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James
climber
My twin brother's laundry room
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 15, 2011 - 01:09pm PT
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Who's taken 100 foot climbing falls and part of the club?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 15, 2011 - 01:21pm PT
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Roped or unroped?
My farthest on rock - slab, to be exact - is about 20 m. Free falling, perhaps 10 - 12 m. I've had a much longer slide/fall on snow, but not sure that really counts.
Hi James!
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James
climber
My twin brother's laundry room
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2011 - 01:30pm PT
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Either way- just want to hear who's taken the big plunge
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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Aug 15, 2011 - 01:32pm PT
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I took one that Werner said was 130+. We(myself & partners) guessed it at about 100.
I didn't see a club. Kinda felt like I was clubbed, though.
Ouch.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 15, 2011 - 01:42pm PT
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Mighty,
Snow counts as the consequences can be the same. The first time I went on a
real climb with my brand new ice axe I went for one that would have been
better measured in kilometres. I finally stopped about .02 kilometer above
an undoubtedly terminal drop. And that wasn't due to the knowledge I'd gained
in the previous larger portion of a kilometer but rather because I crashed
into some rocks sticking out of the snow. Luck o' the Irish or does God
truly have a special fondness for us with special needs?
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James
climber
My twin brother's laundry room
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2011 - 02:18pm PT
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What happened skully and ron?
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:28pm PT
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Leading an aid pitch, back clipped a string of copperheads. The last one was a deadhead. I beaked it & the beak popped the deadhead. I always clean deadheads carefully now.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Aug 15, 2011 - 02:29pm PT
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If snow counts, then I'm in. Finally managed to get it under control with a ski-pole self arrest, which is a good thing, cuz it probably would have been terminal otherwise.
Lots of long falls on rock up to 50 feet, but nothing close to 100.
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Dirka
Trad climber
SF
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Aug 15, 2011 - 04:28pm PT
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In south Africa an outfit advertized bungi jumping off a bridge. My buddy and I signed up. I was surprised when they geared me up in a Yates harness and a Yates Chest harness. 11mm line (don't know the brand). Yup all Climbing gear. Funny, I trusted it way more than some rubberband.
Off I jumped for 160' fall. Felt like it was forever!
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Barbarian
Trad climber
The great white north, eh?
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Aug 15, 2011 - 04:41pm PT
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I'm in (snowfield, not rock).
Up the ante:
Who here has taken a 100"+ grounder and is still here to tell the story?
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Gene
climber
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Aug 15, 2011 - 04:53pm PT
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Snow? You bet. I'll always remember the laser-cut groove my ice axe made in the Sierra slush. Just above Catherine Lake coming down from Ritter/Banner saddle.
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max factor
Trad climber
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Aug 15, 2011 - 04:59pm PT
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I took a 130 footer back in the eighties. Our rope was 150 feet at that time and I fell from the second pitch of a route until I ran out of rope and finally came tight on my belayer. Belayer error is why I went so far, he did not have his break hand on the rope when I fell and the device did not lock up. With knots on either end and the figure eight connecting him to the anchor I figure there must have been 130 feet or so of rope out. The rope slowed me down but then I hit the ground. Broke both ankles pretty badly, tore up a hip and compressed my spine a bit. Had a nice 4 months in a wheelchair!
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Aug 15, 2011 - 05:13pm PT
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Do 100' horizontal falls off motorcycles count?
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Prod
Trad climber
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Aug 15, 2011 - 05:39pm PT
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Wow Max,
Where were you climbing, and have you ever roped up with the belayer again?
Prod.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Aug 15, 2011 - 05:43pm PT
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In 1957 fell about 200' on steep snow in the Idaho Sawtooths along with my fishing partner, Carl Donovan. We used the butt end of our our fly rods to self arrest.
In 1963 fell about 300' on steep snow in a storm on Mt Edith Cavell East Ridge with Margaret Young's son Colin strapped to my back. Jim Richardson had been belaying me and ran out of rope; so I told him to just let go of the end...big mistake. Managed a self arrest with my new wood-handled Charlet Moser ice axe before hitting some rocks.
In 1963 fell about 100' with a Swami Belt on the East Face of Tepee's Pillar in the Tetons; trying to repeat one of Royal's newest routes that might not actually exist. I was free climbing above a row of RURPs that all pulled out. My belayer, Jim Mays, was sitting on a huge boulder on a ledge with pitons under it. The fall pulled him off and burned his hands badly and sent the boulder down so I had to dodge it. We were left hanging from the only remaining hardware in the rock, a knife blade piton about 15 feet up the pitch. Then we were chased off rappelling in a July thunderstorm with snow and hail.
In 1964, fell about 100' with a Swami Belt, pulling a long row of RURPs on El Cap Tree Direct with Frank Sacherer. We went back the next day and completed the climb; with me sporting a tin cap on my newly broken front tooth.
In 1964, again with Frank Sacherer, fell about 200' on the slabs at the top of Glacier Point; managing a Kronhofer klettershuen self-arrest just at the brink of the long plunge.
In 1984 I was soloing at night on a frozen waterfall in Connecticut; when the whole thing creaked and groaned and fell off the cliff. I jumped a long ways down and sideways onto a big ledge covered with deep snow. Not sure how far it was...
In 1985 fell about 140' when a slider nut let go at 2am near the top of the pitch leading to Camp 5 on El Cap Nose; stopping at the same level as my belayer, Claire Mearnz. She looked over at me and asked what was I doing there? "I fell from the top of the pitch." She said, "No you didn't; I didn't feel anything; you just woke me up!" So I showed her the string of pulled hardware hanging on the rope. Then I went right up and completed the pitch, (ever since avoiding the use of slider nuts).
Edit: Left out the one where i actually got hurt, at SkyDive Spaceland, Rosharon TX. I was first out of the Twin Otter, just ahead of the world champion team, Anomaly. I didn't want to hold them up, so just stepped out as soon as the green light came on. Started out as one of the most amazingly beautiful jumps in my life; tracking back and forth in the 12,000' canyon between two tall cumulus clouds. Had a normal opening and headed for the DZ, but gradually realized the wind had come up and I wasn't going to make it back. Realizing my choices between busy highways with powerlines on both sides; or a swampy lake with alligators, or dense forest; I chose a small patch of open land with a goat pen and assortment of farm machinery. I swooped around to it and thought all was well until a stray branch at the top of a tree caught a corner of my chute and collapsed it right at the edge of the clearing. I fell free from the top of the tree and landed very hard on my butt. The rain had stopped a few days before and most of the ground was rock hard. However the spot where I hit was protected from the sun by the trees and still muddy, which helped cushion my fall. I lay there in the mud thinking, "Oh no, I'm hurt!" Then I tried to move and my next thought was, "Oh, I'm really hurt!" A couple of passing motorists ran over to me and called 911. Then the DZ owner and his son pulled up in a van and ran over to me. I couldn't stand up on my own and I reached up with both hands and asked them to pull me upright. They helped me get out of my rig and tossed it into the van and then drove me back to the DZ parking lot next to my car. I managed to hoist myself from the front seat of the van into my car; while they threw my rig into the back seat. As I drove off from the DZ; an ambulance and sheriff's car came zooming in past me with their sirens. I took an out-of-the-way route back to my apartment near NASA Johnson and crept up the stairs to my futon. It was about two weeks before I engineered some climbing slings around a post so I could stand up and visit a doctor for an MRI. Turns out it was a very bad sprain with nothing broken in my spine. Meanwhile I luckily had no mandatory meetings at NASA and conducted my work from my cell phone and laptop on the floor next to my futon. I told everyone I'd slipped in a mud puddle and wrenched my back. It took a couple of months before I could go back to jumping. They still call me 'Goat Boy' over there at Rosharon.
Edit: recognizing this was a 'jump' up to the point of the twig. then it became a 'fall'. the twig was found inside one of the cells of the chute when it came around time to repack it. i still have the twig in my collection of treasured artifacts; along with a couple of reserve closure tags, a Salathe piton, a couple of RURPS, a slider nut, a Bedayn carabiner stamped YC that Yvon dropped on my head, and a Friend given to me by a teenage Lynn Hill after we rescued her from the top pitch of The Vampire in a hail storm.
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tinker b
climber
the commonwealth
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Aug 15, 2011 - 05:45pm PT
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james does yours count since it was 60 and then 40 after a brief intermission? i guess you do get cred for hitting the ground and being such a beast.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Aug 15, 2011 - 05:55pm PT
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For slabs, I've maxed at ~40 feet.
For air-then-splat, my max was 30 feet - bounce - 30 more feet to a gulley (but rope stretch took some force for second part).
If you add that up, it's 100 :)
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Aug 15, 2011 - 10:06pm PT
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I've led such a sheltered life.
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Aug 15, 2011 - 11:26pm PT
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If snow counts, I've had two big falls.
Tuckerman's Ravine, probably 400 feet down the bowl. Concussion and a dreadful ski out. I stopped falling three feet from lunch rocks where my husband was snacking on cheese and wine. He greeted me with "Meet my wife, the snow ball."
Mt. Hood, 640 feet lost elevation from the triangular moraine over the lip and down the glacier. I've practiced self arrest a bunch, but never from the cartwheel position. Finally got the ax to stick and avoided the remainder of the gully plus rocks poised a couple hundred feet below me. I had a free micro-dermabrasion and a ring of welts around my head where the helmet made contact. I climbed back up to my party who were hotly debating if I was dead and how to get back to Timberline Lodge in the fog. Oddly one person died before me and after me with much shorter falls that season. While I walked away unscathed, one of my friends landed in the emergency room that night with sun-burnt corneas. It was at that moment I believed that I do indeed possess strong bones, built from years of running.
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