 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@valais2, Very interesting article.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@valais2, with regards to your last point, I work in theatrical rigging and lighting working up in the grids above theatre stages, arenas, concert halls etc. People are surprised to learn that we build components in the roof with loose parts, whilst work is taking place underneath. Techniques developed over time mean we consider it relatively safe, and everyone on the floor wears a helmet... but it's obviously no lie that a 4.75T shackle (which weighs about 2kg) dropped from a 25-metre grid will be travelling at some pace by the time it arrives at the stage!
So there is an ongoing debate... do you shout "Heads" (equivalent to your "Below") or not? And I am personally in the 'not' camp.
It is slightly different for us as it's a different environment, but for me, people don't look up that much from the floor without prompt. It is human instinct that when you hear a shout, you look towards it. It's very hard to train people out of doing so without frequent and persistent practice. Shouts over a long distance can be hard to make out what they actually said. It will often take the person dropping the item a moment to realise what's happened, and shout. (By this time the object is half way down).
So my personal feeling - in our workplace - is that it's better to shout nothing. By not shouting, if somebody is stood underneath you at the time, it will probably smash into the top of their helmet - which don't get me wrong will likely cause neck injuries - rather than them looking up when the thing is already halfway to the floor and getting about half a second to make sense of the item that is accelerating towards them at great speed, which then hits the unprotected front of their face... which as you recognise will either be fatal or involve untold damage to eyes, nose and mouth which are all pretty important to life.
I'm not claiming to be right but it's my personal belief that it's better. I can see both sides of the argument. But what I do believe is wrong is when people tell me that you can be trained to hear a panicked shout from above and react by walking off the stage. You can't. You will look up. Besides this fact - in our job unlike climbing - there's every chance that in getting clear, people will run from a safe place into the path of the falling object too!!!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@dp, very interesting. It’s a dilemma in climbing too. But as you say I think there are differences in climbing. There are different scenarios:
Rockfall which we hear originating above is, so you hunker into the face and shout ‘below’ to warn those below - including the belayer who often is looking up - to squeeze into the face too. Most stuff then goes over and past - usually.
Things which we drop or dislodge. You can shout ‘below’ immediately, and again the action of those below - Which can be up to 30m below or more if you are on 60m twin ropes - is to instantly hunker into the face - very do-able and has saved many a life.
Mostly the trick is to get close to the wall and present as small a profile as possible - not look up and try and dodge anything.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@dp,
| Quote: |
I'm not claiming to be right but it's my personal belief that it's better. I can see both sides of the argument. But what I do believe is wrong is when people tell me that you can be trained to hear a panicked shout from above and react by walking off the stage. You can't. You will look up. Besides this fact - in our job unlike climbing - there's every chance that in getting clear, people will run from a safe place into the path of the falling object too!!!
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You're right that there simply isn't time to avoid a falling object. FWIW a 2kg shackle dropped from 15.75m (the flying height of the Shaftesbury theatre) will reach a speed of 39mph hit the floor in 1.79 seconds. There isn't time to run out of the way. However, I'm not sure people can't be 'trained' to react. If you are sitting by the side of a cricket pitch and someone shouts 'heads' then most people will duck or cover the head with their hands. I don't think many will immediately look skywards.
If we are talking rockfalls, then a rock falling, say, 50m will allow someone three seconds to respond. Probably more as the rock may not be free falling, but bouncing down the cliff face. Three seconds may well be enough to see the threat and duck out of the way..
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@dp, as you say, slightly different environment, but in climbing everyone learns (or should learn) the same calls so that everyone is doing the same thing when they hear them. Shouting into the wind is a problem, and a reason why e.g. you should shout “take in” rather than the single syllable “take”, which can be misheard as “slack”, and clearly the opposite of what you want!
Personally, I would rather someone makes a call. Sometime you can take cover, get closer to the rock face, at least get your head down. If you hear the shout “below”, you look below or risk a rope in the eye at the very least. Granted, most of my climbing has been on bomber grit faces, where if something does break off it’ll likely be big enough to take out more than your head  but I’d still want to know about it.
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| Whitegold wrote: |
| https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/French-ski-stations-prepare-for-no-snow-by-2030 |
it may be that either skiing will become limited to the higher resorts (and will become a thing for the rich again due to supply and demand) or that it will shift towards the Scandinavian countries and we will see an expansion of the skiing industry in the far north of Norway / Sweden.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@valais2, I agree that it's different. I think one of the most valid points you (and @foxtrotzulu and @Scarlet make) is that you can hunker in tight to the wall which - especially if stuff is bouncing down the wall - should mean that stuff bounces over the top of you. It's different in our industry in that stuff is much more likely to travel completely vertical at very high speed. As @foxtrotzulu points out, a shackle dropped from the grid of the Shaftesbury Theatre gives you 1.8s to respond. Shouting will probably occupy half of that. Meaning anyone hearing the shout gets 0.9 seconds to register the shout and do something about it. Evidently not enough time to act in a deliberate manner, probably just enough time to look up at what somebody's shouting about. So that's my issue with it.
I wasn't trying to say that you shouldn't shout - but I was just conversing that I have a similar dilemma at work but I - like many others - choose that the best thing to do is keep quiet. I think we all think we'd appreciate the warning, but consciously, realistically, (1) if something falls straight down from anything less than about 50 metres there isn't enough time to act, and (2) we are all victims of human instinct and human instinct is going to tell you to look up at the source of the noise, unless people are shouting at you sufficiently often for you to train yourself otherwise.
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It has occurred to me that climbing calls are probably the cause of the rather prevalent condition known as “climbing Tourette’s”. If you’re hanging off a windy crag all day shouting “yer what?” at your companions, it’s inevitable that some of the calls will be entirely made up of expletives!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Objective risk and subjective risk...
I was climbing on Clogwyn Du'r Arddu in my youth and, as @valais2 says, the done thing was to shout "below!". Cloggy is a big but non-vertical cliff on Snowdon where stones can just slip or be dislodged by sheep, wind, etc - definitely a place where you "make yourself small against the wall".
One such stone came from, I think, the top (c. 500 feet), whirring through the air. Someone, off to the side and 50 feet up their own route, heard it and yelled "below!". Everyone stood around at the bottom responded in different ways - some looked up, some did nothing and some ducked, while those of us that know Cloggy flattened ourselves against the bottom of the face.
However, one poor girl, doing what she thought was the right thing, hunkered down but, in doing so, exposed the base of her neck to the stonefall and the effect was horrific. Her helmet, mountain rescue team, helicopter and Bangor Hospital could not prevent life-changing injuries for her and her family (I did not know her, but we later heard of her injuries through the climbing community).
Such places (including ski slopes and mountains in general) have objective risks that cannot be mitigated, but just avoided, whether this be by climbing a different route, skiing a shallower slope, or even just staying at home. But, in the same way as people skiing above others, it becomes a subjective risk once humans intervene.
The poor guy who shouted "below!" did not cause the stonefall but, by doing so, probably caused the girl to duck, rather than the stone hitting the top of her helmet (in which case, it may well have done it's job), supporting @dp's point. But, however many times I replay the event in my head, I would always shout, rather than say nothing - as @valais2 said originally, it's one of those things that's hard-wired into climbers.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@sproggski, ...a very salutary story...really sad. It sounds as if you’ve carried that for a long time, just as the injuries have been by the girl. We have a lot of discussion about ‘which helmet’ - and I still like the coverage given by a hard bowl - still use an Ecrin Roc. But as you say ... the hills are full of objective dangers, combined with tiredness, a sudden lack of attention, and chance.
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Obvious comparison is golf and the shout of "fore". I don't know many seasoned golfers who look towards the shout, and the learned response is to look away and cover your head/cower behind golf bag.
This Saturday I both had to cover up with a ball heading my way (it landed about 5' behind me after going straight over me) and shouted fore when a slice was heading straight for a group on the other fairway and missed them by not much more.
I believe (but I'm not a lawyer and might be wrong) that not shouting "fore" loudly and clearly after an errant shot increases the risk of being legally liable for any injuries that result. The same might apply for dropping shackles from scaffolding (and my old dad told me never to work under scaffolders- wise words!) or even dislodging stones/rocks when climbing.
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You know it makes sense.
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@valais2, yep, I'm still the proud owner of one of those. However clever Mr Petzl's orange cycle helmets get, I don't think I'll ever trust them like a reinforced slab of hard plastic.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@sproggski, ...now discontinued but still highly rated ...
https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=32631
goodness knows when I should retire mine ... it’s 8 years old .. does ABS age as badly as I do?
Note to self: this is a ski forum; a SKI forum....
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Scarlet, ...or ‘borrowed’....
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@valais2, take care - that thread is 15 years old! Are you sure yours is only eight years old?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@valais2, My Ecrin Roc was smashed when a mass of ice fell on us whilst ice climbing in Cogne, still shattered my scapula and helicoptered off but lucky and glad to be alive, this was after hunkering down to shouts of "BELOW". With hindsight we had gone out when it was a little to warm and the icefall higher up the mountain collapsed in the sun. I hadn't take up skiing then, if I had we would have gone skiing instead with the conditions. I've replaced it with a helmet with better back of head protection, after been knocked out after suffering an inverted fall whilst sport climbing (rope caught behind leg!)
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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As a climber & caver I'm a big fan of shouting "below". I think that plus the reaction is instinctive. I believe my avoiding action reduces my risk overall; standing in the open amidst stonefall would be extremely foolish, I feel.
I would argue that there's a counter-example in cycling, where if you yell at a pedestrian then their movements may be unpredictable, where as if they remain unaware of your presence, you can at least reasonably expect to predict what they will do. For example if they're about to step off a curb I will yell as the chances are they will stop, but if they otherwise step into my path, I may choose to keep quiet to avoid them freezing or moving in a direction I don't anticipate. The issue there is: "what's the purpose of the yell".
With "below", the purpose of the yell is to let people know something's coming. What they do about that is up to them.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@On the rocks, ...sounds bloody terrifying (the first event that is) - second event sounds like one in a thousand and very unlucky.
Re icefall higher up the mountain, that was what took Franssen and Auclair. Impossible to predict. I was climbing above Arolla (at that stage on the long walk-in up to the Bertol Hut) and we looked across to the big icefall on the opposite side of the valley. It's all huge blue cubes and seracs - absolutely terrifying place. Makes the Khumbu look like a furniture showroom. To our horror we saw a single climber making her/his way up the middle of it all. We COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. But there they were. And then a few thousand tons of ice broke in the midday heat from the left of the fall, disintegrating into a huge cloud of ice particles. A huge volume - a really big collapse. The wave of stuff passed right over the area, and the bass rumble of it hit us a few seconds later. It took a few minutes for the stuff in the air to settle and we looked and looked....indeed the figure was no longer visible. We asked around, but still have no idea where they came from, whether they are in there somewhere, or whether they survived and had a pretty good story to tell.
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| sproggski wrote: |
| @valais2, yep, I'm still the proud owner of one of those. However clever Mr Petzl's orange cycle helmets get, I don't think I'll ever trust them like a reinforced slab of hard plastic. |
| valais2 wrote: |
| I still like the coverage given by a hard bowl - still use an Ecrin Roc. |
| Scarlet wrote: |
@valais2, do they degrade? My Petzl Elios is probably around 15  years old... |
| On the rocks wrote: |
| @valais2, My Ecrin Roc was smashed |
The trouble with helmets like these both are, is that they use the plastic shell on a polyester harness principle... this is ideal for getting a little bit bashed about all of the time but offers absolutely no deformation in the event of a high-energy impact. They hold together (transferring all forces to the wearer) right up to the point that they break (at which point they stop protecting the wearer) but do very little in terms of dissipating energy.
Something like a Petzl Meteor on the other hand is much better at dissipating that energy as, like a cycle helmet, it's made of expanded polystyrene covered in a PVC shell. The protection is in the polystyrene, it deforms on impact rather than breaks, spreading those forces over a wider area but also providing a gradual failure. But of course the problem is that a far more minor knock to the helmet can damage it sufficiently to require replacement.
Really the answer is that you should own both. For situations where you're protecting to yourself against high-frequency (IE frequent), low-energy impacts (ie bashing your head on stuff - like caving or tree surgery) a hard shell is better. For low frequency (IE occasional), high energy (IE taking a big rock or lump of ice to the head) impacts - like belaying a climber... you'd be better with a helmet that's designed to deform on impact. This has been learnt over time mainly via the hard way and is the reason Petzl now offer both. People mistakenly believe that when something is called a 'climbing helmet', it is inherently suited to all climbing applications.
In our industry it is equally challenging. Ideally we'd probably be better off with the type of helmets that deform under impact. But our kit just gets ragged about so much that if we did, the helmets would be unfit for purpose within a week of just general wear and tear and potentially offer less protection as a result of that wear! So it's a hard toss up and the nature of my post is not that a deforming, EPS shell is 'better' per se. Sadly there's not much scope to offer a hybrid since the shell that would protect the EPS would only really serve to reduce it's efficiency!
PS: Scarlet and valais2 you are confusing the terms degrade and deform. Degrading doesn't help helmets... degrading is when stuff breaks down over time due to things like corrosion and rust. Such things are never good in helmets. Deformation is when something changes shape / form - usually under pressure - which is beneficial in helmets because the process of deformation often absorbs the energy that would otherwise be transferred to the wearer.
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@dp, forum alert, forum alert..I think we should be on UKC not SH...
but...nope, I understand the distinction between degrade and deform. I was asking whether the ABS aged - ie degraded. We were told to replace cycling helmets after five years since the evaporation of plasticisers leave the EPS brittle but then other research has suggested this is erroneous:
http://biomechanical.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=2497744
The mechanics of ABS hardshells are rather more complex than you suggest, and this was discussed very well in a definitive UKC article in the early 2000s. The Ecrin Roc and similar rely on a large air gap - hence all the comments about helmets 'sitting so high' - and principally aim to deflect any objects which hit, including bloody big ones. The design principle is a hemi-sphere about the head, supported by a flexible but strong 'basket', which allows energy transmission around the helmet. The key aim is to re-direct objects, not absorb energy - hence the shape - hemi-spherical and big. I have had some very big objects, moving very fast, whang against an Ecrin Roc, and glance off to disappear into the void. It's not the same model as the EPS softshell helmets. Some of the energy absorbsion in a hard shell comes from moving the head and body, with the energy transmitted through the large area of the helmet harness, with the air gap working to ensure that the energy is not transmitted to a local area on the skull. I agree that it's 'horses for courses' - and UKC make clear that 'one hit' helmets present an issue on long Alpine routes - I wouldn't use one on the loose cr*p of a lot of the Valais routes, since you tend to get showered in some places. But my comments here are just a pale reflection of the original definitive discussion on UKC...
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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God, my old Ecrin Roc is now 30 years old. I definitely don't use that scratched and dinged relic for winter climbing any more, but it is pretty solid and handy for some uses. I've now switched to an Elios for winter with a much lighter unit for summer. The only large thing that has hit me was a medium sized hex and quickdraw which was dropped off Craig yr Ysfa and landed right on top of my lid.
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@valais2, nah. If you pop over to UKC, you’ll see all manner of bad advice about ski boots and powder skis. We are just addressing the balance 
@dp, nope, I understand the difference and was considering it from a plastic degradation angle, in the same way we judge ski boots from the 80s. As I have generally climbed grit and other stuff that doesn’t crumble too much, my requirements have pretty much always been as per your first example. It is me bashing my head in a chimney, or someone kicking a few loose stones. I often don’t wear it if I feel the risk is low. My helmet is not deformed and shows little signs of wear, but I have had it since around 2003.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| valais2 wrote: |
| The key aim is to re-direct objects, not absorb energy - hence the shape - hemi-spherical and big. |
I appreciate that but it's still unsuitable for a high-energy impact. Glancing off the helmet is still going to exert force on your neck and back which you don't really want.
So the underlying nature of my point remains the same... shell-style helmets better for high-frequency, low-energy impacts and deforming EPS shells for low-frequency, high-energy.
| Quote: |
| I understand the distinction between degrade and deform. I was asking whether the ABS aged - ie degraded. |
| Scarlet wrote: |
| I understand the difference and was considering it from a plastic degradation angle, in the same way we judge ski boots from the 80s. |
Sorry my bad for mis-interpreting you.
To try to answer your question, on my PPE inspector's course (which appreciated is for industrial helmets like the Vertex - but until the Vertex series came out, the Ecrin Best and Ecrin Roc were the choice of all the rope access techs, tree surgeons and riggers) the general advice was no the plastic does not degrade over time in normal conditions, however the presence of dirt and oils / solvents could affect that - hence why the 'official' advice is not to put stickers on your helmet - since doing so can (a) affect the helmet from solvents in the sticker's adhesive, (b) trap dirt/oils underneath the sticker which can't be cleaned off, and (c) prevent you from inspecting the surface of the helmet shell, beneath the sticker.
What does happen though is that the harness element can degrade much more easily (not least because it tends to absorb dirt and the oils from your hair and skin but nobody really washes their helmet straps). In a work environment we replace the helmets every 5 years but granted ours get worn a lot more than casual climbing helmets. I wear mine more or less daily, year-round.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@dp, no stickers, so I recon it’s good for another 15
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In all likelihood it probably will.
Just don't ask me to sign the paperwork 
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FAQ
