Is this still true if you use the appropriate shock links?
Those are set up to limit the force up to a certain height, wouldn't they design those to limit the force to one less likely to cause permanent damage?
Those are set up to limit the force up to a certain height, wouldn't they design those to limit the force to one less likely to cause permanent damage?
Don't use these. They are generally one-use affairs. They have a place in climbing but only as part of a larger system. The issue is multiple falls. Say you slip and cause an impact. The link does its thing and extends. Now you are on the side of a cliff without proper equipment. A proper dynamic climbing rope, used properly, will safely take repeated falls.
Do NOT do this. You _will_ die from a relatively simple fall.
ONLY use a proper via ferrata set on a via ferrata, with rip shock absorber rated to do so.
If you spend any time on a via ferrata, it’s pretty easy to see where the answers to one or more of these will be ‘not great’, and sometimes ‘really bad’.
For instance, hitting a rung on the way down. Or getting an appendage caught behind something.
But unlikely you’ll die.
And honestly, you shouldn’t fall unless you screwed something up pretty bad to begin with, which is your primary protection anyway.
You’re literally climbing a ladder, this isn’t wilderness trad climbing or developing some new route on loose rock.
But the falls are notoriously hard. Force can get really high and the chance of injury is high, even in cases where the fall zone is free of any metal etc..
Of course these would be a pain to tie and untie at each anchor point
There’s surprisingly few videos about this: https://youtu.be/A5w9Kkd-f2w
Even in a lab setting, pretty violent.