UKC

Hi,

I use an Edelrid Mega-Jul belay device. While climbing today (in the Alps) I met an aspirant guide, who commented on my belaying. He told me that the only safe way to belay a second is using guide-mode (with the belay device clipped to a bolt), i.e. that belaying a second from the harness is unsafe because the rope can slip through the belay device if the second falls at the moment when you are taking in

He also suggested that this should not only apply to sports routes, but also on trad, and that one should use a long sling to equi-tension all belay points, clip to and hang the belay device from. When belaying, I usually equi-tension all the gear by tying off at my harness with fig-8s on the bight (as I was taught many years ago at Glenmore Lodge).

Thoughts? Is this correct? 

Steve

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Couldn't the same logic be used for belaying from the floor, ie. when your hand is briefly raised on the dead rope, it's slightly less safe?

I can't believe it's the "only safe way" to belay a second considering how relatively few people I've seen actually use guide mode, or even have a belay plate for it.

Edit: I should add, maybe it is technically more safe, but I'm surprised he would imply other methods are unsafe

In reply to gooberman-hill

No. It is total bollocks.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

I'm a huge fan of direct belays and I use them whenever it is appropriate to do so and in preference to belaying off the harness for both sport and trad but the aspirant guide is simply wrong by saying it is the only safe way to belay.

Belaying off the harness is sometimes the better option and indeed there are times when not using a mechanical device at all is the best option.

Al

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Both ways are fine I reckon.  On sport multipitch I used to belay seconds off the harness, but switched to using guide mode as I just found it easier to manage the rope and keep the belay neat that way...

Also means that if the second falls you're not in the system so you won't be pulled out of the comfy position on the ledge / drop your shoes / catch something on the anchor.  

But like I said, both ways are fine I reckon?

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Is gravity relevant to the operation of the device? If not then there cannot be any reason why belaying from the harness from the bottom of the crag would be different to doing so at the top.

In reply to tlouth7: No, it's the positioning that changes things .... a bit... if you're at the bottom top roping you will only be pulled up.  If you're belaying from a stance, you can be pulled around, especially if your attachment to the belay is not tight enough.

To Gooberman-hill : He's being rather sensationalist, but is not talking absolute bollox.  If you are belaying with a slack attachment, as mentioned above, life can get messy.  Also , if you are belaying from the waist with your finely perfected 1-2-3 V method there is indeed a point in time that the ropes going in and out of the device are moved towards a more parallel position and braking force is much reduced.  That isn't the case in guide mode.  If you don'y believe me then try 1-2-3 and at no point have the angle between ropes in and out < 135deg.  If you were to  in that reduced position and then pulled off , around ??

Of course the correct answer as with all these is horses for courses. 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

He was wrong.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Anyone who talks in absolute terms about some aspect of climbing, eg you must do this, you must do that, the only safe way is this, etc etc, is usually being a bit simplistic in my opinion. 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Assume it wasn’t a BMG aspirant? The Europeans climb on bolts or solid rock with good gear generally so he must have assumed that all belays are suitable for direct belays. That’s not the case. Direct belays are great when it’s appropriate but sometimes it’s not appropriate due to the gear being less than ideal or simply impossible if the gear is far apart. 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

An aspirant guide doesn't really mean anything really (except that he'd like to be a guide one day).

He's wrong, don't worry about it.🙂

In reply to gooberman-hill:

I've had this conversation several times with guides in the alps. I do almost always use guide mode when bringing up a second and using bolted belays. I'be rarely used it on natural belays. My partner was basically shouted at by a guide last year for belaying off the harness when bringing me up a very easy slab pitch at the top of a route. This led to us thinking long and hard about the issue and basically coming to the conclusion that yes, guide mode is safer and perfect in many/most situations with bolted belays but that a degree of discretion should be used. As outlined by the responses above.

Positioning of the belayer and angle of potential pull is the key thing. Guide mode is not always that easy to give slack to a second either. However, it usually allows easy rope management too.

As already mentioned, there are times when a sinple waist belay is the best choice and I do that if moving fast on easy terrain. Bing able to work out the pros and cons of each and make an informed decision is better than simply saying one way is the only way. This comes with experience of different situations. Its no coincidence that each time a guide has mentioned this to me or my partner its been in front of a client or group whom they are instructing. 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

was the aspirant British or continental?  I can't ever remember seeing any French or Swiss using an indirect belay to bring up a second.  But even "trad" routes in the alps often have bolts at the belay which work well for direct belays.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

he sounds a bit full of himself. “Look at me! I’m gonna be a guide”.

nothing wrong with belaying off a harness. I’ve tried ‘guide mode’ and found it to be a pain in the proverbial in most, trad, situations, but handy in some. Chances are the anchor will be at the same level as you when your sitting on a ledge. Guide mode then makes it hard to keep the rope snug on your second due to drag.

stick with what your doing. I use a mega jul. They are very safe as the device will lock itself. 
I don’t have any climbing qualifications apart from 45 years of climbing experience. 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

There are few absolutes in climbing safety.
 

Sometimes direct belays are great, sometimes it’s safer to include your own body in the equation.

You always have to make context based decisions based on experience rather than hard and fast rules.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

How did you know he was an Aspirant Guide - he actually told you this? Sounds like an arse.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Tell him to keep dogmatism to himself, he cannot possibly know what your reasoning and/or your intentions are. If I'm leapfrogging I sure as hell am not going to be putting my partner in guide mode to have to them take them off belay, move the belay plate and put them back on my harness for the lead.

In reply to planetmarshall:

I mean i’m all for being told I could be doing something better/differently if there’s a good rationale amd it’s delivered in the right way.
 

But this guy a) doesn’t seem to know his onions b) sounds like an arse 😂 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Guide plates also have there issues for the uninitiated as well as releasing under load.

youtube.com/watch?v=s9np7B1Zao4&

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Short version: The guide is right.

Long version: There is more than one way to skin a cat. There are a lot of different ways to do things with the equipment you have and most of the sensible ones are still very safe, it's just that it is very slightly more probable that they could go wrong or it will be less comfortable when the climber falls. Alpine guides that are being responsible should be changing the way they do things subject to research and technology progression and I think that part of keeping their qualification requires that they regularly attend courses to get up-to-date with this stuff (or it might just be encouraged). Alpine guides should also always be using the safest method when guiding clients but you could have a whole other thread about that which I'm sure would be filled with stories of guides doing things that make your hair stand on end.

Also, you should have a read of this article (it's only 6 pages) which sums up the research on ways of belaying and will make you a safer climber if you follow its advice:

https://www.alpenverein.de/chameleon/public/e0a0abc8-3fe8-c1b5-fb8c-8d639b1...

In reply to Alkis:

If you have a single spare belay device between the two of you (which is always a good idea on a big multipitch route), the the process of swapping from guide-anchor belaying to normal-anchor or normal-harness belaying does not require you to take the second off belay when they are prepping for the next lead and can be achieved in just a few seconds.

I sounds from your post that you might be coming from the pov of "I've always done it this way and it's always been fine, so why should I change?". Which I would have to counter with "how long ago did you learn this method? How sure are you that the person teaching you it really was teaching the best possible method? Why wouldn't you be interested in learning a safer method?". Climbing, like everything else in the world, progresses with time and it should always be the case that better methods of doing this emerge with time and research.

When it comes to something as potentially life-threatening as a climbing situation, every fibre of your being is going to scream "stick to what I know and reject change", that's evolution for you (don't stick to what you know and bye-bye you). Unfortunately we have now out-evolved evolution and a cognitive approach _will_ pay dividends over a gut-feeling approach.

In reply to henwardian:

That link is about belaying a leader not belaying the second

In reply to henwardian:

I reject dogmatism of any kind. I absolutely do not come from any "I've done this this way, stuff it" point of view. My methods have evolved over the years, I've had professional instruction and I'm still adding things to my repertoire. There are plenty of reasons to use guide mode, and I use guide mode a lot, but they do *not* invalidate belaying from the harness to the point of having someone who has no idea why you're doing it telling you off.

If you're leap frogging, it will always be faster to not have to do any switchover of any kind, it's perfectly possible to arrange your belay so that it naturally flips from below to above.

If I were guiding people, so I'm doing all the leading, I'd have little reason not to use guide mode all the time, but I wouldn't extrapolate that to all climbing scenarios.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

That DAV article concludes:

Generally speaking, the body belay method is an option in particular in pitches fully equipped
with bolts and with smaller distances between the bolts. The anchor belay method, however,
is the more recommendable belay method in routes with a more alpine character, i.e. with
only few or questionable intermediate fixing points, traverses, confusing route courses or the
possibility of far, uncontrolled falls.

I think most British climbers would assume the opposite, and would only consider belaying off the anchor where that was a bomber multi-directional point, probably a bolt. 

The DAV authors seem to regard anchor belays as best practice and are looking for situations where it may be appropriate to deviate from this, but are they assuming that the belay stations will be bolted? I'm not sure whether when they refer to "few or questionable intermediate fixing points" they mean only runners, and are still assuming bolted belay stations.  UK practice is the reverse, presumably because we don't usually have bolted belay stations in the UK and a wary of belaying directly off trad gear which may not be multi-directional.

The article acknowledges that in the Anglo-Saxon region this is, in part, handled differently. The question is, when in the Alps should you adopt alpine practice or stick with the methods you are familiar with?  I agree with henwardian that "I've always done it that way" is not a valid reason, on the other hand there is a lot to be said for sticking with familiar methods rather than adopting novel ones (which as alfmeister's video shows, may have their own dangers for the unwary).

My other question is, if it is supposedly safer should guide mode become standard practice on UK climbs?  I've used it only a few times, but that's partly because in a lot of situations it doesn't seem to be practically possible to rig it.  Neither have I ever had a problem bringing up a second with the device attached to the harness - maybe I've just been lucky, but that doesn't suggest to me that it is inherently dangerous or that guide mode is significantly safer (although it does have additional benefits).

I’m curious to know if there have been documented accidents where a second was dropped because the leader was belaying from the harness and the second fell right at that precise moment of taking in slack. I have definitely heard of accidents where the leader was belaying in guide mode and defeated the plaquette in order to lower the second, but did it wrong and lost control. For me personally one of the major reasons I tend to prefer belaying my second off the harness is that it’s way easier to pay out slack (on a traverse, say, when you need to take on one rope and give slack on the other … or in many other very common scenarios) without massive faff. 

In reply to gooberman-hill:

If you think this aspirant guide was talking bollox you want to see what some of the qualified ones do.

Walking up wet glaciers with 2 clients in tow, all only a few feet apart and carrying loops of slack rope in their hands. Not using back up prussicks when abseiling on ropes with no knots in the end. Barging past people waiting to use abseil anchors like they own the mountain. Standing on peoples heads at crowded belays as they barge past. Generally displaying utter contempt for their paying clients and treating them like sh*t.

I've seen all of these, some many times. Sometimes you have to wonder what they actually teach the aspirants on the guides course.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

As others have said, this is garbled nonsense. Anyone who has been in the situation of "hauling" their partner up a route whilst belaying off your harness  - i.e. taking in whilst they stand up, locking off as they sit back on the rope, to get past one tricky move - knows that it's not a fine line where your control will spontaneously and catastrophically fail if they begin to sit before you've locked off. You just need to have the instinct to lock off once force does come onto the rope. More important in my view is to keep the rope snug so that, when they do fall - in a controlled or spontaneous way - the forces are kept minimal. In the context of UK trad, the method you describe is often actually preferable to guide mode - e.g. where you have low anchors on a ledge that are a bit too far apart to connect with slings.

But, on the other hand, you might do well to think about other ways of belaying simply because it's good to have a few different options for different situations. If you have a good belay in the right position and your partner is heavier than you, it can be nice to use a guide plate because if they fall their weight doesn't come onto your harness.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

It is a good idea to become familiar with methods of lowering the second  when belaying in guide mode. 

Pumping the belay biner is safe but very slow.

Using an extra biner in the small hole of the guide belay device is faster and pretty safe too. Some use a prusik as backup  

However, if the second is heavy, you might need to girth hitch a thin sling in the small hole, redirect it and use your body weight to completely disengage the belay device. In this case you need a Munter hitch backup or your second will deck!
 

In reply to deacondeacon:

Aspirant guide means exactly that, an aspirant guide, they have been accepted onto the training course. For an aspirant BMG, they will have to have completed the registrant and training sections to get Aspirant status, i.e. approx 9 courses and 5 exams/assessments over a minimum of two years.

He's wrong in absolute terms, but guide mode off a bolted belay is the "approved" method on the continent and is very handy wherever you are in the world, anchor type and location permitting.

In reply to pec:

You can add 'unclipping random non-clients from the bolted belay halfway up a 400m route' to your list.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Thanks for all the helpful comments - I am planning to do a bit of research with the Mega-Jul and see how it behaves with a load coming on just as you take in slack with the rope running directly through the belay device (i.e. worst possible case) - I suspect that the geometry of the Mega-Jul (which has a slight offset in it which helps it lock) will cause the device to jam as soon as the rope starts running.

I think that it is only fair to comment more generally that the (non-UK) aspirant guide who gave the advice was on his final assessment week (we picked a route that day that had multiple aspirants with 'clients' in tow being assessed) so I assume he should have been pretty conversant with current best practice. Also, unlike some of the guides I have previous encountered, he was perfectly polite and chatty. Finally, I would also note that all the aspirant guides we encountered that day were belaying (both clipped in and with their belay plates) on a single bolt out of a 2-bolt belay station - the bolts were not chained to each other. Personally I would always clip both bolts - maybe horses for courses.  

Steve

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Worth a look at the Giga Jul too, I prefer it to the Mega Jul.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Funny how so much of what we see as risk assessment is actually cultural norm. For him, the seemingly odd practice of belaying from the harness, with potential to be imbalanced or to let go in case of a fall, probably seemed unjustifiable. To most Brits, relying on a single bomber bolt similarly so.

That's why climbing internationally can be so helpful in sorting out the genuinely dangerous from the simply culturally unusual.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

FYI, the Mega Jul performs very well at breaking when the dead rope is not in the breaking position. It generally locks up even when in the V of the V123 method of belaying (at approx 30degrees between rope strands) with no braking force on the dead rope. Not an excuse for not belaying properly obviously.......

In reply to alex505c:

“I’m curious to know if there have been documented accidents where a second was dropped because the leader was belaying from the harness and the second fell right at that precise moment of taking in slack”

What tends to happen is that bit of skin between your thumb and index finger gets jammed inside the belay device by the rope, hurts like feck but acts as a reliable autoblock lol

In reply to tehmarks:

I've known this done by climbers who weren't guides.  The climber arrived at the belay, unclipped my partner's krab, clipped her own and then re-clipped my partner's krab into that. At the time it freaked us out a bit, but on reflection on a two-bolt belay one of them is redundant so it wasn't really putting us at risk, and it actually set things up for us to move on more easily.  It made me wonder if this is standard and accepted practice, but I haven't managed to find any information on the correct etiquette in these situations.

Of course if there had been a fall while clipped to only one bolt the belayer might have been pulled off-balance, but the risk of that would have been reduced had we been belaying off the anchor in approved alpine style, instead of off the harness like proper Brits.

In reply to alex505c:

I've seen people go a bit further than they expect when being toproped and they pop off when the V is at it's acute point.  No system is perfect

In reply to john arran:

Exactly. A lot of practices are just passed down, unquestioned by those who use them. I think it's good to be questioning and to be open to new techniques and building your repertoire and experience. On the other hand, I do think that the particularities of UK trad and Scottish winter climbing generally lead to some pretty robust and adaptable techniques and feel a bit irritated when techniques we use safely day in and day out are seen as inferior or dangerous. Slow - yes. Sometimes a bit blinkered - fine. But, not dangerously prone to failure. The same with the latest fad for insisting that we should dump our tube belay plates and use assisted-locking belay devices, because "it's like wearing a seat belt" and "how are you going to belay whilst unconscious?"... But, I've already ranted too much about this elsewhere

In reply to john arran:

This has got me wondering (again) how climbers on the continent learn how to place gear and make safe belays before getting into alpine climbing. Do they have crags they practice on or do they just get on with learning it once in the mountains (which is presumably becoming more difficult anyway with the proliferation of bolted belays on classic routes).

In reply to Robert Durran:

There's a lot more trad climbing in Europe then you think. Even in say the Frankenjura which is known as a sport area there's are thousands of routes where a few nuts don't go amiss and plenty where they will be the only protection.

In reply to jimtitt:

Do they get traffic?

In reply to Robert Durran:

From the amount of trad gear in the shops (and that only one manufacturer is left in the UK) one assumes that they do. Though most people I know just run it out instead of lacing VDiffs to death, they can because they are strong from all that sport climbing

In reply to gooberman-hill:

I call BS.  I've never heard of anyone losing control of an upper belay because the second fell at the moment the rope was being taken in.  Personally, I've caught a number of falls in this exact circumstance.  If you've acquired the "lock-off reaction," there isn't any issue.

Maybe the issue is in fact the "lock-off reaction" though.  As technology provides more and more automatic ways to brake, the skills and attention levels associated with traditional belay-plate handling are likely to decline or simply never develop at all.  Perhaps the guides in question now should use plaquette belays off the anchor because they are no longer proficient with belays off the harness (or never were), but UK climbers who do this all the time still have the requisite skills.

If you are climbing on routes with installed belay anchors (typically bolts), then plaquette belays for the second are convenient.  I often use them in such circumstances.  But when trad anchors are involved, many other considerations enter.  The anchor position may not be good for a plaquette belay---usually, the problem is that the anchor point is too low, sometimes even at ground level. Or the anchor position may be at the back of a ledge and the belayer may want to be at the lip so has to be able to see and communicate with the second better.  In both these cases, the plaquette belay is inferior and possibly dangerous.  Another concern with trad anchors is that the plaquette can be blocked from free motion by rock features.  This could result in failure to lock or inability to unlock.  I know a guide who had this latter possibility happen when the second fell off and was hanging in space.  The plaquette jammed up against a corner and couldn't be released, and he had to invoke full-on self-rescue protocols to get the plate out of the system entirely.

Personally, I hate being belayed with a plaquette.  The standard procedure involves pulling in the rope until it becomes tight, at which point of course the plaquette locks off.  Perhaps guides want to be hauling their clients as much as possible, but for recreational climbers who would like to climb the pitch under their own power, continued tension is a major pain.  Moreover, the vaunted ability to multitask while belaying means that, while the belayer is having a sandwich, slack is developing and the second is looking at a leader fall.  This followed, of course, by a return to too much tension. 

But it's not just the annoyance of being hauled all the time (which can be avoided if the belayer actually pays attention---but in my experience, they don't).  The continually locked-off plate makes it hard or impossible for the second to step down.  If the rope runs over a ceiling or is diagonal or horizontal, the inability to adjust one's position makes a fall more likely, and then the second swings out into space in the case of the overhang or pendulums, perhaps also into space, in the case of a diagonal path.  If the belay has been set up with little or no ability to communicate, as is more likely when the plaquette is hung on an anchor far from the lip, then a genuine epic is possible.

Then there is the multitude of issues arising when the second has to be lowered.  The machinations required to properly release a plaquette and lower with control are truly hilarious, but they are complicated enough to make dangerous mistakes a real and not at all hypothetical possibility.

Some people claim that the plaquette makes belaying two simultaneous followers easier.  I've tried both ways and find the harness belay much more effective.  I can take in rope faster and with less effort, and can easily pay out one strand while taking in the other.  With a plaquette you have to unlock both strands to pay out either one and this takes one of the seconds off belay.

Finally, there is a reason that so many guides are afflicted by elbow tendinitis.  Hauling ropes through a plaquette day after day is a prescription for acquiring epicondylitis.

One of the few advantages of being able to let go of the brake strand in a plaquette belay is that the belayer can manage the accumulated rope better.  I think this makes the plaquette the method of choice for hanging or foothold belays, and of course for bolted belay anchors and moderate terrain the convenience features can be decisive.  So it boils down, as it so often does, to using the best tool for the task.  Uncritical reliance on plaquette belays regardless of the circumstances isn't what I'd view as best practice.

In reply to henwardian:

Note that the DAV article is about on-anchor leader belays, a whole different subject than the one under discussion here.

In reply to rgold:

I think the two scenarios of the leader 'falling at the wrong moment' involve whether the climber is in view.

If they are in view then you can see there movements and possibly predict a fall but almost definitely react to them falling before tension arrives on the belay device. 

If they aren't in view then you should probably be monitoring the rope and, again, see symptoms of a fall before it hits full tension on your belay device. 

With a second, you may not be able to see a fall in the same way but forces are much less and if you're monitoring tension on the live rope you're very unlikely to be caught out. 

Even if you are caught out, the tension on your harness would probably pull your belay device forward a fair bit, minimising the exposure of the non locked off dead rope hand. 

Personally, I'd be relay surprised if this is an issue for an attentive belayer. If you're not attentive then you have other problems perhaps and mitigating that may involve different techniques (so many options). 

TLDR - he's wrong.

In reply to Howard J:

The difference is that in your case the unclipping was temporary!

I have a simple rule: don't 'ck with someone else's attachment point. Even if it is my partner and we're on the same page, I think the only person who should ever be unclipping themselves from the belay is the person whose connection to the belay it is.

In reply to rgold:

If there is anything to take away from this thread, this is it!

In reply to gooberman-hill:

Whilst I'm sure the aspirant guide knows their stuff and I have much to learn from them, any phrasing of "the only safe way to.." is kicking the needle on my BS meter

I'm with wbo2 on the "horses for courses" answer, but on the condition that the belayer has the required experience to make those judgement calls. Perhaps in the scenario of supervising novices belaying on securely bolted granite - the guides approach is best. 

In reply to C Witter:

Couldn't agree more.  Still don't understand the fad that meant we had to dump use of body belaying and hemp ropes.

In reply to tehmarks:

That certainly seems to be the British etiquette.  Touch only with consent. I once had to speak firmly to my partner who had "helpfully" dismantled my belay while I was still in a dangerous position on the cliff edge, which I discovered just as I was about to use the rope pull myself up the slope.  But they do things differently in the Alps, and I have wondered whether this was the accepted procedure there.

Strangely, I have been unable to find any guidance on-line on what are the appropriate protocols when sharing a stance with another party, which I find surprising considering how often it arises on popular routes both in the UK and the Alps.

In reply to Andy Gamisou:

There's a difference in control and safety-wise, which doesn't translate from tubes to belay plates, except in certain instances, which is pretty obvious, unless all you climb are straight up single pitch  sports routes.

In reply to Cobra_Head:

The body belay can still have its place, in winter climbing and scrambling, for example.

In reply to gooberman-hill:

... He told me that the only safe way to belay a second is using guide-mode (with the belay device clipped to a bolt) ...

This implies that if said person were to come over here - to say Stanage - then it wouldn't be safe for him to belay up a second unless he were to place bolts.

If nothing else, this is plain stupid - it expects every leader to carry (and use) a bolting kit.

Of course, in the Alps, Guides have pre-rigged all their belay points with bolts. Not the case over here I'm very glad to say.

In reply to Howard J:

Well, yes, and hemp rope?

In reply to gooberman-hill:

I wonder why it's called guide mode?