Belaying devices.
There are so many different belaying devices
nowadays on the market and in my hands.
And after this video you will be able
to pick any of them.
Not from my hands.
And you will know how it works and how to use it.
So first of all, a belaying device is simply a mechanism
which allows to control
the friction between your hand
and the climber.
Alright.
So here I hang and here I have almost
60 kilograms of force pulling on this strand of the rope.
However for me to hold that
I'm only using about 6 to 7 kilograms of force
on the brake side of the rope.
However if I would start raising
my brake hand up
the force needed to hold that
goes to 9 kilograms of force...
10...
12...
15...
So my max was around 25 kilograms of force
with two hands in this position.
That means that in this position at this angle
I can not even hold my own weight with two hands.
There is no even talking about one hand.
So now let's see how much assistance I will get
if my rope strands are completely parallel to each other.
So I will start pulling up
as hard as i can.
And so the answer is almost nothing.
Now to explain how that works
since there is so many different belaying devices
I'm gonna group all of them into different categories.
First one is tubular style devices.
That many mistakenly call them reverso.
Which is only this device - Petzl Reverso.
Or ATC which is this Black Diamond ATC.
While Mammut calls this Alpine Belaying Device. Simple.
So with tubes the more I move my brake hand down
the more it squeezes the rope between the carabiner and belaying device.
And also tubes have a little groove in front of them.
Which even further pinches on the rope.
Plus as I pull down on the rope it tilts the device
which creates extra angles and extra friction.
So as we saw in my previous experiment
if my hand is at the level of the belaying device or higher
the device creates very little friction.
So if the climber would fall
while my hand is in this position or higher
there is a high chance that my hand would simply
get sucked into the belaying device.
I got my hand pinched...
And then maybe I will hurt my hand
And let go off the rope.
So if you want to see how my hand is
getting sucked into belaying device
I already made a video about that.
Also worth mentioning is that rope thickness or diameter
has a huge effect on how easily
the rope will go through belaying device.
And every belaying device has a
recommended range of rope thicknesses
which you can find somewhere in the manuals
or sometimes on the device itself.
And this brings us to advantages
of tubular style devices.
First of all they work better with wider range of rope diameters.
All the way from super thick gym ropes
to ultra skinny twin ropes.
On contrast if you would take a GriGri
it says that it's optimized to work
from 8.9 to 10.5 millimeters ropes.
But from my experience
anything from 10 millimeters and above
doesn't work that well anymore.
Yeah, there is this older GriGri which works better with thicker ropes.
But that one doesn't work well with thin ropes.
Next, tubes are super lightweight.
And they allow you to belay with two ropes
either double ropes or twin ropes.
And if you don't know what's a double or twin rope
you should watch my master class on the ropes.
Also with tubes you can make a soft catch
without moving yourself.
By allowing the rope to slip through the device.
And in general tubes don't catch as hard
because there is always a little bit of slippage
which reduces the peak forces.
Which might be very beneficial for trad climbers.
Since it reduces the chance
that the pieces of the gear will fall out.
And finally tubes have this loop at the top.
And that allows you to set this device in a guide mode
in which you can even belay two following climbers
coming up on top rope simultaneously
simon... simultaneously.
And all of that are the reasons
why tubes are still very commonly used
in traditional or alpine or multi-pitch scenarios.
However none of that is really useful
if you're just doing single pitch sport climbing.
And the biggest disadvantage of tubes
is of course that they don't lock
meaning if you would let go the rope.
Which by the way brings us
to the main rule of belaying.
If you are in need of number two
and you have a choice to poop your pants
or to let go the brake side of the rope -
you poop your pants!
Meaning in no circumstances you're allowed to lose control
of the brake side of the rope.
And that's by the way also equally true
for assisted belaying devices but we are gonna talk next.
So assisted devices have an ability to lock
in case the climber falls.
Which obviously adds a lot of safety.
For example if you would knock a rock while you're climbing
and that rock would fall on your belayer's head...
And that's why we wear a helmet!
So first of all your belayer would really like to have a helmet.
But you as a climber would really love that
there would be one of these assisted devices down there.
And in fact my own skin was once saved by this guy.
When I did a little fall
and my belayer did not notice
that there was a rock next to her leg.
And while she was flying forward,
her leg got stuck, and she spun around,
and hit her back to the wall.
And let both of the hands go.
So this guy is basically a reason why I'm still here.
And making these videos.
Now super important that number two rule
is also applicable for these guys.
After all they are called assisted.
So don't treat them as fully automatic.
Because there are cases where they will not lock.
Apart from safety this locking is also
super useful in long belays
If your climber is hanging on the rope a lot
and projecting some hard moves.
So if we compare this to the tube
even in the most mechanically advantaged position
you will still need to hold on the rope.
And in very long belays this will get tiring.
While with assisted devices it's pretty chill.
You are literally just sitting in your harness.
OK, so the first group of assisted belaying devices
is called assisted tubers.
That's because they look like tubes
and they work similarly to regular tubes
where we squeeze the rope
between the carabiner and the device.
Except that they have a shape
that shifts the carabiner in position
where it squeezes on the rope so hard
that it completely locks it off.
A little disadvantage of assisted tubes
is that once in locked position
you cannot quickly feed slack to the climber.
You need a special action to unlock the device
before you can feed the rope.
For example with Click Up.
It even clicks.
And now I cannot do anything.
I literally need to unclick it.
And now I can continue belaying.
Now one really important thing
that not many know about assisted tubers.
That they suffer from the same problem
as regular tubes
meaning that if your hand is in up position
the device will not lock.
As you can see it's not locking
And if the climber would take a fall
the rope would just slide from my hand
and burn it. Oh, it's already burning.
However unlike regular tubes
Where you can get your hands sucked
even at very big angles
most assisted tubers
will only fail at the angles
that are very extremely high up.
And some actually don't fail at all.
I'm actually gonna make a separate video
where I was experimenting
at which angles which devices lock.
So stay tuned for that.
I can't put everything into one video because
I need you to subscribe.
But independently of which belaying device you're using
just develop a habit of keeping your brake hand down.
Also good to know for people who climb with two ropes
is that there are assisted tubers
that work with two ropes.
In case you go on a multi-pitch
and you want extra safety you have some options.
All right let's move on to cam assisted devices.
I'm sure everybody knows GriGri.
But there are more devices like
Trango Vergo and Birdie and others.
And the way they work is
that they have a camming mechanism inside
which pinches on the rope.
Now in the case of GriGri
the cam is spring-loaded meaning that as soon as
there is no more load on the climber's end of the rope
the cam will disengage.
And you can belay normally.
While in the case of Vergo
it doesn't have a spring.
And you need to position the device
in a certain way
to be able to feed the slack.
All right back to GriGri.
If you press on GriGri's cam
but you ignore the rule number two
and you don't hold the break side of the rope
this can happen...
Also if you ignore rule number two
and your GriGri gets trapped in the first piece of gear
this can happen
Many of you asked
if this problem of trapping in the first bolt
where it disengages the cam
is also applicable for assisted tubers.
So with most assisted devices
the answer is unlikely.
Since there is no cam that i could press
to disengage this locking.
Only if i would press on this end
it kind of slips a bit but still
stays locked.
This Click Up
doesn't even lock if i don't hold the rope.
Amazing. Number two rule. Hold the rope.
Yeah.
There's no way I can unlock this
in this manner.
So no assisted tubers don't have this risk.
Now this is a little future me
after I was editing this part that you just seen.
And I saw this I realized that
I was using a wrong carabiner.
Turns out Click Ups need their own specific carabiners
And that's a reason why you should read the manual.
So that's the carabiner you should use for a Click Up.
Let's see if it locks.
No difference.
So number two rule.
And read the manual
because some of the assisted delaying devices
require you a specific belaying carabiner.
I don't know if it's just marketing
or the shape of the carabiner is slightly different.
Just use what the manufacturers recommend.
And finally there is this guy.
It's a Revo from Wild Country.
It's an inertia based mechanism.
Which will lock once the climber starts
falling faster than 4 meters per second.
So if i pull slowly it doesn't lock.
I need to pull really fast in order for it to lock.
So my goal of this video
is not to compare all of the delaying devices
on the market and tell you which one to buy.
Sorry for that.
Every device have its own pros and cons, haters and lovers.
Full internet of that.
However if you would want such comparison
let me know in the comments and maybe
I will make a separate video on that.
OK now I have a tip for you
that will make your life a little bit easier
and maybe will even save your ass
on a multi-pitch one day.
Humans,
we have two hands normally
and handling more than two objects in two hands
is not ideal.
What I often see that people take their belaying device,
their carabiner, the rope...
That's already three objects by the way.
And they try to connect everything
in space
like so...
Ready to belay.
So doing this
will greatly increase the chance
that one day you will drop something.
You will be trying to connect something
and then suddenly whoops...
Your belaying device flies down.
If you're not on a multi-pitch
if you're standing on the ground
that's not a big deal.
However if you drop your belaying device
on a multi-pitch
you are in big trouble.
So this is what you do to avoid that.
Normally your belaying device
will live with your carabiner
somewhere on the harness.
So step one.
You take both of them together as one unit.
So I'm carrying only one unit.
And you immediately connect it to belaying loop.
So you cannot drop anything right now,
everything is safe.
Step two. You take a bite of rope
and you insert into your belaying device.
Keep in mind of the orientation of the rope
which end has to go to the climber
which end is your break hand.
If you're not sure
every belaying device has an image
on the side of it.
Which will remind you that.
And next. Open your carabiner
and hook your rope together
with the belaying device.
So at no point there was a chance for me
to drop anything.
And once you're done belaying
you simply reverse the process.
Where you open the carabiner,
you unhook the rope.
But you hook the belaying device.
And then you simply can just pull out the rope.
And your belaying device stays on your harness with the carabiner.
If you want to put it somewhere else you put it somewhere else.
And the same works with assisted tubers.
So step one.
Connect your belaying device to your harness,
take a bite of rope,
put that bite of rope into belaying device,
open the carabiner and hook the rope and belaying device together.
Now in case of the GriGri it's slightly different.
So as always step one
clip your belaying device to your belay loop.
So you cannot drop anything.
Now if you're not on a multi-pitch
and dropping your GriGri is not a big deal
you simply take off your grigri,
open it in this cool way,
insert the rope, and clip it back. Simple.
Now if you are on a multi-pitch
there is a technique.
So this is what you do.
You open your carabiner
and hook only half of the GriGri together.
Then you can open the GriGri.
And it's connected to your carabiner.
You cannot drop it.
You insert the rope.
You close it.
And then you open your carabiner again
and hook the grigri back.
So this is as safe as you can do with the grigri
on a multi-pitch.
And obviously once you're done
it's just simply reversing the process of
doing this
and doing that.
OK so I hope that by now
I gave you enough examples
how not to use belaying devices.
And now i'm gonna show you proper techniques.
The good part is that
no matter what belaying device you use
good belaying techniques don't change.
There are slight differences that i'm gonna mention.
But for majority it's the same.
All right.
So I hope that by now
number two rule is strongly embedded into you.
However if for some reason
you really need to go hands-free
you can tie a backup knot
at your brake end. Like so.
And this is totally fine.
In case something happens and the rope
would slip all the way
the GriGri will lock.
However in the case of tube
it's slightly different.
If you would just simply
tie a knot here.
And the climber would fall.
There is a chance that
this knot will get jammed
in your belaying device so hard
that you will have trouble to unjam it.
Let's use a slightly different carabiner
so it's easier for you to see what's happening.
So in the case of tube
you take a bite of rope
and then you take another bite of rope
and put through the first one
and you make it tight.
And make sure that this loop is long enough.
Like so.
This will hold but this is not enough.
To make it extra safe
you tie in back up knot here.
So now i can go hands-free.
And in case my climber takes a fall
this will hold him.
And if i want to release all of that
hold the brake side of the rope,
untie the top backup knot,
and start pulling the rope
until you have a little loop left.
At this point inform your climber that
he might
feel a little bump
and tug fast.
Like so. If you do this correctly
your climber will not go down at all.
Now if you're not familiar with slip slap slap...
this technique - good .
You can safely ignore my next sentence.
However if you're using that technique
I would strongly advise you to reconsider.
Because in the case of the fall
your hand might get sucked
into the bellying device
faster than you might think.
So as a good rule of thumb keep
your break hand always down.
And do any hand swapping or sliding there.
So now a little disclaimer.
I'm gonna show you
three different techniques of taking slack.
And depending on where you are on the planet
some of them
might be not considered as acceptable.
So stick with me
I'm gonna explain.
Because i went really deep in this rabbit hole.
So all the techniques start the same.
Your left hand reaches up
and pulls down on the rope.
While at the same time your break hand
pushes forward and locks it down.
And now at this point you need to bring
your right hand up the rope.
And there are three different ways to do so.
The first one.
It's more popular in Europe.
And it's called hand over hand
or V to the knee.
So you simply take your left hand
and go over your right hand
and then right hand goes
over your left hand.
That's why it's called hand over hand.
So you take, .... hand over hand,
you take, ... hand over hand.
So I find myself using this technique
when the climber wants me to take really hard
as he's moving up the rope.
Because you're always
pulling down on the rope.
You can...
It kind of feels like
climbing up the rope.
Very comfortable.
So the problem with this technique is
that when people get really good
and can do it really fast
they start letting go the brake hand
before the left hand goes into the locking position.
So we do this.
We take this, let go already,
and then go into locking position.
If the climber would fall
in the moment where you let go this
and you don't lock the hand down
you probably know what would happen.
So obviously a simple solution -
lock,
and then in the locking position
do any hand swapping.
And another thing you need to be aware of
that sometimes if the
climber drops a bunch of slack
your belaying device falls down.
And here you need to be careful
to not take your left
hand over the belaying device.
Otherwise if you do so
and the climber falls
your hand gets into this awkward position.
So instead you reach under your belaying device
and you grab the rope.
And now if the climber would fall
everything would be fine.
All right. Next technique is called PBUS.
Which is more commonly used in America.
Which means Pull, Break...
So basically the same stuff, as before.
But now instead of taking over the hand
you take Under and Slide.
So Pull, Brake, Under, Slide.
Pull Brake Under Slide.
So the benefit of this technique
is your strong hand never leaves the rope.
A little drawback of this technique
is when you have weight on the rope,
and you're trying to take hard,
now sliding up this hand
is not as comfortable as
in hand over hand technique.
So at some point
as you will be practicing your p-bus technique
you will realize
that you don't actually need
to bring your left hand down there
in order to bring your break hand up.
You can simply slide it up.
And this is a third technique
which is called a tunnel technique.
And since your left hand
never leaves this rope
it's the most efficient technique.
Because you can always switch between
taking slack and giving slack instantly.
So no matter in which
moment of taking slack I am
I can always give slack.
And contrary any other technique where
my left hand leaves
now it needs to go back
in order for me to give slack
so it's an extra action.
Also tunnel technique is the best for
taking small amounts of slack.
If I would try to take a small amount of slack
continuously with any other technique
it's a lot of hand movements.
While the tunnel technique it's very relaxed.
And that's why it's the most efficient technique.
However you might know
or maybe you don't
this technique is actually not considered
acceptable in some parts of the planet.
With the argument that during the moment
where you slide the hand up
you don't have a firm grip on the brake hand.
And during the fall maybe you will
not be able to catch the fall.
To which here is my arguments.
First of all if you use
any assisted belaying device
you don't even need any
hard grip on the brake side of the rope.
Any light tug will make the device lock.
So this is not an issue immediately.
Now if you are using a tube
I actually went out
and did an experiment on this.
Where I asked inexperienced belayers
to keep moving the hand up and down
while I was distracting them
and the climber was
taking unexpected falls for them.
So stay tuned for that
it's gonna be really crazy
and really interesting episode.
But in general when sliding the hand up
don't make a big tunnel.
I don't like that this technique
is actually called a tunnel method.
It shouldn't be a tunnel.
You're barely opening the hand just
barely enough for it to slide up the rope.
And if you are a beginner
it's really good idea
to start practicing with PBUS technique.
Because you will be sliding your hand up the rope a lot
with the backup of your other hand.
And you will learn the feeling of the
rope going through your hand.
So start with this
and once you get
really comfortable with this
not bringing the left hand down and just
doing this will feel very natural.
By that point.
And just to make sure
that I'm not missing something
in regards of safety of these three techniques
I wrote an email to about
25 different climbing safety related
organizations and associations.
And asked them to comment on these techniques.
Not all of them replied, unfortunately.
However out of those who replied
none of them said anything against of
any particular technique.
So as long as you follow the
basic guidelines of proper belaying
you will be fine.
Maybe with an exception
if you're in the US and you need
to take a delaying exam.
Then you might be forced to use the PBUS.
And few more mistakes that people do
when they're taking slack.
First of all they take the slack like this
or like this...
So unless you are using
a assisted belaying device
and you're guaranteed
that that device will lock at this angle
which I will make a separate video on that
you might be in trouble.
Second mistake is people hold
both strands of the rope with the left hand.
They do something like this.
The reason why they do this
is to prevent the belaying device
from falling down there.
However to fix that you don't need
to hold both strands of the rope.
You can just simply
hold one strand of the rope.
And you will have
exactly the same result.
OK that's a lot of talking about taking slack.
I just felt that that's the most important part.
And the rest will be much more simple.
So to give slack you simply reverse the tunneling technique.
Where your left hand pulls up while your right hand assists.
Then the left hand goes down.
And you slide the break hand down.
And you repeat.
And the same technique works with most
of assisted belaying devices.
While with some of assisted devices
you will need a special action.
With assisted tubers it's common
to push them up
while you're giving slack.
Now in case of the GriGri you can either
use that standard way of giving slack.
Or you can press on GriGri's cam
and pull the rope.
Just don't forget the rule number two.
The rope stays in the hand all the time.
Now in case you need to give a lot of slack quickly.
Like if the climber is about to clip.
You take your left hand
close to belaying device
and your break hand far from belaying device.
This is important. Only then you can give
a lot of slack quickly.
If your left hand is somewhere up
you will be limited by it
how far up you can raise this hand.
Equally if your break hand is close
you will be limited by that hand
how fast you can give slack
and then you will need to
do more actions.
So left hand close,
right hand far. Anticipate.
And you can give a lot of slack quickly.
And if things go wrong
you can take all of that slack quickly back.
Now when you need to lower the climber
you take both of the hands
on the brake side of the rope.
And you use one hand
to feed the rope to the other hand.
That's one way or if you're comfortable
you can let the rope slide through both of your hands.
The risk here is however if you go too fast
the rope will go so fast
through both of your hands
that it can burn both of them.
And then you will probably drop your climber.
So simply don't go fast.
There is absolutely no point of lowering a climber fast.
There is nothing cool about that.
It heats your equipment way more,
wears down your equipment, it's expensive.
And go in a controlled manner.
And if you're not sure you can always
feed the rope like so.
And in case your climber takes a fall
just hold on the brake side of the rope
even if you have number two in your pants.
Hold it. Never let go.
And as soon as your climber will regain the ground
and unload the rope most of the belaying devices
will unlock themselves.
And you're ready to continue belaying.
While with some devices like Click Up
once it locks you need a special action
to unlock it to continue belaying.
So as i already said
it's a good idea to look into the manual
of your belaying device
to know all these little nuances that there might be.
Now if you are teaching beginners
or you are a beginner yourself
practice using belaying device
on the ground, without a climber.
And only once you're completely comfortable
and you're ready to go and actually belay somebody
then make sure to have somebody
experienced backing up,
holding on the break side of the rope,
and giving you guidance, assistance on your technique.
This is really important.
I actually once saved a climber
when inexperienced belayer was using a GriGri
I was backing up the rope.
And actually I was the one who caught the fall.
And the full story
if you're interested is
in this video about GriGri.
And of course don't take this video
as a complete guide into belaying.
There is way more things you need to know.
From proper slack management
to soft catches, to belayer movement,
to good communication with your climber.
And all of that is coming in the future episodes of belay master class.
That's a lot of effort to make these videos to be honest.
And this video was
brought to you by Mammut
and by all the people
who are supporting me
by visiting my website.
So huge thank you for everyone.
And see you in the next episode.