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Placing Trad Gear Between Bolts

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Instruction.

Placing trad gear between bolts can be an effective solution when struggling to find easy well-bolted routes for clients. Low grade routes can often be the worst to fall on due to the easy angled nature of the rock, making it far less likely that falls will be clean. Let’s face it, how often do we struggle to find well-bolted easy warm up routes? Bolts on these routes are often placed where the climbing is a little more difficult and the possibility of falling possible. This can often lead to long gaps where the first ascensionist may find it hard to imagine anyone falling but the consequences may prove to be serious. This can result in intimidating or terrifying first leads for clients.

Firstly, let’s look another option available to us before we look at the advantages of placing trad gear.

Using a sling or an alpine draw on the bolt can work well when the distance between bolts is not too long. This will bring the clipping position closer to the previous bolt (or ground) and is sometimes all that is necessary. When using this option, it is important to consider that we may have now created an unreasonable or unsafe gap to the next bolt. This can easily be solved by also clipping a standard length quickdraw onto the same bolt. This usually becomes essential when using a full-length sling to extend. Something that we need to be aware of though when using this method is that a high percentage of clients forget to clip the standard draw. This happens surprisingly frequently!

I’ve found that once people have clipped whatever is on the bolt, they tend to then focus on the next bolt. They will not necessarily pay attention to what else is on it when they get to within reach of the bolt itself. If working with a small group where it is possible to watch each climber closely enough to remind them as they pass the bolts, then this is fine – as long as they hear you and process your words. If working in larger groups where close supervision is not possible it can however present a real danger. For a number of reasons climbers may not be taking into account the distance between clips or be aware of the consequences of the fall (this can be even more problematic if any of these extended clips are out of view). When this occurs, we may have fixed one problem but created another.

It can be helpful to use a brightly coloured quickdraw that will stand out from the sling when you are using this method. A clear briefing on how to manage these clips is necessary but even then, the expectation should be that the distractions involved while climbing will cause a good percentage to forget. Therefore, I prefer to minimise the use of this technique if possible.

A, A/ Two ways of reducing distance between bolts.
B Trad gear in between bolts

So, let’s look at the advantages of placing trad gear for your clients to clip:

  • Reduces the distance between clips: this can minimize the chances of sustaining injury when falling. It can also help make the experience of leading less stressful and more enjoyable – especially for nervous leaders, which in turn can build confidence in being on the sharp end.
  • Less opportunity for getting the rope behind their legs and risk falling upside down. I try to create a clipping position every time the foot is a little below the last clip. Rope awareness is often hard for people to think about – let alone fully understand – until after they have become comfortable leading.
  • More clipping practice.
  • Back-clipping mistakes become less of a factor when it’s not the case that each clip is crucial.
  • It can act as a gateway or introduction to trad climbing as people have the chance to see how trad gear works in practice, and often take an interest in how it works. They can become confident in the safety of well-placed gear.

 

Considerations when placing trad gear on sport routes

When adding trad gear between bolts, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

  • It is best to place any extra gear on lead as the clipping positions and falls are easier to assess than when lowering. It is important to assess the consequences of the trad gear failing and the next piece or bolt holding the fall.
  • Gear needs to be bomb proof. Remember that you won’t have an inexperienced second trying to fiddle it out, so you can ‘weld’ them in and remove them yourself if necessary.
  • Pieces need to be placed with greater consideration for an outward pull. As lowering tends to have a greater outward pull than falling on a piece, use longer quickdraws than you might normally.
  • Consider keeping the first bolt clipped for the leader as this will reduce outward pull on any trad gear.
  • If multiple people are leading the same route, ask the climber to lower past each trad piece and while at head height unclip it from the rope carefully. It is best to not have the trad gear clipped if the next person will top rope the route – this reduces the risk of them forgetting to unclip the gear as they climb past which might dislodge it, making it unsafe for subsequent leads.
  • With the clips being closer together, climbers need to be reminded of the increased risk of “Z” clipping which also has the risk of dislodging gear.
  • Resting on trad gear should to be discouraged. People are used to resting on bolts while as close to them as possible, maybe even holding onto the draw while leaning back. When clients want to rest on trad gear, I encourage them to fall, to push on to the next bolt, or to climb down a few moves to rest on the bolt below.

 

Disadvantages of placing trad gear

The considerations listed above should help to ensure that the trad gear is well placed from the start till the end of the session to protect our clients and/or to give them a confidence boost. I will re-climb routes to check placements if I’m not sure. As well as the advantages of adding trad gear to sport routes, there are also some downsides:

  • Some people feel like they are cheating, not accepting the challenge of the route. I like to remind them that they are sport climbing. It is completely arbitrary what experience the route setter creates. One person might prefer to produce well bolted friendly experiences and another person develops routes that can feel more terrifying than a grit E5! Often the bolts on easy routes are spaced to save money, not because of some sort of ethical or adventurous approach. This can also be the case on older routes where the first ascensionist attempted to justify placing bolts by keeping things a little spicy! As the first ascent is rarely an onsight, this can be somewhat unfair for those that come after.
  • The extra protection will undoubtedly encourage some climbers to lead routes they would otherwise have declined. Failure of trad gear to hold a fall that results in injury could then be problematic from a liability standpoint. Clients should have accepted the risks involved with sport climbing but may have little or no understanding of trad climbing.
  • It is of course important to remember that independent climbers may also want to climb the routes that you have equipped. They may or may not appreciate the extra gear that you have placed? It is always advisable to explain the process and possible risks as you would to your clients.

 

Final words

Adding trad gear can serve as a psychological confidence booster and increases the safety of the client. I believe that with all considerations taken into account, the pros outweigh the cons by a large margin, so adding trad gear to sport routes has become standard practice for our team of coaches when climbing routes that are not adequately protected.

Learning from Near-Misses - Professional Mountaineer Summer 2020

Learning from Near-Misses

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Instruction.

Are the number of climbing accidents increasing?

Of course, the sheer volume of people involved in the activity of climbing will cause the number of incidents to rise. It is apparent however that many near-misses and incidents would not have occurred with slightly adjusted systems. The BMC recently launched an incident and near-miss reporting system – any themes that emerge will be published in a summary report.

A few years ago, in response to an increase of near-misses and accidents at the crag, I found it necessary to produce a standard operating procedure for Rock and Sun Ltd. Interestingly, this document only applies to sport climbing. The UK system of teaching trad climbing is well-established, and the client usually arrives without the necessary skills to perform the activity and therefore is immediately open to learning. This is not necessarily the case with sport climbing, as most of the necessary skills can be practiced indoors.

 

Modern climbers less prepared for outdoor risk assessment?

Indoor gyms eliminate as much risk as possible, and rightly so for a professionally managed facility. Routes are well-bolted with clear fall zones. When indoor climbers make the transition to an outdoor environment the extra risks may not be obvious to all.

Climbers often arrive on our climbing trips having climbed 2 to 4 years indoors and already able to climb 6b+ or even 6c. Having practiced in a relatively safe environment can create a mismatch between the “hard skill” of the actual climbing and the “soft skills” of route finding, risk assessment and decision making. This mismatch can easily put a climber at risk, as it can be difficult to engage with softer skills when their (indoor) experience may point towards those skills being unnecessary.

I’ve certainly noticed that it has become more difficult to persuade an ever-greater number of clients to pay enough attention to safety while sport climbing.

A compounding factor is that people have become less capable of assessing and managing risk, as children and young adults have fewer opportunities to play and learn in an outdoor environment. This can lead to excessive or inappropriate risk-taking or to being overly cautious or nervous. Our client group is changing; they are not necessarily outdoorsy people. Many would not have chosen to become climbers had they not had the opportunity to learn in an indoor environment. To them the outdoor environment itself can present some challenges of its own. This is often displayed in having difficulty walking on uneven ground, struggling with the concept of going to the toilet outside, or not realising warm layers and waterproofs can be necessary in all climates.

Some typical examples of people’s inability to accurately assess risks, are:

  • Climber’s feet are at 1.5m from the ground, the first bolt is clipped and is about 2.5m (around chest height) and 1m to the right of the climber. Climber is about to move up and left. Question posed: look at where the bolt is and how much rope will be in the system if you move further away and then fall? Answer: I will swing down to the right – pointing in a diagonal line. Response: I remind them that when Newton invented gravity he designed it to pull you in a downward direction and that you will only start swinging after the rope is being weighted. In this case the climber would hit the ground without weighting the rope.

This is a familiar scenario, even after the preliminary training that happens at the start of a trip. We consistently teach people to read the rock when route finding: go where it is “less steep and more featured”, and before heading off on the chosen route to consider the prospect of a fall. If the fall is not safe or if they are in doubt, they should stay closer to the bolt even if the climbing is harder. It is apparent that many people are unable to assess the fall zone and struggle with visualising the physics involved. These awarenesses are not inherent and need to be learned.  

  • On reaching the anchor after top-roping a diagonal line the climber tries to pull up rope. The anchor is out of sight so, as is standard, the rope is kept tight so that unclipping the anchor is not possible. I shout: why do you need slack? It is quiet for a few seconds then I hear: ok, lower. The client standing next to me while I belay asks what was happening and I explain that he was attempting to unclip from the anchor. She was horrified and expressed her surprise: how could anyone be so stupid! She then climbs, unclipping the draws as she goes. On reaching the anchor, she attempts to pull rope up. It is quiet for a second, then I hear “doh! Ok lower”.

This is a good example of how easy it is to not be doing a continual risk assessment every time we unclip our rope. At least 15 of our clients each year try to unclip themselves from the anchor after top roping and I know of several fatalities from this.

The fix is of course to always look at and assess what you are unclipping but using a locking karabiner and a quickdraw instead of two quickdraws on the anchor gives the climber something more difficult to unclip and allows time to think as well as a physical prompt that “this one is different”. This system provides something quick to clip into for a leader and ensures that anyone top roping cannot quickly unclip from the anchor. And of course, the rope should always be tight when the climber is out of sight and near the anchor.

  • When the first bolt is high, our standard practice is to have the rope preclipped for each leader. In this case, the climber pulled the rope down on several occasions over a couple of days. I spot this on each occasion and climb up to reclip the draw. Words are had! The following day, the same climber again pulls rope through first draw at 3m. This time I fail to spot this. He breaks a foothold while trying to clip the first draw and breaks his foot. Cause: Climber not equipped to assess the quality of the rock or the likelihood of falling off before the first clip.

 

Experience: Worst or Only teacher?

A friend of mine who runs an activity centre likes to say: “experience is the worst teacher”. Meaning that when we do something repetitively and the outcome is always positive, we can become complacent and neglect to assess the risk (same activity different setting). I understand that this sometimes catches people out, but I also think: “experience is the only teacher”.

I often think of a young trainee instructor of mine recounting a story of his near-death experience while out climbing with friends at a sea cliff in Pembrokeshire. He had decided to solo the last route of the day, only HS (well within his grade) while the other two rope climbed out. Near the top of the climb (about 90ft) and in the middle of the crux, he felt the rope he had tied onto this back (my rope by the way) untying from his waist. Realising that he was in no position to stop and re-tie he decided to climb carefully, hoping that the rope would not slip from his shoulders before reaching the top. Just as he felt the rope slip a little more, he looked down and realised that the rope would probably bounce off the ledge below and into the sea, as would he. The rope slipped, he instinctively let go of the rock with one hand to hold the rope. This caused him to barn door. He held the swing as his life flashed before his eyes. The next words he heard in his head was my voice telling him “I told you so”.

A few weeks before during a training session with the group of trainee instructors we had had a conversation about soloing. It was apparent to me that a certain individual was overly confident in his abilities and would come unstuck if not careful. I made the point that a great deal of climbing experience with a rope is necessary before even considering climbing without. The grade is not so much the issue, it is the unexpected things that can throw you off.

 

Common Mistakes leading to Improved Systems

“Everything that happens once can never happen twice. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.” A quote attributed to the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho but I think is originally an Arabian proverb.
As instructors we’re in the risk management business. It is impossible to remove risk completely in an adventurous activity and to do so would be detrimental to the experience. Where you can predict however that an incident will occur and there is an easy fix to avoid it, it would seem prudent to do so.

The following are example of changes that I’ve made both personally and for those that I teach:

 

  1. Swapping the quickdraw below the anchor onto belayer’s rope.

This can fix any mistake made while threading as long as the rope is still attached to the harness.

A good friend of mine with over 40 years of climbing experience recently made a mistake while cleaning a sport anchor that could have easily proven fatal but would not have been an issue if he was using the system that we insist our clients use. The mistake is common but is only usually a serious issue if having climbed the route on top rope: The climber passes the rope through the screw gate on their cows’ tail but fails to thread the anchor itself (see photo). If they then unclip their sling from the anchor without first testing the system there is nothing between them and the ground. I’ve witnessed this near-miss a few times. In one case the climber was desperately holding onto the anchor while the belayer was taking tight. With the rope pulling directly on the climber’s harness the climber shouted “no”, but the belayer was unable to work out what the problem was so kept taking in.

mistake: threading own screwgate instead of anchor
The climber made the mistake of threading their own screwgate instead of the anchor. Testing the system before unclipping the sling from the anchor, and swapping the last quickdraw onto the belayer’s rope prevent this mistake from being fatal. (photo taken at home because of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions)

 

  1. Tying a knot in the end of the rope close to the screwgate when cleaning anchors.

Client is being lowered from 30m and is around 5m from the ground when looking at the knot attached to the screw gate. Then, with a certain amount of alarm, says: “that doesn’t look right”. I figure there’s not much to be done but to continue to lower. On reaching the ground it’s immediately obvious that the client had tied a slip knot rather than a figure of eight or overhand on the bight. The client casually asks “what should I have done differently?” I offer a few expletives followed by “paid attention”! Clearly, they knew the knot was incorrectly tied as soon as they looked at it but had not bothered to check it after clipping to the screw gate and before trusting their life to it. Although I would hope to not to see this near-miss again the fix for this is a simple one that I now incorporate into my own threading system and fondly call it the “idiot knot”. It’s simply an overhand on a bight tied next to the screw gate to prevent the end slipping through (see photos or watch this video).

Threading anchors - Idiot knot
Left: Climber backs up his overhand knot with an idiot knot. Middle: Climber makes mistake of tying a slip knot, but backs it up with an idiot knot. Right: The slip knot only slips until the idiot knot, so a near-miss is prevented. (The middle and right photo taken at home because of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions)

 

  1. Keeping a small Screwgate on Belay Loop as part of the cleaning set up.

This addresses two potential errors: (1) Attaching the rope to gear loop instead of belay loop.  (2) Dropping the screwgate when moving it to the belay loop (problematic if you only know one method of threading). Watch this video.

After a couple days of making clear to the most experienced climber in the group that I was uncomfortable with him carrying the screw gate on his gear loop, because of the risk of clipping into this non-load-bearing part of the harness by mistake, he made it clear that this would be ridiculous. Next day, the client is threading an anchor 20m up while I’m lowering from a 40m pitch next to him. As I pass, I ask my belayer to stop lowering so that I can point out to the client that he threaded the anchor and attached the rope to his gear loop. He needed a near-miss to be persuaded to adopt our system.

 

Conclusion

As instructors we use our experience to make judgement calls. Systems that we have in place are built upon years of gained knowledge and experience.

While it is understandable that we all have different experience levels with making risk assessments and that each of us might assess risk or hazard differently, it is important to acknowledge that in our profession risk is always present and it is our job to reduce it as much as is reasonably possible.

During the past few years I’ve learned that at certain moments any of us are able to make mistakes that we would not normally think of as likely or even possible. It really doesn’t matter how long you’ve been climbing or how safety conscious or aware you might think you are, building some safety backups into your systems could just save your life someday. We can all make mistakes! Allow yourself to be open to adjusting your system based on your own or other’s experiences.

Published in Professional Mountaineer, Summer 2020

text: Trevor Massiah

The following blog describes more Common Mistakes and Improved systems

 

 

Common Mistakes and Improved Systems

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Instruction.

This blog “Common Mistakes and Improved Systems” is intended as supporting information for the article “Learning from near misses”, published in The Professional Mountaineer (summer edition 2020).

We hope that sharing near misses and incidents with instructors, guides and climbers might help avoiding the same experiences.

All of the incidents or near misses described here we have witnessed ourselves. Many of these are also recurring on the BMC incident and near miss reporting website.  As these incidents or near misses have occurred on several occasions, we assume they will continue to happen.

In order to minimise the risk of them being repeated, we list these mistakes and offer ways of improving the systems and checks we do:

 

Not being tied into the rope

This happens surprisingly frequently. I got away with this one once but I know a few very experienced climbers who didn’t! The cause is always the same: the climber is interrupted or distracted while tying in. It is possible to distract yourself but it is usually your belayer or someone else passing you quickdraws, food, or something else.

Solution:

  • Always finish that particular job once started. If you have to do something immediately remove the rope from harness then start again.
  • Make a point to anyone who interrupts this process that it is one of the biggest no no’s in climbing. You should never interrupt the climber while tying in. Be a little bit rude as it aids the memory and makes the point.
  • Partner checks.

 

Falling upside down due to only being tied into leg loop section of harness

Solution:

  • Always tie down through the waist belt first, then the leg loop section of the harness. This way, even if climber only tied into one part, they will be less likely to invert because the waist belt is above their centre of gravity.
  • Partner checks.

 

Instruction Tying in
1. Tie in by going down through the harness: waist belt first, then leg loops. 2. Correctly tied in. 3. If you got distracted and only tied into the waste belt, this is above your centre of gravity so you would fall upright.

 

How to tie in
4. By going up through the harness 5. if you get distracted and forget to also tie into the waste belt 6. you are only tied into the leg loops, thereby running the risk of flipping upside down when falling, because the knot is below your centre of gravity.

 

Assisted braking belay devices being incorrectly attached to the rope

Many of the assisted braking belay devices have no or little friction properties if the rope is not inserted correctly.

Solution:

  • Always engage and release the locking mechanism before the leader leaves the ground. This can be done by pulling up on the live rope to check the braking mechanism engages. Watch video
  • Partner checks. The climber should have seen this happen or ask the belayer to do this before setting off.
  • Never let go of the dead rope regardless of which device you are using.
Lock and release belay device
Lock and release belay device before climber leaves the ground. 7. With one hand on the break rope 8. Or with both hands above the belay device. 9. If the device is threaded incorrectly, the belay device will not lock.

 

Belayer standing too far out from base of cliff

This in itself is not always inappropriate but it is a common mistake made when the climber is near the ground, i.e. usually below the 4th bolt.

  1. The climber straddles the rope as they move sideways or they just have the rope between their legs as they move directly up past the 1st or second bolt. A fall in this position, with the belayer standing too far out, will almost certainly result in the climber falling with the rope between their legs then flipping upside-down, risking head injury. People usually get away with it, but this can result in very serious injuries.
  2. When trad climbing, the belayer standing too far out is often the cause of trad gear failing. The angle of the rope pulls the gear in an upward direction and may pull it out.
  3. When belayer is standing too far away from the rock when the climber is not very high yet, the force on the belayer can be surprising, especially if there is a weight difference. As the climber falls, the belayer is being pulled into the wall. This creates slack in the system, as a consequence of which the climber may hit the ground. This can be an issue usually until at least the 3rd bolt is clipped.
  4. There is also the risk of the climber decking out due to the belayer getting injured while being pulled towards the rock (we’ve seen sprained wrists, cuts to hands and knees and a broken foot) and letting go of the rope. Risk of injury to belayer is greater if the first bolt is low. Unclipping the first bolt after the second bolt is clipped can help.

Solution:

  • Belayer should stay in close and slightly to the side of the climber until at least the 3rd or 4th bolt is clipped (this can vary from route to route). Certainly when trad climbing (but also sometimes with sport) I will ask permission from the leader before moving back. This is so the leader can assess the likelihood of the gear failing due to an upward pull.  In extreme cases it is possible to unzip an entire pitch. The furthest I’ve seen a trad belayer sitting away from the base was at least 7m!

 

Belayer is spotting instead of belaying

This is an interesting one as it is something that happens increasingly: the belayer continues to spot even after the climber has clipped the first bolt. More commonly, the belayer spots the climber even though the first and/or second bolt was pre-clipped.

Solution:

  • As it can be nearly impossible to predict which clients will be guilty of this, it is best to not allow spotting when sport climbing. If the landing is bad or if the first bolt is high, have it pre-clipped.

 

Phantom clip

A phantom clip can happen with the quickdraw on the bolt and with the rope in the quickdraw. The cause is usually the same: Climber looks up to where to go next while clipping. The gate is pushed open and the rope is pinched between the gate and the nose of the karabiner. Occasionally it will fall out immediately and the climber might hear the click of the gate closing. If the rope is pinched it may either clip or unclip itself as the climber moves up. A few years ago we had a client who was repeatedly not clipped into the quickdraw. He was so bad at this that we asked him to routinely tug on the rope after each clip, which is something he is still doing several years on.

The same thing can happen with the quickdraw on the bolt. The gate pinches the bolt but isn’t actually inserted. The climber will often not notice that they are not clipped and continue to the next bolt.

Solution:

  • Make clients aware of the need to visually check the rope in the karabiner and gates closed before looking away.
  • A gentle tug on both ends of the rope can also help as physical feedback.

 

Incorrect use of belay glasses

Belay glasses can be a great aid in helping the belayer be more attentive as they allow them to be looking up constantly without developing neck problems. However, incorrect use of belay glasses results in poor or unsafe belaying. As the number of climbers using them increase, we see more and more near misses due to incorrect usage of belay glasses. They put the climber into a dangerous fall situation by having too much slack in the system. This occurs in several ways:

  1. The belayer loses sight of the rope due to the glasses diverting their vision in an upward direction. It is vitally important to keep a close eye on the amount of slack in the system especially when the climber is close to the ground. They should only be used once the climber is a safe distance from the ground (usually the 3rd or 4th bolt). Looking up at a climber close to the ground does not affect the neck. Glasses balanced on the nose so the belayer can look over them seems like a good solution, but we often have to pick people up on having too much slack in the system at the start of the climb, even when they appear to be using them in this way.
  2. When the climber pulls a lot of slack up to clip above their head. It’s common to see the belayer fail to react to the extra slack being produced as the climber then moves up to the bolt. Often leading to that much slack that the rope is on the ground. In some cases this is repeated on every bolt with the belayer never adjusting the amount of slack until the climber is moving above the bolt.
  3. Belay glasses generally widen your field of vision. It is possible to watch a climber that is left or right of yours without moving your head. This can result in the belayer belaying for the wrong climber. As the person they are actually watching starts to clip they react by giving slack. This can obviously put the climber they are supposed to be belaying at risk. What we find interesting about this is that for us as instructors it’s a hazard of the job. When working with a group of six or more and most or all are leaders, we prefer to not be in the system belaying. A) So that we can immediately deal with problems that might occur. And B) We like to keep an eye out for mistakes that people might make. We have to be very careful not to make the same mistakes of belaying one client but also keeping an eye on the others. It’s easy to catch the hands wanting to react to the climber you are watching.
  4. Another issue with belay glasses is that people forget to remove them when lowering. Belayers do not need to look up to know how fast they are lowering someone or to know when to stop if they are cleaning. It just takes a little thinking and communicating. The most important thing when lowering is to not lower your climber off the end of the rope. We religiously teach people to look down at the rope on the ground. Anything that makes this more difficult or less likely (such as wearing belay glasses) is a problem!

Solution:

  • Put belay glasses on after the 3rd This can be easily be done safely even without an assisted braking device: ask the belayer to stop after clipping. The bolt will almost certainly be above the waist so effectively they’re on top rope. Keep a hold of the dead rope or lock off the plate while you move them from your neck to your face. Of course, they can be rested on the end of your nose but I find too many clients still miss use them when doing this.
  • Teach the importance of looking down often and watching the rope. No extra slack until after the 3rd bolt or when it’s safe to do so and then a smile of rope half way between waist and knee but never below the knee.
  • It is more important to be ready to hold a fall than trying to react quickly to one that you are seeing already happening. Most people would not be able to react quickly enough if there is too much rope in the system or if they are standing in the wrong position.
  • It’s important to be aware of the temptation and problems with watching other climbers.
  • Remove them completely before lowering so that the rope length can be monitored.

 

Being lowered off the end of a rope

Being lowered off the end of a too short rope is something that is happening increasingly. I’m not going to go into too much detail here as I wrote an article on the subject for issue 29 of The Professional Mountaineer. Somehow the idea that when we are lowering a climber we need to watch them has taken over from what I had instilled in me when I started climbing, which was watching the rope. There are all sorts of things we can do to ensure our rope is long enough and we can of course routinely tie a knot in the end but even this has let people down. The one thing we can guarantee will work is watching the rope next to you as you lower (90% of the time the climber can also see this). Training yourself and your climbing partners to do this is of upmost importance.

Solutions:

  • Keep rope available to view i.e. not hidden in a rope bag.
  • Belayer and climber visually check rope while lowering even if there is a knot in the end.
  • Be aware of the route length as you climb and belay a route. If it feels like a nice long pitch the next question should by be: how long is our rope?
  • If you routinely tie a knot in the end don’t assume that it’s still there!

 

Climber being taken off belay when at the anchor

This happens for a variety of reasons, the most common being miscommunication, and is arguably the most likely cause of serious injuries:

  1. We’ve seen this a few times and met at least one group of climbers at the crag who say they were taught to routinely take the climber off belay while threading then put them back on when they are ready to lower. We found watching this routine terrifying in case the climber forgot to check that they were on belay so politely insisted that they reconsider their system. After some initial resistance they were able to see how this might end in a serious accident and that it was unnecessary to take the climber off belay.
  2. Probably the most common reason is miscommunication. British climbers are most guilty of this. When arriving at a sport anchor Brits routinely shout “safe”. This is mostly just out of habit. If they trad or multipitch climb the shout of safe is a reasonable one and generally means take me off belay. It is probably not the best thing to shout if they want their belayer to lower them at some point! Climbers need to carefully think about what the words they use actually mean. And need to realise that if they’re climbing with an unfamiliar partner who might be used to abseiling to save wear and tear on the anchors, they will be taken off belay. The belayer might just be distracted and on auto pilot as they would on a sea cliff, trad single pitch or grit stone outcrop (as they may have done thousands of times) and take the climber off belay upon hearing “safe”.
  3. Overcommunication: What people who say “safe” when arriving at a sport anchor are trying to communicate is that they have made themselves safe with their PAS (personal anchoring system), sling and a screwgate in English, or cow’s tail for short. This is information that the belayer does not need. Belayers only need to know when climber wants slack, when you want a tight rope and when you want to be lowered.
  4. Mishearing what was communicated or who was communicating. I’ve also seen a few climbers been taken off belay after their shout of “take” was misheard as “safe”. I’ve even stepped in when one climber is saying safe and the wrong belayer is taking their climber off belay. This can also happen in reverse; another climber shouts “safe”, the belayer thinks it is their climber shouting “take”, and almost pulls their leader off with a right rope.
  5. Climber is at the top of a steep route that slabs out before the anchor so the belayer is out of sight. They thread the anchor then unclip their sling while holding the belayers side of the rope. They lower themselves down hand over hand, which is easy enough on easy angled rock, until it steepens and they can now see the base of the cliff. The belayer has taken them off to quickly go for wee! The belayer had assumed that the climber heard them when they shouted the information up that they needed to go.
  6. After climbing a 50m pitch a climber stops at the mid-point anchor to rethread the anchor. After rethreading they unclip their cow’s tail and sit back on the rope before testing the system. They had forgotten that the belayer had to take in at least 20m of slack. In this situation, most people would take the climber off belay and put them on again, but luckily this belayer had kept the climber on belay. The climber fell at least 20m. The belayer was pulled up hard then landed on a jumble of rocks at the base of the crag and was in significant pain but no serious injury. The climber was very lucky – as was I. I was sitting next to the belayer getting ready to climb an adjacent route and am pretty certain the climber would have landed on top of me!

Solutions:

  • Only communicate what is necessary to limit misunderstandings.
  • Think carefully about the words you use: their meaning but also if they are likely to be misheard or confused for other words given distance, wind and any background noise.
  • Never unclip from the anchor unless your weight is being held on the rope “test the system”.
  • As a climber, holding onto the belayer’s rope until they are in view can be a useful addition when the angle changes severely as it can create large amounts of rope drag
  • As a belayer never take the climber off belay unless you are absolutely sure and/or can see it is safe to do so.
  • If your climber is out of view (when multi-pitching or when following a single pitch or if your climber will be abseiling rather than lowering from the anchor) consider paying out a few metres of slack if you are sure they have asked to be taken off. Only take the climber off when the slack is being taken too quickly for them to be climbing.

The Art of Redpointing

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Coaching, Climbing Instruction.

The Art of Redpointing

Climbing magazines, climbing videos on YouTube and climbers’ posts on social media are predominantly focused on redpoint ascents. The hardest routes in the world are redpoints, such as “La Dura Dura” (9B+/5.15c) sent by Adam Ondra as well as Chris Sharma in 2013, and “Silence” the first route of its grade (9C/5.15d) sent by Adam Ondra in 2017.

Redpointing is crucial to develop as a climber. It raises your overall climbing standard and allows you to climb much harder than when onsighting. This blog exlains how redpointing provides opportunities for learning and growth. It also describes what can be considered an effective redpointing process.

 

What is Redpointing?

Redpointing is lead climbing a route without falling or resting on the rope, having previously tried and failed to climb the route cleanly, either on toprope or lead. Before the successful redpoint, this process is also referred to as ‘projecting’, or trying a project.

The term redpointing originates from the mid 1970s, when German climber Kurt Albert recognised the potential of free climbing (as opposed to ‘aid climbing’) and started to free climb in his local area, the Frankenjura. While he was attempting to climb the route free, he would paint a red X on the rock near the pitons when he no longer needed these as aids, as handholds or footholds. Once he was able to climb the whole route without using any of the pitons, he would paint a red dot at the base of the route, to mark that he had achieved his goal of free climbing the route. This rot-punkt was translated to red-pointing. The concept of redpointing (as in: free climbing, not the idea of painting red dots on the rock) became very popular in the 1980s and 1990s with the increase of sport climbing worldwide.

Trevor Massiah climbing Morgan (7B+), Sikati Cave, Kalymnos, Greece (2017).

 

Some climbers never redpoint

Redpointing has become the most popular way to sport climb as people recognize its usefulness in raising their standards. That said, we work with hundreds of climbers a year and quite a few of them say they have never had a project, and never enter into a redpointing process. Instead, they choose to mainly focus on onsighting, which can be great (see our blog “How to improve your Onsight grade”), but in our opinion onsighting will inevitably result in the need for redpointing. If climbers pick the right challenge for themselves when aiming to onsight a route, then they will at some point fail their onsight. Rather than walking away and trying another route, this should be seen as a crucial opportunity for learning and improvement.

There are some good reasons (or excuses) to not enter into red-pointing. Climbers associate it with a fear of falling (and they will generally make more ‘air miles’ while redpointing than when onsighting). Redpointing can also be associated with a sense of failing, as by definition you are not getting to the top in one go. Also, redpointing can be mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting. If not careful, it may result in disappointment, frustration, dissatisfaction and/or tears. Many climbers therefore prefer onsighting: they would be less likely to fall (i.e. they experience less or no fear), and they get to the top in one go (i.e. they get the immediate reward).

So although onsighting is fun and probably the best thing to do when on a short climbing break in an area where you haven’t climbed much before, there are a lot of climbers out there, who just always try to onsight, and don’t ever allow themselves to redpoint – even if it is just turning a failed onsight into success by climbing it a 2nd or 3rd time.

The short-term gains and rewards of only ever onsighting don’t outweigh the long-term losses. What I mean is that by only onsighting climbers are not allowing themselves to get the most out of their climbing potential. They haven’t explored their limits. They are staying within the boundary of their ‘onsight-grade’.

Sport Climbing Holiday Costa Blanca Desiree Verbeek_DSF4404
Desiree Verbeek sending her project Memoria de Pez (7A+/7B) Tarbena, Costa Blanca (2018).

 

Why red point?

Redpointing should be part of everyone’s training. It is not something that is only for ‘good’ climbers. Every climber, beginner or advanced, can use redpointing to push their limits and increase their standards.

I differentiate here between a quick redpoint (about 3 attempts), and a longer redpoint process where you have chosen a proper project.

A quick redpoint should at least be done occasionally, after a failed onsight. Trying the route a second or third time, means you give yourself the opportunity to turn ‘failure’ into ‘success’. You will learn from whatever mistake you made on your first attempt; maybe you went the wrong way, maybe you ended up wrong-handed, maybe you missed a rest. Entering into a redpointing process, and spending more time on finding the correct route, or figuring out a specific crux sequence, means you will improve your route-finding skills as well as your problem-solving skills.

Redpointing a route that is significantly harder than anything you have climbed before comes with even more advantages. When I first try a route like this, thoughts enter my head such as ‘this is way out of my league’, ‘this is just impossible’, ‘I will never be able to climb this’, ‘this route is Chinese to me – I don’t understand any of it’. It is a very fulfilling process to slowly, step by step figure out how to climb it and turning the impossible into the possible.

When sending your project, it is very well possible that you won’t just do it by the skin of their teeth; it may well feel relatively easy! This is because during all those climbing sessions you got to know the route in a much more intimate way, and you figured out how to climb this route in the very best way, knowing that you need to get everything right in order for you to be able to climb this. You are increasing your movement repertoire (i.e. your personal ‘dictionary of moves’) and by doing these same moves over and over again, you are perfecting them and building muscle memory.

When you are sending the route it may feel like (and/or look like to other people at the crag) a dance up the rock. You are climbing the route with style, with poise, in a state of flow. Even though the route was too hard to start with, and didn’t allow you to get into a rhythm, once your technical ability and knowledge of the route matches the challenge of your project, you are likely to experience the well sought-after flow experience.

Entering into a long and demanding and challenging process also provides the opportunity to deal with failure. If you’re not falling, you’re not trying hard enough. If you want to get close to the best you can be, then climbing is largely about failure. You will fail more often than you succeed and you may as well (learn to) enjoy this process. Redpointing is a good way to get used to collecting more failures than successes. Plus, that one-time success makes up for all the failed attempts before it.

It also helps to redefine failure and success; failure is not having tried your best and/or not enjoyed your day, and success is having tried your best and/or being happy. Climbing is much more than touching the chains. Spending time outside, climbing and trying hard, falling off, solving the puzzle bit by bit (or even seemingly making no progress at all), sharing beta, and hanging out with your mates all make for positive climbing experiences.

Paul Cooke climbing “Johann” 6A+ on Lao Liang, Thailand (2017)

 

An effective redpointing process

  1. It all starts with picking the right route. To ensure you set yourself the right challenge it would be a minimum of two grades above your usual onsight grade. Another thing to consider is the location of your project; it is more convenient to have a project close to home or in an area that you can go to at least a few times a year. When the gaps in between ‘tries’ are too big, you are more likely to lose progress made in the previous session. Thirdly, a route with good conditions would be ideal; for instance in the Costa Blanca it is nicer to have a project with afternoon shade than one with morning shade, because by the time you have warmed up your project could be in the sun (climbing in the sun is not conducive for good results most of the year in Spain). Last but certainly not least, pick a route that grabs your attention. An outstanding line or feature. A route that you really want to climb. A route that you don’t mind doing over and over, because you just love the moves on it.
  2. Start climbing the route from bolt to bolt. If you can’t do a section in between bolts – or simply if you want to speed up the process and not waste too much energy, use a stick clip to clip the next bolt. In most cases, you can stick clip the whole route. Sometimes this may not be possible if the route goes over a bulge, or if a bolt is awkwardly placed and doesn’t allow the stick clip to get in. You can also use a stiff clip or panic draw to make it easier to clip the next bolt.
  3. Now you have the rope up, toproping the route can be useful. You need to be careful though not to overdo it. You will need to understand the clipping positions and how exposed the gaps between the bolts may feel when on lead.
  4. Lead the route bolt to bolt. Try to solve the puzzle section by section. When clipping the bolt, don’t say tight and wait for your belayer to take in. Instead, clip and let go (providing the fall is safe of course). This conserves energy rather than waiting for the rope to be taken in, and it is a useful falling practice at the same time.
  5. While bolt-to-bolting, avoid the temptation to do the easier sections too quickly, because in the end all energy saved lower down will help you in the crux. Work the route and its rests until it feels absolutely right for your body/physique, until you’ve ironed out all inefficient moves.
  6. Make sure to also repeat the section from the last bolt to the anchor! It is a common mistake people make to bolt-to-bolt every section many times, but then only do the finish once or twice, because they’re at the anchor now and think the bolt-to-bolting is finished. It is important to have those top moves wired; when bolt-to-bolting these moves may feel easy, but that could feel different when doing the route in a oner and arriving there completely pumped. You don’t want to fall off after all the cruxes and after pretty much having climbed the whole route, simply because you didn’t have the top moves wired.
  7. Before it is time to consider trying the route, proceed to combining sections until you can climb the route from ground to the first rest, from the first rest to the second rest, etc, until the clipping of the anchor. When in the rests, which are usually near a clipping position, ‘practice the rest’ but then have a proper rest on the rope. Don’t just rest on the rock as you would be if you were in your redpoint attempt. Be disciplined, even when it is starting to feel easier.
  8. A very important next step, and at the same time a good gauge of whether you are ready to start trying to send the route, is visualisation. Visualise yourself climbing the whole route, noticing every foot- and handhold, every rest and clipping position, every dynamic move, even where you will calm yourself back down by taking deep breaths. By the time you can visualise the whole route, you are very close to a clean ascent. Some people integrate visualisation with their meditation routine, or visualise just before falling asleep. It is also smart to visualise while you are getting ready to climb the route, and to continue visualisation while resting on the route. Visualisation is widely recognised as a very powerful tool in sports.

Climbing is a creative puzzle solving process that may require patience. A redpoint may take weeks or years. Adam Ondra for instance went to Flatanger 7 times in 2016 and 2017 for an average time of two or three weeks, and he reckons it took several hundreds of attempts before he climbed “Silence” (9C/5.15d).

Cheryl Law climbing “All Riggghht” 6B, Lao Liang, Thailand (2017)

 

A few years ago I coached Cheryl on her project, a beautiful >30m 6C in Thailand called ‘Family Affair’. We were both fully committed to her sending this route and the whole process was unforgettable for both of us. On every attempt, it was as if the whole world stopped, and it was just us there, silent, as if we were communicating through the rope. When she sent it, she said something that I since then like to remind myself and others of: She is a professional violinist and described the comparison of redpointing with studying a piece of music. When she first receives the music on paper it just looks like a jumble of notes, it looks impossible. Then bit by bit, line by line she starts to play the notes. Then she tries to play all the lines on the page. And she goes to the next page, trying to play every note. Until, after many hours of practice she is able to play the whole piece from start to finish. And, she said: and thát is when it starts! Because then you can play the piece again, but play it with feeling, play it the way it was meant by the composer. Not just as a succession of notes, but as a story. I love that analogy and feel that the same goes for climbing: there is a difference in climbing from hold to hold, and climbing as a dance up the rock.

 

Conclusion

Redpointing should be part of every climber’s training. It allows you to grow as a climber. It increases your movement repertoire, it improves your climbing grade, and it provides the opportunity to redefine ‘success’ and ‘failure’.

To those climbers who categorically avoid redpointing: it can easily be argued that red-pointing is easier than onsighting, both mentally and physically. There is the advantage of knowledge of the route. As opposed to onsighting, you know what’s about to come, you know the moves and how likely it is you are able to do them. You know that there are rests on the route and where and how good they are. You know where you are likely to fall off and what that fall will be like. Also, while practicing the route and working out the most efficient sequence in between every bolt, you’re only climbing from bolt to bolt and can then rest on the rope, to do the next section completely fresh, as opposed to onsighting where the pump may be building up. End the excuses: allow yourself to get the best out of yourself by (at least occasionally) engaging into a redpoint process.

If you would like to improve your climbing potential and learn how to redpoint you may want to consider joining Rock & Sun’s Performance Coaching Course. Most climbers come away from that week’s course having climbed two grades harder than they have done before, thanks to the combination of technique coaching and engaging in a redpoint process.

(written by Desiree Verbeek)

How to improve your onsight grade

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Coaching.

How to improve your onsight grade

As climbing instructors we aim to contribute to positive climbing experiences. It is our goal to try and get the most out of people’s potential. An onsight close to your max is one of the most positive climbing experiences to be had. So this blog is all about How to Improve your Onsighting ability. Because let’s admit it: nobody likes blowing their onsight.

 

What is onsighting?

Onsighting is climbing a route “on sight”. This means that you climb a route without falling or resting on the rope, in your first attempt, without prior knowledge. Even watching a video online might negate the onsight.

 

Onsighting – a once in a lifetime opportunity

Onsighting is very special because you only get to have one go at it. If you fall, it’s over: you have ‘blown the onsight’. It is no longer and will never ever be an onsight again. (Unless you would like to call it an Alzheimer Onsight when you come back to the route years later and claim to have no recollection of it).

Every route in the world only has one onsight opportunity for each climber. As opposed to redpointing where the climber may need 10 attempts, or a 100, or where it may take the climber years of going back to the same route to practice it and get it completely dialled until they finally (if at all) get it done. The special thing about the onsight is that you only have one opportunity to get it. So you want to give it your full attention. You want to maximise your chances of performing well.

Another way to show the importance of onsight is that if you’re not careful you may run out of routes to onsight. This is most likely to happen in your local climbing area of course, especially if you are not giving it your all any time you set off on a new route. Personally, I deliberately save certain routes for when I am better equipped and more likely to get the preferable onsight experience (which for me is: climbing something that is just about doable but will take a lot of concentration, effort and puzzle solving). So, rather than toproping the route when someone offers me that opportunity, and rather than getting on lead on it just to try some of the moves, I’ll say no until I think I’m ready to give it a proper go.

 

Why Onsighting?

Climbing is puzzle solving, and onsighting may be the ultimate puzzle: the rock is the crossword, sudoku or 1000 piece Jigsaw puzzle, and you are the one to solve it, with all the tools and strategies you have available to you. Redpointing you can compare to being able to use the ‘crossword-dictionary’, or pencilling in some optional numbers in the sudoku before picking which one it is, or using the picture on the box to see what the Jigsaw puzzle will look like. When onsighting, you set yourself the challenge to solve the puzzle without any help, all by yourself, without mistakes (unless they are mistakes you can rewind, for instance by climbing back down to a rest).

Onsighting close to your max grade is a very rewarding experience; you’ll be fully consumed with the climbing, using all your skills to solve this puzzle. We all have memories of climbing and everything seemed to ‘flow’, where we were fully engaged with the rock, with the moves, and we lost all sense of time and surroundings, completely focused on climbing. We are most likely to experience this state of flow when the challenge of the route hits the exact sweet spot of your capabilities to climb it[i].

Another reason why many climbers prefer onsighting over redpointing, is that it can be a very positive experience: a successful onsight takes only 1 go, whereas a successful redpoint takes more attempts; i.e. the climb-success ratio is per definition higher. (That is of course if climbers measure ‘success’ as reaching the chains – which most climbers do). A climber can onsight 4 routes in a day, whereas it is highly unlikely to redpoint 4 routes in a day.

 

Improving onsight grade vs ‘normal’ climbing grade

How is Improving someone’s onsight grade different from improving someone’s climbing grade? This blog is not so much about improving your climbing skills (read our previous blog about Climbing Skill Sets here), and thereby improving your grade. What we mean with Improving your onsight grade in particular, is to get better at climbing a route without any previous knowledge of the route. Ultimately the aim is to get your onsight grade closer to your redpoint grade, and to have more of those ‘fully-engaged-flow-like’-climbing experiences.

Some people have a huge gap between what they can climb when they work a route and what they can climb without previous knowledge or experience of the route. This can be the case when choosing routes that are too easy for them, routes that are well within their max. Especially when on a climbing holiday (as opposed to climbing in their local area) many climbers prefer this, allowing them to climb as many different routes as possible. The onsight-redpoint gap can also be big for those climbers spending years on redpointing a certain route; their onsight grade is usually quite a bit lower than the grade they are trying to project.

 

Three main ways to improve your Onsight ability

  1. Route finding is crucial in onsighting. Most failed onsights are due to having gone the wrong way. As climbers, it is our job to find the easiest way to climb the rock. Make it any harder than necessary and you’re increasing the chance of getting into trouble, getting pumped, or even falling off. Route finding starts on the ground. From here, gather as much information as you can. Where is the anchor? Where are the bolts? Look at differences in the angle of the rock and any of its features that stand out. Where is it less steep? Where is it more featured? Spot any potential rests. Where do you think the crux or cruxes are – f.i. based on the angle of the rock and/or the bolts being closer together? Using a laser pen while doing this can help hugely so climber and belayer are talking about and looking at the same thing. The belayer can then remind the climber when going elsewhere than was decided from the ground[ii]. Please remember though that although on-ground-route-finding is crucial, that doesn’t mean that this is where it ends. While climbing you need to constantly ask yourself the question where the route goes. And it is also necessary to realise that you can downclimb. Climb up, get information about the holds, then climb back down to the rest, and then decide on your route to what you think will be the next rest.

An extra note to people with limited outdoor experience: the climbing does not necessarily go straight over the bolts; it is a ‘route’ and it is your job to find it. The bolts are there to help protect you from hurting yourself should you fall off, and to keep the rope in an as straight as possible line. You are free to go anywhere left and right of the bolts as long as it is safe to do so. “That hold is on the other route” is very much ‘indoor-climbing-speak’. Mother nature didn’t decide that certain edges belong to this or the other route. Even route setters don’t decide on this. Their aim is simply to create climbing and to make it as safe as possible.

 

  1. A deeply ingrained understanding of the basic movement pattern hugely helps when onsighting. It is important to understand what efficient movement is, and to easily recognise which moves to do given the holds available to you, wasting as little time and energy as possible. The more the principles of efficient climbing have sunk in, both in your thinking as well as in your muscle memory, the quicker you’ll see the correct crux sequence. When I get stuck at a certain section of the route, I know where to look for feet, and I can think ahead: for instance seeing a right handhold, I will look for a left foothold below it. Or when I want to release the low right foot, I automatically look for a left hand above my head and a push down for my right hand. It is consciously thinking about these things that will help you work out the crux sequences quicker, thereby saving energy. If you are not sure as to whether you fully understand the basic movement program, then we highly recommend to come on a Performance Coaching Course, and to be disciplined to keep climbing efficiently afterwards.

Besides a thorough understanding of efficient movement, what also helps to improve your onsighting ability is to increase the number of moves in your ‘climbing repertoire’, for instance by redpointing harder routes.

 

  1. Getting in the right mindset before stepping on the rock certainly increases your onsighting potential. We like to remind people that they have done their preparation, and that is now time to trust their capabilities and enjoy the process of going into the unknown. Trust the body’s capability to climb and at the same time be very determined. The mindset should be very different from when you’re warming up, or from when you are climbing a route you’ve climbed before, or from when you’re in the process of redpointing. When onsighting especially, you need to set yourself up for:
  • When it gets hard, I will fight harder. I will certainly not say “take”.
  • If I make a move that’s wrong and I can’t reverse it, then I will keep going and risk falling.
  • If I can’t find the technical solution to solve the crux, then I will do it ugly and waste energy. As long as I have been conserving energy on the easier sections of the route, I should be fine. Plus, I may be able to recover higher up the route. It is important to get the balance right between time spent on working out a technical solution and the energy spent while looking for that solution.

What can also help to increase your onsight ability is to do Fall Practice regularly. We want our brains to quickly move from assessing the risk of falling back to focusing on how to climb the next section of the route. Being able to be calm above a bolt means all your focus and attention can remain on the climbing task at hand. Any distractions such as a fear of falling divert part of the brain away from climbing which means you are less likely to succeed in the onsight.

 

What to do when you’ve blown the onsight?

Accept that you are not going to onsight every route you get on. (If you do, you are climbing below your max. and should be aiming to onsight harder routes). If you are choosing the right challenges for yourself, then you will sometimes fail and you should be prepared to fail. We think it’s a shame that many people walk away from a route when they failed to onsight it. Some do so because they are on holiday and don’t want to ‘waste’ more time on doing the same route again, when they could be climbing a new route. We understand that. But there’s also many people that don’t give it another try because they think they’re not good enough to climb the route. By not giving it a 2nd or 3rd attempt (basically a quick redpoint), they are essentially collecting failures, and missing out on a valuable learning opportunity. There are many gains to be had from turning ‘failures’ into success by redpointing a route. We will go deeper into redpointing in a future blog.

(written by Desiree Verbeek)

[i] For more information about Flow: Csikszentmihalyi, The Rock Warrior’s Way (Arno Ilgner), Hazel Findlay.

[ii] Our next blog will be about route-finding.

Climbing Skill Sets

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Coaching.

Performance in climbing is a combination of three main skill sets. It is necessary to have these three aspects functioning optimally for your performance on the rock to be close to or at your maximum capability. Having these skill sets closely aligned will ultimately bring greater enjoyment and satisfaction to your climbing experience.

There is technique, understanding how to move efficiently on vertical ground. There is the mind, the ability to calm the mind down when it feels under pressure, the ability to deal with the natural fear of being off the ground. And then a climber’s physique, strength, power-to-weight ratio, and stamina (see Figure 1).

All three are coming together while climbing. You can’t just rely on your physique, power and stamina, nor just on having amazing technique, or on having a very strong mind. What we notice when we are coaching is that the climber’s performance can not exceed the level of the least developed skill. Let’s illustrate this.

Climber A has quite good technique, has got footwork and knows how to climb using as little upper body power as possible. When on lead, Climber A however finds they are often too scared to move above a bolt, to then fly up the same route when on a toprope; obviously not held back by the technical ability to climb the route. Climber A’s strength and fitness levels are high enough to climb harder. What is holding this climber back is a lack of skills to deal with mental challenges related to climbing. Getting fitter and stronger may make this climber feel more confident in being able to hold on to the holds, and it would buy time to figure out a technical solution for the crux, but ultimately this climber would benefit from exercises to train her mind.

Climber B on the other hand is a strong and physically gifted climber who is not so much distracted by fears. But with poor technique this climber is wasting a lot of energy, and therefore not climbing to their full potential. Mainly pulling on the holds and regularly dragging a leg behind on the easier part of the climb, means the climber is pumped when arriving at the crux of the route. Not held back by fear, Climber B slaps for the hold, makes it, but has no strength left to hold it and falls.

Climber C is a very experienced climber with close-to-being-perfect technique. With over 30 years of climbing experience, mainly trad, this climber has developed very good route-finding skills and is prepared to fall off on both trad and sport routes. Going out climbing regularly means Climber C has a good base level of fitness. But because they never trained specifically for climbing, physical abilities hold back their performance before anything else.

Climbing Skill Sets

Importance of the basics

Before we continue, there is obviously one more aspect to climbing: the basics. Getting the basics right is most important, and superseding all else. We regard the ability to assess risks, the skills to keep oneself (and your belayer) safe, and route-finding as the basics of climbing. You can be as strong, technically proficient or brave as you like, but if you can’t do a correct risk assessment, and/or don’t know how to keep yourself safe, and/or lack route-finding skills, you may get yourself into trouble.

People who lack the ability to keep themselves safe are the last people you would want to make more confident. They might get so casual with exposing themselves to unnecessary or serious risks that they could hurt themselves – or others. What they need first is to become safe climbers. At Rock & Sun we therefore pay a great deal of attention to safety. Initially we focus on clipping technique and positions, belaying, rope awareness, threading anchors, and risk assessments. There are many ways of doing these things and the important thing – especially for experienced climbers – is to keep your ears and eyes open for new developments and improved ways of doing the things you may have done a certain (possibly suboptimal) way for years or even decades. On the Rock & Sun YouTube channel we published several instructional/safety videos[i]. We also spend a great deal of attention to route finding skills – asking the question: “where is it less steep and more featured, from the feet up?” – practicing this for instance with a laser pen exercise[ii].

Once these basic principles are established, climbers can choose to train to get fitter and stronger, or to train the climbing brain, or to improve their climbing technique, or attempt to do it all.

 

Why we focus primarily on technique and efficient movement

We work closely with hundreds of climbers each year, we analyse their climbing, and dare to say that 90% of them are held back by their climbing technique. Some may think they are being held back by strength and fitness. Others may think that a fear of falling is holding them back. When we’re analysing climbers’ movement patterns, the reality is though that it is mostly people’s lack of understanding the biomechanics and how that affects efficient movement that is holding them back. This is compounded by a lack of route-finding skills. This is no surprise, as most climbers learn to climb in an indoor environment; they have limited time and opportunity to go outside and climb on rock. Climbing indoors, where routes are designed to get harder by putting the holds further apart and forcing the climber to use less than efficient movement patterns, means that when climbers come to climb outdoors they apply their ingrained (indoor) movement patterns on the rock, not recognising that easier options than the moves they choose are available. We will not go into too much detail here, but refer to our previously written articles on Outdoor Climbing Coaching, our video Inefficient vs Efficient Climbing, and to an example of our Video Analysis.

 

Fear starts in the forearms: Mind – Technique axis

Technique and the Mind are two linked skill-sets (see figure 1). Let’s illustrate this: When climbers lack technique, and lack understanding of where to look for footholds and how to execute moves, they will inevitably overuse their upper body. They will rely more on their arms for their upward movement than is strictly necessary. As a consequence, they are getting pumped quicker, and thát is the moment that the fear sets in: fear usually starts in the forearms. Plus, balancing on the rock face with only one foot is much more scary than moving up on both feet. Climbers rarely show fear when climbing above a bolt when they are on a route that is well within their grade – even though the consequence of falling might be more severe. So it is not necessarily their mind that is holding them back when climbing away from the protection. The mind usually becomes fearful when the climber is facing the prospect of falling, knowing they can’t hold on for much longer.

These climbers could choose to improve their climbing potential by working on their mental skills, but the root of the problem is their lack of understanding of how to move on vertical ground. Once they understand that – and are disciplined enough to reprogram their movement, they are saving upper body strength and it will take much longer before they get pumped – and scared. We reckon that most people we work with have at least two grades of climbing improvement in them, based only on improving their basic movement pattern.

 

Technique is an easy fix

A nice bonus of acknowledging that it is a lack of technique that is holding you back, is that it is relatively easy to fix. It is not rocket science; it is simple body mechanics. Once you understand the physics, and once you have received personal coaching to understand which bad habits you need to rewire, and have a set of drills that work for you to reduce your weaknesses, all it needs is discipline. As opposed to trying to improve your climbing by getting fitter to postpone the pump. How many people got into climbing because they love doing pull ups, push ups, and deadhangs?! Based on the climbers we work with on our courses and holidays (and on people we watch climbing while at the crag) we are convinced that most climbers do not need to do any additional physical training until they want to climb higher 7s.

Another good reason to focus on developing your movement skills instead of getting fitter and stronger, is that strength and fitness are easily lost during a period of not training or not climbing. After being ill or injured, pregnant, or a too busy period in your life where you did not have time to go climbing, your level of fitness and strength can be greatly reduced. Your technique however stays!

 

Fear is related to basic skill of doing risk assessments

Having described the link between technique and the mind, we now move on to explaining how someone’s ability to deal with a fear of falling is also strongly related to the basic required skill set of being able to do an accurate risk assessment. If physics isn’t your strong point, when doing your route finding (i.e. trying to find the less steep and most featured way to the next bolt, providing it is safe to go that way) all your options may come back as unsafe. “It is less steep and more featured on the left but if I go that way and fall off, I will swing into that feature there. The route definitely doesn’t go right here, because that’s looking too hard for the grade. I could go straight up here, where it is steeper and the holds are smaller than on the left. It keeps me closer to the bolt, but if I fall, I will land on the ledge I am leaving.”

It is completely normal (and sometimes even necessary) to be scared, because falling is not a natural thing for human beings to do. If you think you will hit something and hurt yourself, being scared prevents you from taking that risk. We should see fear as our friend. However, not being able to assess the angle, direction and length of the fall correctly, and assessing the risk as higher than it is, means you may be unduly scared.

Figure 2 helps to illustrate this. In a hypothetical situation, Climber D and Climber E are climbing the same 100 routes. Climber E always makes correct risk assessments: 20% of falls resulting in sustaining a serious injury, 10% of falls can be managed by f.i. deliberately pushing off while falling, and by an attentive and skilful belayer, and 70% of the falls are safe. Please note that the numbers are hypothetical – it should not be interpreted that if you do a correct risk assessment, 20% of the falls are in a “no fall zone”. Climber D however, on those same 100 routes, thinks that 80% of the time falling off would result in injury, and only 10% of the falls are safe. No surprise that Climber D feels scared.

Assessing fall zones

For Climber D it would be really helpful to make more accurate risk assessments. There are at least three easy ways to do this:

1) while on the ground, get into the habit of watching other climbers climb and imagine their fall if they were to fall off at any point, given the distance from the bolt and the amount of slack in the system. If at some point you assess the fall as not safe, ask a more experienced climber what their assessment of the fall would be.

2) while on the ground, watch other climbers taking falls. Was the fall what you had imagined it to be? This is especially helpful when a climber falls off the crux of a route that you are struggling to commit to. Once you’ve seen someone else fall in the same spot, your risk assessment can be adjusted.

3) while climbing and not willing to commit to a move because you assess it as possibly dangerous, ask your belayer how they assess the fall. Is it safe to commit?

Improving this basic skill set helps to be less scared, helps to calm the mind, and re-focus on the climbing.

 

Conclusion

To maximise your climbing potential, you need to assess (or ask a professional climbing coach to assess) what your weaknesses are and how these interrelate, in order to get the right exercises for you to improve. Work the weakest link! Work its true source, which may not be the same as how the weakest link manifests itself (remember that ‘fear from the forearm’ is most likely coming from a technical deficiency, not a lack of strength).

Based on several decades of experience with performance coaching for climbing, we conclude that most climbers need, first of all, to be able to make correct risk assessments, to know how to keep themselves safe, and to improve their route-finding, i.e. they need to get the basics right. Then, most room for improvement lies in learning how to move efficiently on vertical ground by understanding biomechanics and applying what we refer to as ‘a basic movement pattern’. As explained before, both of these have a positive effect on the mind. With correct risk assessments of fall zones, there is less reason to be scared. Knowing how to move efficiently saves upper body strength, which means you’re less likely to get pumped – and scared. Development of technique and the mind go hand in hand; by doing lots of mileage climbing easy routes the mind is calm and able to focus on efficient body movement.

When climbers have invested in improving their technique and in their basic risk assessment and route-finding skills, we consider training the brain as the best next choice of action. There are many exercises that help to stay calm and focused on the rock. We have worked together with Hazel Findlay on several occasions; she is a professional climber who specialises in coaching the mental aspects of climbing.

We do of course acknowledge that there is an advantage to being strong and fit. Looking at the Physique – Technique axis, stamina buys you time to figure out the most technical solution to a crux, and strength and power mean you have a greater selection of holds available to you. Furthermore, on the Physique – Mind axis, feeling strong enough to hold the holds, can give an advantage. It can calm the mind and help you to commit to a move. What we notice though is that most of our clients don’t lack strength or fitness.

(written by Desiree Verbeek)

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Interested in a Performance Coaching Course?

Keep an eye on our blog for our next article on Route-finding.

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[i] These videos are not intended to replace face to face instruction by a qualified climbing instructor, they are intended as refreshers for those having been on a Rock & Sun course or holiday.

[ii] Our next article will be about route finding, so keep an eye on our blog. We will accompany it with a video, which will be published on our YouTube Channel.

Trevor Massiah's article in Professional Mountaineer on why climbers are being lowered off the end of the rope and how to prevent this

Watch the rope!

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Instruction.

Why are climbers being lowered off the end of the rope?

It seems to me that the instances of climbers being lowered off the end of the rope while lowering are on the increase. I know of several people who have had lucky escapes surviving falls after being lowered off the end of their rope and some who haven’t been so lucky.
While it is something that I’ve always been acutely aware of and maybe have a healthy paranoia of, it is also something that I feel should just never happen.

Rope length

Climbers of a certain age might remember when sport climbing ropes were generally 50m (trad ropes 45m). Then after a few climbing trips in France and Spain it didn’t seem worth travelling with anything shorter than a 60m. Then routes got even longer and you really needed a 70m. These days it’s standard to buy an 80m and even this
might occasionally not be long enough. We keep a 100m in Kalymnos for the 50m pitches.

Having often dealt with ropes being too short, expecting it and planning for dealing with it has developed a certain level of awareness that I think is useful to pass on.

Knot is not always there

A greater number of people are aware of the benefits of tying a knot in the end of the rope. However, relying on the system of tying a knot in the end of the rope is not on its own sufficient, as it has proven to not always be there:

1. Human error

People simply forget, or think that the other person has already tied it. Assuming that the bottom end is tied
into the rope bag but not checking is also a possibility.

2. Someone in your group unties the knot.

I’ve seen this happen on several occasions and each time the belayer failed to notice. An inexperienced climber taking the end to practice tying in or to practice clipping and not knowing what the knot in the end
was there for, will not necessarily tie it back in.

As the knot is not always there, people need to have other reliable
systems in place for noticing that the rope is too short.

Before the knot

There are a few things that we have failed to do when the knot jams up against the belay device, or when the rope disappears through the belay device. If safety is an awareness of danger it might be useful to look at what we as climbers/instructors do ourselves to avoid needing to use that knot in the first place and make our clients
aware of that as well.

1. Read the guide book to see what rope length is recommended and take one that is long enough for any route you might want to do (ropes are cheap but you shouldn’t be).
2. Be aware! If you arrive at a crag and it looks big maybe the routes are long.
3. As you’re climbing the route you’re thinking “Wow, nice long pitch, I love long routes. Hmm, did we pack the 70m or the 80m?” Communicate with your belayer.
4. You’re belaying and your climber seems to be going up forever. Do you think: “Awesome I love long pitches, I’m really excited about getting on it myself”? Or are you looking down at the rope next to your feet and think: “I wonder if it’s long enough for my climber to get down”? Communicating at this point can be valuable!

Middle marks

I’m deliberately not mentioning middle marks when teaching clients. The problem with middle marks is that they can be unreliable. One of the advantages of buying a longer rope than you generally need is that it is often the 4 or 5 meters at the ends that show wear. Cutting 4 or 5 meters off the end of an 80m rope still gives you a useful length rope, but means your mark is no longer marking the middle of it.

Watch the end of the rope!

In recent years, I have been making a point of teaching belayers to pay more attention to the rope next to them than to the person they are lowering. As a belayer it can be hard sometimes to concentrate when your climbing partner is wearing a tight pair of Lycra pants but the rope right next to your feet is what you should be paying most attention to. It’s the only place that danger is coming from during the lowering process. This should be an integral part of the lowering process and is what we should be teaching.
We should also make clients aware of the importance of developing the habit of looking down at the rope while being lowered. It is great to take time to enjoy the view but more important to look down to see the rope next to the belayer and calculate well before you are lowered off the end of it whether it is long enough. I reckon about 99% of the time I’m able to see the rope after a few metres of lowering. Keep the rope visible! not tucked away in your IKEA bag!
Having asked thousands of climbers with a variety of experience where they look when lowering, virtually no one ever answers “the rope”. Even though that is where the danger is coming from, and it is almost always there next to the belayer’s foot.

Every time I hear of or read an article about someone being lowered off the rope the cause is always said to be the lack of a knot. And of course, no one would be lowered off the end if there was a knot, but it would be helpful to acknowledge that the belayer (and climber) failed to pay attention to the rope. We should not be switching off
because (we think) we have fixed the issue by tying a knot in the end of the rope. The knot should not be seen as the first line of defence – it is the last!

Trevor Massiah (MIA) – Professional Mountaineer – Spring 2020

Climber has the rope behind his leg and risks falling upside down

A closer look at Rope Awareness

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Instruction.

Is it possible to always avoid getting the rope behind your leg? Maybe not 100% of the time but it is important to give a clear procedure to help people avoid it.

Teaching people how to avoid getting the rope behind their legs at first seems a fairly straightforward thing to teach. However, there is a little more to it than advising climbers to keep the rope between their legs and the rock (rock-rope-leg).

When teaching lead climbing we will often choose routes that are well protected and therefore present less opportunity for the climber to make the mistake of getting the rope behind the leg. As there is quite a bit of new information for new leaders to think about, placing lots of gear when trad leading, or placing trad gear in between bolts when sport climbing, can provide a useful way of deferring teaching rope awareness until later in a course when the information might be more easily retained. It is still possible to fall with the with the rope behind the leg when clipped into gear above the waist, but this is more likely to result in a rope burn rather than falling upside down.

Climber has made the wrong decision to step over the rope while rope running diagonally. Climber may catch their heel or foot on the rope if falling, resulting in rope burn or falling upside down. The right-hand photo shows the climber making the correct decision to put their foot under the rope.
Climber has made the wrong decision to step over the rope while rope running diagonally. Climber may catch their heel or foot on the rope if falling, resulting in rope burn or falling upside down. The right-hand photo shows the climber making the correct decision to put their foot under the rope.

 

As the consequences of falling upside down can be serious it is something that deserves a reasonable amount of attention.

Most people find the concept of rock-rope-leg fairly straightforward. The difficulty comes when the choice of foothold necessitates making a decision to go around the outside of the rope keeping it between the cliff and your leg or to control the rope with the foot or the leg. I’m going to look in more detail at why we sometimes feel we have made the correct decision but still find the rope travelling behind our leg.

So, is there a rule or procedure that we can apply or teach to help students with these decisions? Yes there is. And most of us have one, and that is: when moving around the rope always go around the outside of the rope. This makes perfect sense as logically if you step inside the rope it would usually end up behind the leg. This is however only part of the procedure. There does need to be a second part to this rule which is: only step over the rope if you are also going past the gear or the bolt below you.

Climber makes the correct decision to go around the outside of the rope.
Climber makes the correct decision to go around the outside of the rope.

 

If the chosen foothold is directly above or not beyond the gear or bolt below, then the correct decision would be to control the rope with the side of your foot or leg. Failure to do this will almost always result in the rope travelling behind the leg once you have moved your body to stand on that foothold. It is moving your body that takes the rope behind your leg. And that is part of the problems. It seems ok to go around the outside of the rope when you place your foot on the hold, but as soon as you move your body, the rope travels with it and ends up behind your leg.

The first photo shows the climber making the correct decision to control the rope with the side of her foot. Second and third photo show how the climber has chosen a foothold that is clearly beyond (to the right of) the bolt below, but made the wrong decision to step inside the rope, resulting in having the rope behind the leg while clipping the next bolt.
The first photo shows the climber making the correct decision to control the
rope with the side of her foot. Second and third photo show how the climber has
chosen a foothold that is clearly beyond (to the right of) the bolt below, but made
the wrong decision to step inside the rope, resulting in having the rope behind the
leg while clipping the next bolt.

 

Not taking into account the angle of the rope travelling up from the last piece of gear, and/or the foothold in relation to the protection will lead to the rope travelling behind the leg often. A good percentage of clients attending coaching courses is related to having psychological issues that stem from having fallen upside down. Which may have been avoided had they received a more detailed explanation of how to avoid getting the rope behind their leg.

To summarise, in teaching rope awareness we should not just explain the rock-rope-legs principle and teach clients to always go around the outside of the rope. What we need to create in lead climbers is an awareness of the gear or bolt below. If the chosen foothold is past the gear or bolt below: go around the outside of the rope. If the chosen foothold is close to, just above, or not past the gear or bolt below: it is best to push the rope aside with the side of the foot.

For a visual and more detailed description, we refer to this video: “How to Avoid falling upside down – Rope Awareness – Rock and Sun”

How to avoid falling upside down – Rope Awareness

written by Trevor Massiah – Published in Professional Mountaineer Winter 2019

Deep Water Soloing Thailand_1862

Deep Water Soloing

Written by Rock & Sun on . Posted in Climbing Discipline, Climbing Location.

I take a deep breath in through my nose, fill my lungs with air and feel my chest expanding. Then I breath out, releasing the tension in my body. I am looking out over the Andaman Sea, focusing my eyes on the horizon, trying hard not to let my eyes look down to my feet, balancing on what feels like a tiny ledge, or to the crystal-clear water below me. My heartbeat racing, I know I am not ready yet. Another deep breath in. As I breathe out, the “I-don’t-want-to-jump-I’m-so-high-I’m-gonna-die”-voice in my head moves to the background and I can hear the other voice in my head saying “Come-on-you-know-you’re-gonna-have-to-do-it-anyway-so-just-get-on-with-it. It’s-only-6-metres.” I start counting “1…”, I breathe in and out, “2…” I breathe in and out, and then on “3…” I breathe in and step on foot forward, cross my arms in front of my chest, and gravity does the rest. The fall is long enough for me to realise that I’m falling, … I’m still in the air, a shriek escapes my mouth just before I splash in the water. While I’m quickly sorting out my bikini before resurfacing and swimming back to the longtail boat, I realise that it wasn’t all that bad. Actually, it was fine, and it was fun! Let’s go again!

 

What is Deep Water Soloing (DWS)

Deep-water soloing (DWS) is a form of rock climbing. Most similar to bouldering as there are no ropes, bolts, quickdraws or harnesses involved. The water below provides the protection from injury when falling off, hence it’s necessary to make sure it is deep water. Deep-water soloing has its roots in Majorca where Miquel Riera and his friends started bouldering above the sea in the late 70s. Its Spanish history makes that DWS is also known as psicobloc, which literally translated into English, means “Psycho Bouldering”. Deep-Water Soloing has also been done in the UK for decades, but it only became more mainstream after a couple of short DWS films were made in 2003 starring some of the sports pioneers – Tim Emmett, Klem Loskot and Chris Sharma.

 

Deep Water Soloing in Thailand

Thailand is a great place to go Deep Water Soloing. There are many limestone karsts rising steeply directly out of the sea, allowing climbing straight from a kayak or longtail boat, going as high as you can or dare, and falling or jumping into the sea. Needless to say – although most karsts are as steep underwater as they are above the water surface, you always need to check whether the water is deep enough, or go with someone who knows the area. It is crucial to know what the tide state is. Besides the abundance of karsts, the second thing that makes Thailand a great venue for DWS, are its tropical warm seas. No need for wetsuits. No risk of hypothermia. Just a lovely warm bath below you.

 

DWS on Lao Liang

All of Rock and Sun’s 12-night Sport Climbing Holidays start on the island in the south of Thailand called Lao Liang. It is about 16 kilometres offshore and a true climber’s paradise. To read more about Lao Liang, have a look at our website: https://www.rockandsun.com/rock-climbing-holidays/thailand-lao-liang/ During our 4-night stay on Lao Liang, we always aim to go Deep-Water-Soloing. We keep an eye on the tides, check whether the sea is calm enough for the kayak to bring people safely to the rock, and when the time is right, we ask the Thai staff to take the longtail boat and the kayak out. We go around both of the islands and do some snorkelling on the headland and round the back. If you’re lucky, you see dolphins jumping out of the sea and following the boat, or a sea turtle surfacing and waving his paw, as if they’re saying hello. Leaving us all in awe and admiration. What a special place this is..

Then we throw the anchor out at our first DWS spot and Trevor Massiah (MIA – our main Thailand instructor) gets ready. He puts his old climbing shoes on that he doesn’t mind getting wet. Covers his hands in liquid chalk. Blows them dry. Then steps onto the kayak in Gorilla-pose: on toes, knees and fists to keep his hands dry. Kneeling in this position makes it easy to keep your balance while on the water and then to step up from the kayak onto the rock. Avoiding the sharp barnacles at the bottom of the rock, Trev sets off to climb the first line. It is a nice diagonal line that has bigger and bigger jugs as you go higher. If it was a route, it would be graded a F4/5. After about 8 meters of climbing you reach a ledge. You can jump from here, or step down and jump from about 6 meters. *Which is what I did*. Another option is to continue climbing. There’s a traverse going out right that goes all the way into a cave, getting harder and harder as you continue, from about F6B to F7B. Or, from the ledge you can climb down, traverse left a bit and then go up to climb a F6A+ to the next ledge, from where, again, you can choose to jump or climb back down to the 8m ledge. All in all, there are lots of different opportunities at different grades and different heights. And that in this one little spot round the back of Lao Liang alone.

 

DWS Pioneer Tim Emmett

This winter, Tim Emmett joined us on two of Rock & Sun’s Sport Climbing Holidays in Thailand. It was immediately obvious that he is one of the DWS pioneers. He jumped from the highest point on our first DWS spot – with a backflip summersault, as he is adrenaline-junky Tim Emmett after all and never short of bravery. But it’s not only that. You can tell he loves the freedom of being on the rock without a rope and gear and without a certain ‘line’ or ‘route’ to stick with. When arrived at our second DWS spot on Lao Liang, he started doing the obvious traverse line – after which most people land in the water. Tim however, continued all the way high up into the tufa system. And while we were holding our breath on the boat watching him go higher and higher, thinking what would happen if he were to fall from there, the ‘show’ wasn’t over just yet. He then climbed down and left onto the blank looking wall, went back up – still going left, following some pockets, climbed down from there till he was almost at water level again, and just kept going. Making one big circle on the rock. Making the most of his free climbing. It is amazing to watch Tim Emmett’s love for the rock, his lack of fear, his abundant energy, as well as his love for the water. Because as soon as he did another summersault to get in the water, he swam to the boat to swop his rock shoes for fins and went free diving.

Deep-Water Soloing in Thailand is a must try for everyone; for the brave and not-so-brave, for the hard and not-so-hard climbers, for those who love rock, water or both.

By Desiree Verbeek

Interested in a climbing holiday in Thailand?
For more information and availability: https://www.rockandsun.com/climbing-locations/asia/thailand/