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Ammon
Big Wall climber
The Mountains
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 12, 2005 - 07:34pm PT
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Here’s one:
Last year Brian McCray and I were climbing Lost in America together. It was the first time we had roped up since the little accident on the Dunn Route, in Zion. For those of you who don’t remember I got hit badly by rock fall.
Anyway, we started up LIA, a 16 pitch route on El Cap in a push. We were chomping at the bit with enthusiasm and the way we divided the pitches, proved this. The plan was that I was going to lead 8 in a row and then Brian’s 8 pitch block would lead us to the summit.
Everything was going as planned and I was really psyched to have finished my block in under seven hours. Brian took over and swiftly lead the next two pitches. On his third pitch of his block he whipped.
I heard him yell out with pain and then silence. “Are you all right”, I asked him.
“Yeah, I’m fine”, came his reply.
Brian called for some tape, which I promptly tagged up to him. He led the next two pitches and I could tell he was slowing down, just a hair.
“Hey, I know I was supposed to take us to the top….. but, do you think you can take over the lead”, Brian yelled down.
“No problem, fix the line and I’ll be right up”, I yelled back. I cleaned the pitch, grabbed the rack and continued to the summit, making it in record time.
We had a few friends at the rim when we arrived and I was ready to celebrate. I went to give Brian a “high-five” when I noticed the look on his face. The look told me that everything wasn’t ok. He took the tape off his hand and showed me the damage.
“Holy SH#T, what the hell happened down there” I asked Brian. That’s when Brian relayed the story to us.
Apparently, Brian had just put in a beak. He tested it, clipped in his aider and climbed to his high point. Somehow the bottom of his aider got clipped to the piece below. The beak blew and he whipped. Since the bottom loop of his aider was clipped into the piece below it flipped upside-down as he fell pass the piece.
The beak that was still attached to his aider also flipped upside-down, creating a hook. His hand embedded into the hooked beak and the first thing that caught him was his hand, which was attached to piece above.
So, that was what the yell was all about and as I looked at his opened wound my stomach did a few flips.
Wow, I thought….. Brian is a TRUE hardman. After this bizarre accident ripped opened the palm of his hand, he bit-the-bullet and continued for two more pitches. Not complaining, once.
The image of Brian hanging by his hand with a beak entrenched into his palm, still makes me shudder.
This is what his hand looked like a few weeks after the accident.
Do any of you have any bizarre stories to tell?
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roy
Social climber
New Zealand and now in Santa Barbara
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Jan 12, 2005 - 07:41pm PT
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Pain is not an emotion that Vulcans understand.
Roy
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Jan 12, 2005 - 07:57pm PT
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damn you roy! you beat many of us to that one!!!
How about a haul bag that takes a 200 footer after the pigs come unclipped from the main haul biner and they don't deck! If it wasn't for the fact that I was doing the hauling (and thus didn't clip/pack/manage the bags) I can tell this story with little attachment. It wasn't me, man.
I won't disclose names or places but lets just say it was about 15 pitches up the west side of el cap.
It was a bit of an emotional journey. We all didn't quite see eye-to-eye on how to climb a bigwall. Let's just say there are some folks that should not be on bigwalls. Anyway, enough political BS probably lead to some oversight on LOCKING the f*#king biner on the haul bags. I've since gone to Coilers rig of tying everything in with his special rig he showed me after the fact.
So I'm hauling the second set of pigs. Next thing I know I'm flying backwards until I hit the end of my daisy's. The pigs had cut loose. I survey the situation and realize they were still attached to the lowerout line. OH MY! I had help counter weighting so I scream to "Joe" to "rap immediately and help". He does, gets to "Jim" who was basically HOLDING the end of the tag line with said bags attached. They clipped that in first.
What we figured happened was when the pigs got stuck "Jim" yanked on the lowerout to get them loose. They got loose all right - to the tune of a full rope whipper. Burned hands (i'll dig that pict out) and torched daisies managed to cause enough friction to stop the line about 5 feet short of sending the whole rig to the ground.
I decided the best course of action was to inspect the bags before bringing them up. I wrapped 200 feet into space and determined the haul to be OK. We brought up the bags and decided it was time to retreat. No sense in wrapping off with bags full of beer so we had a party. "Jim's" hands were fine after a tape job. Here again, no whining. He managed and within a week was back on the rock. It was freaky but the end result was it was preventable. Obviously the haul biner wasn't locked but how it unclipped from the rig while fully weighted still puzzles me.
We told the story in the meadow afterwards but I don't think it's been repeated much since. Perhaps instead of Joe and Jim it should be Larry, Moe and Doug ;-). Curly was smart enough to bail earlier that day.
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Senor Pinche Wey
Big Wall climber
The Black
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Jan 12, 2005 - 08:31pm PT
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How bout' this one....
Me and Crotch were in Baja. I was leading the first pitch of The Pan American and tied into a nice new fat black 11mm rope. I tied in with a figure 8 and showed it to my partners "...looks great man..". The lead starts out with easy free climbing to the top of a pillar and a free traverse before the biz begins. Some hooks and a decent tcu goes into a thin corner. After much trashing around in a corner on some easy bit thin placements, I decide to free climb to the belay. Rack, boots, haul line and I free climbing yeah! Felt like a million bucks. I get to the belay and reach down to clip in and there was NO ROPE! Hmmm...I tell my belayer "I'm not on belay anymore" and he BURSTS OUT LAUGHING! (It really does seem funny now) I whine a bit and clip in with the haul line. I looked down and the rope was clipped into my last piece 15 feet below and half a figure was hanging down from that. Ahah! Thanks why I felt so strong, I wasn't tied into jack squat
It turns out that eight was really fat and while I was thrashing one of the loops got clipped into a piece, the knot worked its way out and presto, unintended solo. Watch those backup knots!
OLE!
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Gunkie
climber
I don't get mad, I get stabby -- Fat Tony
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Jan 12, 2005 - 09:03pm PT
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Climbing fluke?
How about the guy leading the Gunks classic High Exposure (5.6) around 1975 with his girlfriend?
Anyway, this guy takes his girlfriend up High Ex for her first climb ever. There at least three things wrong with that, but on with the story. On the last pitch, the guy clips a piece of gear way under the roof, clears the roof, and proceeds to clip a fixed pin or two above the roof. Then, while hauling up HUGE rope drag, he skates to the right onto the final pitch of Directississima (a.k.a Double-ississima) which is an awkward and strenuous 5.8 (not the strenuous, straight-forward 5.6 jug haul he was expecting).
The guy runs it out and yells down to his grilfriend that he can't climb any higher or downclimb the hideous, overhanging 5.8 face he just clawed up. Apparently the girlfriend begins sobbing about now. He's about 30 above the fixed pins and 20 feet to the right on an overhanging face. He's also only 10 feet below the top of the cliff and 250 feet off the deck. He makes an ill-fated attempt to claw to the summit and blows it.
The guy free falls and until he connects with the rope and begins a HUGE pendulum out into space (High Ex is a massive arete). The highly stressed rope is now pinched around the overhang. At a point in the pendulum just after maximum velocity and with an upward trajectory, the rope snaps.
Well the guy is now a projectile. He hurtles out away from the cliff and his trajectory takes him up and out from the cliff. His apogee was estimated at around 230' above the tree covered talus slope and well above the belay ledge. He arcs away silently. The only noise was the breaking of branches and the final dull thud of his body hitting the jagged rocks below.
The girlfriend and another party on the High Ex ledge are certain 'guy' is dead. They yell and yell and finally receive a muted cry for help. Of course they think he's in his death throes. The girlfriend is yelling down that she loves him and she can't live without him, etc. The party on the ledge sets up a belay for the girlfriend and they lower her to the base (barely). She runs down into the woods looking for the broken body of her love. She finds... nothing. The other party raps down and try to console the hysterical girlfriend. The party of three continues to look for another five minutes. Eventually they stumble out to the carrige road and begin the depressing trudge (jog) back to the ranger truck to report the accident. On the way back a ranger truck comes roaring up. They wave it down as it skids to a halt in a cloud of shale dust. The ranger asks if they know the injured climber. The girlfriend offers a confused yes.... maybe. Grilfriend: We were looking for the body of my boyfriend after he fell off High Exposure. Ranger: Is he wearing a blue "Ramsey Outdoor" tee shirt? Three in unison: YES!!! Ranger: He's not dead.
It ends up that 'guy' survived the crater from almost a football field in the air. He was in pretty good shape. the tree branches slowed him and spun him around so he landed in a sitting position between three large conglomerate boulders, on a deep bed of pine needles and moss. The rangers suspected a broken ankle, a possible dislocated shoulder, and a definite concussion. 'Guy' lurched out to the carriage road in a state of shock (which almost killed him) just as Thom Shure was driving past in his blue Datsun ranger truck. Thom took him to the hospital at about 90 MPH in that bucket of bolts while trying to keep him awake.
The girlfriend was reunited with 'guy' at the hospital. He didn't remember the accident nor the girlfriend. From what I understand, he stopped climbing and began dating some woman he met in rehab.
Oh well..
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Jan 12, 2005 - 09:25pm PT
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Daaaammmmmmmn.
A few years back Tony Sarton was up on Zenyatta when--in the middle of the pitch--all he can hear is some dude screaming. It goes on for what seems like hours, so Tony yells for the guy to quit crying and get on with his day. Turns out--at least this is what Tony later reported (and he's not one to lie)--the dude in question had lost a finger several pitches up while soloing, rapelled to the ground, and only then felt the need to get rid of that pain by yelling. Pretty burly...
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Jan 12, 2005 - 09:31pm PT
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Knots...
well there was this route that Arno started at Lost Wall GA, not too tall, one pitch, trad, but a 5.11 section and a 5.12 section in it. He got through the 5.11 section with a little consternation, a very strange move that actually had a solid thigh jam with no hands rest, after you got your mind around pulling into it from below with one foot starting out above your head. Then he spent a long time falling off the serious roof move.
It was a hell move, falling backwards off a little nub for your left hand and a reverse toe hook for your right foot, right against the wall, and your right hand matching with the foot, trying to stretch far enough out to this overhead left hand pinch, and then hang on long enough to get the other hand in there while your feet swing off. Arno fell about 20 times so it's way harder than I'll ever do.
So we aid up and finish and determine to come back later and free the whole thing. It's a nice route. Arno goes home and sets up a similar move on his practice wall. He works it til he thinks he can pull the move on the roof. Weeks later, we head for Lost Wall. This time he sails through the unusual and mind boggling 11 section no problem. He gets to the roof move. Almost sticks it. Three more tries, very close, you know he's going to succeed.
Number 5 he STICKS the pinch! And hangs there. Matches. He's golden now. Just a little campus and then feet. But he just hangs. And hangs. And then a quiet voice says, "*%&$T#*&@)!?". With great incredulity. So I ask, "What?", and he says, "The tie in knot-- it's stuck in the biner on the sling.". Bizzare! As he had pulled past the pro, somehow, we'll never know just how, that tie in knot had gotten caught.
In a few more tries he made the move without getting caught, and the route got the name, "Trickster", at 12b.
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Emil
Trad climber
Raleigh,NC
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Jan 12, 2005 - 09:32pm PT
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Wow. That's an unreal story. Going through the trees must have been what saved him. I seem to remember reading a story about an airman in WWII whose bomber was on fire. He jumped out without a parachute rather than burn to death and fell 18,000 feet. Crashed through some trees and got up and walked away.
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Dirk
climber
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Jan 12, 2005 - 09:37pm PT
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A tale of the bizarre and fundamentally stupid follows:
Back in 2000, I was way psyched on climbing walls, problem was I'd never done one. Enter woman problems. I decided the logical solution would be to solo (duh) the South Face of the Column. Common sense dicated that I begin at 6pm with no bivy gear.
Things were going great until I found myself on the crux pitch, sometime after midnight. Since the entirety of my knowledge about climbing was gained from John Long's "How to Rock Climb" I hadn't been keen enough to tie a back-up on my lead line past the Gri-Gri. Or any other sort of back-up. (No hard feelings, Largo.) Hell, I'd just figured out how to rig the system that afternoon after all. Anyways, halfway out I managed to zipper a couple of pieces on the traverse pitch and the handle of my Gri-Gri got caught on my fifi hook in the fall. This was some Bullshit!
Well to make a long story short, I didn't die. Shortly after the second scream (sure sign of a long fall) I bounced on the wall, and knocked the fifi out of position somehow. I climbed another pitch and then it got light out and started to drizzle. I jumped at the chance to bail. But not before dropping the Gri-Gri onto Dinner Ledge, just for added kicks. End of story.
I've never heard of anyone else having a similar accident. I guess everybody else is probably too smart...
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Dirk
climber
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Jan 12, 2005 - 09:41pm PT
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Yo Marty(r)
That dude yelling was Robert from Germany. He had his finger amputated later that week. He came back in 2002 and soloed the Reticent.
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Pappy
Trad climber
Atlanta
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Jan 12, 2005 - 11:58pm PT
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Nah, the best one was when Duane Raleigh soloed some tower in the desert and then rapped off the end of his rope on the descent. Falling to certain death, a knot that had mysteriously formed in his haul line whipped into a crack and jammed, saving him from a 300'+ grounder. God must be saving him for something, but it ain't editing magazines.
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Dog
climber
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Jan 13, 2005 - 12:46am PT
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I dont know if this qualifies as a fluke or just sheer stupidity but here goes;
Todd and I were climbing the leaning tower in a day back a few years ago. Leading in blocks was our style and figured that if nobody was on the route, we would have it in a few hours. No prob!
Leading the third or the beginning of the fourth pitch I heard voices and thought to myself, here goes, multiple parties on the Awahnee ledge. Nope, a party was on the fifth with the leader at the top of the fifth and the second almost to the anchors. No problem. Where was the haul bag, and why was the haul line rigged to the second?
I continued in what I was doing when all of the sudden, like big friggen rocks coming off the Captain, that sound of a large object in a hurry went whizzen' by brushing my back and by the time I realized what had happened, the boys above had dislodged the bag off the Awahnee ledge in a freefall tethered to a 200 foot line tied to the back of this kids swami and he was being used as a link between the haul line and his homemade etriers. Now looking down and seeing this bag going for the big swing was indeed impressive. First, the leader forgot to take the haul line and second man did a shitty job of making sure it would stay put.
When we caught up to these fellas, turned out to be a couple of kids from Montana on their first wall. "Never been here before", I can hear them saying now.We gave them a lead or two to make sure they got off this route. Todd check on them a day after and apparently it took an extra day and a long cold rainy night at the top before they descended.
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Flash
Ice climber
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Jan 13, 2005 - 01:53am PT
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That is awesome Ammon...remember the movie "Perfect Storm" when the hook whipping off the back of the boat on the line snagged that guys hand and took him overboard.....shivers up my spine...
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jan 13, 2005 - 03:55am PT
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nature:
i was at the base of the fixed lines when you guys rapped off from the captain ..
i rembember the rope that held the bags well .. it was that green rope in the picture ..
we fixed that line at the top of the heart fixed lines 2 days later. (after a near accident that me, and tom almost had)
Me, tom, and anna are hauling 5 pigs up the fixed lines to the heart, we get to the belay that has the big ledge (1 rope below the heart)
We've brought up 3 pigs, and are hauling the 4th. To ease hauling we've extended the powerpoint below the edge of the ledge using the fixed lines that are there.
Tom is hauling in space, and i'm hauling at the anchor. Suddenly the load is am standing on drops about 6" .. i look up and see that the SINGLE line that we used to extend the powerpoint has core-shotted, and is beginning to saw through. Images of 4 bags, and 2 climbers falling down the fixed lines rush through my head, there was 3 climbers below us.
We fixed the situation by adding another line to the extension, and completed hauling.
2 days later i bailed off from heart ledge.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jan 13, 2005 - 09:59am PT
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I don't have any person tales of such stature but I have a couple of good buddies that I can relay:
1. N00bs on WFLT:
A friend of mine (who after this developed into a really solid climber and shall stay nameless) was doing an internship in the Valley in the summer of '98. He decides to go up the WFLT with 2 buddies. He had bought a giant 300' length of low-stretch 11mm rope on pro-deal to do the Lost Arrow Tyrolean and still had it in its full length. For some reason he was reluctant to cut it and so they used it as a haul line, dragging their pigs and 100' of extra line up the route with them.
They spent the night on Ahwanee after fixing two pitches above Guano, so in the morning they began jugging the lines. Nameless had been shuttling gear from Ahwanee to Guano using the obscenely sun-bleached fixed line between the two ledges and was almost done. One of his partners had already began jugging up the fixed lines and Nameless had clipped the haul line into the back of his harness, and also unclipped the pig from the anchor.
This is important....300' haul line clipped to harness and to pig...pig NOT clipped to anchor and sitting upright on Guano.
Nameless realizes there is something back on Ahwanee and begins heading back over to do a final sweep before the pig is sealed up. As he traverses over the haul line clipped to his harness droops over the ledge, and finally enough of it is hanging that it starts self-feeding over the edge. Nameless is about halfway between the ledges now with his daisy clipped to the sun-bleached nightmare fixed line that has made Guano its home for god knows how long when he realizes what is happening. He looks over and watches helplessly as the rope keep feeding faster and faster. Finally it comes taught on the pig and the towering bag slowly lurches past equilibrium and tumbles off Guano.
Now Nameless was actually a pretty smart guy even if he did a stupid thing...smart enough to know that he was basically dead. He threw both his arms over the bleached line and braced for impact which, if I remember correctly, involved a lot of screaming. The haul bag, after its 300 foot whipper finally reached the end of the rope and yanked poor nameless off of Guano. Luckily there was an enormous amout of stretch left in the sun-bleach-nightmare fixed line, and by no minor miracle the ropes held. Nameless was now about 15 feet below Guano, hanging from death ropes with an 80 pound pig clipped to the end of a 300 foot rope.
I believe at this point his partners rushed down and threw him the other end of the lead line, which he then jugged with the pig still clipped to his ass, btu he might of had to jug the bleached line...I do not recall. In either case they began rappelling like a Freshman ROTC group and ran back to the Valley with their tails between their legs. Nameless did go back and solo the route later that summer.
2. My good buddy Matt Luck was jugging the fixed lines to Heart on his way up to do the Shield in the summer of '98. He was clipping short into his rope every 40 feet or so, and had a few loops dangling beneath him. As he approcahed Heart 2 climbers were rappelling off of Mammoth who had exchanged greetings with Matt's partner above him. All of a sudden there was a noise and Matt looked up to find that one of the climbers had rappelled off the end of his rope and was rocketing past him. All of a sudden Matt got yanked downwards about 20 feet and his hands popped off his jugs. When he got oriented again he realized that the guy had gotten tangled in his jug line and was hanging upside down about 30 feet beneath him. The guy managed to right himself and jug back up the line to Heart where the rappelled safely to the ground.
I guess he can thank all that traffic up to Heart for saving his life!
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Jan 13, 2005 - 10:43am PT
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Ricardo,
Yeah, you are one of the folks that I knew for sure heard about that epic and frequent this forum. You were at the base ready to get on Son of Heart?. I remember meeting you there. Thanks for fixing that green line. That reminds me, we owe the owner a new rope still.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Jan 13, 2005 - 06:41pm PT
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Devil's Tower January 1, 1980, base of the Durrance rapell route.
It was unseasonablly warm (50's) on the high plains that day. About a dozen of us had arrived in various groups to be first on top of the Tower in the new decade.
Steve Gariner ( ever meet him, Larry?) and I are babbling senselessly while waiting for my Bro and Steve's partner to rap down to us. All of a sudden we hear a squak and an awful sliding noise. I Look over toward another rap route (Bonhomme) and see this guy, fifty feet off the deck, (boulders) sliding down a column after rapping off the end of his rope.
Sliding turns to Cartwheels. This looks bad.
The helemeted body crashes into the boulders.
Steve and I look at each other and bolt up to the scene of the splat expecting the worst..
When we get there, the crumpled 'stiff' rises to a sitting position. Raising two torn flannel arms up to cradle his cratered helmet he says;
"I need a cigarette."
He was shell shocked but fine!
Just then a reporter from a local paper ran up and asked us who got to the top first.
"unh, we all got thereat the same time."
a sad ps to this story;
The ground fall survivor, who shall remain nameless, though, as you'll see, his name is in the public record, went off, big time, about a year later. He kidnapped his supervisor at one of the coalmines, (whom he'd been stalking) and barricaded himself, her and (her kids?) in her house in Gillette, with a battery of guns and pipebombs. I don't remember the whole deal, but before it was over he shot a couple of cops, killed at least one, his bombs somehow went off and burned down the house killing him, the stalkee and various other people.
Too bad he had worn a helmet.
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