Headpoint gear - page 1
When I did my first headpoint, the Peak Technique slab at Back Bowden, the prevailing ethic was borrowed from ye olde climbing mantra; “the leader must not fall off”. In this case “the headpointer must not fall off”. That was the whole point of the game; you tried routes where as far as any sane person was concerned, it would be impossible to get away with blowing it. The primary cause served by putting in any gear was to keep a jittery mind occupied on the way to the crux. The only person that ever fell off while headpointing was Seb Grieve, and who wanted to have stress wrinkles like his? I soloed past some flared slots on Peak Technique, thinking that while this ‘all or nothing’ approach might be a defensible mental strategy for the route of a lifetime, using every weekend was surely bound to backfire eventually. Around this time, rumours of someone taking a fall from something like a grit E7 was news, but gradually, falling off and hitting the ground became more and more in fashion. Tom de Gay once told me he’d fallen off a third of his headpoints of E7+ (probably not far off 100 routes?). Hitting the ground is still scary and painful, even if you are lucky and bounce instead of splat. Thus, the almost inevitable next step in falling fashion was for people to get some real protection in, where it had never gone before. All sorts of inventive solutions were tried out, such as pre placed car jacks in wide cracks and tightened ropes around protruding lumps of grit. However, the modern headpointer who is prepared to fall off where no one else would needs to look first to that all important piece of climbing hardware, the belayer, the maximise their chances of reaching old age. The Belayer This most important piece of the headpointer’s rack deserves a separate section. The ideal belayer for dangerous headpoints must have certain key qualities, most of which you would find in Linford Christie. The first of these is reaction time. If the gear is too low to stop you hitting the ground, the belayer must take in enough rope during the time it takes to drop the length of the route to save you. Linford once said he was out of the blocks on the ‘B’ of the ‘Bang’. Your belayer needs to be valley bound on the ‘T’ of ‘Take!’. Moving fast isn’t the only advantage of having a big and burly belayer. When the rope comes tight a few inches above the ground you don’t someone lighter than you on the other end of the rope who will be pulled up, allowing you to go further than you need to. The final, but really important skill you need from your belayer is a cool head. If you’ve never belayed someone else leading a top end dangerous route, it can be a pretty harrowing experience. You know the chances of a fall are fairly high, and that your split second decisions if it does happen could make the difference between your friend getting away with it or, well, let’s not go there. Even if your belayer is feeling the fear, they must be able to hide it well. Even the tone of their voice might rub off on you and destroy your composure. All in all it’s a tough job, so don’t forget to thank them.
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Taking a 70 footer on Rhapsody, Dumbarton Rock. The micro stopper I'm falling onto snapped just after this shot was taken. Because I was already starting to swing inwards, I just missed being dropped onto the belay ledge (hitting off the black slab visible). Anticipating every eventuality in headpointing is pretty important! Photo: Steven Gordon