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Comment by braythwayt | Hacker News Reader

If you don’t point to the knot on your harness when calling out that you are tied in, and we don’t audibly call out “On belay... belay on” to each other, we aren’t climbing together.

These exact same rituals have been developed for climbing because everyone, experienced, and inexperienced, can make mistakes.

The greatest climber of her generation (of any gender!), Lynn Hill, opens her autobiography with the story of how she was distracted while tying in, and nobody thought to check her, because, well, she’s LYNN HILL.

She climbed 75’ up an easy (for her) warmup climb, called for tension on the rope, sat back, and fell the entire distance to the ground. She was very lucky to survive.

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I knew a climber who quit cold turkey after 10 years climbing due to a similar situation happening to one of her buddies that she considered to be an expert. She suddenly realized she was playing a game of 'when' not 'if'.

One of the most experienced climbers I know clipped into a gear loop instead of a belay loop without looking down at it and sat on it. He's only alive because he's got really fast reflexes. Checklists and rituals save lives.

Agreed. This is why, when I'm tying into the anchors at the top of a climb so that I can clean the route, I say every action I'm doing out loud as a way to talk myself through it and confirm that I'm doing all of the actions. It becomes much clearer if I do something out of order or incorrect just by hearing myself say it.

Does that say 75 feet? How on earth do you survive that?

> Hill has experienced only one major accident in her climbing career. On May 9, 1989, she fell during a climb in Buoux, France; after forgetting to tie a safety rope, she fell 85 ft (25 m) into a tree, and was knocked unconscious, dislocated her left elbow and broke a bone in her foot. She had been training hard for the World Cup and had to stop competing for a few months to recover; she was devastated to miss the first World Cup in the sport. However, only six weeks after her fall, she was back climbing. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Hill#Competitive_career (last paragraph)

By landing correctly; mostly not on your head, and not at a bad angle for the spine.

Soft ground beneath also helps.

What is a bad angle for the spine? I don't usually fall large distances, but something like this seems useful to know, just in case.

I've done some bouldering and although I don't know what the actual best is, you don't want to land directly on your back or front (flat) and you never want to land on your head of course. I learned to try falling with legs slightly bent in a mostly upright position. Someone with more experience can give you better info though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_landing_fall

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