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wildone

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 1, 2004 - 04:55pm PT
A while back, there were some scary lead stories posted which was a very entertaining thread to read. How about some epics? I'm sure we all have enough stories to fill a book.
So how about it? I for one would like to read something that isn't egotistical posturing...
Melissa

Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
Sep 1, 2004 - 05:36pm PT
Here's an "epic" from a trip to Joshua Tree a couple of years ago. I hope it doesn't contain too much egotistical posturing...although I think that the point of epic stories is usually thinly veiled egotistical posturing.
...

5:30 p.m. We decide to cram a few climbs in before dinner. We stop at Trashcan Rock on the way out of the park. Mike gets his first aid experience on the first few moves of an 11c tip crack on the front side of the formation. The top is much easier, and soon enough there is a lovely TR begging me to give it a shot. In the worst possible style, I frig my way up this thing, but, Lordy, is it ever fun trying. We also do the double cracks and a cool friction climb on the backside before it gets dark.

8:00 p.m. Time for chow. "Do you have the keys?" "I don't have the keys. I thought you had the keys." No keys in the trunk. No keys at the base. Sh#t, The keys must be on or in the rock somewhere.

8:30 p.m. I catch a ride into town with some non-English-speaking Chinese women who had stopped by Trashcan for no discernable reason. Mike stays with the gear-filled car since I had the keen foresight to roll down the power windows before loosing the keys.

9:15 p.m. I arrive at the circle K outside the park. AAA: "No locksmith can legally make a new key for you since it is a rental car." So I embark on another mini-epic of computer-voice menus...

9:30 p.m. Alamo: "There's a spare hidden in the triple secret location within your rental car." Now...If I could only get back to the car. I glance around at my Circle K campadres and gaze across the street at the JTree Saloon and decide that I'm not brave enough to hitchhike on the 29 Palms highway.

9:35 p.m. Yucca Valley Yellow Cab: "The driver will be there in 20 minutes."

10:00 p.m. Yucca Valley Yellow Cab: "Is this Melissa? Sorry, the driver (ahem, the only one) had an appointment. He's on his way now." No, worries. I've become quite friendly with the Circle K employees by now who came out to see why I was loitering on their stack of fire wood. I'll miss them when this is over.

10:30 p.m. I decide to buy Mike a hotdog. A mustard error leaves a woman in a white sweatshirt spattered in yellow. I feel terrible, but she's so plowed that she can't stop laughing.

11:00 p.m. I arrive back at Trashcan Rock to find Mike asleep in the front seat with the window rolled up. He either found the keys we lost or found the triple secret hidden keys.

The keys were at the base of our climb.

LEDs are lightweight, but they kind of suck.
just_one

Mountain climber
SF, CA
Sep 1, 2004 - 06:14pm PT
Melissa, for a second there I thought you were going to describe that "other" epic involving misplaced keys at j-tree :)
Melissa

Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
Sep 1, 2004 - 06:52pm PT
My how time flies. Although I can honestly say, that I was probably in the foulest mood of any climbing trip I've ever taken, our JT trip was really a special one...My last big trip before getting responsible and on my last dollar too...and somewhere just beyond your last dollar if memory serves. Just last week I was going through papers and found the 'special instructions' for my friend's '82 Civic that we rented for about a third of its resale value b/c we couldn't afford to make either of ours legal...Good times. Nice to hear from you!

Here's a bit from my TR...but I'll keep the 'key incindent' confidential. ;-)

"...First glitch: neither of our cars is registered. The feds caught onto Justin the week prior in the Valley, so we are both afraid to use our respective wagons. We want to rent a car but that too poses problems: we are broke...my license was stolen a few weeks ago with my wallet...Justin does not meet the 25 years of life requirement. To solve our car problem and help with another friend’s money problems, we rent my friend Carl’s heap. After going over a page of special operating instructions and revving her fragile engine for about 5 minutes, I set out to get Justin. Next glitch: Justin is sick.

10 hours later, we arrive in Josh. We are pleased that both the car and Justin have survived the trip. After a few hours of hunting for a campsite we find 3 adjacent, empty sites in Jumbo. We set up our tents. As I prepare for bed, I realize the bag that I packed with all of my pants and sweatshirts did not make the trip with us. It is either in my house or on a curb in San Francisco. Either way, it will be a long week climbing in my overalls. I had had a bad feeling that taking off again for my umpteenth autumn road trip was probably a mistake. I throw my first temper tantrum of the week. The glitches abound and I have yet to even look at a climb.

Pissed off, I sit on a rock and brood. Maybe forgetting the pants was a blessing. Had I remembered them, I’m sure I’d have just gone to bed. However, from my brooding boulder perch, I am witness to one of the most spectacular natural phenomena I’ve ever seen: the Leonid meteor showers.

I’ve never seen a real shooting star. I always expected that it would be a little twinkle. On the contrary, they can be brilliant, persistent streaks of light across the dark night sky. Alone, on a crisp moonless night in the middle of the lightless desert, I feel as though they are trying to communicate something to be with their ebullient dance. I become unpleasantly chilled and tired sitting there, but I’m afraid to look away for fear of missing part of this show that will not return until I am an old woman. I decide that sometimes mundane things like a comfy bed can be as important to leading a quality life as once-in-a-lifetime adventures. I draw parallels to the way that I’ve ignored so many of the routine aspects of my city life to take climbing trips. In the face of the Leonids, I regret this trip some more and decide to turn in...."

I am so glad that I sat on that rock a little while longer...and that the keys got locked in the car. Some of the best experiences only become the best in hindsight. ;-)
Thom

Trad climber
South Orange County, CA
Sep 1, 2004 - 09:16pm PT
Don't know if this qualifies, but it was interesting at the time...

Keen to do Dark Star on Temple Crag, my partner and I formulate a plan to do it over a weekend: drive up Friday night; climb and fix the first two pitches on Saturday; alpine start on Sunday, top out, and drive home late Sunday afternoon.

We plan to leave from South Orange County on Friday night, immediately after work around 4:00 pm. I've got everything packed; ready to go. My partner informs me that his girlfriend insists on going out to dinner before he leaves, so he finally shows up at 8:00 pm. We get to the trailhead around 1:15 am catch a couple of hours of sleep and are on the trail by 5:00 am. We arrive at the base of Temple Crag at 8:20 am, set up camp and catch a couple more hours of sleep before climbing and fixing the first two pitches. We crash around 7:00 pm exhausted, planning on an alpine start Sunday morning.

We're at the base, ascending our fixed lines promptly at 5:00 am by headlamp. We're climbing the third pitch just as the sun hits us. Everything goes well and we're right on schedule as we reach the top of the second buttress. 3:00 pm. Blast down to camp, pack up, blast down the trail, and be on the way home by 6:00 pm; home by midnight. Cool. Only problem is that the top of the second buttress is nowhere near the summit! WTF!! The topo shows us on the summit and we got it from the FA, so what gives? Apparently, unbeknownst to us, the "official" length of the climb per the FA is 17 pitches and ends atop the second buttress; no one bothered to advise us that this isn't actually on the summit of Temple Crag. Totally committed, and now concerned that we might not find the rap station in the dark, we start blasting our way up only to be stopped by the first of at least two rappels that I remember.

As the sun begins to fade, we veer off from the summit point and begin heading up and east over 3-4 Class terrain, toward the rap station point. We gain the ridge and head down the other side where my partner finds the rap station only minutes before we would have been in darkness; by the time we both rap and coil the rope, we are.

There's an area of the talus field coming down from the pass that you don't want to be in...and we found it, and couldn't find our way out. Every step sent a landslide of rock down the gully, with us in the middle of it. About half way down we both bonked from not eating enough once we realized we needed to hurry—we'd stuffed everything in our packs and just climbed; now we were paying the price.

We reached the base at around 10:00 pm. I'm so dizzy I actually fall over while stuffing gear in my pack. At that point I'm fumbling for the king size bag of M&M's I know is somewhere in my pack. My partner is now puking in the bushes. And I'm in a small panic: I just began a new job and was working on a 6-month probationary status; I had to be to work by 7:00 am. Here I was, at the base of Temple Crag at 11:00 pm, two hours from the trailhead, six hours from home and trashed from climbing. Let's see... I've got to be at work in eight hours and it will take all of it just to get home...if I'm lucky. SH#T!!

After some Gatorade and a half-pound of M&M's each, we're flying down the trail, and we're on the road just before 1:00 am. Six hours to get home. I drive to Pearsonville and my partner takes over, having gotten some sleep. After he downs a couple of RedBulls, I jump in the back of my truck to catch some sleep. It's around 3:00 am. Next thing I remember is my partner blasting Rush Archives Vol I, screaming through Riverside at 90 mph; it's 5:30 am. Crap! I gotta get to work on time!! I call my wife, who has been up all night in a panic and was just minutes from calling SAR.

I arrive home at 6:15 am and jump in the shower while my wife makes my lunch for the day. I grab a can of Ensure and a granola bar and I'm out the door by 6:35 am. I arrive at work just as we begin our morning meeting. The job foreman asks how my climbing weekend went. "Let's just say it's not over yet," I say. He looks at me funny, then realizes what I just said.

Did I mention I work heavy construction? Our first job of the day? We're called on an emergency to fix a ruptured natural gas line so, by 8:30 am, I find myself on the wrong end of a jackhammer breaking a whole in the middle of the street on the Balboa Penninsula. Fire Dept., Police Dept., News Media, road shut-down, and I'm sweating my ass off in a set of NOMEX coveralls and gloves (complete with hood), wearing a full fresh-air respirator in a hole in the ground trying to get control of flammable gas screaming into the atmosphere. I made it until lunch time and promptly fell asleep in the cab of our work truck. The job foreman carried me through the rest of the day and I lived to climb another day.

t.
wildone

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2004 - 11:36am PT
Whoa Thom-
It sounds like the crux of your climb was definitely your work day. That must have been gnarly.
I've been pretty lucky on epics (knock on wood) but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Recently topped out a crack and found the two bolt rap anchor at the ledge had been chopped, I didn't tag a second line, and I'm way past the halfway mark on my rope and I'm WAY too cheap to leave a cam behind, so I have to sling some sketchy non positive knob and rap to a point where if I fall while downclimbing I'll only break both my femurs. Which is not even an epic at all compared to some that I've read with characters like Jack Tackle and such.

I had one like yours last year, Thom, where I had just started dating this hardcore montana girl, and we decided on a sunday at noon that we would bushwhack up moss creek by El Portal all the way up to where a bridge crosses it, near the Merced and Tuolumne grove of Sequouias (sp?), then walk back about twelve miles on an old logging road at night. Problem was, about 5 miles into our bushwhackand a few thousand feet of elevation gain, and we were nowhere near the road. THe sun was going down, and we were probably about a mile or so and a thousand vert. feet from the road through some of the thickest bushwhacking I've ever seen, where sometimes you're walking on crotches in the branches of bushes 8 feet off the ground, and sometimes you're crawling. We figured it was no big deal because we could walk the roads in the dark, but there was a slight problem. The map hadn't been updated since the 70's. The network of logging and forest service roads was nowhere close to resembling reality. We would come to a junction of three roads, where on the map there was only two, with discussion, we would choose one, walk three miles down it only to have it dead end. We kept this up until about 4 am (keep in mind it was early may, we were wearing sleeveless shirts, thin pants, and it was COLD!-we never thought we would be out so long) so we hike to a small outcropping above El Portal called Eagle Peak, and cross countried down to Foresta rd and walked back to El Portal. Got to my apartment at 5:45 AM, just in time to shower and change and go to work in the valley. With no sleep, about 16 hours of walking (or rather, fighting the brush for every inch I gained), and the worst full body poison oak suit I've ever worn.
But the best part is that not once during that whole thing did she complain or call me an idiot. We learned a lot about each other that day and we've been dating for about a year and a few months. She's really quite a jewel, and I wonder if we would have continued to date if we hadn't had this incredible bonding experience.

Melissa- Thanks for the entertaining post. I can't believe I still havn't been to J-Tree. Maybe this winter.
just_one

Mountain climber
SF, CA
Sep 2, 2004 - 08:27pm PT
Funny, I didn't realize you were out there looking at the stars until I read your TR. Too bad I didn't know. I would have loved to see them. I'm glad that you found something good about that night though. It was definitely an epic in every sense of the word. Thats why we remember it so well I guess. And yeah, the key incident was crucial. I wouldn't have missed it for the world!

Here's my own little recent epic:

Cathedral Peak: the girlfriend climb. Or so it's called amongst the group of "hardmen" I associate myself with from time to time. And I do say that with sarcasm for all you "real" hardmen out there. I can't remember how many times I've soloed or simuled by parties of one semi-competent looking dude and his totally freaked out gumby girlfriend and thought, "I will never be that dude..."

Well about a month ago I was eating my words. I met the girl of my dreams at the local gym, fell in love and decided that the perfect place to show her what real climbing is all about was on cathedral. I assumed that it ought to be well within her grasp. She had recently hiked half dome succesfully and was climbing .10a solidly in the gym. A simple 5 pitch 5.6 shouldn't be too bad, right? We started out on golfers route, just to get her used to the rock. She cruised it, and I was feeling confident we'd have no trouble.

You'd think 4 liters of water, 4 cliff bars, two bagels, some salami and cheese, hummous, and a bag of gorp would suffice for a short day of climbing for two fit people yeah? Seemed like overkill to me. Hell, I'd done the climb with a novice before in 5 hours car-to-car with little more than a liter and a cliff bar each. Well, it turns out that this chick eats like oprah in a country buffet! By the time we started the climb, all we had left was a few nuts and one liter of water! And I hadn't hardly touched any of it. I was a little worried, but I figured with all that hydrating, she'd be fine....

The climbing went well. We started out below several parties and took our time so we weren't crawling up their butts. After we passed one party and the others veered right onto easier ground, we started simuling. We continued this to one pitch below the summit, and three hours after leaving the base we were on the summit. All was fine and dandy except that we were out of water and food. I didn't think anything of it really since all that was left was an easy romp down some talus and an hour and a half of mellow hiking. She seemed to be faring well, if a bit tired and ready to head out. So I lowered her off the summit and then climbed down to the ridge. When I got there, she was nearly passed out and complaining of faintness. Apparently, the lack of water and high altitude joined forces to render her nearly useless. I proceeded to carry her up to the ridge crest and down the talus, scraping her arm on a boulder in the process and nearly toppling several times. I was beginning to get really worried when I spotted another party cruising down the gully. I sprinted up to them to ask for some water or food. All they had was a packet of honey. This boosted her energy enough to allow her to walk for a while. Before long, it was dark and we were wearily trudging at a snails pace, stopping every few minutes for rest and retching. I was beginning to feel spent too after all the carrying and sprinting. But, I was determined to get us back to the car before midnight. We finally made it, but not before I got the full brunt of her anger at my poor planning. I felt horrible. Some guide I was.

In the end, she decided it wasn't entirely my fault and that there were some enjoyable parts. I hope to convince her that alpine climbing can be quite fun. Next time though, I'm bringing a goddamn truckload of supplies! So much for fast and light.
Nate D

Trad climber
San Francisco
Sep 4, 2004 - 04:09am PT
Debated about sharing this one, as it is anything but egotistical or self-aggrandizing, but rather downright embarrasing and possibly boring. We all learn some lessons the hard way, no?

Went to Lover's Leap for the first time 8 yrs. ago. My partner and I drive from SF in the dark and we are the first party to hit the wall. We thoroughly enjoy the East Crack route, descend, and as there are parties on all the classics on the East Wall, we head for the Central Wall.

We glance at the topo and decide on an incredible steep 5.9 (probably Eagle Buttress). Great and exposed first pitch to a fine ledge. My turn to lead. After failing to turn a bouldery lip to gain a slabby face, I walk right and start up some blocks. I see bolts above, but the going looks difficult, so I veer further right into a big right facing corner.

It doesn't take long for me to discover that this corner seems very seldom traveled. Oh well. I pant, pause, and struggle up thru dry weed-choked cracks, rustling choking particles into the hot still air. The walls are perfectly oriented to catch every available ray of the late afternoon sun - and I have no water. It feels like at least 2 hours to lead the miserable pitch. I feel utterly puzzled and alone, and decide I hate climbing. My partner is out of site down below, but sensing I am at the end of the rope (or desperately wanting to be), I set up a hanging belay and cook in the corner while my partner cruises up to me, agreeing I've lead us into no mans land.

As the sun sinks fast, he decides to try continuing upward - figuring we have 2 more pitches before the top. Not far off the belay, the going seems more difficult and he opts to bail off an old rusty bolt or pin. That decides it, we will rap down. Fine by me, as I am getting very weak. Trouble is, we only have one rope. After one rap, we find another old loose pin and back it up with a hex. (Booty for the next unfortunate soul who passes that way.)

The light fades. My partner raps first, stepping cautiously over a human sized block teetering just below us. Happily, he is able to reach the big ledge and rap anchors. I proceed, and make it to the ledge, and just as I am walking left to my partner, the rope above somehow lets loose that ominous block. Wizzing past us, it thunders down the slabs below in the dark. Nobody as stupid as us below, we hope. Although very dizzy, this definitely wakes me up.

Figuring our doubled rope won't get us to the base of the climb, my partner decides to rap first off a single rope length, ensuring he'll get to the bottom, scope out possible rap anchors on the way, and send up a headlamp for me. (In hindsight, a pretty selfish decision, considering my state.)

He sees nothing much on the way down, and I slowly and methodically double the rope, somehow remembering to tie the ends together. As I rap with a weak headlamp, it becomes evident the wall is slightly overhanging, and fairly featureless. I come to the knot, utterly exhausted, and about 40' off the deck. My partner attempts to give advice from below, while eating an apple. I see a very shallow horn at about knee height. It takes about all the strength I have, and at least an hour, to get my weight off the knot, add several slings to the end of the rope, clip into those, get lower, swing into the wall, drape another sling over the horn, pray, transfer my weight onto that, pull the rope and rap again.

Ah, terra firma at last... and then my legs start cramping with every step. I don't feel thirsty anymore, but begin drinking water from in my pack at the base, and can barely keep it down. It takes another hour it seems to stumble back to the car. I call my nurse/wife, who immediately informs me of how foolish I am, and advises drinking as much as humanly possible the whole way home. My partner drives, radio blasting to stay awake, and we are home by 3:00 am.

Haven't been back to beautiful Lovers Leap since.
kismetcapitan

Trad climber
Seoul Korea
Sep 5, 2004 - 02:03pm PT
running out of water sucks ass. It weighs a lot but it's better than the ultimate suffering of no water on a hot Yosemite summer day. The only thing that has sucked worse was heading out to MC with Mr Way to do a 5.9 called Corkscrew. He wanted to rebolt the belay so off we went. He started off the route by traversing about 10-15 feet to the left and then up a bit, then back right about 10 feet or so. A bit later the rope goes taut and that's my cue to start up - I can't hear him and the two-way radios I brought obviate just such a situation were useless as Way refused to carry one. I take a look at the zigzag traverse Way did to get to the main crack proper, and then I scope out a direct route straight for the crack and find this to be a more logical way to go. So I start heading up on jug after jug and find it to be totally rotten and full of choss galore. I start yarding off chunks of rock to clear the way when all of a sudden I notice a bee hovering to my right, checking me out. I tell it to f#ck off and continue yanking out loose rocks and heading upwards. Then about a hundred of his buddies show up and start stinging the $hit outta me. After a couple seconds of indecision, I decide that the fastest way to get away is to get off the route. I yell to Way to lower me off. No response. So I jump off and I hear a stream of slander from above; can't discern what he's saying but I can well imagine the content. Hanging in the air, I'm easy pickings for the enraged yellow jackets, whose home I had just inadvertently ripped apart, and they continue to let me know just how they felt about that. After screaming for what seems like ages for Way to put me back on the ground he finally does. Of course, we've been climbing with twin ropes so I have two figure-8's to undo with my swollen and by now nearly useless hands. After I'm free I sprint up the talus until the swarm decides to leave me alone. I swell to the point where I can't even put on my approach shoes, so I lie on a boulder while Way revamps the anchor, after he gets down we have to hang out more until I can get my shoes on. A stop at the Village store for antihistamines, and then I spend the next five days lying miserably in my tent at Camp 4. Bees are jengis.
thebravecowboy

Social climber
Colorado Plateau
Nov 9, 2013 - 12:13pm PT
I got greedy the other day in Unaweep Canyon. Spotted a nameless weed-choked low-angle chosspile off to the west of Obe-Wan Kanobe. I, being a gear whore, simply could not resist the stuck #12 BD nut and old bail tat that appeared to be within easy reach. Never once did I stop to think about why the previous party might have quit the climb where they did.

We finished up our TR session and I jumped on the sharp end, hauling up way more gear than most people need for the Nose. Right off the bat, things were weird. The choice between low-angle no-pro slab and steeper vegetated (anyone else hate how pokey currant bushes aka gooseberries are?) dirty 'cracks' led me to veer hard left around the slabby bulge to an easier, dirtier crack system. I plugged a second piece after excavating a placement beneath a nice crackly bush. Pushing on, I got a really good #4 C4 and moved up to a weird little section of pseudo-chimney. I put in three shitty pieces all close together and just as I prepared to launch, my pard, Sal Paradise, sez, "You must be really scared." Yes, I say, to that.

The moves were probably Cl. 4, but I had the fear. I proceeded another twenty feet, plugging shitty gear as I went, until the crack steepened and at long last I could see the precious booty. It was OLD. Like to the point that UV had cracked and ruined the plastic cover on the wire swage. I cleaned the nut (no leaver 'biner on it for some reason, given that it had probably served as a rap anchor). I put in a decent cam and immediately the rock quality turned to total flaky bullsh#t. Knock-knock, hollow style flaky. Peeking away from the steepness, looking for an exit to the side, all I could see were precarious basketball sized nugs of doom that screamed "Don't tread on me." Nevermind, I thought, plugged a cam, moved up through the steepest bit, finally clipping a sewn sling around a decent little Pinyon. The sling had been cut and retied; it was totally crackly with UV damage. At this point, my non-use of slings had added the equivalent of a small Clydesdale's weight worth of rope drag to the system. Great.

I spotted another bail sling up another thirty or so feet of very, very, loose ledgy blocky terrain. No one f*#king climbs this thing. Oh well, I wasn't too into rapping off the Pinyon and Sal had already indicated his disinterest in climbing up this Cl. 4 pile of loose crap. I pushed on to a terrible crinkly UV-wasted sling around a boulder. Plugged some of my last cams, took a breath and then spent the next couple minutes convincing Sal that he need to come up with some trustier leaver tat. Good pard that he is, he did. It did take some cajoling though. We rapped off a 3lb chockstone and bootied an old Chouinard 'biner with the bad tat. I got to keep that awesome nut. A really solid Sunday choss factory adventure.

The whole time I was up there I couldn't stop thinking about an accident I witnessed some time ago. The accident, at Green Valley Gap in St. George, was precipitated by one so-called guide's greed for a booty draw. I kept thinking of old Brucey-poo and how his rushedness, his greed, and his lack of forethought conspired to shatter an already trashed ankle. But that, my friends, is a story for another day, a tale of a chossaneer gone awry.
pud

climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
Nov 9, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
I passed a bolt without noticing once on a dome in Tuolumne .
It was hairy.
thebravecowboy

Social climber
Colorado Plateau
Nov 9, 2013 - 12:37pm PT
damn, pud, mine hands are dripping sweat. how didya pull it off?
pud

climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
Nov 9, 2013 - 02:40pm PT
damn, pud, mine hands are dripping sweat. how didya pull it off?

Experience, man.

I saw my life flash before me. I thought all was lost.
I thought of my wife, kids, mom...
It was all a blur.
Everything was in slow motion.

Then I realized I was on top rope.
My partner yelled down at me to quit day-dreaming so I proceeded up the 5.4 slab with haste.
Gunkie

Trad climber
East Coast US
Nov 9, 2013 - 03:41pm PT
Climbed to Sickle Ledge (then took a five hour break), hauled the pig from the base of the fixed lines late in the day, wrangled the pig to the top of pitch 5, down climbed, rapped to the ground, walked out to the car and realized *I* left the keys in the haulbag. It's 9:30 pm. Walk back in, jug the lines, reclimb pitch 5, get the keys, down climb, rap from Sickle once again, walk back out to the car and get to camp around midnight. We postponed the climb by one day.

We considered smashing the window, but neither of us knew how to hotwire a car.
jgill

Boulder climber
Colorado
Nov 9, 2013 - 06:35pm PT
About a half century ago, while doing a climb with Pete Cleveland, I made a poorly protected, exposed and blind dynamic move around a corner of an overhang expecting to latch onto some kind of hold. Since it was on a spire in the Black Hills Needles where the rock can be coarse the chances were pretty good I thought. Worked.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Nov 9, 2013 - 11:06pm PT
Wow John, I hadn't heard about that one!

I've documented my first Needles sketchfest at http://www.supertopo.com/tr/The-First-Ascent-of-the-Needles-Eye/t222n.html; most of the folks here have read it by now.

A tale of terror in the Wind Rivers I've posted about is at http://www.supertopo.com/tr/A-Walk-with-McCarthy-in-the-Winds/t223n.html.

Another sketchy day, this time with Kamps and a falling squirrel, is posted at http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1616302&msg=1616302#msg1616302.

Finally, a classic bit of sketch-a-neering is at http://www.supertopo.com/tripreport/tripreport.php?articleid=12189.
phylp

Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
Nov 11, 2013 - 07:40pm PT
This is a fun thread. I loved Melissa's lost keys story!
Nice that it got resurrected.
thebravecowboy

Social climber
Colorado Plateau
Nov 12, 2013 - 07:55pm PT
MH2

climber
Nov 12, 2013 - 08:56pm PT

thebravecowboy

Social climber
Colorado Plateau
Nov 12, 2013 - 10:21pm PT
Knott enough wide cams today
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