Good on you mate. Having a go is what it is all about. Do not place any importance on the words of anonymous people who tell you what they would have done or what you should have done. Fact is; you are the doer. They are simply watchers. Cheers Ian
Just sent this yesterday, such a sweet sweet line but it's definitely a "Lake Louise" 5.9... more like 10a if you want my opinion lol. Gear is amazing though isn't it!!
Wow, I can't believe this has 55k views now, thank you for watching! Some context: this is from the early days when we were still shaky with gear climbing. Will had taken a large fall in the Bugaboos about a year before this and shattered his ankle - understandably his nerves were high on gear climbs after that! As for placing 9 pieces - nothing wrong with being on the safe side, especially given the paranoia of having another fall and potential injury :)
You're totally right, a multi-directional piece like a cam would have probably not zippered. The problem was that it was a tiny seam that only a small stopper fit into, and we placed it there only to protect the first few moves above the ground.
I liked the video. I am only a hobby climber, but I believe if you place your first piece of protection to hold against both upward and downward pull, it is less likely to zipper out. The first piece should be "multi directional" they told me.
that's a pretty thin 5.9. No shame dude, I've been shakier than that on a 5.4 at the start of the season and I've been climbing over 20 years lol. I've had a bad free soloing fall so I get the hesitation! Like to see some of these dick-wad trolls on the sharp end of that.
Took you a while to get a good rest up there. Perhaps some endurance training is in order? If you have a local gym with easy routes on auto-belays this is the ideal way to train endurance. I just go and do 20-30 minutes per session of laps on them and it has made a massive difference.
potsy231983 headrushtech.com/trublue-auto-belay/why-auto-belays.html "An auto belay is an automatic belay device that eliminates the need for a human belayer. The auto belay takes up the slack as a climber ascends and controls the descent when the climber reaches the top or in the event of a fall."