There are also strange things done at
Australia's most popular crag and, yet again, I have to wonder how
Australia has managed to stay so isolated from the developments in
climbing over the last forty years in the rest of the world. Sure,
it's an island state, and somewhat geographically isolated, but, if
you can ship live cows to Saudi Arabia, you can import a few
improvements in skills and equipment.
Take the carrot bolt (or retard bolt)
as we call it. This might have been a quasi-reasonable solution when
nothing else existed, but that was a long time ago, and continuing to
install retard bolts when better and safer solutions exist is simply
retarded. However, you don't come across that many retard bolts at
Arapiles, what you do come across is climbers doing all sorts of
weird things, and then passing those weird things on to their friends
and climbing companions. Heck, even the guides are passing on weird
things.
Manky top-rope anchor set by "guide"
Take for instance the bandoleer, which
has been around for at least 20 years. Our bandoleer has been the
subject of much envy at the crag as people exclaim over how
revolutionary it is to have an over the shoulder sling with separate
gear slots. What about joining ropes for a rappel? For at least 20
years the standard in other countries has been two overhands as this
has been shown to be safe, strong, and least likely to get stuck when
you pull the rope. Here in Australia, people are still joining ropes
with hugely bulky figure 8 follow throughs backed up with stopper
knots. Try that just one time at Red Rocks and you will quickly be
looking for a better solution, and two new ropes.
Climbers are also struggling to
understand why their double butterfly coils are so tangled every time
they go to flake out their ropes, and why they are stuck with
horrendous rope-drag 15 metres up the first pitch of the day when
they are using dog-bones (aka quick draws) instead of double length
runners. It would be great if climbers in Australia would discover
the auto-belay device - any brand would help. Parties of three are
very common on routes at Arapiles but no-one knows how to belay two
seconds using an auto-block device. In North America, we climbed as
a threesome for years and were just about as fast as a pair of
climbers because auto-blocks enable two seconds to climb safely at
once. Doug and I are not particularly fast climbers but, at
Arapiles, we make it a rule not to get onto a route behind another
party, particularly a party of three, as it does not seem to matter
how far up the leading party is, we will catch them at some point.
Better rope management (lap coils, autoblocks for example) would
speed up the progress of these slow parties as would a simple
understanding of time management. I guess, when all your climbs are
relatively short, there is not much incentive to try and be efficient
on a climb.
We've seen numerous new climbers being
instructed to belay seconds directly off the anchor - which would be
fine if they had a bomber anchor and some kind of autoblock (like the
Black Diamond ATC-guide), but they don't. They have crappy 40 year
old stitch plates, and tubes, and belaying in this manner is
recklessly unsafe. I've even seen "guides" teaching their
clients to do this. I'm also not really sure why beginners are
instructed to "back-up" bomb-proof single piece belays.
I'm not talking about one good cam or chock, I'm talking about a 50
year old living trees, or threads the size of my thigh. There's just
no way these anchors are going to fail and teaching some kind of rote
rules is antithetical to the essence of climbing which is all about
making reasoned decisions based on principles not dogma. The
practice of "guides" encouraging their clients, who are
just learning to place gear, to lead gear climbs without the safety
of a top-rope belay just would not occur in Canada where guides are
ACMG certified. There seems little to be learned when the "guide"
stands at the bottom of the pitch and reassures the somewhat anxious
climber that "she'll be right" when the client expresses
concern about their gear placements or belays.
No-one ever seems to consider how the
belayer will be pulled in the event of a leader fall from a
multi-pitch route once the party has left the ground, so that belays
are poorly set up, running the risk of the belayer completely losing
control of the belay if the leader falls. On one very popular
beginner route, the only anchor available at the top of pitch two is
directly above a very deep (as in 40 metres deep) gorge that runs up
the cliff. Pitch three starts with the leader stepping across this
void (intimidating but relatively easy). Should the leader fall
after crossing the void, the second will be pulled off the ledge and
down into the void. Hopefully, the anchor will hold, but really,
this route would benefit from the addition of a bolted belay. Gear
anchors are great, but not when they are patently unsafe. I assume
it is just a matter of time until a leader falls, the second is
pulled off the ledge, the belay fails and one or two people die. I
can only guess that the reason such a thing has not yet happened is
because pitch three is pretty easy.
It's over 30 degrees today at Arapiles,
so we are avoiding (as best we can) the heat of the day, hoping to
get out climbing tomorrow, and, wondering all over again, what
strange and wacky things we'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment