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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Soloing, top of 1st pitch. Anchor in, cleaned the route on the way down, jugged back up. Went to pull rope up, forgot to disassemble bottom anchor. Only excuse, had head up a$$.
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darshahlu
Trad climber
Irvine, CA
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Getting off route on the East Buttress of El Capitan.
We were at the pitch that climbs the defined buttress of the route, about half way up. Maybe 6th, 7th pitch. You can't escape the exposure. You are committed to finishing the route. At the same time, you still have about half of it to go and summit anxiety is about to set in.
So there I was, halfway up on my first Grade IV with my partner Kia, with whom I learned to climb with. It was his first Grade IV too.
This pitch was steep. I climbed up the rounded arete for about 15 feet, a fixed piton about 5 feet below me. Which way now? Out right, the climbing is steep and the wall below me shoots all the way down to the Valley floor. To the left it is not as steep and there is a prominent crack slanting left around a corner. I am lured right by chalk marks and fixed gear.
The pitch is 5.9, but it feels like 5.10. I clip a fixed nut, using the old sling and 'biner that has been abadoned on it. I get about 5 feet up and make some long reaches to thin holds, barn door and fall off.
Sweet! My first Grade IV and my first trad fall! My buddy yelps an enthusastic "YOU CAN DO IT! COME ON MAN!" up to me. I am stoked, and press past the move I just slipped on. I am fearless and climbing well. I dyno to a nice jug and mantle on top of it.
All enthusiasm instantly leaps from my body as I realize there are no more chalk marks to follow, the wall is slick as glass above me, and I can't downclimb what I just climbed. That and the fixed piece and weather-worn faded blue sling is dangling beneath me 15 feet.
I don't think too long about it and neither does my buddy. We decide "On the count of three".
"One!"
"Two!"
"THREE!"
I feel like a rag doll flying through the air, the wall whipping up past me like a giant tread mill. I will never forget the moment when I looked down and saw 15 feet of rope wiggling like a snake beneath me.
Finally the rope comes taught and I slam into the arete I was climbing thirty feet earlier.
I don't lead any of the rest of the pitches that day. Seconding was almost too scary after that. A great learning experience.
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dfinnecy
Social climber
san joser
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This is an almost mistake, stopped just at the edge of oblivion. My buddy Don and I had just finished Liberty Crack up in WA. We had meant to spend the night on the ledge you can abseil to off the top of pitch 7 or so, can't remember exctly anymore. So we had hauled the pig all day. We made good time and decided to knock the thing off in a day.
We got to the top as the sun was going down, enjoyed a quick break and congratulated each other, both exhausted but proud of our achievement. As I recall there is a 50 meter abseil into the gully down the back. We set up the abseil off a good ledge and Don went down first. I think I wqas more exhausted than I knew.
I waited in the dark on the good ledge with the haul bag tied to my harness and clipped to the anchor. Don called up that he was off rappel and i started to move over to the edge to kick off the haul bag and ride it down. I realized I was still clipped to the anchor and that I wouldn't be able to grab all the gear from the edge. I waddled back to the anchor and cleaned it off. I waddled back to the edge. As started to push the bag off I realized in my exhausted state I had FORGOTTEN TO PUT MYSELF ON RAPPEL. I remember desperately reversing the push on the bag, seeing my life flash before my eyes, etc etc etc.
Ok, so now I am awake. I crawled back from the edge dragging the bag and had a minor heart attack.
It's actually quite embarrassing to tell that story,....
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WBraun
climber
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darshahlu
Wow, that was always my worst fear what you went through.
Getting strung out and having to be forced to launch off like you did. Yikes!
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2007 - 02:18am PT
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Locker-
I might still have a better "lead piton" runner up.
FMJ and I found a sweet FA. on Diablo west. I drilled a bolt and equalized it to a small pine for a TR anchor. We did the line several times, then I pulled the biners and rapped to the ground on a 1" sling.
Smoked some Bartolini hash, talked at length about draft & Reganomics. (vintage 82) Half hour later (forgetting the top rope was threaded through just sling) FMJ did a round and lowered off typical Gym style. I went up and lowered off the same. FMJ went up again, but when he reached the anchor, the burned "rap" sling had less than an eighth inch remaining!
Moral of the story: Drink lots a beer, get naked, dont shine shoes, climb hard & die young.
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L
climber
The City of Lost Angels
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I'd been climbing about 2 years and wanted to do the East Face of Whitney. An acquaintance from the gym wanted to do it too. He'd been climbing 26 years and had supposedly done the East Face twice, so, happy to have an "experienced" partner, I agreed.
We were on the trail at 5am, and by 6am I was beginning to suspect the reliability of my partner's memory. We missed the first turnoff for the North Fork, and had to backtrack a quarter of a mile. We then proceeded to get lost in a labyrinth of bushwhacking, slippery streams and dead-ending granite faces. From the trail description I'd photocopied and the hieroglyphic maps I'd acquired, I suggested we were to go through the notch along the cliff face on our right. Brilliant Partner knew we were supposed to be on the left. We ended up clawwing our way to the notch through a barrage of willows and undergrowth from which even tiny lizards could not have passed unscathed.
I later learned that we had totally missed The Ledges--on our right--and indeed had grappled our way through bramble which even tiny lizards avoid at all costs.
By the time we reached Iceberg Lake, I knew Brilliant Partner was suffering from an excess of confidence and a dearth of memory. Maybe even Alzheimer's. We were running behind schedule because of his insistance that the maps and descriptions were wrong and his memory and keen trail-finding abilities were right. But there was that glorious mountain and those glowing spires right there before us! No way we were turning around. And things actually went okay up until we got across the Freshair Traverse.
We then found ourselves in a corner area with a 2" crack that 26 years of climbing had not prepared Brilliant Partner to climb. He was up there struggling and knocking large rocks down on me, his belayer, and swearing a lot. Finally he came down and told me it wasn't doable. I said I'd give it a try, although I hadn't done much trad leading at that point. He said no. I said I thought we only had a couple more pitches plus some third class--I was willing to try to get up the thing. (Since the hardest move on this climb was a 5.6/5.7, I was pretty certain I could pull this off. I was a better climber than he was.) He finally admitted he hadn't brought enough gear to protect the crack. I heard this non sequitur and could only stand there looking at him...he, the guy who'd done this climb twice before.
It was now 4:00pm--he suddenly started asking what I thought we should do and looking around in an agitated manner. The sun was setting--he said, we can't get up the climb--he said. For the fifth time he asked me what I thought we should do. Now he'd been climbing 26 years and I'd been climbing 2...I was a bit confused about whose experience was supposed to keep us from The Grand Epic. But I wasn't confused at all about what was happening here: Mr. Brilliant Partner was in a full-blown panic. And novice that I was, I knew the first law of the jungle was never do anything at high altitude with a dude in a panic. I asked him what he wanted to; downclimb, he said; and that's what we did.
I was so pissed, I free-soloed the Freshair Traverse and didn't give a sh*t about the exposure. We left his old ratty not-enough gear at the top of the Grand Staircase and downclimbed back to the scree trail. The sun was going down, it was starting to get chilly. As we death-marched down the gravel path, we both realized we'd be doing the deadly wet slabs in the dark and would probably die horrible cheese-grater deaths. Luckily, right then we stumbled across three marines camping among the boulders just before the decent to Upper Boyscout Lake. Two of the guys were in a two-man tent, and the third had a bivy sack and pad. They graciously allowed me to sleep between them in the tent and out of the wind, while Brilliant Partner got the pad with a pile of ropes for a blanket. And some very cold wind.
So there I lay on the hard ground, wrapped in my down jacket and cold as hell, wedged between two farting strangers and counting my blessing with every gaseous expulsion. And although I didn't sleep, I didn't get hypothermia either. Neither did Brilliant Partner, but I think he was damn close to it.
The next weekend I went back and did a 13 hour door-to-door solo of the Mountaineers Route. The top of Mt. Whitney was worth it. And I chose my climbing partners much more carefully after that.
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Robb
Social climber
Under a Big Sky
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Dragging a non-climber "friend" up the left dihedral of the Monday Morning Slab. Dirt, min-pro, blah-blah-blah.....
I'm still here
Proof of the mercy of God
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Two things come to mind.
The first was forgetting a lighter or matches on my first big wall (Leaning Tower) and not being able to light the joint on my 19th birthday on Ahwahnee Ledge.
The second was thinking that I could become a professional football (soccer) player in my late 20s and spending way too much time in that useless pursuit at the expense of my climbing. BIG mistake.
Trusty Rusty
I first started climbing on Diablo in 1969 and was there often from then until 1974 or so. Perhaps we know each other.
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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"The first was forgetting a lighter or matches on my first big wall (Leaning Tower) and not being able to light the joint on my 19th birthday on Ahwahnee Ledge."
Patrick, that sounds more desperate than forgetting the birthday cake! I can hear the silence as you and partner look at each other, wondering just where the flame could be.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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As a beginning leader, I had just topped out and built an anchor. Pulling up the rope, it seemed jammed, so I gave it three hard tugs to free it. It seemed, OK. I was then farting around with something when it struck me what had just happened. I had just given the three tug "on belay" signal. I started reeling in rope like crazy.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Otto, NC
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I'm trying hard not to acknowledge 'moving to Leadville' as the obvious answer here...
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WBraun
climber
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Gary
Hahahaha LOL
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ChrisW
Trad climber
boulder, co
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climbing the Nose with a girl...... was the BEST decision of my LIFE.
Worst mistake climbing.....I that one big fall that broke my ankle....and that other big fall that fu#cKed my foot up. And those other two falls that broke my wrist.
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sling512
Trad climber
Chicago
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I think I was 18 and wanted to put up a solo ground-up new route on the NF of Middle. I really didn't want to solo but my climbing partner bailed on me last minute. I lugged the pig, ledge, gear, water etc to the base and climbed about 3 pitches. At this point is was dark and I decided I'd bivy on the portaledge that night at my highpoint. It was sorta slabby and a crappy place for the ledge, but I was 'in the moment'. I was mad hungry by now and fished out the canned food I brought. OH SH*T, I didn't bring a can opener!! Since I was about 350 ft up with no rap anchors to zip to the base and bail to the cafeteria, plus it was way late... I just starved. Next morning I bailed with my tail between my legs and had to lug all my crap back to my truck. That sucked.
My other 'worst mistake' was my partner and I did DNB one fine fall day. We went for the DNB-IAD, haha, and just photocopied the topo to bring along. About half way up we ran out of water and an hour later I choked down the last Powerbar... We got to the chimneys in the dark and I led them with our only crappy headlamp. I was so tired and kinda freaked out, that I was running it out probably 50+ feet between pro. We made it to the finish ledge and started the search for the Kat Walk in pitch-black. I only had shorts and a tank top (again, poor poor planning) and was starting to get quite chilly. My partner Jackson was getting stupid from dehydration and somehow dropped his belay device. Since we didn't have the page photocopied with the descent directions we thought the book said “go left and up along the Kat Walk to a few easy rappels and downclimbing to the valley floor". Wow, couldn't have been more wrong. We made the decision to bivy on that little ledge tied to the tree and huddled together in one space blanket. We were making so much noise with that damn aluminum blanket that guys were yelling at us from El Cap across the way! Haha. Well, the thing tore in two in the middle of the night and an attempt to tape it together was futile. I don't think I slept 10 minutes that night. We were so hungry that the bottle of piss I saved “just in case” was tempting. At one point and made an attempt on it… but I couldn’t get past the thick smell, gaaaaa!
At first light we were talking about getting down in time for pancakes and OJ at the cafeteria and started our wrong descent route. We by the time we made it to the notch between Higher and Middle we knew we were f-ed. The “few easy rappels and downclimbing” was a 2000 ft straight drop!! But the tattered slings around the basball-bat sized shrubs qued us in that we weren't the only idiots to make this mistake. We were able to rap down into the unknown on trees and shrubs with me lowering him then rap and pull. We had one green rope and one red rope, so we always made sure the green rope was the one to pull so our knot didn't get stuck at the anchors. That was a pretty successful strategy until we were in the steep, deadly bowling alley at the bottom of the notch. At this point it was damn near noon!! At the worst possible spot I went to pull the green rope and.... nothing. Pulled the red rope.... nothing. Sh#t, We ro-sham-bo-ed to see who would make the tenuous jug to the top to unjam the ropes. I lost… so I decided to jug the red, hoping we had set the rap up correct. Once I got to the top I realized that both ropes had jammed under a big ol’ loose block and if it had come loose we probably both would have been toast. After a few more raps and 1 more rope jam we made it out. By the time we were back in C4 it was almost 4 pm. Man, we were so f-ing thirsty I had actually found a coke can (pop top) in the notch with some mystery liquid that I filtered through my shirt and drank. But it was all worth while when we hit the road and looked up and saw the DNB line soaring through the trees from the road cut! What a day. The tourons driving past only saw two crazy kids hugging in the middle of the road.
Good times-
-sling
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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My worst mistakes almost killed me and didn't, I expect most of us could say that, but maybe we don't delight in those stories.
Here's a funnier one that only hurt my knee:
Climbed up 10 feet, placed a doubtful-looking nut below the first crux. To test it, I gave a hard yank. It flew out, hit me in the face, I lost my balance and decked on talus. No more climbing that summer.
This stupid mistake taught me something deeper than nutcraft: the freedom to climb can vanish in a flash, for a short time or forever. So you've gotta have other goals in your life. This hadn't been so obvious to me before (not too bright in those days), but I acted on it and took a new direction.
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G_Gnome
Boulder climber
Sick Midget Land
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I was leading a route at Josh that goes about 10c. Near the top there are a pair of knobs about 2 1/2 feet apart that you are supposed to mantle. Well, I am not what you would call limber and can't get my foot to my hand to save my life. So in my failure to mantle, I put my left knee on the left knob and then tried to reach the next hold. When I still couldn't reach I tried to mantle the other knob but couldn't and so stuck my right knee on that knob. I still can't reach anything! There I am, kneeling on both knees with no hand holds. I eventually had to just push backwards and launch into space. My wife had to finish the lead (she mantles really well). I was kinda embarrassed.
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The Wretch
Trad climber
Forest Knolls, CA
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Rare for me to be home and able to post.
G.Gnome:
So, do I get a new route? Exit Stage Right,
The Direct? Don't Exit?
Happy not to care these days.
I have an addendum to my post. I usually
learn from my mistakes. What I learned was:
1. do not head to a bolt you cannot see.
2. in trouble, it is probably best to down
climb, since ever foot you down climb equals
some measure of lessend injury.
3. I am very careful these days. I climb with
some fabulous has beens. I am a never was was,
but still, was there, climbing in the golden
age in Yosemite in 1961.
4. Had a bad day at work today, crazies coming
out of the wood work. I know I will regret this post
in the somber, sober light of tomorrow.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sling512:
I was mad hungry by now and fished out the canned food I brought. OH SH*T, I didn't bring a can opener!! Since I was about 350 ft up with no rap anchors to zip to the base and bail to the cafeteria, plus it was way late... I just starved. Next morning I bailed with my tail between my legs and had to lug all my crap back to my truck. That sucked.
This musta been in the modern era. Back earlier when Joe & I climbed walls, we opened cans with Lost Arrows. Then used them as spoons and forks too! Don't know why, as if the extra weight of a plastic spoon or a can opener would have busted the pig?
Canned spaghetti was the bomb, slides down fine no matter how thirsty you are. Recall Ray Jardine advising us to get the plain spaghetti, without meatballs, because those taste a lot less yummy stone cold.
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ladysmith
climber
san diego, ca
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worst mistake:
Overtime becoming very comfortable with being hundreds of feet up on a wall can be dangerous. About three pitches up, I had just finished rapping to a new station and took myself off rappel. About 5-10 minutes later after chatting with my partner he pointed out that I was just hanging out, not clipped into anything on a ledge about 4" wide. Had I just leaned back in my harness or stepped off the ledge, it would have been over. The scarey part is I had no idea that I wasn't clipped in. This was a good reminder not to get too comfortable and to ALWAYS preload one system before removing yourself from another.... Makes me ill just to think abut it. I think we all forget how dangerous climbing can be and how one very simple mistake can be deadly.
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Rocky5000
Trad climber
Falls Church, VA
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I've made a few, but the one that branded me as a moron went like this:
Started leading Illusion Dweller late in the afternoon of a sunny winter day, wearing t-shirt and thin long pants. Got to the overhang crux in decent style, a little beat-up and tired though. Set an excellent nut just above my head and then couldn't pull the crux. Let's say I was dwelling in an illusion of weakness and fear as the sun went down and the wind rose. I thought, hell, I'll rap off this excellent nut. I can almost certainly get close enough to the ground, since the crack slants, and we'll clean the gear later. I clipped into the piece, untied the rope from my harness, threaded it through the sling on the nut, and stuck the end of the rope in my teeth so I could deal with gear and whatnot. My partner yelled up to find out what I was doing, and I replied.
So I had to wait, oh, maybe forty-five minutes as he hiked around to the top, located the spot, set an anchor and dropped the rope for me to rap on. The wind rose and the temperature dropped, of course. I had, subjectively, ages to meditate on my total lack of competence.
About seven years later I went back and led it all in good style. I learn slowly, but I do learn, if you hit me with a big enough mallet. I don't drop things anymore.
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