GriGri Unconfidential

I’m seeing a lot about the new Petzl GriGri+ this week, which looks very nice. It’s always good to see the kit being Toyota Corolla’d (incrementally improved over decades) — rather than a disappointing revolution (DeLorean DMC-12). But seeing GriGris everywhere has also been the kick up the arse I needed to finish this short GriGri confessional.

Note: although this may appear to be about Petzl GriGris, it isn’t really. If used correctly, it’s no worse than any other device and is generally much better.

If there were AA-style meetings for chronic fuck-ups, I’d be standing there, hand raised: “Hi, I’m Andy, and I’m a fuck-up.”

Like alcoholism, fuck-up-ism is something you’re born with, in your DNA, not something you ever recover from — you only learn to manage it, or you don’t. That takes vigilance, discipline, and self-awareness. And just like alcoholism, no matter how long you’ve stayed on the wagon, how many days sober or free from fuck-ups, one slip — one error, one mistake — and you’re off. Only, while alcohol kills you slowly, over years, a fuck-up can kill or maim you — or someone else — in seconds.

On the upside: just as writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski made a living turning drink and drugs into their muse, mine has been the fuck-up. Whether it’s Psychovertical, Down, standing on stage, or this Substack, much of it sits somewhere on the far side of professional competence. I fuck up, therefore I am.

In a recent podcast, I fessed up to rappelling off a pitch on El Cap with an open GriGri. If I’d stopped on a ledge and unweighted, then reweighted the rope, it might have slipped out — and I’d have been dead a year and a half ago. But it didn’t. I’d like to think that, after several thousand metres of rappelling on GriGris, this was the first time I’d made that mistake. But, being a master fuckwit, I know it was probably just the first time I noticed.

The GriGri and I seem to have a complex relationship. It’s caught many a falling climber — me included — and has been an able tool for moving up and down big walls. But it’s also been the locus of many errors over the years.

It pains me to admit that multiple times in my climbing life I’ve misthreaded my GriGri — the dead rope exiting where the live rope should be, and vice versa. This hasn’t just happened while belaying, but also while rappelling, lowering, hauling, and rope climbing. It’s never led to an accident, but it could have.

That kind of error might have been excusable in the mid-’90s, when the GriGri was new — if you ignore the fact it literally shows you how to thread it “on the tin” — but not in the mid-2020s, after 30 years of use across multiple versions (GriGri Mk1 and Mk2, GriGri+ Mk1 and Mk2, and GriGri Neo). Yes, 30 years on, I still make this mistake sometimes (but remember, I’m a fuck-up).

There are two ways you realise you’ve misthreaded a GriGri.

• One is a kind of climber’s “spider-sense” — something isn’t right. The rope feeds oddly, snatches as you take in slack, or just looks wrong (things that look right usually are; things that don’t usually aren’t).
• The other is when it matters: catching a fall, rappelling, or lowering someone. When the GriGri doesn’t do what it’s supposed to — assist you in controlling the rope — it’s like putting salt in your coffee instead of sugar. Your brain crashes, then reboots, and if you’re lucky, you have time to work it out. Sometimes you don’t.

One thing worth saying is that a misthreaded GriGri still works — even if you’ve got a 30kg haul bag hanging from you a mile off the deck, or you’re holding a fall. It just doesn’t lock, and it requires that old-school skill: holding the damned rope. Which means the real danger comes when someone gets slack or lazy with the brake hand. If the leader falls — whether leading or on top rope — your chances of grabbing the rope as it whips through the GriGri are slim, and of holding it if you do, slimmer still. Also, even if you’ve got the brake rope in your hand, if 100% of the force comes onto it unexpectedly, you might let go. This is one of many reasons a GriGri is not “auto-belaying” or “hands off”, but assisted braking. Keep hold of the fucking rope.

The formal solution to this pilot error is a buddy check before each climb. It’s not just about checking the rope is correctly tied into the leader’s harness — it’s also about checking the device is threaded properly. The leader checks the belayer’s device; the belayer checks the leader’s knot. For the leader, it’s a win-win.

A less formal way to avoid this error — and others — is to let experience tell you when to pay more attention. When you’re tired or distracted, it’s dark, or you’ve just had a real tussle on a route and are still simmering about your shit performance. You need to set an internal alarm for when the situation is ripe for error — when you’re most likely to fuck up. Maybe you’re rushing. Maybe someone’s talking about some drama in their life as you thread your device. In those moments, stop. Redouble your focus for those few seconds, whether it’s threading your GriGri or tying in. Make those moments sacred.

Imagine trying to thread your GriGri wearing mittens, with all your hoods up, with the wind howling, the temps way below zero.

When it comes to rappelling on my GriGri — often with a large haul bag hanging from it — I always stay tethered until the device is fully loaded.

Of course, there’s also the fuck-up dividend: having made so many errors with my GriGri, I now keep an eye out to make sure others don’t make the same ones. Poacher turned gamekeeper.

All this is fairly run-of-the-mill. But what I wanted to add is something I’ve long noticed in myself and others when it comes to errors and fuck-ups — something most obvious in a GriGri misthread. It’s the embarrassment, and, when belaying, the subtle betrayal of trust. Someone trusted you with their life, and you failed to do that properly.

And because of that, when someone spots the error, instead of fixing it and saying, “Hang on, I’ve threaded this wrong,” they say nothing. They’d rather risk their partner than face the embarrassment or undermine that misplaced trust.

There are ways to fix it — tie a figure-of-eight, clip it to your belay loop, rethread — but more often it becomes a private, dirty secret.

I suppose another reason I’m sharing these GriGri stories is to show what I mean by being an incurable fuck-up — but also to reveal a second flaw. Call it honesty if you like, but I’m not very good at keeping secrets, not even dirty ones.

When I reached the base of El Cap and looked down at my half-open GriGri, the right thing would have been to tell no one. The same with misthreading GriGris. To keep it quiet. But that would only protect the image, not the truth.

But the real truth is that all climbers are afflicted — all fuck-ups like me — constantly harried by mistakes, errors, and slips. It’s the human condition.

The difference is, most people keep them secret.