How not to ice climb

[Scotty]

So I stumbled upon a video today that really irks me:

http://vimeo.com/20549603

It caught my eye as something more than another video that shows how falling goes wrong on ice climbs.  There are so many mistakes that tell me nothing short of how these guys had no business lead climbing on ice.  There were so many things that, if done properly (the way it should have been done), would have avoided this whole situation.  For instance, right off the bat the belayer talks about how it is an inherent risk that he's willing to accept that the climber may kick ice down towards him.  What the !@#$ are you doing belaying a climber anywhere near the path of where the ice will fall?  Why not step away 20 feet to the side.  He says he gives himself more slack than usual to help him maneuver out of the way, yet whats to say that a piece large enough comes down to where that slack isn't enough?  Your climber is left stranded on the wall 60 feet up and you're out cold, he's screwed at that point.

Everything from the climber not even wearing his harness correctly, not doubling back on the loops, to the belayer not even using a proper belay device that explicity warns people against using in this specific fashion, to the climber not placing protection for over 30 feet (thus equaling at least a 60 foot fall), to the most simple basic rule numero uno of ice climbing, do not, under any circumstances, ice climb with the perception that you can just fall and walk away fine like you might be able to in rock climbing.

I'm not doing the community any justice in publicizing this, but this is a very, very obvious lesson in what not to do, and am likely just giving the community a bad name, but this just rubs me raw on so many levels.

[T-Rok]

Might an uneducated individual on this topic ask what the difference between ice and rock climbing is? Because you make it sound much more dangerous.

[Scotty]

Might an uneducated individual on this topic ask what the difference between ice and rock climbing is? Because you make it sound much more dangerous.

In essence, it is. Rock climbing is the sport of approaching a rock wall during spring/summer/fall, using a rope which is either anchored at the top before-hand (top-roping), or ascending with the rope "in-hand" and clipping in as you climb (lead climbing).  With rock climbing, lead-climbing branches off into multiple different categories, but the two most common are traditional (trad, cool word eh?) and sport lead climbing.  Trad is the sport of bringing along all your man-made protection with you, ascending with it while it is attached to your harness, sticking it into the wall as you climb to create your man-made anchor points, and guiding the rope through the anchors.  Sport already has the protection bolted into the rocks by someone.  Sport is typically more rare as someone actually has to ascend with a drill that can cut into a rock face, defacing the rock, and placing protection in.  A lot of tree-huggers don't appreciate us drilling holes into rocks to place bolts and protection, so trad is widely more accepted, and also more dangerous since if you place your anchors incorrectly, they may pop out if you fall on them, thus making them useless, and you go for a wild ride often not ending well.

Ice climbing incorporates a lot of the concepts above, but has quite a list of differences.  You can anchor a rope at the top for top-rope ice climbing, but you won't see any sport lead climbing, since ice climbing relies on there being ice on the rock for you to climb.  Typically one will use waterfalls since the water will ice over, and you won't be lead climbing in a waterfall during the summer, as you'd probably drown, or the wall would be too slippery to get up.  What this guy was doing was, for lack of further confusion, trad climbing, where he goes up, takes ice screws, screws them into the ice, and uses those for his anchors.  In the entire 60-70 foot ascent, he only placed three, the last one before he took the fall was about 30 feet beneath him.  When you fall on lead, you fall the distance between you and your last anchor x2 because of the rope slack.  So in his case, he was going to fall the 30 feet to the anchor, then fall an additional 30 feet on top of that, plus another 5-10 feet due to the elasticity of the rope.

The reason you don't want to fall on ice climbs is that often times, with ice climbing, it's not a straight forward ascent, you have to go over ledges or mini-platforms.  Gravity slamming you into those ledges is going to be very painful.  Another problem you have is that you have a lot of gear with you, between your clothing, crampons (metal spikes you attach to your boots to jam into the ice), ice picks that you jam into the ice, any one of these items, if inappropriately handled can turn around and lacerate or jab you in a place you wouldn't want (your throat, eyes, legs, anywhere).

Falling while rock climbing may not wind up so bad on lead, as often times the rock faces are fairly straight forward enough to where you won't bounce off 3-5 ledges on your way down.  A lot of climbs go up, then actually create what's called over-hangs or roofs, where you have to come up underneath a platform, climb underneath it until you get to the outer edge, then pull your self up and over to continue the ascent.  If you fall underneath an overhang, you simply fall straight down, away from the wall.

Not sure if I further confused you on the topic, but if you need further clarification, I'd be happy to provide more.  Also, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-rope_climbing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_climbing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trad_climbing

[T-Rok]

It all makes sense now actually, thanks for that. The guy definitely sounds like an idiot. xD

[Scotty]

It all makes sense now actually, thanks for that. The guy definitely sounds like an idiot. xD

There's more things than what I listed above that were done wrong.  For instance, the climber was not properly strapped into his harness.  You are supposed to double back the strap through the loop, and I can tell by looking at the video around the 9:50 mark that he was not.  The easiest way to tell is to look at his waist, you will see a silver square shaped object, that is one of his buckles for the primary waist strap.  If it were doubled back, it would cover over one end, and you wouldn't be able to see the whole buckle.  Another thing that irks me, as I've had this situation occur to someone I was belaying once.  If there is a serious injury (and this sure as hell looked serious), where a neck injury is a distinct possibility, DO NOT lower the person head first.  If anything, suspend him and go up after him, lowering him correctly with minimal movement.  There are so many mistakes on both ends of this video, these men don't belong anywhere near a wall at all.