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Date of Incident

01/08/2021

Country

England

Route

Activity

Trad rock climbing

When

Ascending

Injury

Minor injury

Incident

Some of the routes at Gold Diggings Quarry require a scramble/traverse around the edge of the lake to access the base of the climb. As I wanted to top rope the route anyway I built a anchor using a semi static rope using a large rock and a stake approximately 4m & 7m meters back respectively. The strong point of the anchor was approximately a meter from the edge. My belayer then tied in and connected to the anchor using a clove hitch and sat on the edge. I then abseiled to the bottom, my belayer sat at the top and belayed from the hip using a GriGri.

Nearing the end of the route I made a big move and fell off, as the belayer took my weight they were pulled from the ledge and left suspended. Unable to self rescue I was lowered to a ledge and traversed to safety. I then walked around and pulled my belayer up to safety.

The edge of the rock was fairly sharp and a single strand of our rope was running over the edge and holding both belayer and climber after the fall. The rope looked ok but had a soft spot which I have cut out.

Lessons

We should have had the belay device connected directly to the anchor!

The belayer was not tightly connected to the anchor, the anchor was very long. This combined gave more stretch than was expected.

Both belayer and climber expected to cruise this route, if I had expected to fall I think we would have been more cautious set everything up better. (What an idiot)

Causes

Belaying failure or error

Anonymous?

Yes

Reported By

Partner

Wearing Helmets?

Yes

Rescue Services Involved?

Author

2 August 2021 at 21:38:19

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All reports are self-submitted and have not been edited by the BMC in any way, so please keep an open mind regarding the lessons and causes of each incident or near-miss. 

If you have a concern regarding this report please contact us at incidentreports@thebmc.co.uk

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