Busted Climbing Myths!

Thanks to Tristan over at Daily Climbing Tips for this one.

Once you’ve been climbing for a while, you tend to hear the same myths over and over again, from a variety of sources:

You should retire a carabiner that gets dropped off a cliff because of microfractures.

The Euro Death Knot is very unsafe and unreliable.

Daisy chains are good to use for anchoring in on multipitch climbs.

And then at some point you hear why these are false, but maybe can’t remember the specifics of why. Well, thankfully these and several others have been posted online for all the world to see at this site. There’s even some good tests and research that went in to backing up the claims, more than the “Well I’ve never heard of that happening” response.

I do, however, take issue with the last one, saying that using a GriGri makes it more likely for your gear to fail during a trad climbing fall. His test results show higher impact forces, but he doesn’t mention if they were giving a soft catch during those falls. Most experienced sport climbers know that when the leader falls, you let the rope pull you up to give them a softer catch. I have to think this would also lessen the force on the piece that held the fall as well.

Also, there’s another site I found that’s geared more toward the industrial rope user, but it debunks one of my favorites:

Walking on a rope is bad for it.

We trust our lives to these things and you think a few particles of dirt in there are going to compromise that? This is America, we sue people over spilled coffee, I’m sure our ropes are just about indestructible.

So check out the sites, maybe your favorite is on the list as well, enjoy!