Climber Creates The "Anti-Cam" - A Fall Protection Device | Hacker News Reader

Climber Creates The "Anti-Cam" - A Fall Protection Device

alpinist.com

78 pointsccoop79 comments

I love reading subculture jargon I know nothing about. Plus this is all about the problem-solving aspect of climbing, and about improvisation.

Was it the Innovator's Dilemma that pointed out power users as a primary source of product innovation?

This article was probably the most dense lingo I've never understood. Very disorienting. Well done.

climbing is very fun... worth learning all the lingo.

My hands sweat just reading about climbing. Thanks but I'll pass.

That's funny, my hands sweat thinking about and watching climbing too! I don't like heights but love climbing. Once you learn to trust the gear it's not scary in a gym. Outdoors it's a different story because of all the unknowns but manageable based on the route you try. You should give indoors a shot.

I probably will. I just think it's funny that even picturing it my head gets my palms sweaty.

I think it's funny too. Watching videos make me sweat like crazy but actually climbing doesn't do it as much. It makes climbing tougher but you can chalk up and it helps a lot.

Well, it wasn't written for you...

Probably a good example of how easy it is not to notice the use of jargon if you're familiar with it. I breezed right through the article and it didn't seem particularly technical at all.

It's important to note where it was published: Alpinist. That's very technical climbing journal. If it wasn't laden with jargon, I'd wonder what the editors were thinking.

You may be disheartened to know that the article was comparatively light on climber jargon.

I think Eric Von Hippel is one of the best known advocates:

http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/

Here is his book for free download http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm

One of my favorite aspects of climbing is that it's impromptu vertical engineering.

Other favorite aspects: it's incredibly meditative as it more or less demands complete mindfulness; the kinesthetics are incredible -- simply doing the motion successfully is like a dance with nature* -- the payoff is huge and obvious (you get up or you don't) with constant new challenges as you grow your ability; there's a long gradation of risk, allowing you to stretch your mental comfort zones (or stay in them)... hell, I love everything about it.

* Edited to footnote: with more cursing, in my case.

Where do you usually climb?

Eldorado canyon is my local favourite, though I'm a big fan of most of what's in the area... (http://mountainproject.com/v/colorado/boulder/eldorado_canyo...)

I live in South Boulder. We should go climbing together sometime. My email is jrward at gmail

> Was it the Innovator's Dilemma that pointed out power users as a primary source of product innovation?

I am reading that book at the moment. But to me it seems to tell exactly the opposite story.

This was built for a specific route in BC, Canada.

The story of its development is told in the excellent web adventure sports series "The Season": http://www.theseasontv.com/

You can see it in action in episode 21: http://www.theseasontv.com/?p=454

The whole series of "The Season" is fantastic and well worth watching if you're into adventure sports. They follow a paddler, a mountain biker, a skier and a couple of climbers through a season. Recommended.

thanks so much, that gives a great idea of how the whole thing happened. a great episode :)

Awesome concept, but from the pictures it looks to big to rack along with normal cams - are there really that many routes with flakes?

Flakes are common on granite routes. You can usually put cams or nuts behind them, though. In this case, the flake is very loose and the gap between the flake and the rock behind it is very wide. If he did manage to place any large active pro behind it, it might pry the whole flake off in a fall. This would probably kill him, his belayer, and any people on the ground below. This is why it wasn't climbed by anyone until he invented this device, which won't pry the flake off the wall.

One of the most famous granite flakes is the Texas Flake on the Nose route on El Capitan. The gap is so wide that you can't place any protection and must chimney up the 5.9 pitch with no pro.

They put a bolt about halfway up it some time ago, but it must be climbed free.

It looks kind of route-specific / very, very niche: You need a quite skinny flake, attached either too far away or too loosely to the main wall to put normal cams or big bros in behind it, all without any other reasonable protection nearby.

And if the flake is so loose that you're really worried about pulling it off the wall, running it out might actually be the safest thing to do.

(That way, if you fall, you won't load the flake with your momentum. This gizmo will load it strictly downwards, which is the whole reason it's being used instead of normal cams -- which will pressure the flake out from the wall in a fall.)

It's slightly route specific, but when dealing with expando-flakes, particularly, this could be really useful.

There are plenty of other pieces of protection out there that are feature/route specific (Big Bros and ship-anchor size cams come to mind). This will be useful to some climbers.

It seems like there are a few climbers on here, could one of you please explain how a climber goes about deciding that a flake is too dangerous to apply a horizontal force to but safe enough to apply a vertical force to?

Expanding flakes (ones that will move when you pull outward on them) are not good placements for active gear. As the cam pushes outward on a fall the flake might expand and the the cam might pull out because it is past it's usable range. Hammering pitons in a flake like this will do it too. As you hammer a piton higher up the flake it loosens the lower piton because it expands the flake from above to the point that the lower piton might fall out.

Thanks. I do understand the mechanics, but the article seemed to imply that there are some flakes that people do use traditional cams to climb. I was more curious in how the line between safe and unsafe gets drawn than the theory behind why horizontal forces on flakes are dangerous. In other words: you pull on flake, and it moves - obviously, horizontal force is unsafe. But: how do you then decide a vertical force on the same flake is safe? Is it just feeling and experience, or are there actual rules people generally follow?

Well from what I know this "anti-cam" device is the only rock protection that would not have a horizontal force component This guy is the first person to ever try it. All the other pro I can think of catches a fall by wedging into the crack, either by expanding or by taking advantage of a natural choke point.

Well, you can't actually do an engineering analysis of a rock face, so you're never going to achieve that level of rigor. Placing protections and building anchors is a combination of experience and intuition; observation and analysis techniques; and a bit of actual physics around angles, direction of force, rope stretch, and force multipliers.

There are guidelines that people follow but there is no hard and fast put this here like this and it will hold a fall from 75' up rules. It is a lot of feeling and intuition and most importantly redundancy!

If the flake is 10m long it weighs many tons, adding 75kg of climber in the same gravity direction is negligible. Putting a torque on the rock along the breaking line is a different story.

(probably more like 50kg for skinny zero % body fat climber types)

The forces involved are considerably more than body weight in a lead fall (potentially tens of feet before you're caught; at one point in the article they mention the possibility of a 70 foot fall). 10 kN (roughly equivalent to 1000kg static hanging load) is a typical rating for lead climbing protection gear, and the only reason the force is that low is because the rope stretches considerably, reducing the max force exerted at any given instance.

The problem is that the type of protection you would typically use for this situation are spring loaded camming devices. These consist of logarithmic spirals that expand when they are pulled. If you fall on one of those in a flake, you are essentially taking a car jack to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-loaded_camming_device

You can peel a bandaid off, but you can't drag it along the plane of your skin. Replace the bandaid with a rock flake, the skin with a cliff, and the adhesive with ... best not think about it.

In the jargon, "Pull down, not out!"

There's a mechanical advantage issue too. The article discusses camming devices, and those are designed to press the rock harder than they're loaded. Usually, the coefficient of friction between rock and aluminium is less than one. This design also allows the cam to hold in slots that get wider towards the surface.

Thanks. To clarify, though, I do understand why one would be safe while the other wouldn't; what I was interested in was the actual technique a climber uses to determine that. In other words: there are certainly rocks for which both vertical and horizontal forces are safe, and rocks for which both vertical and horizontal forces are unsafe, but where and how is the line drawn to determine that vertical is safe while horizontal isn't? Is it just feeling and experience, or are there actual rules people generally follow?

There aren't any rules, but the feelings are usually strong ones. Consider the piece of rock in the article. It weighs tons, and has resisted gravity for centuries, so it would take horrible luck for it to fall off while someone was climbing it. On the other hand, no one would plan to fall on it - not even the guy who climbed it.

The fast'n'loose rule: if it is loose, don't hang on it or put gear behind it unless absolutely necessary!

That said, there's a bunch of well-known "expando" flakes, particularly in big-wall granite areas like Yosemite, that are necessary for certain routes.

Even the ones that have been around for a while, though, do eventually come down: http://www.rockymountainrescue.org/eldo_DB_27apr08.php

I don't get it. It's a C-clamp. Why not just build an escalator? Why not just tie yourself to a rope and have your Mommy pull you up?

I remember seeing footage of some French guy climbing a rockface a thousand feet up swinging like a monkey, with no rope, no pitons, nothing. That is climbing.

Why the dismissive, acrid tone?

This is a piece of free climbing protection. This, along with the rope is used just as a safety device in case the climber falls. If it was used for making progress, he would be aid climbing. If you read the article, you will see that there are still risks, however. His homemade gear could pull out. Or even if it catches him, the traversing nature of the route would cause him to take a huge swinging fall into a wall. These types of falls are very dangerous because you hit with your torso and your legs aren't there to cushion the blow to your internal organs.

My tone might have appeared dismissive because I was being dismissive. Is that not allowed? Are you the judge of how people should speak? Labeling and criticizing my "tone" is just an ad hominem attack, so you lose. Why not just answer my question, at what point do you stop? What is wrong with building an escalator, that would reduce risk too, if that is the goal, and according to you that is the goal of this device.

I didn't make an ad hominem attack and posting a comment on the internet isn't a game that one can lose.

Your comment demonstrates a lack of knowledge about rock climbing. Free soloing, which is climbing without protection, is far from the mainstream. You saw a video of it because it is an amazing display of mental toughness and physical fitness. Please don't use this as a stick by which to measure all other climbing endeavors.

Request Denied. I will continue to use free soloing as my "stick...to measure" the coolness of all other climbing endeavors.

And what you lose from ad hominem attacks is credibility.

This is just another way of saying you will probably never climb anything yourself, as well as that you prefer publicity stunts to authenticity.

Free soloing is not a publicity stunt, but 99.9% of the time, free soloing with a camera crew is.

I'm not a big fan of people who do that, since it encourages people to stupidly emulate what ought to be a deeply personal (spiritual, even) choice made by someone with the experience to choose wisely. "Coolness" only enters the picture if you're an idiot.

well, the footage was from 25 years ago, and it didn't get any publicity so I don't think it was a stunt. I seem to recall the footage as have being shot from very far away, so I don't think the guy brought a camera crew.

You may be right, that I am an "idiot" because I think free soloing is "cool" and admire people like John Bachar. I don't judge the right way to climb or not, you are probably in a better position to judge other people and the correct way to climb, who has the right to emulate what, who is wise and who is stupid. I guess we disagree about my right to think of free soloing as being cool, but I prefer not to call you or anyone else names, and would like to sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my opinions.

Also, please. You may have read in the past that hackers have a sharp, cold, swift tone, and that it's okay in that culture to be rude when you're voicing your opinion in brief, but please read what you say and lose the edge to your talking. Every sentence I've read from you in this thread has been drenched in a generally aggressive and rude tone, as many other people have pointed out. It's not just one or two people that see your responses as such, it's a lot of people. I use the down-voting of your comments as evidence, and if that's not enough, the up-voting of the comments of those who have responded to you.

Even look at your most recent response. Mentally, I can see you saying with this greater-than-thou smug look on your face, "Request Denied."

I encourage you to, before you respond to someone, read what you wrote to them as though it were being said to you. Do you seem heartless, rude, a jerk? Write it again without the insulting tone. You don't get points for being mean. In fact, in the real world, you lose them; and you're not Dijkstra. You're not allowed to be rude and continue to earn favor anyway, yet.

you are completely right. though I would say I was more frustrated than smug.

>And what you lose from ad hominem attacks is credibility.

If calling someone out for being rude is an ad hominem attack (it isn't), then calling somebody out for using ad hominem attacks is a 'argument from fallacy' fallacy (it isn't, for similar reasons).

(both are not applicable here because nobody basing their arguments on them)

Furthermore, don't deal it if you can't take it...

yes, you might be right, I apologize.

As far as the "dealing it out and not taking it," I only expressed my personal opinion about a subject, I wasn't attacking anyone personally, as others, in my opinion, did to me. Having said that, I never thought I was "dealing it out" to anyone personally to begin with, so I wanted to apologize to anyone who was offended by anything I said.

No one said you can't use it as your "coolness test". If you expressed the opinion that free soloing is cooler than what this guy did, you wouldn't be getting down-voted. It's the fact that [seemingly] couldn't understand why anyone would want to do any sort of climbing that is in-between riding an escalator and free soloing mountains AND the fact that you did so in a subjectively rude manner.

Actually someone did do that and called me an "idiot" for thinking free soloing is cool.

But you are right, the fact that I don't see the appeal of the middle ground, and that I expressed my opinion in a "subjectively rude manner" was a mistake. Of course, I was disappointed that rather than just ignore a honest personal opinion or explain the joy of the middle ground, people attacked me personally. But that is fine, and I would like to apologize to anyone who was offended by my personal opinion and attempts to defend myself. Life is too short and I don't want anyone feeling bad about what I said. I apologize if I offended anyone.

>What is wrong with building an escalator.

It's not rock climbing and it's (arguably) not as fun. You need to keep in mind that the clamp this guy built wasn't be used to pull him up. In fact, if the article is accurate then he didn't even physically need the clamp since he never fell on it.

What he was doing was much more similar to that "real climber" you saw than riding on an escalator.

Here's a video of Dean Potter attempting to climb the Tombstone - he falls but his safety gear catches him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfaFxHYmOmo And for what it's worth, Dean Potter is famous for "free solo" climbimg, meaning that he often climbs without any safety equipment.

For what it's worth, I never called, to the best of my recollection, anyone a "real climber" or not. Having said that, I want to apologize to anyone who was offended by what I did say.

Labeling and criticizing my "tone" is just an ad hominem attack

Factually incorrect. An Ad Hominem fallacy is suggesting that there is something wrong with you and that therefore your argument is wrong. You are entitled to any opinion you like. We celebrate iconoclasticism here, HN is all about people doing things most people do not like.

However, if you attempt to redefine the word "climbing" in a way that is entirely at odds with how everybody else uses the word, you can expect to encounter resistance. If the only climbing you respect is free soloing, have at it. I've free soloed, I respect it, I won't argue with that.

But if you're going to argue that everything else isn't climbing, well, that doesn't strike me as intellectually constructive. There is already an established vocabulary of terms for the various styles of climbing, and there is no visible need for throwing it all out and starting from scratch.

Now to address your second point. It's an important one, and a little research into climbing history reveals that this is a divisive debate going back over a century. Some people feel that risk is an essential component of the climbing adventure. Some do not.

There is a gymnastic pursuit that is carried out on plastic and on rock called climbing, and in modern times it can be carried out with little or no risk. So can cycling. You can decide for yourself whether it is worth doing if there is no risk of injury or death.

There is also a thrill-seeking or adventure pursuit carried out on rock and in high, cold places. Proponents seeking adventure deliberately place themselves in harms way through free soloing, fast and light alpinism, and through placing protection that is of limited utility. Risk is not a black and white decision, most adventurers manage their adventure to expose themselves to a perceived tolerable amount of risk.

These two pursuits are both called "climbing." If you strongly prefer the latter to the exclusion of the former, you are not alone, but you also aren't in the majority.

So your question of why not build an escalator is easy to answer. The escalator removes the gymnastic element of the exercise and for those who seek adventure, removes too much risk.

Saying that I think a guy who can swing from rock to rock like a monkey is an attempt to redefine the meaning of the word "climbing" is ridiculous. I actually have no opinion about what climbing is or is not. I was expressing admiration. Like if a quarterback throws a huge pass and the receiver dives across the goal line and catches the ball with one hand for a touchdown. Now that's football. I'm not saying everyone one else on the field isn't playing football or shouldn't be allowed on the field. Maybe I should have written my comment with three exclamation points...Now, that's climbing!!! Boy Howdy!!!

Also, I don't care or judge whether people climb with or without risk. But to your point, you actually could make an escalator the width of a gymnastic balance beam and with bumps, so that it would have adventure and risk, for those who seek that from escalator climbing. I am sorry to have commented because clearly I inadvertantly hit a nerve with a subset of climbers who apparently feel some kind of insecurity or something, when compared to awesome free soloists.

Anyway, I have get going, I can't stay here in the basement typing on my Dad's computer, I have to get back to middle school for the afternoon assembly. But thanks for spending all your time chatting with me.

Saying that I have some sort of insecurity is an ad hominem attack. Just kidding!

No one is saying you can't admire a guy who free solos. What you did say was "Why not just tie yourself to a rope and have your Mommy pull you up?" Followed by "I remember seeing footage of some French guy climbing a rockface ... with no rope, no pitons, nothing. That is climbing." That seems an awful lot like redefining climbing to not include trad climbing (climbing with this sort of protection), and also seems a lot like judging whether people climb with risk or not.

You aren't getting down-voted because you expressed a controversial opinion, it's because you expressed it in a way that appeared to be rude. If you merely said:

>I don't get it, how is this different from a C-clamp?

>I remember seeing footage of some French guy climbing a rockface a thousand feet up swinging like a monkey, with no rope, no pitons, nothing. I admire that.

No one would have down-voted you. They would have explained that it is not a C-clamp (it's dynamic so it gets tighter when you fall) and that free soloing is certainly an exciting form of climbing.

Edit:

>But to your point, you actually could make an escalator the width of a gymnastic balance beam and with bumps, so that it would have adventure and risk, for those who seek that from escalator climbing.

Yes, they certainly could do that, and it may very well be a very exciting new sport. But it would not be rock climbing. It wouldn't even be similar to rock climbing. The most similar thing I can think of is perhaps via feratta climbing.

Ultimately you brought up the question of "Why do anything?" Why should you go outside when you can just watch TV? Why do you go to school when you can just lay in bed all day?

I want to apologize to anyone I offended with anything I said in this thread.

Guys, he's a troll. Stop feeding the troll. His profile claims he's 13 years old, whether that's true or just part of the trolling I don't know or care, just beware you're getting pulled into someone who is trying to have an argument for the sake of having an argument.

Bah, it's an excuse to talk/teach about my favorite pastime, I'll take it! :)

But you're probably right about the trolling.

I wasn't trolling, but clearly my words offended people and I apologize to anyone I offended. Clearly there are many people who are passionate about rock climbing and resented my ignorance. So I wanted to apologize to anyone who was hurt or offended by what I said.

I wasn't trolling, but clearly my words offended people and I apologize to anyone I offended.

My tone was a mistake and I apologize that it offended you and others.

In case your rudeness springs strictly from ignorance:

- Any time you're moving up under your own power, you're climbing.

- Any time you're moving up on a suitably steep cliff under your own power, it's rock climbing.

- If you're placing gear into the rock, then pulling on that gear -- sort of making a moving ladder -- you're aid climbing.

- If you're using ropes and gear strictly for protection, moving up with hands and feet on the rock only, you're free climbing.

- If the gear is at the top of the climb, you're top-roping. Falls are usually very safe and only a few feet.

- If you're placing the gear as you climb, then climbing above it, you're leading.

- If you forgo all the safety gear, but stay low enough that you're only risking your ankles, you're bouldering.

- Otherwise, free soloing.

The vast majority of climbers use safety gear for good reason... I'd be dead many dozen times over without it.

"In case your rudeness springs strictly from ignorance: - Any time you're moving up under your own power, you're climbing."

1. Namecalling my comment as "rudeness" is just an ad hominem attack, so you lose. 2. According to your definition of climbing, my suggestion to build an escalator is "climbing" so why are you calling it rude when it is also climbing according to you?

I did say I don't get what was so special about a C-clamp that just looks like an inverted version of what I have seen before. I am entitled to my opinion of what is cool or not, why be a hater and attack me? I never criticized you for using safety gear.

It's very different from a C-clamp. You'll notice that it has four pivoting logarithmic spirals on the ends (two on each side). That way the clamp tightens when you pull on it. That design is similar to a cam, except that a cam goes inside a crack and the spirals are facing in the opposite direction.

yes, that is a good point, maybe scissor clamp with cams would have been a better way for me to explain it if I had been more precise.

Nobody's hating, you are being rude. Saying you're rude isn't an ad hominem, it's a description of your behavior. It's an ad hominem if you had made an argument rudely, and someone said, "he's wrong because he's rude." Crux, on the other hand, is informing you. Which you find offensive.

I think you might find a better home at Digg.

  13 year old hacker who loves computers and freedom.

Might explain some of it.

That's ad hominem, now. (Though understandable.)

I didn't attack ;) Just saying their age might play a part in their comments.

I only said ad hominem, not attack. :-p

For what it's worth: that's new. I checked earlier to find out who this person was, and the profile simply had a link to http://gruupr.com/. The profile update seems fishy.

I changed my profile out of frustration. Obviously, I am not 13 years old. I just changed it again now to "Dyslexic 31 year old who loves computers and freedom. and I can be reached via gruupr.com.

I apologize for offending you and for being rude.

It's not a C-clamp. A c-clamp won't produce nearly as much leverage. It is the difference between a vice grip and a plyer. I can assure you there were plyers before vice grips, and the guy who invented vice grips went on to make a whole lot of money selling them to people who had a problem a pair of plyers couldn't solve.

Could the vice-grip idea be applied to this anti-cam, to make it easier to place one-handed?

yes, now that I understand it, it is pretty cool and it must have taken a lot of work to get it right.

Technically speaking, an escalator wouldn't be moving up under your own power, would it? But: if you walk up ten flights of stairs, have you not climbed ten stories?

It's important to read carefully, especially definitions. Giving a list of commonly accepted definitions is not attacking you.

Edit: The beginning of this video has some nice ladder building for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY1lNAEzZP0

He was free climbing the flake, which means that his only means of progress was his hands and feet on the rock. The clamp he built (more of a reverse cam, really) was used solely to catch him in the event of a fall.

He mentioned that he practiced placing the gear on the route while top roping, meaning that the rope started from the top of the route. However no one had successfully trad climbed the route before, which means that the rope starts from the bottom and is clipped into removable protection along the way.

Trad (short for traditional) is what most people consider "real" climbing.

okay, thanks for that clarification.

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