School Boy Error… or 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes….

I saw over on Dave MacLoed’s blog that he is recovering from being lowered off the end of the rope whilst sports climbing. Other than the embarassment he appears to have got off lightly, as he was carried away by a friend and has no broken bones. However stupid this may seem sat in the comfort of your home or office this is one of the major errors that many climbers have been guilty of making.

I know far too many people who have done this both in the UK and abroad. I have two friends that fractured their femurs in Spain lowering off a 30m route with a 50m rope (different years and palces!), meaning they fell nearly 10m. When I first started climbing on the Slate a good friend lowered Leo Houlding off the end of his rope, luckily he was only 4 metres up and being young bounced well.

Another of the UK’s leading trad climbers recounted a story of taking some massive air off a peak limestone route and when the belayer finally held the fall he was still 15 metres off the ground and there was only 6 inches of rope left before he would be in freefall.

Top tip is to always tie into the end of the rope or leave a good knot just over a foot from the end of the rope everytime you climb or better still get the belayer to tie in as well. Having known too many people make the same mistake I can sometimes seem like a OCD candidate when I tie a knot in the end of a rope before I leave the ground on a crag I know or think is longer than half the rope.

Anyway, the main point of this post was to make the joke that ‘9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistake‘. Although I don’t recall that being one of the mistakes in Dave’s book. I hope Dave gets well soon and forgives my humour at his expense.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *