Chute et brise la dégaine (bis)

Zac Wronski grimpait une voie à Whiskeyjacks quand il a fait une petite chute sans conséquence mais, à sa grande surprise, son mousqueton s’est brisé. Son erreur, qu’il partage sur Instagram, est d’avoir posé sa dégaine devant un maillon fixe qui était déjà en place, ce qui a mis une pression beaucoup trop forte sur le mousqueton. Par conséquence il suggère de mettre la dégaine dans ou derrière un maillon fixe déjà en place. Cliquez sur les flèches blanche du post Instagram pour voir toutes les images.

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Went for a bit of an unexpectedly long ride at Whiskeyjacks yesterday. Reaching the last bolt before the anchors,I noticed it had a quick-link on it, left behind by whoever climbed it last. I clipped the hanger and continued up to the layback crux of the climb. I took a small, uneventful fall about two feet above the bolt. Hanging on the draw to rest, I noticed that the carabiner was loaded over the quick-link it shared the hanger with.(Picture 3) I briefly thought about moving the quickdraw to a different spot on the bolt hanger or just clipping it to the quick-link instead, but I decided that since I had already fallen on it was was probably fine. I tried the moves above two more times, each attempt resulting in a small fall onto the draw. I rested a bit longer and decided to give it one more go. I reached a new highpoint, but I fell once again. As the rope started to come tight, I heard a ping and felt myself suddenly accelerating downwards again, finding myself about 25ft below my high point when the rope came tight. A quick look at my tie in point told the whole story – the rope side of the quickdraw hung by my knot with a mangled bolt-side carabiner missing its top half dangling off the other end of the draw. Thankfully I was completely uninjured and lowered to the ground laughing with a rush of adrenaline. Had the same thing happened one bolt lower on the climb, I likely would have hit the ground. Two key lessons I was able to take away from this: Firstly, when your instincts tell you something is wrong, don’t ignore them. It would have been quite easy for me to move the quickdraw to a better position, but I was lazy and choose not to. Secondly, when you’re clipping a bolt that has a quick-link on it avoid clipping the draw so that it rests over the quick-link. Instead, attach the draw to the hanger so that it rests under the quick link, or just clip into the quick link itself (Picture 4). When you’re building an anchor that has rings or quicklinks on it, it is best practice to attach your anchor directly to the rings or links. Very thankful that I was able to learn from my mistakes in this situation without suffering any serious consequences.

A post shared by Zac Wronski (@zacwronski) on Oct 11, 2020 at 4:21pm PDT