stoopedest thing seen while climbing

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 21 - 40 of total 65 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jan 16, 2012 - 03:54pm PT

Anybody here ever see the Rangers at Mount Rainier BITD when they would
lay yer ice axe across the steps and stomp on it? Yeah, that's my idea of
sussing someone out.

ground_up

Trad climber

mt. hood /baja

Jan 16, 2012 - 07:12pm PT

at one of our local crags we come around the corner and see "dude"
hanging on toprope with a 2 foot crowbar (sp?) and a small sledge hammer ,
this is on one of the classic 5.7 crack climbs , beating the crap out of the rock .... " hey man...what are you guys doin? " dude answers , "one of
my brand new cams is stuck in the crack " ... well wait a minute , you
can't do that ....stop! here , let us help ...dude lowers , I go up ,
sure enough stuck cam and substantial damage to the crack .... and in doing
so the cam is trashed too ...after 20 minutes I get the cam out, it's
beaten worthless ...I come down hand the guy his cam ... explain that
others might have taken that bar n hammer to him ... these guys were
noobs , but nice enough kids. They realized it was stupid ...apologized
and said thanks.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jan 16, 2012 - 07:21pm PT

So had they arrived with the crowbar just in case they needed it or did they
go back home for it?

snowhazed

Trad climber

Oaksterdam, CA

Jan 16, 2012 - 08:49pm PT

About to cast off solo on West Country on stately pleasure, three kids walk up- two sullen boys and a fiery chick that was obviously in charge.

She asks me- "How many bolt are on this route?"

Me- "Three." Pitch 3, has three bolts.

Her- "Three. What the hell do you mean- there must be more. Whatever."

At this point I realize all they have is a sport rack, so I ask if they have any trad gear. She just stares at me with the most indignant butthurt look on her face and then starts to lay out the rope and rack up her sport draws. The boys are murmuring to themselves, and she hisses at them and says things I can't hear.

I look down after 2 pitches and see her retreating the entire first pitch. sttttttoooooopid

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

Jan 17, 2012 - 03:28am PT

Oh, this mysoginist fake climber who used to post here before he lost all credibility a while
Back.

Mark Hudon

Trad climber

Hood River, OR

Jan 17, 2012 - 10:05am PT

How about taking down sleeping bags up on the Nose, in May, based on the five day forecast looking good?

Gary

climber

That Long Black Cloud Is Coming Down

Jan 17, 2012 - 10:59am PT

This n00b is leading the upper pitch of the Bat Crack on Intersection Rock. He's obviously on one of his first leads. He makes a good anchor and calls out off belay. He can't hear his second, but waits, then starts hauling in rope. The rope seems to hang up, and he gives it three big tugs. It is still jammed. He decides to rig his ATC first and then work on the jam.

In the meantime, his second, who had called out that's me, felt the three tugs indicating he's on belay and had started up.

Meanwhile the n00b had rigged his ATC and then started pulling rope, but now, of course, the rope is unjammed as his totally unbelayed second is climbing.

The n00b quickly threaded the ATC and put his partner on belay. At least he'd finally figured out WTF was going on.

It still bothers me that I was that stupid.

Lasti

Trad climber

Budapest

Jan 18, 2012 - 06:17am PT

Great stories y'all, nice to see that stupidity is universal. And that most of us survived through some evolutionary loophole.

My partner was climbing a route with a fixed nut welded in by years of yanking and the cable torn between the swaging and the nut. This nut was above the first crux of the route, at the start a short crack with a good rest later, so most people just climb past it upon noticing the dicey nature of the cable. My partner thought differently and after some tricky-pumpy moves on the crux felt he should fiddle in some gear. After fiddling away for what seemed like an eternity (the welded in nut was in the only really good bit of crack), moaning and groaning from 'zee pump', he gets a piece in, clips in and climbs on to victory.

Not understanding the chuckles coming from below, he seems a bit pissed that we're laughing our azzes off during his moment of glory. Then we point out to him that he clipped the manky fixed nut with the torn cable instead of the one he just put in with great effort.

Fun times were had by all.

Lasti

HuecoRat

Trad climber

Jan 18, 2012 - 08:53am PT

When I was a noob, I took my friend climbing and I led the first pitch of a totally forgettable new route at Hueco. I set up my belay on this ledge and it suddenly occurs to me that I didn't tie my friend into the rope.

"Do you remember how to tie into the rope?" I ask.
"I think so."
"Tie in with a figure 8."
"Ok. I remember how to do that."

He starts up, and I reel in the rope. About 40 feet up he comes into view, and to my shock, what he has done is to rig his figure 8 ring for rappelling. Only about 2 feet of rope is poking out past it, and there is no knot. I decide not to tell him, afraid that if he knows he will freak out. I tie all my slings together and send them down with a couple of biniers on the end. Once he's clipped in I bring him up on those, clipping each sling to the anchor as they can reach.
We were both seriously freaked out when I showed him the problem.

HuecoRat

Trad climber

Jan 18, 2012 - 08:58am PT

Thought of another:

I was at a rock ledge in Ohio (Hinckley), and these guys were top roping with a yellow plastic waterskiing rope. It was run through another piece of the same kind of rope, which was tied to a tree. They absolutely refused to listen to any advice, telling me amidst much profanity to mind my own business. I left before the inevitable crash.

justthemaid

climber

Jim Henson's Basement

Jan 18, 2012 - 09:40am PT

Oy- I've see so much stupid sh#t. I could publish a coffee table book just on Stony Point noob-anchors. The Toe-Jam death-swing is classic.

My personal prize goes to the guy in J-Tree Ryan campground who adopted some random noobs and offered to set up a TR for them. I had a TR up already. Guy asks me- "Do you mind if I set up next to you?" I say "Go ahead." He sets up his TR and spends the next 30 minutes playing "mentor". I go to tear down my anchor and come to find out this guy's "anchor" is a single quickdraw clipped into a single #1 cam in MY anchor. My climb went off a different side of the formation so the cam wasn't even aligned for his climb. The counter-pressure of us climbing the opposite side had kept it from swiveling out of place. I waited for the girl he was TR-ing to get her feet on the ground then cut his damn rope loose.

The Wretch

Trad climber

Forest Knolls, CA

Jan 18, 2012 - 12:53pm PT

We were going to attempt a route at Lover's Leap when I happened to
notice the leader of the next party has not passed his harness back through the buckle. I pointed it out to him. He replied that he always did it that way. I told him it would only hold about a 200 pound force that way versus thousands done properly. He said that was ok, he only weighed 180 pounds.

We decide to climb elsewhere that day.

Another time at JT this huge fat guy took a horrible spill on a 5.4 at Trash Can rock. He fell complete onto his back and smacked his helmeted head on the slab. To my amazement he started back up and passed the piece that had held him, not even checking it.

xtrmecat

Big Wall climber

Kalispell, Montanagonia

Jan 18, 2012 - 02:19pm PT

Ok here goes nothing.

Last year at Devils Tower, fourth pitch. I have two seconds on two sixty meter ropes, and tied into both, my lead again. I wiggle up through the chimney start, clipping gear in the back that is so low it will only keep a factor two but allow much carnage and a ledge fall. I go over the bulge and into the easier terrain, knowing I probably should place at least one more piece, as a fall here would be a doosey. I stopped mid bulge and place a nice wideish cam and reach down,grab the line and clip and promptly move on. I finished, got on the anchor, and pulled up the free line going to the second , and it is clipped to the last cam. Crap, I just did the second half plus of a pitch with the only pro clipped to a line totaly free of any belay. Granted, I would have only gone about 50 or 60 feet below the belay when I stopped, but the ledge and other things to hit in between sure would have prevented good air time.

Lesson learned, if you only occasionaly climb on two ropes, pay attention to which is which at all times. By the way, two 10.5's, so not using them as doubles or twins, and both blue, only slightly differing sheaths.

Burly Bob

Ps, one of the seconds is an excellent first responder with many years of experience at dealing with trauma in very unordinary places, and when we discovered my oooops, he was sure to remind me of the fact.

jfailing

Trad climber

Lone Pine

Jan 18, 2012 - 03:23pm PT

justthemaid and The wretch - I cringed reading those stories.... Other great ones on this thread too!

Don't know if this is an etiquette deal or just stupid: Last weekend climbing Super Slide we were behind two parties. The first party stated that they were planning on letting their "beginning leader" climb the middle pitches. The second party was way chill and we chatted it up while we waited up to 1.5 hours for the first party to climb a pitch.

Finally, they reach the top and are rapping as my buddy is linking pitch 3 and 4. The "experienced one" pulls his ropes as my friend is leading his pitch. The ropes come straight down into my friend and tangle themselves in the lead-line and his last piece.

First-party homey starts pulling his tangled rope through our gear/leader and says "Hey sorry if I'm pulling you down at all." Eventually the rope pulls through our gear and he and his beginner friend rap very very slowly down the rest of the route.

Is it legitimate to be pissed at these folks? I was pissed and should have said something like "Hey we waited like three hours for you to climb, you can wait another 10 minutes before pulling your f*cking rope."

It's not like the climb was that hard enough for my friend to fall, but it could have been a more risky situation had the climb been harder and my friend more run out...

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jan 18, 2012 - 04:01pm PT

Is 18 now the minimum IQ to buy climbing gear?

Seamstress

Trad climber

Yacolt, WA

Jan 18, 2012 - 06:04pm PT

Yes. I once saw a man tied in with an overhand knot. He was very friendly and offered to let me climb on his rope. I declined.

I took a friend and his buddy climbing for the day at Cathedral lLedge. His friend wa an arborist. He decided to unrope and climb a tree 300 feet off the deck. I wouldn't "rope up" with him again.

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Jan 18, 2012 - 06:06pm PT

Last weekend climbing Super Slide we were behind two parties. The first party stated that they were planning on letting their "beginning leader" climb the middle pitches.

If you choose to climb a "novice" or moderate route, behind self-identified novices, don't complain about the result.

If you knowingly choose to climb behind anyone, don't complain.

ontheedgeandscaredtodeath

Trad climber

San Francisco, Ca

Jan 18, 2012 - 06:23pm PT

Getting on a Yosemite moderate behind a novice party where the descent is to rap the route? There is at least one stoopid party on the route!

johngenx

climber

Jan 18, 2012 - 06:35pm PT

We came across the classic top roping error of having the rope through the sling without a 'biner. The couple was pleased that we spotted their probably fatal error and accepted our invitation to climb with us for the day.

No nasty rebuttals. Must be 'cause were Canucks... ;-)