Grigri

Now, what is that called? Um, you know that piece of gear that goes around a rope? It's got a handle.

Yeah, you can use an ascender, a Grigri, or a Prusik knot.

Correct.

Yeah, there are a few different ways, but we did, actually didn't have any of those pieces of equipment.

I, I started climbing outdoors.

Uh, yeah, like I said, I just went and bought a rope, a harness, eight quickdraws, you know, some red chili shoes, a GriGri, and I was like, "Let's figure this thing out." So yeah, a lot of, lot of YouTube videos and, and stuff later and, uh, yeah.

Yeah, I was, I was going out and doing a lot TR soloing, lead rope soloing.

Um, there was this one Marine on my base who also liked to climb, so me and him would go out sometimes together.

And, you know, when you're belaying someone else that you're down there, that you're holding them, it's...

And we practice falling when we do things, but we say falling so the person down there knows, but also the Grigris that we're using, they stop you.

But when you're doing this other climbing, you climb with different equipment that doesn't necessarily have all the safety stuff.

Okay.

Like, uh, you know, actual rigging that people do for, for, like, arenas.

Because, you know, like, when I rig something to, like, rappel off the top of a cliff, I'm like, "Ah, I got my Grigri, I got my single rope.

Here we go," and just zip over, and you're like, "Whatever." But then you're like, yeah, if you had to do this day in and day out every day for your job with like, like you say, hundreds of people for, you know, decades, you're like, "Someone's for sure gonna die doing that." You're kind of like, oh yeah, there's so many decisions like that in climbing that you're like, "Yeah, this is fine for me this one time," but like, man, you wouldn't want to multiply it out.

And then that starts to make sense why so much of the equipment in that rope access side seems over-engineered, right?