The problem with the belay test as it exists today is that it tests whether you know all the peculiarities of each gym's beliefs around things like the exact order your hands should move when taking slack, whether tails on figure 8s are important (if so, how long, and what kind of knot may or must terminate them), whether the length of the belay loop matters, and so on. These things change seemingly on a whim and aren't always motivated by good evidence.

I learned to belay at Vertical World in 2005 and would fail Vertical World's belay test today, for multiple reasons, if I used the same method they themselves taught me!

Meanwhile, as you point out, no test can determine whether or not a person will be paying attention during an actual climb.

There’s huge variability even in some of the gyms in the article, whether from site to site or inter-tester variability. Whether or not it improves safety, if it helps places like this stay open and solvent I guess that’s a win, but I wouldn’t rely solely on someone’s passing a gym’s test for me to let them catch me in a lead fall.

I’ve also been failed in seemingly spurious details that I was subsequently passed on with different testers at several gyms.

Standards change and improved methods are discovered. In the 50s and 60s the "hip belay" was the standard and considered safe. Once ATC/tube style belay devices became ubiquitous, the "pinch and slide" technique took over. The "pinch and slide" technique you likely learned is no longer considered the safest method of belaying. The AMGA belaying technique is now considered standard and for awhile gyms would still pass "pinch and slide" users but I'm not surprised they have stopped.

Safety standards do change for the better, but insurance and legal risks do have gyms on edge. I think his point is that gyms tend to be overly strict in areas that do not matter, but are easy to regulate/check. I.e requiring you have an unnecessary “backup” knot above your figure 8, requiring 2 Tri-locking carabiners for autobelay in response to accidents where people simply didn’t clip into the autobelay, knowing your gyms mnemonic for checking your knot, and disallowing wearing a single earbud when autobelaying (saying you won’t be able to hear if there is an emergency). These are all things I’ve seen required in gyms that IMO do not actually improve safety. Having friends that work in gyms, I’ve heard a lot of these policies are due to demands by insurance companies.

Meanwhile, I very frequently see people belaying in manners where their climber would hit the ground if they fell (usually the first 3-4 bolts up). The difference is, this is much harder for gym staff to notice and correct. Furthermore, I’m sure most of these climbers are capable of using better technique and do so when taking a belay test, but then get complacent afterwards.

You shouldn’t be getting downvoted, this is sometimes true. Most often what happens is a junior staff member is overly rigid in applying what they were taught.

I once almost failed a belay test because I did not know that gym’s particular trick for “counting strands” to prove the figure 8 was tied correctly. I just know what a correct knot looks like after decades of tying them. Ultimately I asked them to check with a manager, who passed me.

That said, I’ve also seen experienced climbers with terrible belay technique; catching them with a modern test would seem like a good thing to me.

Had a young-ish gym employee berate me for not holding the brake strand with TWO hands when catching the leader recently… clearly against manufacturer instructions

I indoor climb with a friend semi regularly using a grigri, and it is important to be intentional about giving the climber your full attention and never taking your hand off the rope entirely [1]. Very similar to how the person qualifying you during a check ride for your private pilot certification will attempt to distract you on a final approach to see if you take the bait. If you don't want to or can't pay attention, that's what the auto belay [2] is for.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAxY-BBSlGc

[2] https://www.verticalendeavors.com/auto-belays-pros-and-cons/

(my climbing venue monitors and scolds you if you aren't paying attention while belaying, ymmv)

The technique with Grigri is easy to learn compared to some other tools especially during its initial release, and TBH I don't recall ever saw anybody using it incorrectly since it would always prompt a strong reaction from anybody else just passing by. But it has to be learned, it doesn't come somehow magically on its own. Its not fully auto-blocking, if angle of outgoing rope is 'right' it doesn't block at all.

What that guy did on the video looks absolutely ridiculous from first second. Zero visual contact, too much slack (so that he doesn't have to look up), very little safety even without actual accident. When in practice there should be 100% visual contact, or at least 95% and fully covering all non-easy parts. It strains the neck massively but for that there are those cheap periscope glasses, I got mine for 10 bucks on aliexpress and they work fine enough for 10 years.

The basic technique means rope is 100% held by either hand at correct angle regardless what you need to do apart from holding it.

There is at least one technique which is officially ‘bad’, but was first taught.

That said, I’ve been caught (and caught others) while half asleep on big walls with Grigris when no one could see each other.

The hardest part with a gri gri (imo) is early on when doing sport or gym belaying when there is a lot of switching between taking in and paying out slack.

they released a new device called a neox recently that allows slack to be given out easier. still autolocks if you pull to fast but it's great overall.

Thanks for this comment, I bought the neox from REI to try it out.

My gym put grigris on every top rope, in place of us bringing our own ATCs.

To be honest I've never seen a belaying accident. They appear to want to keep it that way.

The grigri in particular is a bit of a mixed blessing. Because it has an auto brake, it's harder -- though not impossible, as you indicate -- to just totally fail to brake the climber on top rope. If you let go of an ATC, there is no braking and the rope just runs through, which is obviously very bad. By contrast, if you just let go of an grigri it will lock, arresting the fall.

However, when lead belaying, you need to pay out rope, which means disengaging the auto brake. If you do this buy holding the handle and the climber falls at the wrong time, it's easy to react by just holding everything tighter, at which point you're holding the grigri open, at which point the auto brake isn't doing anything. By contrast with an ATC or other tube-type device you never have to touch the belay device and so you always can keep your brake hand in the brake position, so if the climber falls, your reflex action -- assuming you have practiced -- should be to pull harder with your brake hand, thus arresting the fall.

Aside from belay devices, some other practices I've seen gyms do to try make indoor climbing safer:

- Captive grigris on top rope so that you (1) have to use a grigri and (2) can't screw up putting them on and off. - High friction toprope anchors (e.g., wrapped several times around a pipe) so that even with no belay device at all there is still some friction. - Requiring people to tie in with a trace eight rather than a double bowline on the theory that the trace eight is harder to screw up and easier to check.

If you get a chance try out the NEOX. It's basically a GriGri with smoother rope feed, so you almost never have to defeat the cam when lead belaying with a proper dynamic technique. They've been polarizing to some people but it really feels like a "fixed GriGri" to me. You still need to mind the brake side, but at least feeding doesn't have an intrinsic design flaw where you have to temporarily disable the safety device.

The GriGri does not have an autobrake. Petzl is very intentional in saying it is an “assisted braking device”, not auto braking. If there is any tension at all on the rope (even just lightly being held), then the GriGri will likely brake, but if the rope isn’t being held at all then there is no guarantee it will brake.

See this video, around the 10 minute mark where there’s several examples of the GriGri not locking at all: https://youtu.be/We-nxljgnw4?t=605

This is perhaps an even greater issue than what you pointed out because people misunderstand the GriGri a lot, and assume it will always catch them even if you aren’t holding the rope. It won’t.

To be fair, I suspect the difference between “auto brake” and “assisted braking device” is mostly legal liability. In practical use I would understand both terms to mean the same thing. I think very few people believe a grigri will _always_ catch them. They just (accurately!) believe that in most circumstances it will. The 5% where it won’t catch you is of course deadly.

It is not. There are situations where it won't break and someone dies.

It is not just "legal liability" which is Musk speak for "won't always work but I want you to pay as if it did".

The military version is auto-brake for rappelling and you can go fully hands free per petzl but you have to use specific rope. My guess is since they cant control the rope in civilian version they can’t vouch for it working in 100% of cases

Thanks for the correction.

It’s one of those distinctions which only actually matters in a small and somewhat rare, but very important, edge case. Usually more determined by rope diameter and conditions than anything else.

In contexts where a fuckup is likely to result in death or permanent disability it might be prudent to play the consequences instead of the odds. Marginally related: I was always shocked by the diversity of crispy bullshit other climbers were willing to rap off of. I kept new webbing and rap rings in my daypack at all times just in case.

Sure, it should be noted that applying that rule fully consistently would mean never doing recreational climbing at all eh? After all, it is fundamentally risky.

Maybe still SAR, of course.

I always carried a belay knife and some extra webbing, and used it more than once. A couple times I didn’t need the knife.

I mean I hear what you're saying but at the same time avoidable bullshit like scrambling off rope 50'+ off the deck, rapping off of some random stripper's thong that got caught in a shrub, or letting your intrusive thoughts win while belaying are all dirt common in the community. Its one thing to get caught out while engaging in dangerous hobbies, it's something else entirely to die doing something that's obviously stupid. I absolutely cannot even when someone goes for a 10th of a mile slide off of one of the flatirons in Tevas and the locals have the gall to call it a tragedy.

I have the exact same grigri shown in the video, and somehow it never fails to lock when I'm quickly trying to feed slack to a leader and don't put a bit of pressure on the left side. Even when I've added slack to the brake strand.

I wonder if it has something to do with the angle, as it's pretty uncommon to have the climbing strand going straight up from the belayer.

Important point. It's not actually all that trivial to give a good and safe lead belay with a grigri. I see folks wrap their thumb over the Grigri cam to pay slack all the time. It is extremely dangerous when combined with not paying much attention because a surprise fall will cause the belayer to seize their grip on the device and lock it open. Heart breaking example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBGkKqLhM8Y

All that said, I still prefer to be belayed with a grigri.

> when lead belaying, you need to pay out rope, which means disengaging the auto brake. If you do this buy holding the handle

What the hell are they teaching kids these days. I've NEVER needed to hold the handle on a grigri unless I'm trying to lower something. The correct technique is hold the cam down with your thumb leaving three to four fingers in contact with the rope at all time. The left hand is used to pull rope through the girgri to give rope to the climber, the climber already has to pull up a bunch of rope through a maze of carabiners and don't need the extra work of trying to pull it through a grigri.

https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/Belaying-with-the-GRIGRI

> more experienced climbers can get complacent and sloppy when the negative consequences fail to materialize.

This effect in some fields is called "Normalisation of Deviance". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance

It would be interesting to compare the accident statistics with European climbing gyms where belay tests are not common.

The coach in the video has some of the worst belay technique I have ever seen. Unfortunately, this is somewhat common among older climbers who learned using the first generation Grigri in the 90s. Petzl's recommended technique back then is very safe (essentially using the Grigri like an ATC), but does not allow giving slack quickly. This made it completely useless for any kind of ambitious sports climbing, and people started coming up with often extremely dangerous workarounds. Petzl has upgraded their recommendations a long time ago, but some people are resistant to change ("it never failed for me"...) Hopefully this video can convince at least some of them to finally adopt the proper technique.

I thought it was interesting when I looked up US gyms that they require a belay test.

In Austria, the gyms I went to you just had to sign a form that you know how to climb top-rope, lead, and how to belay.

The US is extremely sue happy - US courts will often not recognize the ‘of course it’s obviously dangerous’ defense without extensive warning in writing - and even then, there is a significant amount of due diligence that needs to happen.

Most of the rest of the world goes ‘meh, don’t be so obviously dumb then’ and kicks the lawsuits out.

>The US is extremely sue happy - US courts will often not recognize the ‘of course it’s obviously dangerous’ defense without extensive warning in writing - and even then, there is a significant amount of due diligence that needs to happen.

What does that have to do with US gyms requiring belay tests, which is a bunch of steps that doesn't involve "extensive warning in writing".

Because they have evidence "in writing" that everyone at the gym had to pass a test that proves they know how to properly and securely belay a climber. In the event that there is an accident, the liability falls completely on the belayer and/or the climber and not the gym itself for allowing someone to participate in something that is "obviously dangerous" without demonstrating they have the ability to do it properly.

> What does that have to do with US gyms requiring belay tests, which is a bunch of steps that doesn't involve "extensive warning in writing".

It lowers insurance bills. If you don't let anyone climb without having done a belay test and putting that paper in a cabinet for 10+ years, then you can get cheaper insurance.

It's the same reason why some gun ranges won't let random people in without joining up and going through a safety intro thing - cheaper insurance.

Insurance.

Which requires due diligence.

Which means there is some guarantee that people belaying at the facility meet some basic standard of skill, so that people are not being dropped all the time and then turning around and suing the facility for negligent supervision/creating a dangerous environment.

What U.S. courts will look for is an industry standard for safety, even if implicit, and then see if you are meeting or exceeding that standard.

In the U.S., for climbing gyms, part of the standard is a belay test. In the article, Mayfield talks about trying to get the industry self-regulating before the government steps in. This is basically how that works: industry founders or leaders establish some procedures for safety, prove them out over time, then insurance companies implicitly adopt them and everyone else follows.

In Norway there is a lead climbing certification. You attend and pass a weekend course including a final test, then you get a card. In order to be allowed to belay/lead climb in a gym you have to present this card. You can bring friends and let them top rope without the card, at least in some gyms, but the belayer needs to have the card. I think you can also climb on autobelay without the card.

I have climbed in many gyms in Norway without this card. YMMV. But tbh there is so much good climbing around Oslo with a variety of rock as well. I don’t know why I ever climbed in a gym when I lived there.

I’m not sure why people are making a big deal of it. At my gym it took maybe 3 minutes. You tie a knot and show you know how to take up slack. And it only needs to be done once.

There is a second test for lead but most people take a class and get the lead card during the class.

It was even worse, the coach held grigri totally wrong the whole time, it would fail even if he wasn't chatting and concentrated on his climber.

It was a big story a while back that someone noticed that climbing deaths increase with experience, and the blame was ultimately attributed to equipment wear, especially ropes.

Once you start trusting the rope and the belay, you better be sure you can trust that rope, and your partner.

This sounds rather dubious, my impression was that climbing deaths are extremely rarely due to equipment failure. Also rope failures.. really? In normal use climbing ropes tend to fail by desheathing, dramatic but not necessarily that dangerous. Catastrophic rope failure only really tends to happen due to slicing over sharp edges under load, unrelated to wear and tear..

What are you referencing?

This sounds like more correlation than causation to me. There’s a similar statistic people like to quote in regards to backcountry skiing - that you are more likely to be in an avalanche if you have taken an avalanche safety course. Sure, there’s a correlation. But when basically everyone who backcountry skis regularly has taken such a course, and the people who backcountry ski infrequently are less likely to have taken a course, you can imagine why such statistic is true. Furthermore, advanced backcountry skiers are way more likely to be venturing into more complicated avalanche terrain that has more inherent danger.

It would be better to measure the accident rate in a more controlled setting, like accidents per gym route climbed. I can only surmise on what the results here would be. I don’t doubt that experienced climbers get complacent, but new climbers also are new to it and likely lack some knowledge to keep things safe.

I suspect that with experienced climbers, they are probably climbing way more frequently than inexperienced climbers (which you would need to account for to suggest causation), and also doing more dangerous routes. New climbers are less likely to do alpine routes where you encounter climbing when fatigued/sleep deprived, weather concerns, rock fall hazards, complicated descents, etc. And brand new climbers are hardly ever climbing trad routes, especially with marginal protection.

Side note, but as someone who nerds out on reading accident reports, climbing accidents are hardly ever caused the gear failing. Even old ropes damaged by the sun are super strong, and it’s typically quite obvious when gear is wearing out.

To add to your side note, most summary statistics of climbing accident reports indicate that most accidents occur during the approach. That is walking to or from the place where climbing occurs.

I supervised a small climbing wall for one year in the mid 2000s. I was really strict about our belay test, but we had some flexibility built in. If you had experience climbing, you could show us your technique and we'd pass you if your technique kept the climber safe at all times.

It didn't happen often, but there were a number of people who had over a decade of experience, who didn't realize they were leaving the climber vulnerable to a catastrophic fall in some of their transitions. Those people had just never had anyone fall at that point in their belaying.

They were momentarily embarrassed, but to their credit everyone I had to call out about technique appreciated not being given a pass because of their years of experience.

At a gym I used to climb, there was also a Grigri "failure" where a lighter belayer was pulled up the the first clip, which then unlocked the Grigri until the climber hit the ground.

Pretty sure there were no major injuries thankfully.

This can only happen if the belayer takes their hand off the brake strand. When unlocked, the grigri has the same braking force as a regular ATC. This essentially was a belayer error. One can't take their hand off the brake strand even if violently jerked around.

Sure, but it's probably best to try to avoid baking the belayers into the air in the first place instead of hoping and assuming they'll maintain best belaying practices while being abducted into the sky.

Being pulled up onto the air is not abnormal when belaying, and is a sign that they are giving a soft catch. Granted with a belayer who is much lighter than the climber this can end up being "too soft", risking a ground fall lower on the route. Something you'll also often see is unclipping the first quickdraw to give the belayer more space to "fly".

Yeah, but proper technique is such that your natural instincts taking over for a moment don't cause trouble.

This is why belaying a lead climber shouldn't be considered a casual activity. The belayer literally has the climber's life in their hands. In addition to violet jerks, the belayer needs to keep their hands on the belay strand even if hit by falling rocks.

Also, use of belay gloves can help a lot and I think is more emphasized in Europe than the US.

Indeed. When I mentor new lead climbers/belayers, I point out that lead belaying should feel about as stressful as lead climbing. If it doesn’t, you’re not paying attention.

Sure, but any safety paradigm that begins and ends with "(people) should/n't x" is a bad safety paradigm across anything enough people do enough of. It's probably easier to compensate for weight differences with a tether or weights than to convince people to spend long periods of time on high alert with low chance of incident.

In my climbing group, we consider a weight difference of more than about 25kg to be too dangerous when leading. It’s definitely a safety issue for both climber and belayer.

At two meters tall and 93kg, by necessity I own an Ohm (by Edelrid), which buys an extra 20kg or so of margin.

This accident analysis doesn't seem correct. A GriGri sucked into a draw will automatically unlock the cam; there has to be a differential force between the top and bottom of the GriGri to hold the cam down. Some critical details are missing here, but nobody should come to the conclusion that a GriGri unlocks automatically if sucked into a draw.

Is it common to just yeet your self off the wall like that with out saying anything to the belayer?

Shouldn't matter, they should be expecting you to fall at any moment, as that's what happens when climbing

If it's a planned descent, usually you say "take" or similar to have the belayer hold the rope securely and then you ask to "lower" so the belayer lowers you in a controlled fashion.

Ah yeah I saw that video before, so bad. If I saw someone belaying like that I'd immediately call them out and tell them to hold the brake strand. Lucky this was even caught on video to prove what the error was. It's disturbing to see how his right hand still appears to just hold onto the gri-gri while the climber falls (rather than grabbing the rope). Inexcusable IMO, especially for someone who isn't a total beginner. There's no "people make mistakes" caveat here, that was straight-up dangerous technique, like driving a car with no hands on the wheel or with a blindfold on.