Being inherently lazy, when top roping I try to do more than one climb off the same set up.  Usually, I set up correctly for the “ target” route and then do anything on either side (within my potential) providing the biners and climbing rope are clear of the rock for each route and providing the pendulum effect of falls from the adjacent routes present acceptable risks.

This seemed to work fine until last week when I learnt a somewhat painful lesson regarding the deficiencies of this approach.

Having arrived at the crag nice and early, I had my eye set on a climb called ‘”Muesli” which was a grade higher than anything else I had ever sent.  We set up our anchors at the top of the climb and were ready to go.  Only one other group of 2 was around and they had just finished a route and were enjoying a coffee at the base of the route we intended to climb.

I am not really hung up on grades, but I don’t think it is a great idea to warm up on something at your absolute limits.   We checked the route as we got ready.  Neither of us had ever seen it before.  After some discussion (and some joshing about our prevarication from the other climbing pair) we decided to do the route immediately to the left of Muesli (Cocolossal) which was one grade lower and still as high as any grade I had ever attempted.  Great warm up climb!

The start of Cocolossal was only about 6 feet to the left of Muesli, but the ground sloped down from the base of Muesli to the base of Cocolossal. I found the start of Cocolossal a bit awkward and I was soon off balance and moving like a dork.  Suddenly I was off.  It was the first time I have fallen without some hint I was coming off.  One instant I was on the rock, the next I was heading for the ground.  My feet were only about 6 feet off the deck but were to the left of my hands. Combining this with the pendulum effect which swung me back towards the right meant that although I got my feet under me before I hit the deck, I was off balance.  With rope stretch I was then able to keep going backwards and landed on my back on a boulder. I smashed my elbow pretty hard and was badly winded.  Nothing broken fortunately.

Lessons learnt:

(1) If you get nasty abrasions and black bruising all over your elbow, don’t wear a short sleeve shirt to a family lunch and expose the damage at the table by leaning back with your hands behind your head AND tell your wife about it before she sees the damage with all your in-laws.

(2) Be very careful for the first 6 feet or so if you are not climbing directly below your top rope set up, because you could easily hit the ground off balance.  Maybe you should only ever climb directly below your top rope anchors, but I figure the risks of climbing adjacent climbs are generally lower than other climbing risks.

(3) Consider getting your belayer to take up some of the rope stretch as well as the slack for the first 6 feet or so of the climb.  I guess this is bad style, but it substantially reduces the chances of hitting the ground.

(4) Adrenaline will push your climbing grade up faster than anything. Once I got my breathe back, I decided to try do Muesli first and went straight up it quite easily (I expect the next time I try it, it will be a different story).

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ozoccy
Total gumby