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Dr. Rock
Ice climber
Castle Rock
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 14, 2008 - 02:19pm PT
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Just curious, ever hold your breath after accidentally dis lodging a nice size boulder, and did anything happen?
Gee, thanks!
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Dr. Rock
Ice climber
Castle Rock
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2008 - 02:46pm PT
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Good Lord, that boulder would have snapped your line like a dry twig in a stiff desert breeze, had it got caught underneath.
A fridge is going to be hard to beat, unless we make up for it with some MV^2.
In other words, a smaller rock from a higher distance can sometimes do more damage?
I hear the football players complaining about the hits they receive from the small guys, not the big guys.
More speed = more damage, despite the weight difference.
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DonC
climber
CA
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Jun 14, 2008 - 03:03pm PT
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I was descending high in the U-North on North Pal and lowered myself to a slab perched on a another rock. This thing was around 18" thick by 6' x 10' and should have been rock solid. But it must have been just at its balance point as it took off as soon as I put a small amount of weight on it. I had to jump out of the way to keep from getting smeared. It crashed down the chute and went into the bergschrund. Luckily there was no one below us. I was shacking for 10 minutes before I could move. In my top three climbing related close-calls for sure.
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Jun 14, 2008 - 03:35pm PT
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Descending the boulders from 'Little Wing', I rode a 1/4 ton pickup bed, sized boulder. I jumped onto it and it began to roll, I back peddled one or two steps and realized it was going to continue it's downhill journey. I bailed in an abaft direction which was scary because the boulder was rolling opposite to my jump which made my distance barely enough to get off of it cleanly.
It did not 'catch air' or explode dramatically. Instead it bobbled it's way down the slope a few tumbles, came to a rest and then split down the middle before coming to a complete rest.
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I don't know if mechanically aided trundles count ?
Once while working as a climbing instructor on a Boy Scout camp in Co. My co instructors and I found a boulder of similar size (1/4 ton pickup bed) that was wobbley. It actually would have never gone anywhere, but we wanted to trundle it for fun. So we convinced the camp admin that it was a safety threat and proceeded to make a production of it's removal. We got police tape and bordered off the forest below. We had people policing any/all approach routes to the area.
The first jack we tried was a 1 ton, truck, piston jack, we blew the seals out of it and went back too the shop. We returned with a 5 ton scissor jack. That did the trick ;)
I got to watch it from below as I was policing the woods to one side of the impact zone. There was non-climber helping with the tipping of the boulder. He was a 'Nature lodge' guy that had never seen anything of the sort and was excited to partake first hand.
When the boulder went...
It lobbed off into space and did that remarkable thing where for a nano second it just seemed to hang there in zero G's. Then down it went. It hit a ledge below dislodging perhaps a ton or so of rock and in turn the trundled boulder blew into, large console TV, small TV and lunch box size frags.
The explosion sent a couple sharp, lunch box size shards off into the trees. One pine about 10" in diameter was chopped almost clean through. It was very dramatic. Dramatic enough apparently, the 'nature Lodge' guy lost his bladder control as it sailed.
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There used to be a large finger of rock on the East Butt of ElCap, somewhere up around the traverse pitch. I wonder/doubt if that is still there ?
I remember putting a hand jam behind it and moving it with just the outward of a solid hand jam. That was scary, pushing that thing back upright and moving past it.
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Jingy
Social climber
Flatland, Ca
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Jun 14, 2008 - 04:28pm PT
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In Bishop, got friends, got a car jack.... Plenty of ozone released that day... But nothing happened, as far as damage to property or starting rock falls..
Hey, Euro Brief Guy, tell the story about going to Heaven for a day of bouldering!
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nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
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Jun 14, 2008 - 05:17pm PT
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There's a 30 foot pillar on Hawkman's Escape that's waiting for someone to put their back against the wall and push it from the top with their feet. Not quite sure what you'd hold onto after that.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
In the mountains... somewhere...
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Jun 14, 2008 - 05:36pm PT
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I once rode a slab of snow about the size of half a tennis court for a hundred yards. Does that count? Does it help that I hung 10 off the nose?
As far as rock goes, we have trundled coffin size pieces of rock into the Gorge. We have set loose boulders down slabs that were about 5 feet around and took trees out. But I haven't ever launched anything as large as a fridge.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 14, 2008 - 06:15pm PT
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Would this be a good place to talk about chain reactions and boulders?
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Sioux Juan
Big Wall climber
Costa mesa
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Jun 14, 2008 - 06:20pm PT
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just for a heads up ! at tahquitz on whodunit there IS a block ready to go!!! its hard to spot and seems safe to stand on ? and has been done 1,000,000 times. its big and I've seen it move ......true !
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 14, 2008 - 08:00pm PT
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Here is a classic article about boulder trundling, from the Rucksack Club journal for 1931, and reprinted in Mountain 29 (November 1973).
It was accompanied by a fine drawing by Sheridan Anderson, illustrating one of the most famous incidents in Alpine climbing, the boulder trundling from the summit of the Matterhorn by Whymper & party in 1865.
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drljefe
climber
Calizona
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Jun 14, 2008 - 09:47pm PT
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Granite Mountain back country. Wanting to rid our staging area of a large t.v. sized block we pried at it with a fallen branch, my friends and I watched in disbelief as a chain reaction set loose a golf cart (I was thinking VW Bug but..)sized block which mowed down pinons in slow motion down the steep hillside. The smell of sulfur and pure shock was strong. This is a very remote area never visited. Seeing a fair amount of natural rockfall and doing my share of trundling, I have never seen anything like this.
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snyd
Sport climber
Lexington, KY
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Jun 14, 2008 - 10:19pm PT
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Mr. Way and I cast off the boulder that was at base of the crux pitch of Supplication (is that the 11b one?) at Arch Rock. You can see the offending looseness in Yosemite Climber in the photo of Spencer Lenard stemming out above the belay. It was the middle of winter and nobody was around. It went almost all the way to the road.
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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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Jun 14, 2008 - 10:49pm PT
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Several pitches up on Steck-Salathe I latched onto a large chockstone about 2.5' x 4' x 12' thinking no way this could move. About half way up out it comes with me on it. There was some slack in the upper belay and by the time the rope caught me the block had enough speed and rotation to give me a very painful bruise on my thigh. A few seconds latter there was a massive explosion as the block made contact below.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 15, 2008 - 12:08am PT
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Those are some OK videos, plus all the other ones on youtube.
Many of the trundlers shown have deficient technique. Long experience has shown that the best way to trundle is by sitting, and pushing with your legs. You get about five times the force, and it's a stabler and safer position.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jun 15, 2008 - 12:39am PT
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Long experience has shown that the best way to trundle is by sitting, and pushing with your legs. You get about five times the force, and it's a stabler and safer position.
Tami and I, and her then BF, and MH's brother and two other climbers found a boulder perched on the very edge of a ledge above a drop-off of about 1,500 ft on our way to the top of a mountain where we saved Canada from splintering apart (it's all on another thread, can't remember which one, but it's true). The thing was about the size of Rhode Island, and there was a wall behind us so we could all sit and push with our legs.
Even with six of us pushing with all the force we could, it almost wasn't enough, but eventually...
It was a pretty impressive trundle. And we saved our country. Now that's what climbing is all about.
D
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Dr. Rock
Ice climber
Castle Rock
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 15, 2008 - 12:50am PT
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Next time take a camera!
These guys did the same thing I did, only my drops were from 805, not a wimpy 467.
Off the Forrest Hill bridge, tallest in California.
Auburn Ravine.
I wonder if the people knew what was in my sagging backpack as I trundeled across the bridge.
I did get the same shock wave blast-listen to the initial impact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYLxNkeRGM&feature=related
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 15, 2008 - 01:01am PT
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I wonder if the symbolism of what they were doing was apparent to Ghost, Tami, et al? Forcing the mountain (Rexford) apart, while trying to unite the country.
The dark heart of Canadian climbing - we're a bunch of closet boulder trundlers.
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