling or leash or something if you were rethreading?

 FamSender 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Would be interested to know what happened here. If you were threading the anchors then presumably you were clipped into the bolts with two slings on lockers? And you would test that you were back on belay before removing these? Just wondering how close the call was, and that something must have gone wrong with the system if you say, 'life saved'

 wercat 23 May 2021
In reply to Cobra_Head:

the more rusty you are at something the better it is to go over the drills before putting them into action and keep to them until the brain has got back into them being second nature

I have the advantage over others of Knowing I have a bad memory and that I have to go over stuff again and not to ASSyoume it will be OK

prior preparation .... etc as they say

Post edited at 14:24
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 monkey man 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

I have been in this situation before, makes you look and double check before leaning back. Not sure I have been to a lower off out of sight of the belay since, more through covid than anything else. 

 Iamgregp 23 May 2021
In reply to FamSender:

Two slings?  I’ve never seen anyone clip themselves into both bolts with two slings.  If they’re connected by a chain there’s no need, if not then just use a draw to connect them to each other, then clip yourself into one of them...

Nowt wrong with using two slings if you prefer (I sometimes do on a multi pitch) of course, but you can save on faff by just using one.

With regards to this incident, I always ask my belayer to take as hard as they can, and pull myself up a bit using my cows tail or a hold, once they do this the rope will be taught an the cows tail slack so i can be sure that you are on belay before going back on the rope. It also makes it easier to unclip the cows tail if it’s slack...

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 Jon Read 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Ironically, I think this thread shouldn't be in the Off Belay sub-forum. Mods?

 Andy Chubb 23 May 2021
In reply to Cobra_Head:

What John said, we always try to teach, make safe, tie rope to harness, untie know, thread, untie rope from harness, get belayer to take, "That's me", then undo the slings, lower off.

I don't follow the sequence you have described. Maybe I'm not understanding what you are describing. What I do is:

- make safe by clipping a cow's tail with screw gate to one of the lower off bolts

- thread a bite of rope through the lower off ring(s) (or quick draws clipped to the lower off bolts if someone is going to lead the route after me)

- tie a figure of 8 in the bite and clip it into my abseil loop with a screw gate.

- untie from my harness, pull the end of the rope through the lower off ring and tie back in to my harness in the normal way with a figure of 8. So I'm now effectively tied in twice

- shout 'take' and wait to feel the rope go tight through the lower off

- shout 'lower away'

Comments welcome

Post edited at 19:12
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 Iamgregp 23 May 2021
In reply to Andy Chubb:

Both the way you described, and Cobra’s are fine, both are demoed on the BMC’s website.

The only drawback to passing a bight through is that occasionally the staples can be too small to pass a bight through so it’s good to be able to do it the other way too...

 nikoid 23 May 2021
In reply to Andy Chubb:

I've  never seen people keep the bight clipped in to the belay loop once they have tied back in. Sounds unusual. Also there is no need for shouting if you can see what each other are doing and are paying attention.  

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In reply to Iamgregp:

Another option, which is quite a good one, is simply to rap off. When I started climbing with my children, I often did that. 

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 Mark Kemball 23 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Worth adding to the accident / near miss BMC reporting? https://www.thebmc.co.uk/modules/incident-reporting/?_ga=2.251298372.336314...

 MikeR 23 May 2021
In reply to kevin stephens:

I'd agree. I'll hold my hand up and admit to nearly doing this myself.

Many years ago I was in the Ecrins climbing with a friend. It was our first day of the trip, climbing some short single pitch sport routes. My partner reached the top and shouted down "safe", I managed to catch myself part way through undoing the screwgate on my HMS when I thought what the hell am I doing?!!

I'd been climbing for at least five years at that point so not a beginner, I'd probably been climbing about 99% trad. I think undoing the screwgate must have become a Pavlovian reaction to the word safe! After lowering them down I suggested not shouting safe at the lower-off and the rest of the trip passed uneventfully.

(For any potential future partners, I have never done that before or since in twenty years or so of climbing, so your in safe hands!)

 Iamgregp 23 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

Yeah I think in some countries that’s the preferred method as it minimises wear on the hardware at the top.

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 GrahamD 23 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

> Another option, which is quite a good one, is simply to rap off. When I started climbing with my children, I often did that. 

Ano it's an option where the belayer is expected to take you off belay, of course.

 Cobra_Head 24 May 2021
In reply to Andy Chubb:

> - thread a bite of rope through the lower off ring(s) (or quick draws clipped to the lower off bolts if someone is going to lead the route after me)

There's not always room for this on many of the crags I've climbed on. (If this is the questioning part).

So I tie the rope to my harness "safety knot", so you can't drop the rope and end up stranded. Then you have to untie the original knot from your harness and poke the rope through the clips, then re-tie to your harness, and untie the "safety knot". Take in all the slack and then be lowered down.

 Mowglee 24 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Sounds scary. Hopefully you were still clipped to the anchor when you noticed. Would be interested to know how it came about, especially the 'belayer froze' bit. I think for me it'd be a partnership-ending event, but maybe I'm a bit sensitive.

On a similar general note - it seems quite common, especially among experienced sport climbers/belayers, to not hold the dead rope on a grigri once the climber is in hard to the anchor and starts threading. Not sure if it's because the climber is safe so don't need to be belayed for those few minutes, or they're relying on the grigri as an autolock (which it's not supposed to be, but in reality often is). I tend to wind a couple of loops of dead rope around my hand any time I'm not expecting to pay out slack.

Post edited at 08:33
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 john arran 24 May 2021
In reply to Mowglee:

> On a similar general note - it seems quite common, especially among experienced sport climbers/belayers, to not hold the dead rope on a grigri once the climber is in hard to the anchor and starts threading. Not sure if it's because the climber is safe so don't need to be belayed for those few minutes, or they're relying on the grigri as an autolock (which it's not supposed to be, but in reality often is). I tend to wind a couple of loops of dead rope around my hand any time I'm not expecting to pay out slack.

It all comes down to probability and risk. You're right that there is a very tiny chance that the auto-lock on a grigri may not activate when the dead rope is not held. In my experience this takes a very particular set of circumstances, usually including a new and/or particularly thin rope and the dead end of the rope curling out of the grigri in a particular way. That's why it's always best to hold the dead end of the rope while belaying, to make sure that tiny chance doesn't lead to disaster.

When the leader is clipped in, the grigri is no longer the primary safety link. That honour goes to the cowstail or whatever is used to clip in. And while this link has been shown not to be infallible - human error being what it is - it nevertheless reduces the probability of the rope being weighted unexpectedly to a tiny chance. That's why it's always best to keep the leader on belay while clipped into the anchor.

But then you can extrapolate to envisage a situation where both happen at once. The leader unexpectedly unclips himself and sits on the rope and at the same time the rope and grigri combination is one of those rare matches that cause the device not to lock up. Unless you're climbing with someone with a particular deathwish and with a brand new, superskinny rope, the chances of both happening at once are really very tiny indeed. And yes, the consequences could be very severe (assuming the belayer isn't able to regain control by standing on the rope), but it isn't surprising that many experienced climbers are fine with making the judgement that whoever is threading the anchor is suitably safe without them continually holding onto the rope.

It's one of those situations where advice to beginners may conflict with common practice, but there's a good reason for that, which is that beginners are far more likely to accidentally unclip themselves from the anchor, and novice belayers are far more likely not to be aware when the limits of a grigri and rope combination need extra care.

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 deepsoup 24 May 2021
In reply to john arran:

Just a thought: if you're belaying with a grigri and you do want to take your hands of the dead rope, it only takes a second to tie a knot in it.

> It's one of those situations where advice to beginners may conflict with common practice

Funnily enough the worst grigri belaying I have ever seen, letting go of the dead rope completely, holding the cam open with one hand and pulling out yards of slack with the other as the leader was climbing, was amongst a group of extremely experienced and capable climbers in the Foundry.  Familiarity breeds contempt sometimes I guess.

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 kevin stephens 24 May 2021
In reply to deepsoup:

A factor in that may be due to using an old rope for indoor use which needs a lot more effort to pull a rope through compared to a best rope reserved for outdoors - still no excuse 'though

 john arran 24 May 2021
In reply to deepsoup:

You're right on both counts.

I wasn't trying to justify bad belaying; far from it. I was just explaining why in some cases the perception of bad belaying may in practice turn out not to be unreasonable.

 kevin stephens 24 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

On a slight tangent, when top roping to strip a route (including quick draws on the belay) one should always transfer the last quick draw from the rope between climber and belay to the rope between the belay and belayer before threading the lower off, then remove the last QD on descending after the belay has been threaded

 planetmarshall 24 May 2021
In reply to nikoid:

> I've  never seen people keep the bight clipped in to the belay loop once they have tied back in. Sounds unusual.

Would agree with that as there's then less clutter around the tie in point and you can see exactly what's tied to what. But...

> Also there is no need for shouting if you can see what each other are doing and are paying attention.  

...I'm not sure I'd be arguing for less communication.

 deepsoup 24 May 2021
In reply to john arran:

> I wasn't trying to justify bad belaying; far from it.

No, of course not. It was just something your post reminded me of.

In reply to Kevin:

> A factor in that may be due to using an old rope for indoor use which needs a lot more effort to pull a rope through compared to a best rope reserved for outdoors - still no excuse 'though

Maybe.  I think as much as anything though it was complacency that it was just an easy warm up and there's no way the leader was going to fall off anyway.  I'm guessing, I didn't ask, it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have.  Had they been beginners I might have tactfully attempted to offer some advice.

Another suggestion to add to those above that seems so obvious I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but I don't think anyone has so far:  If you've been hanging on a cowtail to rethread the belay, have the belayer hold you on a tight rope while you unclip the cowtail.  (ie: sit back on to the rope then unclip the cowtail, not vice versa.)

 Osiris 24 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Someone might have already said this, but to be sure I'm on belay and ready to be lowered, I always shout 'take' and make sure the rope is tight between me and belayer before I remove my personal anchor system. This system would have saved your life even if you or anyone else hadn't noticed your partner had took you off belay and I would strongly recommend this approach to anyone.

Post edited at 14:29
 Iamgregp 24 May 2021
In reply to Osiris:

Yeah, I said the same upthread.  Defo a good strategy!

 nikoid 24 May 2021
In reply to planetmarshall:

> Would agree with that as there's then less clutter around the tie in point and you can see exactly what's tied to what. But..

Yes, that is my concern. 

> ...I'm not sure I'd be arguing for less communication.

As always there is no one right answer, something that didn't come across well in my first post on this thread. The amount of communication depends on experience and how well you know your partner. If you are a beginner there may well be a case for a running commentary when threading and lowering if you are unfamiliar with the process. With a trusted partnership hardly anything needs to be said especially if you can see each other. 

Finally it is worth bearing in mind that excessive communication on busy days may lead to confusion between parties. 

 UKB Shark 24 May 2021
In reply to john arran:

> More robustly, you should never commit to a lower off until you have confirmed you are on belay. A combination of visual/audio confirmation by the belayer and feeling the rope come tight is usual. Letting go, having received neither, is asking for trouble.

Fortunately I did this once when it mattered. The belayer was out of sight and sound but I lowered myself (by hand!) till I could see him and the fact that I was off belay.

Think it was Crocker’s accident that rammed the lesson home which IIRC was a mishearing of ‘take’ for ‘safe’.

 Cobra_Head 24 May 2021
In reply to kevin stephens:

> On a slight tangent, when top roping to strip a route (including quick draws on the belay) one should always transfer the last quick draw from the rope between climber and belay to the rope between the belay and belayer before threading the lower off, then remove the last QD on descending after the belay has been threaded


If it's not an overhanging route, I usually strip on the way down, though sometime have forgotten to check the overhangingness of it sometimes, even then though it's easily remedied by clipping to the rope with a quickdraw, it's just  bit of a fight to get the quickdraws out then.

 UKB Shark 24 May 2021
In reply to deepsoup:

> Funnily enough the worst grigri belaying I have ever seen, letting go of the dead rope completely, holding the cam open with one hand and pulling out yards of slack with the other as the leader was climbing, was amongst a group of extremely experienced and capable climbers in the Foundry.  Familiarity breeds contempt sometimes I guess.

It’s not necessarily “letting go of the dead rope completely” as the rope can still be in the crook of thumb and forefinger to grab the rope if necessary but I’d agree it’s not something you’d teach beginners. 

 kevin stephens 24 May 2021
In reply to Cobra_Head:

Sure, that's normal/best practice.  The issue is more common when someone "seconds" the climb because they don't feel up to attempting to lead a route their partner has led 

In reply to GrahamD:

But the lead climber has taken his/her safety entirely into his/her hands at that point. The belayer is not just expected to take the leader off belay: he has to be taken off belay in order to pull up enough rope to rap.

Can anyone explain the flurry of dislikes that I have got for just raising a common alternative of roping down rather than being lowered off? It would be constructive, from the safety point of view, to know the reasons. Another advantage of rapping off is that it reduces wear on hardware (e.g., carabiners), as lamgregp has pointed out.

 UKB Shark 24 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

No dislike from me but it would be counter convention and inconvenient requiring taking a device up for rapping off and in the case of steep or winding routes make it potentially impossible to retrieve your draws

 Iamgregp 24 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

I'm not sure why you got all the dislikes, but I know that accident figures stats show more accidents happens from abbing than from climbing, so although it reduces wear on the gear, abbing rather than lowering also comes with an associated higher incident rate, maybe that's why?

 Cobra_Head 24 May 2021
In reply to kevin stephens:

With you now

I always use their gear when I'm leading, that we they get a little "encouragement" to finish it off.

In reply to John Stainforth:

I was one of the dislikers for rapping off. This has been a common but slowly dying practice here in the US.

The problem is that, with two potential methods available, belayer and leader need to clearly communicate intention before setting off. If the belayer has been climbing with partners who rap, they can make the assumption that this is the norm and automatically take the leader off.

Sounds stupid, but there are numerous accidents every year locally where this has happened - including fatalities. I believe best practice is "always lower" for this reason.

Not to mention that recovering draws on rap is more difficult and dangerous on steep or wandering routes - as per UKB Shark.

1
 duncan 24 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

I didn’t down-vote your post but I wrote something similar to Jonathan Lagoe when abseiling rather than lowering was advocated in a previous thread. Sport climbing feels relatively safe so people do not always focus to the extent they do when trad. climbing. Having a consistent routine will reduce the chance of accidents like the one that nearly happened to the original poster.  https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/ukc/10_things_to_do_at_a_sport_crag-70931...

(It’s also worth noting Mick Ward’s reply, an equipper’s perspective, a couple of posts down this thread).

 deepsoup 24 May 2021
In reply to UKB Shark:

> It’s not necessarily “letting go of the dead rope completely” as the rope can still be in the crook of thumb and forefinger to grab the rope if necessary but I’d agree it’s not something you’d teach beginners. 

I understand that and it wouldn't have caused me any concern.  When I said I watched the belayer "letting go of the dead rope completely" I meant completely.

 damowilk 26 May 2021
In reply to Jonathan Lagoe - UKC:

There is similarly here in NZ a strong tradition of abseiling from the top of sport routes instead of threading through and getting lowered, ostensibly to save wear on the anchor. I’ve been strict on lowering only after reading a good Rock and Ice accident report and commentary on reducing failure modes to the minimum.

But because lowering is less common, I clearly communicate that I will want lowered, so there is no need to ever take me off, I never say safe/secure, and I still get my belayer to take me tight before removing my safety, trying to create as much redundancy as possible. 

Blanche DuBois 26 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

> Can anyone explain the flurry of dislikes that I have got for just raising a common alternative of roping down rather than being lowered off? It would be constructive, from the safety point of view, to know the reasons.

I gave your post a dislike because, as others have pointed out, it would lead to more accidents.  The more complex the process the more likely an accident.  Additionally, like it or not, many current climbers don't have a trad background and won't be familiar with rapping off stuff.  You could argue (with some legitimacy) that they should be, but they're not. 

Let's face it, if people are dumb enough to start taking people off-belay on typical single pitch sport routes, then they aren't to be trusted to sort out rapping down from them.

Post edited at 03:12
 nniff 26 May 2021
In reply to John Stainforth:

I think it's like a lot of things these days - acceptance of a standard approach and setting expectations as a means of controlling risk.  Most of the time that is fine and works well, but an accomplished practitioner should know when an alternative method is better.  In the case of abseiling off a sport route, such an instance would be finding a really poor lower-off (the case I have in mind was a single bent wire hanger on a route in Spain.  Abseiling off that reduced the load and it and enabled the belayer at the bottom to provide some assurance as the leader descended (with hand hand above and one hand below the belay device.

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In reply to nniff:

In the case of such a poor lower off, the last thing I'd do is hang around and rig an abseil - which puts all your eggs into that dodgy basket.

I'd leave a biner on the bolt below and lower off on two points asap.

That's your "better alternative method".

 Rick Graham 26 May 2021
In reply to Jonathan Lagoe - UKC:

> In the case of such a poor lower off, the last thing I'd do is hang around and rig an abseil - which puts all your eggs into that dodgy basket.

> I'd leave a biner on the bolt below and lower off on two points asap.

> That's your "better alternative method".

Even better is to use a 7 mm cord triple prussik , as recommended by petzl.

That way the leader is still protected by all the bolts progessively on the way down to the deck.

1
In reply to Mowglee:

i wouldn't be putting turns around my hand with a line that could potentially be loaded! small chance but if that happened..

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 Luke90 26 May 2021
In reply to Finn of Bristol:

Think you might have misunderstood his point. He's talking about the rope that's already passed through a GriGri, it's not going to be exerting any particularly large forces on your hand.

In reply to Luke90:

yeah i understood but its still not a good habit to get into

 john arran 27 May 2021
In reply to Finn of Bristol:

> yeah i understood but its still not a good habit to get into

Why not?

 CurlyStevo 28 May 2021
In reply to peterneden:

Once a fairly novice climber instructed me to take him off belay as he was attached to the anchors and would ab off. he then proceeded to thread the anchor and with both ends on the ground. I put them through my belly device and locked them off with a bit of slack. he then proceed to try and ab off one strand. I saved his life.

Post edited at 00:18
In reply to john arran:

rope, heavy climber, multiple times wrapped around your hand? why would it be. when i sailed i got told 3 bits of advice. don't fall of the boat. don't stand in/on coils of rope. don't put your hands in stupid places. granted its not 100 tons of boat here but still aint gonna tickle

Post edited at 01:33
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Blanche DuBois 29 May 2021
In reply to Finn of Bristol:

> rope, heavy climber, multiple times wrapped around your hand? why would it be. when i sailed i got told 3 bits of advice. don't fall of the boat. don't stand in/on coils of rope. don't put your hands in stupid places. granted its not 100 tons of boat here but still aint gonna tickle

Assuming your profile is accurate in that you've been climbing for less than a year, then a bit of advice I'd give you to add to your sailing advice is "check the experience and capabilities of the person you're disagreeing with and reflect on who's most likely to be right".  Google should help.

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 john arran 29 May 2021
In reply to Finn of Bristol:

> rope, heavy climber, multiple times wrapped around your hand? why would it be. when i sailed i got told 3 bits of advice. don't fall of the boat. don't stand in/on coils of rope. don't put your hands in stupid places. granted its not 100 tons of boat here but still aint gonna tickle

What you seem to be missing is that the job of a belay device is to transform a bodyweight or greater load on the rope into a much smaller load that's easy to control with one hand. Indeed with a grigri it would be no load at all once locked, and the locking itself can be assured with the light grip of a few fingers.

The rope you may be wrapping around your arm has already passed through the grigri and therefore can never be subject to any significant load and there is therefore no risk in doing so. If an experienced belayer chooses to do this in some circumstances, instead of tying a knot in the rope, that could be a perfectly reasonable choice.

 UKB Shark 29 May 2021
In reply to Rick Graham:

> Even better is to use a 7 mm cord triple prussik , as recommended by petzl.

> That way the leader is still protected by all the bolts progessively on the way down to the deck.

Good knowledge. Not been in that situation and don’t carry a prussik but a quickdraw attached to the belay loop and Italian hitching or clove hitching the rope and moving it as you go down would work too.


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