[MischaHY]

I'm a right softy on runouts and always have been. Bizarrely I'm totally fine soloing because I know I'm not going to fall off - 

Anyway I've got some multis I'm keen for this year with some proper spacing on them meaning I need to handle it and be willing risk falling when further above gear/bolts. I'm planning on doing some progressive training to build into this.

Anyone gone through a similar process and found good/bad methods? I was planning on basically pushing the fall length progressively from various angles. Looking to basically be comfortable 4-5m above kit and okish with falling up to 6-7m above (not expecting to be happy about it). Is this as straightforward as I'm hoping or are there better ways?

Climbing partners have previously suggested tactics such as 'not falling off' but this doesn't seem to work so I'm looking for alternative solutions 

[Paul B]

My most comfortable on runout MP routes has been after a sustained period of being in similar territory and moving confidently and well on rock. Rationalise that it's safe (you don't really hit anything in the Verdon!) and move on/up. Focus on the climbing rather than the fall (much like Jerry describes in Mastermind, don't think about not hitting things, think about making the gaps - again this small point made a huge difference to me at the time when skiing).

My worst experience in this kind of territory was after a prolonged period of work stress where I basically turned to jelly at the slightest hint of a runout. TBH climbing that week was incredibly challenging (and ultimately made me choose to leave that job).

My biggest whip was probably in Madagascar after pulling a flake off. I'd had to bail on the pitch as a bird of prey decided to stop on one of those tufts of grass poking out of the cliff and after being bitten by a dog within the fortnight I didn't much fancy another multi-day round trip for medical treatment. I went back to the belay and pulled the rope which was enough for it to leave. Second go up I didn't take anywhere near the same care as it'd held me just a few minutes before. The bolting isn't what you'd call generous. Snap, very skinny ropes etc.

I'd recommend going to Meteora and doing a load of stuff there. The bolting is very sparse but the grades are generally fairly low and bolts come when you need them (mostly). It's a good reference/experience for the future when you've got a 12mm glue-in not all that far away and you can remember doing entire pitches with less than a handful of QDs.

[jwi]

How easy is it to find belayers who are fine with belaying 20 m falls (as you would expect a fall 6-7 m above kit to be)? When tied into the belay holding long falls often fuck up the belayer worse than the leader. I would think that would be the main issue.

On the vertical nature of many multipitch route, I am not sure that taking 12-16 m falls (falling 3-5 m above gear) very often is an old man's game. Sure, once or twice is fine but the chance of injuries is not zero.

Sorry for being a downer.

More helpfully perhaps, in Gorge du Tarn where the bolting is generally very safe, if sparse and big falls can be taken relatively safe, I find that it takes a week or so to get used to the falls and that I am desensitised for as long as I keep pushing the boat and for about another two weeks after I stop.

[Wood FT]

I can’t add much to what’s been said above but I think it’s just a matter of doing more of it and getting comfortable. Trying to ‘train it’ in an artificial way just seems a load of twaddle.

My braver moments on bolts have been where I’m engrossed in the climbing, happy with the state of the bolts and happy with the how the fall-line looks. Get that right that holy trinity and I can get stuck in.

Are you off to the Wenden\Ratikon?

[seankenny]

I can’t add much to what’s been said above but I think it’s just a matter of doing more of it and getting comfortable. Trying to ‘train it’ in an artificial way just seems a load of twaddle.

My braver moments on bolts have been where I’m engrossed in the climbing, happy with the state of the bolts and happy with the how the fall-line looks. Get that right that holy trinity and I can get stuck in.

Agree with the second paragraph but strong disagree with the first. I have found dedicated fall training really useful, at least in sport climbing. I reckon people overlook two key points. You have to do the fall training a lot, ie several hundred falls over a shortish space of time. Also, it must be really, really boring. If you’re finding it in the least bit exciting you’re doing it wrong. I just followed Dave Mac’s method and it worked. I’m absolutely not brave so it was good for me - but it’s clearly very individual.

I have only got as far as making typical sized sport falls feel comfy, but I’m sure the method could be extended to bigger falls with time and patience. I’d definitely consider doing this if I were going to Gorge du Tarn. The type of Wenden whips that Misha mentions is outside my experience but I’d only practice this sort of thing on an overhanging wall.

[Wood FT]

What the routine you use fall practise? The ones I have see just look like good training for dropping off rather than falling.

I should say this with tongue in cheek but I just find the desire to find a magic bullet for everything in climbing quite tiring.

[Paul B]

People doing fall training when I worked in a wall were an absolute PITA I must say. Often they'd do this at peak times on what was usually quite condensed climbing.

Go and have a look at the maillons at the change of angles where people often opt to jump off. It's amazing how much damage they sustain.

[seankenny]

What the routine you use fall practise? The ones I have see just look like good training for dropping off rather than falling.

I should say this with tongue in cheek but I just find the desire to find a magic bullet for everything in climbing quite tiring.

I just… fell off? I’ve heard the dropping off/falling off distinction before, that it trains one and not the other. It doesn’t make much sense to me and I suspect it is really a way of saying they didn’t do enough. I guess if it wasn’t specific enough then you could make it more so very easily. Bear in mind I live in London so have to approach the problem a little artificially; if you spent every Wednesday evening in summer working a route in Cheedale you’d get the same effect.

Get what you mean re magic bullet but I found fall training really obvious and fairly straightforward to implement. Clearly doing it on a crowded section of wall is a dick move!

[Johnny Brown]

Are the spaced bolts really on sections you are likely to fall off?

I would 'train' by doing some bold leads at lower grades (not solos) and build my ability and head up. I wouldn't practice falling off, which I tend to think should be limited to people who can't get 2 foot above a bolt without going to pieces. Put the time into the base of your pyramid rather than the wobbly top, get really fast and competent on easier ground (for me that means anything VD-E3) and by magic your top end will also improve, you'll also have more time and energy on the day for the hard pitches.

IMHO there is far too much emphasis on training at or around your limit. It might do your ego good to be spending time on big numbers but especially for big routes I think competence on easier ground is much neglected. It's like the Peter Principle, climbers rise to their level of incompetence and then tend to mostly operate in that sphere. Being incompetent is not the best way to train competence.

[MischaHY]

Thanks for the thoughts folk 

How easy is it to find belayers who are fine with belaying 20 m falls (as you would expect a fall 6-7 m above kit to be)? When tied into the belay holding long falls often fuck up the belayer worse than the leader. I would think that would be the main issue.

On the vertical nature of many multipitch route, I am not sure that taking 12-16 m falls (falling 3-5 m above gear) very often is an old man's game. Sure, once or twice is fine but the chance of injuries is not zero.

Sorry for being a downer.

More helpfully perhaps, in Gorge du Tarn where the bolting is generally very safe, if sparse and big falls can be taken relatively safe, I find that it takes a week or so to get used to the falls and that I am desensitised for as long as I keep pushing the boat and for about another two weeks after I stop.

One of my biggest limiting factors especially whilst onsighting is being unsure of how a fall will be and where I will impact/how I will rotate etc. I find myself really preoccupied by this which is very limiting in terms of onsights especially because I can't simply make an assessment of the risk and then act on that i.e. continue and risk the fall, or back off and downclimb. My line of thinking is that by taking a large number of said falls at various angles I should get a better understanding of how it will go and also decondition the discomfort a little. Hopefully this will lead to clearer decision making and let me remain more focused when pumped/risking a fall.

I'm based near the northern limestone alps and many of the routes I'm aspiring too often contain a fairly significant mental element - it's not necessarily unsafe, but simply you're expected to show mental robustness on fairly long runouts with hard moves between. 5-10m between bolts whilst doing tricky climbing is quite normal. For example last year on Supertramp I was keen to have a good go at onsighting the 9- (7b+) free variant. Unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to commit to the runout which is 7m to the crux and 10m to the next bolt - it would have been a long but safe pendulum fall down a very clean slab and I had an excellent belayer with me so the problem was totally internal 

Sounds like I'm on the right track in terms of grinding it into submission with plenty of air miles. I have the feeling when I've done fall training in the past I've been too keen to get onto longer falls and thereby not conditioned myself properly because I definitely still find it exciting. I still find it quite stomach churning sometimes.

[MischaHY]

Are the spaced bolts really on sections you are likely to fall off?

I would 'train' by doing some bold leads at lower grades (not solos) and build my ability and head up. I wouldn't practice falling off, which I tend to think should be limited to people who can't get 2 foot above a bolt without going to pieces. Put the time into the base of your pyramid rather than the wobbly top, get really fast and competent on easier ground (for me that means anything VD-E3) and by magic your top end will also improve, you'll also have more time and energy on the day for the hard pitches.

IMHO there is far too much emphasis on training at or around your limit. It might do your ego good to be spending time on big numbers but especially for big routes I think competence on easier ground is much neglected. It's like the Peter Principle, climbers rise to their level of incompetence and then tend to mostly operate in that sphere. Being incompetent is not the best way to train competence.

I totally agree with everything you're saying here but the issue is that I have a good headgame up to even quite tricky stuff - for me it's all about control and being willing to risk popping off on insecure movements when runout. Up to around 7a I'm  perfectly happy being very runout because I'm confident I can climb up and down it for a long time, but I'm not comfortable when I have to risk popping off.

[Johnny Brown]

That all sounds entirely healthy. Air miles on 20m pendulums = 'freak' broken bones.

I still think building up onsights of similar but easier pitches would be a better approach than throwing yourself off. Sounds like 7a+ would be the place to start then.

[MischaHY]

Are the spaced bolts really on sections you are likely to fall off?

Yep! First ascentionists seem to go out of their way to do this in the limestone alps. I also had a problem with this last in Siurana though trying 'Pati pa mi' and feeling really sketched out on the 5m runout during/after the crux. In that situation the fall is totally safe but just long and there is a reasonable chance of popping off right at the end of the runout - so I just needed to be comfortable with taking the fall. I wasn't 

[MischaHY]

That all sounds entirely healthy. Air miles on 20m pendulums = 'freak' broken bones.

I still think building up onsights of similar but easier pitches would be a better approach than throwing yourself off. Sounds like 7a+ would be the place to start then.

I'm on a UK trip soon so the plan is to get a load of mileage in the E4-5 range and hopefully build up that confidence and tolerance a little. I'm still pretty convinced a certain 'willingness' to take some moderately longer falls is going to play a role though. Last year I only went onsighting/2nd go in this zone (7a-7c+) with the specific aim of improving things - many things improved esp. movement, speed, route reading - but my runout tolerance is still poor.

[MischaHY]

I think the thing I'm missing is really an appreciation for where the line is on bigger falls because I've always avoided them. I'm fairly convinced an improved understanding of where things start to get actually risky would sort me out because then I'll be able to make clearer decisions and feel more comfortable with them in either direction - whether that's committing or back off - rather than feeling like I backed off because I don't understand the risk.

[jwi]

That all sounds entirely healthy. Air miles on 20m pendulums = 'freak' broken bones.

I still think building up onsights of similar but easier pitches would be a better approach than throwing yourself off. Sounds like 7a+ would be the place to start then.

Quite. I have taken ≈20 m falls on vertical ground a few times and belayed such a fall once, and never without injuring either myself or the belayer. (Nothing broken, but smacked around pretty bad).

When climbing stuff in the alps with psychopathic bolting, I have seen that some teams have taken to have the belayer rap down a few metres from the belay on a short bit of rope to be able to absorb some energy before they get smacked into the rock. Has anyone here tried this? Intuitively it seems better than belaying the leader directly on an hms or grigri clipped to a point in the belay.

[Johnny Brown]

I've done similar to avoid FF2 fall potential on the belay, but never tested it thankfully. Usual Uk trad practice does this to some extent anyway (1-5m is common), I've never belayed a leader direct from a point in the belay.

[James Malloch]

No experience of this at all, but are they the kind of routes where taking a small amount of trad gear could help?

[andy popp]

Quite. I have taken ≈20 m falls on vertical ground a few times and belayed such a fall once, and never without injuring either myself or the belayer. (Nothing broken, but smacked around pretty bad).

I've taken at least one 20m+ fall on vertical ground and "smacked around pretty bad" describes the end result very well.

[MischaHY]

No experience of this at all, but are they the kind of routes where taking a small amount of trad gear could help?

Unfortunately not, these are often routes with mixed protection anyway and bolts generally mean hard pitches with solid verdonesque rock and very few natural protection options. It's really incredible climbing and very worthwhile - but quite scary sometimes!

[Paul B]

In terms of marginal gains and with us both being quite short we climb with one very long QD which has a wire coat hanger mummified in finger tape and the bolt krab end taped open as we often found that on those run-outs where the FA was making a point about doing a tricky move before you get to earn a bolt they were also marginally taller meaning whatever form the respite arrives in (a good hand or foothold) we often couldn't clip until one move more.

[jwi]

In terms of marginal gains and with us both being quite short we climb with one very long QD which has a wire coat hanger mummified in finger tape and the bolt krab end taped open as we often found that on those run-outs where the FA was making a point about doing a tricky move before you get to earn a bolt they were also marginally taller meaning whatever form the respite arrives in (a good hand or foothold) we often couldn't clip until one move more.

I am tall enough to be able to clip most bolts that were put in by tall idiots on lead, but my better half isn't. She doesn't leave the belay without a Kong Panic: https://www.kong.it/en/product/panic/

[Paul B]

Years ago in Ceuse someone came around the tents trying to flog them and also these:
https://www.kong.it/en/product/frog/

I do love the oddball stuff Kong make/sell/

[Duncan campbell]

In terms of marginal gains and with us both being quite short we climb with one very long QD which has a wire coat hanger mummified in finger tape and the bolt krab end taped open as we often found that on those run-outs where the FA was making a point about doing a tricky move before you get to earn a bolt they were also marginally taller meaning whatever form the respite arrives in (a good hand or foothold) we often couldn't clip until one move more.

I am tall enough to be able to clip most bolts that were put in by tall idiots on lead, but my better half isn't. She doesn't leave the belay without a Kong Panic: https://www.kong.it/en/product/panic/

Who doesn’t love a stiffie!!! I’ve never actually used one sadly, but think they are such fun bits of kit!

I am very childish though