Story 1
. . . It was a
splitter day in Provo Canyon, Utah and Stairway to Heaven was about to
become Slide to Hell. Ben
(*)
was hard at work, making progress up the
five pitches that constitute the classic route, one that he’d ascended
many times before. Our man Ben was out pushing the limits, like
a life-long climber tends to do. He chose to do hard variations on all
five pitches, creating several dicey moments for him and his partner. He
almost took a lengthy fall on lead practicing the harrowing antics
that climbers employ to keep the romance new on a route like Stairway.
At the end
of the hard day, Ben rapped off the entire route. As he readied to start
organizing the gear, he took off his Metolius harness and noticed
something that struck him harder than cheap whiskey on an empty stomach –
his buckle was ONLY SINGLE PASSED.
Metolius
got a call at 8 a.m. sharp the following day, Monday, from a frantic Ben
who told them again and again that they’d saved his life with their buckle,
which was designed to be strong on a single pass.
Ben never
forgot to double back his harness buckle ever again and still, to this
day, buys the beer when he’s with anyone from Metolius.
(*) Names have been changed to protect this poor sap from
being harassed for the rest of his life.
-return to 1st story>>
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Story No.
2 takes place on one of those alpine test pieces (Cerro Torre) that force suffering on
anyone who tries to get to the top. Mike (*) was able to weasel his way to
the summit, but as any alpinist worth his or her salt knows, getting back
down is the harder half the battle.
Hallucinations, starvation, feelings of guttural hatred toward
a partner, cravings for corn dogs – these are the things that happen on a
descent. The glory is over, the food supply is low and more often than
not, weather adds a nice drop kick to your party to add insult to injury.
Descending is when a lot of mistakes happen, and Mike was
about to become a statistic.
During his descent, a huge storm moved in, freezing the
movement out of his digits and shunting the blood flow to Mike’s frontal
lobe. All he could think about was getting down – FAST. In a moment of
frantic insanity, Mike got to a rap anchor and grabbed a sling to clip
in.
Everyone
has a sling to dog loop system set up on their harness to clip into a rap
anchor. Well,
Mike had a bunch of gear in his gear loops and he ended up grabbing a
sling and clipping into his GEAR LOOP instead. As Mike leaned back and weighted the flimsy plastic gear loop,
he ended up taking the ride.
Thankfully, Mike was trailing a haul line that ended up saving his life.
Metolius would like to interject something here: The new Safe-Tech
Harnesses are engineered to provide every possible extra margin of
safety. Each component has been designed for maximum strength without
excessive weight or bulk (including the gear loops). Wherever possible,
each component is engineered to withstand a load of 2250 lbf (10 kN). This
is typically the maximum impact force of a modern climbing rope. All
structural systems of the harness have been made as redundant and
error-proof as possible. Why not give yourself the edge you may have
dulled down by killing your brain cells on an alpine adventure--or even
while pushing it on a big wall, multi pitch, or even sport climb? Wear a
Safe-Tech harness.
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Story 3
. . .
Safe
Tech Harness
Testimonial
Mar 3, 03
How I
almost died (was killed) on my European Vacation!
It
was the classic work / climbing holiday tour in Europe. After attending
ISPO in Germany, we made a stop-off in Italy for a factory visit, then
headed back north to Lago di Garda / Arco to watch friends compete in the
Rock Master Climbing Competion. My girl friend Julie chose to take a rest
day, so I headed out solo to climb at a small limestone cliff near town.
Massone is a fun little sport crag that is vertical to gently overhanging
for its half rope length and notoriously polished.
I met
two young Italian kids at the base of the crag and in halting Italian
asked if I could join them for a few routes. Si, no problemo (yes, no
problem) they replied, would I like to lead? After a bit of a chit chat,
I learned that they had both been climbing for a few years and were
capable of leading sport routes up to about 7A (5.11+). I tied in, racked
my draws and affirmed with Beppe that I was ON BELAY and ready to climb -
Si (yes), on belay was the response I received. Just as I touched rock
and was ready to leave the ground, I heard a bit of a commotion, even in
another language I could understand its serious tone. I stepped down and
turned around to have a look. A middle-aged fellow with a thin, wispy
beard was pointing at the belay and speaking rapidly with my belayer. No
bene, no bene (no good, no good) he said repeatedly to the young fellow
holding my rope. When I reached them, I looked down in horror to see my
belay was firmly anchored to the young lad's cheesy plastic gear loop -
not the dedicated belay loop in the front of his harness. I profusely
thanked the bearded fellow who had probably just saved my life! Once my
savior was out of earshot, I popped my cork on that young fellow something
fierce--red faced, steam venting, euro cuss words-a-flowin, I really let
him have it! The people of Italy must have thought Mt. Vesuvius was
erupting again. I was damn well going to make sure that Beppe never made
that mistake again, as long as he lived!
In recollection, many
things became apparent; the route was 5.11d (a stiff warm-up for me) and
the limestone holds were polished mirror smooth, very easy to just grease
off a hold - a lead fall would have surely snapped that paltry gear loop
anchoring my belay. I had also erroneously assumed that since my belayer
had survived his first few years and was climbing at a decent standard, he
knew what he was doing - wrong! Although I had checked and re-checked my
waist buckle and knot - I should have gone over and scrutinized his belay
system instead of assuming it was correct. The other gripper was that
after clipping the anchors (the route overhung the base by a good 15 feet)
and during the free hanging lower-off, the cheesy gear loop may have
snapped at any moment. I shudder to think of the possibilities! I do
know that a series of unusual circumstances (I rarely, if ever, climb
with strangers) all combined to put my neck squarely on the chopping
block. I was just plain lucky that a passerby and fellow climber had
noticed a potentially fatal situation and corrected it.
