UKC

I've derailed a bit a gear thread http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=588288 so i thought i'd better start a new specific one.

Bit of a background.

TobyA wrote:

The system I learnt meant that you clipped your rope into you last point once you weighted the next meaning

I went:

Say what???

Fredt explained:

Your rope shouldn't be in the piece that's weighted, its in the piece below.
You reach up and put some gear in.
You clip an etrier to it.
You step up and put a dasiy chain in.
You reach down and move the rope to piece you just left.

If you put the rope in the piece you're weighting, and it blows, you put a much higher shockload on the last piece.

Me:

http://tinyurl.com/a2wyhba

And after Not familiar with aid climbing then? To be honest neither am I but most aid climbers do as described. i wrote (which i split here):

Not particularly. All aid i've done has been odd pitches within bigger climbs rather than full length Yosemite style affairs, and I kind of made it up as i went.

What i do is:

- Place gear
- Put quickdraw on gear
- Hand test
- Clip sling/daisy/cowstail to the solid bar side of the straight crab
- Transfer weight
- Reach down and retrieve 2nd daisy (i don't use daisies but i'll use it as generic)
- Bounce
- Reach down and retrieve etrier (usually carry only one)
- Clip etrier into gate side of straight crab
- Step up
- Clip rope into the business end of the quickdraw
- Move on

The thought behind working it out like this was that while below the gear weight is on the daisy and rope is at its shortest, so it minimises fall distance if the gear fails, (same as 'standard' method up to here) and once i get to a fall factor >~1 on the daisy (level or above the gear) then the fall stopping duties go to the rope.

So:

- For the time it takes to place gear and clip the daisy a tumble would see me falling onto the daisy (as in the 'standard' way) because the rope won't have a chance to take the force. However were the daisy to fail in this fall then the rope offers redundancy.
- Would the weighted piece fail in this static fall, the fall distance and force in the next piece will be the same as with the 'standard' way.
- A failure of the top piece while transferring weight, bouncing, or high stepping will produce less force on the next piece (and my back) as opposed to being tied with a static sling, and no more distance or force into the next one were this middle piece to zip.
- A failure of the weighted piece while below it will produce the same fall distance and shock load on the next piece as in 'standard'.

Only issue i see, is when the distance between pieces is short enough that you do the work with the tie in point below the weighted gear, but in this situation we are talking an extra metre slack at most, which is largely irrelevant as to fall distance and if anything would reduce the fall factor and thus shock load into the next piece.

So, since i ain't aid climber, can someone explain to me why risking a factor 2 fall onto a static sling attached to a possibly crap piece of gear, or even worse, a bomber piece of gear, is a good idea?

I'm sure there's got to be a good reason, otherwise that wouldn't be standard practice. Anyone enlighten me?