Forget Everything You Know About FROG
Posted: Nov 26, 2012 5:11 pm
According to this YouTube video, we know absolutely nothing about the frog systems, and all of those harnesses with low attachment points are a waste. We should be climbing with the crolls in our faces.
</sarcasm>
Now while the video poster describes themselves as a "curvy girl", the issue being that top heavy people have some issues in using frog. That is a known fact. People in this situation will instead switch to Mitchell or Ropewalker where the chest roller will keep them upright. Or they get a nice chest harness to help out. Here you see that neither of these options were taken.
In the end of the video, when the poster is on the normal frog harness, notice her chest harness. It is a piece of elastic. It is actually a device called a PupsPal sold by OR1. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that chest harness, and I know people who swear by it. But they are not top heavy people and are very efficient frog climbers, so a minimal chest harness works for them. Where as in this situation when she leans back, that the elastic chest harness is not the best way to go. A stronger chest harness like an MTDE or a PMI would help in this case.
A friend even commented on the video pointing out the folly of using an elastic chest harness and recommended reading Alpine Caving Techniques to get a better idea of a better chest harness, however their comment was quickly deleted from the video without rebuttal by the poster.
What is also interesting to note is that in the second half of the video, the frog system is setup inefficiently to begin with. The poster keeps referring to that gap of space between upper ascender and croll. That gap means the system is not efficient and something needs to be adjusted (looks like foot loop from the video). So with that fancy new harness, all that was done was to make an inefficient frog system more comfortable.
But to what degree? I could not imagine actually caving with something around my torso. Not to mention caving in a harness that big, I would rip that thing to shreds. But what about a rappel rack. It is now centered directly in my face and potentially over my head? That doesnt sound fun.
Now this is my opinion and Im not starting this thread to send a lynch mob out for the video poster either. I am posting this because thanks to the glorious internet people with little knowledge and training can now go on the web and make a video called Vertical Mythbusters that some people will take as fact and start following, when in fact, there is very little fact.