My First Scathing Blog Comment
I have been blogging 2 years and today (December 1, 2008) received my first scathing comment.
Blogging has been a very positive experience for me that I started solely for the reason to better understand the technology I was analyzing at work. I started more as a journal blog but have tried to transition my site to include content that fellow readers would possibly be able to use in their own lives. And funnily enough the only reason why I write a climbing blog was to help me feel comfortable to write my business blog. But having an online presence is quite bold in the sense that as a writer you are putting yourself out there, completely open to attacks by strangers, which (I felt) was the case with this comment. Not only did the person not leave a real name (providing only beezlebub) but I wonder the validity of the email address.
The comment was left on my Climbing Accident post and is pasted below. I figure I might as well make a momentous occasion of my first scathing response. =)
“Such an unfortunate accident, made worse by the sure and certain knowledge that it was entirely avoidable. This makes the third accident in the last month that I’ve read about where the victims failed to understand how to belay, which is THE most basic system in climbing. The first was the double fatality at Red River, where the teenaged victims apparently did not know enough to recognize a suspect anchor and then proceeded to lower from a single fixed anchor without backing it up. The second was at Pilot Mountain State Park, in North Carolina, where a group of military guys made a rappel needlessly complicated and ended up dropping a guy 60 feet to the deck because nobody knew how to properly rig or back up the system. The third was this accident, where BOTH climbers again failed to understand the most basic safety system AND the belayer allowed herself to get talked into a system that she had never used, had never seen, and by her own admission did not understand. As if this weren’t bad enough, her partner didn’t understand the system, either, and nearly paid for it with her life. Not to put too fine a point on it, but verbally explaining your new-fangled system to a confused belayer when you’re already 60 feet off the deck is not a good way to stay alive.
I see these sorts of behaviors constantly these days, and they are inevitably the result of gym and sport climbers who lack even the most basic technical skills. I for one am sick and tired of reading these gruesome accident reports and finding that the common thread is all too often the complete absence of even the most basic skills. What comes next will sound hard-hearted, and it is, and for this I will make no apologies.
Rule #1: The belayer is in charge and is responsible for keeping everybody safe.
Rule #2: The belayer is in charge and is responsible for keeping everybody safe.
Rule #3: Don’t forget rules #1 and 2.If you don’t know how to belay, then please, go home and find a new trendy hobby. I am getting tired of picking up broken and dead bodies. If you’re really proficient at climbing 5.12a, then it stands to reason that you’re also proficient at the basic systems. That you apparently aren’t is alarming. You don’t turn into a 5.12 leader overnight, and you don’t do so without traversing some pretty sketchy terrain that demands climbing and anchor skills that far surpass what you learn in the gym. Well, unless you’ve only ever climbed 5.12 in the gym or on sport routes…..
The only possible way for this sort of disastrous combination of climbing skill and belaying stupidity to occur is if you continually emphasize one at the expense of the other. And the only way that can happen is if you climb mostly in a gym or on sport routes and, therefore, never have to learn these systems. How else can this accident be exlpained? In 30 years of climbing, I have never seen or heard of any belay system that remotely resembles what is described here. What I HAVE seen repeatedly, and it’s on full view here, is an increasing number of sport and gym climbers who treat safety like a game of chance, who apparently have no meaningful skill when it comes to belay systems, and who are manifestly incapable of recognizing obviously flawed systems that can get them killed.
It doesn’t get any more basic than top-roped belaying, and my sympathy is at an end for people who can’t be bothered to take care of themselves. I notice also from her website photos that the belayer climbs without a helmet. Make a note: The heads on 5.12 climbers smash open with the same ease as those on the shoulders of 5.4 climbers. People who climb without helmets are morons who deserve their fate. Get back to me when the nice people in the ER have rammed a chest tube into your ribs and a catheter up your urethra because you were unconscious and unable to tell them where it hurt. People in the ER don’t think it’s cool that you climb without a helmet.
Finally, it was more than a little annoying to see the repeated references to route grades in this report, as if being able to climb 5.12 somehow ameliorates the obvious absence of skill that caused this accident. It is simply unseemly to go and on about what a bad ass climber you are while simultaneously discussing how you dropped your partner 60 feet to the deck. Take a hint: No one really cares what grade you climb. The only thing any of us should care about is whether or not you’re competent. If this obsession with route grades doesn’t make you look like a clueless chump, then it does something very much like it.
If any of this has made anyone mad, then good. It is meant to. We’ve all been lucky, and we’ve all gotten away with things that were beyond our control. But I am sick of watching stupid people do stupid things, and then failing to understand their complicity in their own stupidity. Those of you who mistake my objections with an absence of sympathy for the victim are wrong. No one asks to get hurt, and if you’re trusting your life to someone else, it’s not asking too much that the other person pay attention.”
Wow. Phenomenal. I have to ponder ..
- Who actually posts such writings online?
- What good (if any) was this person trying to achieve?
- And of course I wonder (from an website analytics point of view) how did they find my blog? =)
I have to giggle at some of the comment content. For example, I love how I am tagged with the “sport and gym climbers”. (I actually do all forms of climbing, though will admit am the weakest with trad climbing.) I love how I get ripped for not wearing a helmet while on a sport climb. (I personally know only 2 people who wear helmets on one pitch sport lines. Is this practice more popular outside of the Utah? I don’t think so. I have seen minimal one pitch sport helmet use in all of Utah, Red Rocks, Red River Gorge, Thailand, China, and Canada. Even on the one pitch trad lines of Ireland were helmets a rare site to see.) I love his / her aggression to me mentioning on one (and yes, it was simply one) occasion that the route was rated 12a. (I must contemplate if I would have received this aggression if I had mentioned it was a 10a. I doubt highly I would have. Why do people have such aggression when a grade is mentioned? It isn’t a bragging point, just a number that is attached to the name that I added to emphasize that it was a harder climb and part of the reason why we were top-roping. People on other climbing sites ripped us for not leading the line, so I was simply emphasizing the grade and the point that it is still in my potential project range. Grades are a way to quantify goals, not brag. Hell, it is only 5.12a… it isn’t like we are talking about 5.14 or something.) But my favorite is his thought that as a belayer I somehow have full control over what my climber is doing. Ha! I can’t even understand this line of thinking … but ok. (I actually must admit that I have two favorite lines with this being the other, “Well, unless you’ve only ever climbed 5.12 in the gym or on sport routes…..” He he he he he… classic! What the hell does “or on sport routes” means? So, if you climb a 5.12 sport route it doesn’t qualify as a real 5.12? How is that possible? Only true lines are trad lines?)
Name-less person, thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Glad to hear that you have an all-encompassing knowledge of climbing and have never in your 30 years of climbing been put in a situation where you were uncomfortable and asked advice of your climbing partner. Good for you! Keep on rockin’ on. I am sorry, but I have not met this level of perfection and never will.
Tags: climbing