Re: Screamer\'s!
You guys are so typical of just how stubborn climbers can be.
Here we have a tool specifically engineered to reduce shock loads. Which I hope we can all agree are a bad thing whether we're rigging or falling ourselves, right?
I've given a link to a fall force calculator that proves beyond doubt that whether you weigh 175 or 250 lbs and take a 10 foot fall you will most certainly activate a standard screamer's trigger point, and it will absorb a fair amount of the unwanted shock load.
And yet here you are, stubbornly insisting that shock load absorbing tools have no place in our toolboxes despite their meticulously proven shock load absorbing ability.
Some of you say there are other methods of absorbing shock loads if you know what you're doing. I agree. But what if your rope man goofs up for whatever reason? Why not have an inline tool that mitigates the consequences for you in the tree riding out that mistake?
Many years ago I was removing a large euc in Balboa Park in SD. I made the mistake of running up a live leader and stepping out onto a lateral branch with lots of slack in my lifeline. The next thing I knew was the sensation of falling face first towards the ground in complete panic. When my lifeline finally caught me, it twisted me around quite violently and damn near broke my back. I was so shook up I went down and took an early lunch. I spent that lunch break thinking real hard about both the mistakes I had made, and how treacherous eucs were in terms of seemingly solid live laterals snapping out from under me by just stepping out on them one stinking foot.
Now you guys can go on and on about how you and your rope men never mistakes in critical situations. But I know better than to believe any of it. Any tool that can help mitigate potentially devastating mistakes that are almost inevitable in this biz, will find a welcome home in at least my own toolbox.
Now you can continue going on and on about how fall force calculators are incorrect because we're mighty climbers and know better.
Science is science, and humans are fallible, regardless of who you think you are guys.
Jomoco
