Wednesday 12 March 2008

How to pass an Earth Treks or Sportrock belay test


I used a variant of the palm down technique that requires you to be able to catch a fall with either hand as your brake. They didn't like it too much but passed me anyway. The palm up, thumb down method is very common in America, but I think it is pretty ordinary for top-roping.

3 comments:

Garth said...

Not sold on that second belay technique. With an ATC it means you are holding the brake rope forward for a lot of time, which means it is not locked off. Would work well with a Munter hitch, maybe.

G said...

I agree, but for lead belay it allows you to manage the slack a lot better than with palm down, so I like it better for that. Always thought palm down was awkward when you have to take in some slack on lead belay since you don't have the nice taut top rope pulling your belay device up into a comfortable position.

G said...

I've changed my mind again. I'm back to palm-down for lead belaying. Caught a few lead falls palm-up and it sucks.