FINISH HOLD - #37 - IRRATIONAL FEARS

For his harrowing tale (and conspiracy theory), Arnold Braker will receive an Edelrid Mantle crashpad (edelridna.com), perfect for protecting the landing zone when being belayed with a *gasp* manual device. The Mantle comes with a small sit-start pad, too, and can be configured lengthwise for traverses or sleeping thanks to the perimeter zipper. You, too, can get the last word in UC and win free gear — send Finish Hold submissions (350 words max, with pics and/or art) to finishhold@urbanclimbermag.com.

My name is Arnold, and I am a sport climber. Ergo, I eat celery by the bushel, I have an 8a.nu scorecard, my harness has one gear loop on each side, it takes me 45 minutes to onsight a 50 foot 5.9 trad route, and I haven’t used an ATC or similar manual belay device in five years.

Last month, my friend Lucas pulled out an ATC to belay me and my heart skipped a beat. “Lucas,” I said, “are you sure you don’t want my GRIGRI? I mean, I’m probably going to be doing some pretty serious hangdogging up there.” Twenty minutes later, 30 feet up, and five feet above the fourth bolt, I looked down to see my rope running through that puny little tube of metal. I started making quick calculations about how fast (something about g=9.81m/s2) I was going to hit the ground. Then I whipped . . .and I was fine.

To be honest, all this fear was terribly unfair to Lucas. He gave fine catches. Not to mention the fact that, for the first few years of my climbing career, my friends and I exclusively used ATC’s. I never dropped anybody, nor was I ever dropped. Why, five years after I gave up using these classic belay devices, am I absolutely terrified of anything that doesn’t use moving parts to lock? I have drawn this conclusion: GRIGRIs and other locking-assist belay devices are like robots. They are cool, they make life easy, and we’re slowly growing more reliant on them. But if we aren’t careful, in 2012 they will subjugate us and take over the world.