Shoud you change the way you belay?
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- This tutorial presents a study carried out by the ENSA mountain equipment testing facility on belay anchors and belaying techniques. The results of this study suggest the use of certain anchor-building and belaying techniques, which are described in the second part of the video. Further information can be found at: ensa.sports.gou... (french only)
I'm not going to start belaying from the anchor with an Italian hitch, but I will feel less freaked when I see other people doing it now.
That bowline method is sick! thank you!
Very nice! Thanks for posting this. I will definitely belay off the anchor in situations where a fall could be really bad.
Bravo la France! Coucou du Québec :-) Très belle réalisation!
2:46-2:56 the belayer barely moved. This is an awesome method especially for belayer with lower weight than climber. Thanks for sharing.
As Paul Cunningham pointed out--as long as you are using bomber bolts this could work fine, if using Trad anchors..not so good..
@Seneca: Your trad anchor should hold this fine if you placed a proper anchor. Pretty sure a guide can manage this...
@Morgan: Better is belaying straight off the anchor and also use gloves.
@@SenecaRocksMountainGuides They measured the forced on the anchor and got *lower* forced when belaying off the anchor, though?
Some thoughts.
1. as they say, lead belaying off the anchor is a common technique in some countries. At a guess it predates the belay plate. It is covered in at least one English language textbook (mine and Andy K's). This was traditionally done with a Italian Hitch (Munter).
2. The video mentions using an Italian Hitch, however in the first section, the belayer has an orange Reverso on the anchor (2min 8sec). Strange?
3. The video says the direct belay places less force on the anchor that the indirect. This is hard to understand. Maybe it is covered in the linked pdf, but my French failed me. Things happen for a reason, and the only reason I can see for the forces being lower is there is more slippage, it which case this is a less like-for-like case than implied. I think you can see his hands being dragged a long way in the video. It would be interesting to know that would happen if the belayer's hands were right next to the carabiner.
4. You can see that the position taken by the belayer in both the indoor test and the one on the snowy route at the end of the section is less than normal, a squat. By using a direct belay one is always more at the mercy of the position of the anchor.
4. Offering a direct belay in the way filmed, with a Reverso (not in guide mode), I would suggest is untested in the real world. The amount of friction provided would be very low (possibly zero) if the belayer's hand was to the same side of the anchor as the lead climber. Belays in corners, or low anchors, could easily get out of control. There have been various attempts to solve this with re-directs, but these are difficult to rig, can suffer from catastrophic failure if one anchor piece fails, and were not even discussed in the video.
5. Offering a direct lead belay with a Reverso in guide mode, solves these problems, but I suspect would create greater forces, not lower ones. It is also a right pain when giving slack. As Jim Titt has shown, under high forces the two strands in a Reverso-type device can flip and trap the rope completely or remove the braking force.
6. The belayer is shown wearing gloves - this is uncommon in the UK.
7. This is all about fixed anchors, we rarely weight our anchors in an upward direction - as our bodies take the hit. The approach shown would weight the anchors in an upward direction every time someone fell. This would mean much more complex belays. For trad belays, I would suggest the key thing is to try and reduce the potential for upward loading. Belaying off the body does this most of the time.
8. You can't use a Munter in any practical way with double ropes, only singles and twins - we Brits love our tad belays and our double ropes.
Point 4.2 (actually point 5 in your list) is wrong. Belaying with a tube device from an anchor is tested in real world and even suggested by the DAV (german alpine club). See for example www.alpenverein.de/chameleon/public/04c4aa2d-3f2c-9ba8-b233-a081dc9965ab/Tuber-am-Stand_19803.pdf. Before your leader reaches a bomber first piece you clip in another screwgate on the braking strand (figure 7). This will generate enough braking force in case of downward and upward pull. When your leader clips a bomber piece you can unclip the second screwgate.
David Coley A lot of good points. I thought it looked like a bit of slippage alright that may have been giving the lower forces on the direct Italian hitch.
icepic1984 I see the image, while it looks like it would be solid in a fall, it would be very awkward to belay, but I must set it up and test it. Thanks for the document, I must practice my German. ;)
Point 3. Given that the Italian Hitch locks by bringing the two strands together it's not surprising that there is a lot of movement/low force in this with the belayer unable to lock the strands 2:15.
I think this doc is about the same, just in english www.alpenverein.de/chameleon/public/e0a0abc8-3fe8-c1b5-fb8c-8d639b1d7e75/2014-3-belaying-in-multi-pitch-routes_25220.pdf
Thank you very much for the good work!
Merci pour faire partager les résultats de cette expérimentation.
Quelques schémas complémentaires permettraient de mieux comprendre le principe et la répartition des forces dans les différentes configurations.
3:06 - the text says "belaying with an Italian hitch on the anchor" and a couple seconds later we see a belayer with Reverso attached to anchor
Thank you very much for this upload. I find it more than useful
Excellent video. Thank you for trying to summarize a complicated issue in a fairly short video. However, at 7:10 I still don't know quite what is going on there, even though I watched it several times. :-)
He is doing a lot of things differently than what I've been taught in the states and I can't really sort it out.
He has roughly equalized two pitons using a cord with a bowline-on-a-bite and a clove hitch. The bowline is also the masterpoint. He is then lead belaying straight off the masterpoint using a munter hitch. It is not however equalized for a lead fall.
@@GeeRad this anchor is not equalized. in this setup just one point is loaded and the second one is just for backup. that's why he adjusts the sling from the master point (bowline eye) to the second point with a clove hitch. like this there is no slack in between and not too much of a shock load on the second point if the master point fails.
however, usually you only use this method with absolute secure bolts.
What he is doing is Clove hitching to the higher point and clipping the tail of the clove into the same karabiner as a back up.
So am I correct in saying that you cannot use the guide plate to belay a leader from a fixed anchor? He switches from using a guide plate (bringing up a second) to a munter hitch (belaying the leader)....
What does this mean for pure trad anchors? Not pitons or bolts, like they tested.... the anchor lead belay still pulls upwards on the anchor protection in a fall but less dangerous than harness belay still because the belayer body weight doesn’t fly upward too and pulling down a little countering? Also meaning the chances of the belayer are less in cases of letting go of the rope, when hitting the rock. Of course both belay scenarios could have upward force protection underneath but it’s not always the case. Which is better suggested for general trad belays?
Pourquoi est-ce que vous n’assurer pas en premier de cordée avec le ATC et que vous changer au “munter hitch” ?
Why not belay the leader with the ATC and switch to a Munter/Italian hitch instead ?
Did he call his belayer 'tweetie-pie'?
Hi,
He says 'titi' and a few seconds before he said 'tit', there are french nicknames, often used regarding your name or surname. You can also relate it to the cartoon, since Tweetie pie is tranlated in french as 'titi". Whatever I don't think Philippe Collet (the lead climber) is the puddy tat ;)
Wouldn't banging on a piton with a hammer slowly break the rock around it? If every party coming by did this, would the piton placement become worse and worse over time? I understand you're listening for the sound it makes but he hit it hard enough to see rock dust come flying off.
Also, that bowline on a bight with 2 strands in the loop is not actually redundant as there is only 1 strand crossing over the top of the knot and it's not a stable knot so if any one strand gets cut the whole thing would pull through and fail.
Piton should absorb the force, steel is rather flexible. Rock would crack in the first place, if too fragile/weak for the forces involved setting the anchor.
The banging on the piton is to hear the sound, not to actually hammer it further. That's why when he hammered the first one and it only plunked and then the went to the second one and it ringed, he called out that the second one was the better anchor.
If it don't ring, don't swing.
Why isn’t anchor above or in front of the belayer? The belayer should be able to pre,load the anchore thereby reducing any snap loading
It seems to work nicely when your anchor belay is made with pitons or bolts, but what happend when using friends and nuts? not always are multidirectional... do you need to set a lower friend/nut to avoid upward rope drag? wouldn`t be this the only anchor holding the climber? Thanks for the video and tests!
Every anchor you place to belay a leader must be multi-directional.
@@johntuttle9544 not from the ground...
What you'll often see is a 3 piece anchor (cams and/or nuts), with two oriented to hold a downwards fall and one oriented to hold an upwards pull. Obviously the latter has no redundancy other than the belayer's weight, but I think the assumption is that the belayer conducts the belay off of his/her harness (ie Munter hitch, Grigri, whatever, clipped into the harness belay loop). It's very common to see folks forego any gear placed to protect against an upwards pull, again, apart from the weight of the belayer. Arguably, if the first protection on the lead is really bomb-proof, that may be alright (how far upwards would the belayer be pulled?), but it really demands that both the leader and the belayer are super cognizant of the risks...
4:50 - "the method of linking two belay points with a twisted swing" what is he describing here? I feel it's important with the whole strongly advise against thing..
He's talking about the self equalizing "sliding x" anchor
magic X
The anchor at 7:15 is a bizarre complication. Just tie directly in with your lead ropes, butterfly knots allow fast yet strong adjustments that leave zero slack anywhere, far stronger and more dynamic than slings or small cordellettes. You can still belay off any loop of the anchor or biner if you wish. I witnessed dyno testing by Craig Luebben years ago, and unequivocally the surprise was, lowest peak impact force on top pro taking the fall - full lockdown, no attempt at a 'dynamic' belay, regardless of device, but JUMPING up just as the slack was gone! Dynamic intent increased peak force. These were gym falls of factor 0.25 - 0.3. Huge outdoor falls can be controlled better off anchors, but they have to be bomber.
***However, the WORST, as in fatal, flaw here, is at 7:30, where the leader is in position to take a factor 2 fall directly onto the anchor (and the belayer's head) because his rope is clipped through nothing at all above the belay biner. Even one biner a foot above it reduces the factor significantly. So much for Guides knowing safety. Notice also the disappearing gloves, off, on, then off again? Bare hands and Munter hitch, in the mountains, what could go wrong?
You're going to have to link a photo of what you're referring to. I don't find butterfly knots to be easily adjusted (not compared to clove hitches at the very least) and they are really hard to untie if they've taken a lead fall.
I agree I don't see any point to their use of a bowline on a bite. Why not just belay from your harness with a short daisy? All their examples showed using a loooong anchor which seems ridiculous.
welcome to the reality of climbing in the mountains.
FYI, you are not using a dynamometer, you are using a digital force gauge. I know some in the industry us this term, but it's incorrect.
Excellent video collection. Thank-you.
Would one belay off an anchor with an ATC?
Who's dumb enough to dislike these videos.. Anyway thanks for sharing this knowledge.
Many have been good. This one is possibly poor as it fails to explain when this works and when it could her a very, bad idea. (See my other comments)
Nickel!
Cool to watch those methods from non English speaking speaking countries, until now only from them.
You take much pride in the results of your limited tests, but you do not try as hard to find out about the downsides with these methods you recommend. So I cannot give this any scientific value at all and there is certainly no reason to abandon modern standard practice.
7:56 you can see the anchor its not equalized when leader falls... The carabiner is also taking the load away from the spine... not good.
Equalization is a myth. Limiting extension if one piece fails is good though.
Just bare in mind this video is published by guys who do not know how to calculate the simplest of fall factors. I have no time to analyse all the other nonsense therein. Really disappointing.
Hum... Are you talking about 1:22 ? Because 2.5m fall with 8.4m rope is 2.5/8.4 fall factor = 0.3, they're right aren't they?
@@cyprienaugier6628 no, I'm talking about their factor 2 falls (4:18). Factor 2 is the simplest one to calculate yet impossible to generate on a single pitch gym climb. But it's besides the point since the whole video is full of bad advice. My real-life experience with fall factor > 1 falls caught by belaying off of harness (even when I as a belayer weighted only 64 kg and my partner taking an f > 1 fall weighted 103 kg!) is contrary to everything shown here simply because their simulations bear no resemblance to real world falls and real world belaying. Oh, and they should have definitely read the "Climbing Anchors" by John Long (no prior to 3rd edition: www.amazon.com/John-Long/dp/0762782072/) to know what they were talking about instead of giving bad advice.
@@dookshi Read the link in the description: page 16, they are doing "factor 2" fall, and explain what they mean (but it's in french, ask me if you need a translation).
I haven't read the book you talked about, so I can't say anything about it.
I don't get why their falls don't ressemble what we could have in real life? And what is your real-life experience with 64/1 >1factor belaying of the harness?
@@cyprienaugier6628 if you found it written (I don't understand French myself) I trust you then that they are doing the factor 2 but did not film it. And I stand corrected. As for your question regarding the difference to the real life falls the most striking one is that the real f > 1 falls rarely pull you up *at all*. They just move you around a bit. Their simulations show catastrophic lifting of the belayer and therefore present a problem where there actually is none. And where there is no problem, there is no need to search for a solution to it, no need to belay off of an anchor. Other than such belaying being dangerous in most real life situations I really don't want to spend even a minute more than I already did commenting this video. It was bad enough that I had to watch it again. Many commenters found many issues already, it's not just me. I highly recommend the book, it's a real eye-opener. I hope you will enjoy it. Just make sure it is the latest (currently 3rd) edition because the first two editions did not cover the topic of complex anchors deep enough and with new evidence to dispel old myths.
@@dookshi well, my experience with belaying someone who is 85kg when I am 63 is that even with factor .3 or .4 I'm pulled up heavily :/