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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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Nov 25, 2016 - 12:23pm PT
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I was removing a walnut tree from powerlines next to a pool when I first started Aardvark Tree Service. As I pole pruned the tree out of the wires, it started to fall with me strapped to it some 45 feet above the pool. I had missed the telltale marks in the dirt at the base of the tree which should have been a warning that it wasnt stabil. As the tree fell with me in it, it snagged on something and I managed to scamper down (with spurs on!) to the deck. Once on the ground, I surveyed the area to see what was holding the tree up. About thirty feet to the right, I found a cluster of devils ivy with a fifty foot single strand going up to the top of the tree. I cut it with a hand pruner and all heck broke loose. The tree rolled out of the wires, broke in half and sunk to the bottom of the pool as the customer watched. It crushed a lawn chair flat as a pancake under 10,000 lbs of log. The tree was so big that it filled the entire pool with limbs sticking up in the air. It was enough weight to push the main part of the tree to the bottom of the pool. Were it not for the three eigths inch piece of Ivy that held the tree, I would have been tied to the mess, burried on the bottom of the pool under all that weight. Heaven only knows how my life was spared by a piece of devils ivy.
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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Nov 25, 2016 - 12:36pm PT
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Another time in my early tree days, I shoved a mulberry limb up into a 12,000 Volt primary. I was roped but luckily not spurred. 12KV will wake you up in the morning! The limb burst into flames and I had to call the fire dept. We watched anxiously as the wires burned through about five pieces of brush, praying that the wires didnt melt and come down. After the fire went out I had to climb back up and finish the job. Contract climbing is a bitch. You have to send or you dont get paid. The customer got to watch the whole escapade. How stupid and embarrassing was that!? Sometimes I wonder how I managed to survive those early years of climbing.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Nov 25, 2016 - 04:21pm PT
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Bugaboo Spire East Face attempt
We climbed 200 feet up the east face and bivouaced on that big ledge that used to be there. It started raining hard, and we got soaked despite out bivy gear. Then it dropped below freezing and started snowing hard. We started getting hypothermic.
We decided to wait until daylight to rap off and head back to the hut.
Bad idea. By morning, we found that our rope and rack had been sitting under a water drip, and everything was frozen in a thick, solid block ice.
How do chip your rope out of solid ice without damaging the rope? Even when we did get the rope free, it handled like steel cable and rappelling was almost impossible.
That's the closest I ever came to dying from hypothermia.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2016 - 06:46pm PT
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I posted this before but no one noticed.
Coming down.
Hanging on a single horizontal knife blade placed in a vertical crack while my partner took one end of the stuck rope and ascended back up it to free the rap line. I'm hanging and my partner is going up one end of a stuck rope.
Thanks Hank
We'll we're both still alive.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2016 - 07:16pm PT
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We're climbing something in the Meadows. Don't remember the name. The pitch is only 5.8 and Mike leads off. He clips a 1/4" bolt about 40 feet out and goes off into a sea of knobs. Later I can't see him and he yells for rope. I don't have any. So I undo the anchor and start climbing after him.
It's only 5.8. Who falls on 5.8. But simul climbing with just one bolt between us made it just freaky. There was much harder climbing below us and above us. But that pitch scared the poop out of me.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 25, 2016 - 07:23pm PT
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How about soloing 1/2" verglass where the sun don't shine? It ain't Yosemite and I've no pics so it prolly didn't really happen.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2016 - 07:49pm PT
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What were you thinking. Or were you.
Sounds freaking dangerous.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2016 - 07:54pm PT
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A friend took a 60' fall ice bouldering. His only injuries were from the tools. Pick to the head and crampons to the calves.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 25, 2016 - 08:55pm PT
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When s friend passed out up at Suicide Rock we carried him down in the Stokes litter.
An ambulance arrived at Humber Park, (not the good ones we have nowadays, this one looked like a station wagon\hearse). I volunteered to ride with him down to the hospital in Hemmit. The friend is not really in bad shape just dehydrated and tired. But the ambulance driver is thinking Mario Andretty on the way down. He's driving 60 plus on a 30 steep windy wet road. I don't think he gave a sh#t about his passengers he just wanted to go fast.
Fortunately the Paramedic in back screamed at the driver to shut it down. Several tines. He didn't want to die that afternoon.
Later everyone was fine.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Nov 26, 2016 - 10:21am PT
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I remember that...... then we drank Vodka.
The climbing has never really - really tried to kill me.... its the driving.
Once I was the passenger in the back of the VW Van.... sleeping in the back all nice and cozy in my down bag while the trip to Sequoia goes down. I remember the long drive around the lake and then the change in the sound of the motor as the 40hp worked hard up the big mess of switchbacks.
This all went down so fast.... I woke up when the car door slammed shut, seconds later I had this sensation of going in the wrong direction... in complete silence... something was very wrong. I sat up and realized the van was going backwards... and there was nobody in the drivers seat or the passenger seat!!!!???? !!!!! WTF????.... so i toss myself over the back of the front seat (65 Van no walk through) and just as I grabbed hold of the e-brake the Van slammed into the guard rail and I went flying all the way back to where I had been sleeping.... So I jump out of the side door and my friend and his GF are running down the road toward me.... I go to the back of the van and see that it has hit the last 18 inches before the end of the rail, after that its about 300 feet down to the road below.
A close call for sure!
(what happened is this.... Dude and GF get out to look at the Moon and Moro Rock, they close doors and while they are looking at the view, Dude suddenly noticed that the Van is not there because it rolling backwards down the road.... so he runs after it- gets to the door and the dam thing is locked! I went about 1/8 of a mile and was going pretty fast when the Van hit.)
Needless to say... my stoke was blown and there was no way I was going to climb with the dude, so a nice weekend of looking at the scenery followed.
I feel like every day after that is gravy....
good stories all.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nov 26, 2016 - 10:45am PT
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My first near fatal dyno, as a teen-ager, free soloing basalt blocks, high above the Deschutes River near Bend, in hiking boots and little experience. I was able to skillfully get myself into a can't go up can't go down situation. I could see the lifesaving jug a foot above my outstretched hand. After an eternity of wasting what little strength I had left, I made the leap that saved my life from being dashed on the jagged boulders below.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 26, 2016 - 06:33pm PT
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Near Stony Point
I'm maybe 12 or 13 yrs old and scrabbling around on the hillside. There's a railroad tunnel below and I want to go across above it on some hard packed sloping dirt. I start across and about midway my feet slip out and I start sliding down towards the top of the tunnel and the tracks. 30 foot fall maybe onto the tracks. I'd probably live unless a train came.
I managed to grab a scrawny little shrub to stop my slide and I'm just hanging there. Scarred shztless. I can't stay there so I give myself a minute and let go of the shrub and continue the remaining 15' to the other side of the tunnel. Longest walk of my life.
First time I've told this story to anyone.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 28, 2016 - 07:22pm PT
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Heading up to Mammoth on 395 for some skiing.
I'm driving my friends new car somewhere past Olancha going maybe 75 mph on Friday night.
We're pointed North and then suddenly we're pointed East for a few heartbeats. Then we're pointed North again.
It was a patch of black ice on the roadway. I have no idea what got us pointed north again. I didn't try and steer into it or anything because it happened so fast. That was probably a good thing.
My friend says: Maybe you should slow down.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 28, 2016 - 08:21pm PT
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I did a winter solo of a Cascade peak the day after donating a pint of blood. I thought I was tough. I made it up the technical stuff before I hit The Wall climbing the crotch deep slope to the summit. Holy crap! Really stoopid! Two words: rag doll.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Nov 28, 2016 - 10:16pm PT
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Heading up to Mammoth on 395 for some skiing. Heading up to Mammoth for some skiing.
395 is engulfed in a full-on blizzard.
And it's the middle of the night.
Trouble is, I'm doing 25 mph behind several cars, all led by a state snowplow.
I got my chance and floored the accelerator, passed everyone in my big 4x4.
No problem, bro!
I start passing the snowplow but the viz was zero from all the blown snow.
Just as I got alongside the snowplow, a large plow blade appeared dead ahead.
Seems the plow had a blade in front and a wing sticking out to the side.
It was plowing both lanes at the same time.
A wild jerk on the wheel and some skillful driving saved my ass.
But I left all those suckers behind in my spindrift.
It was a great week of skiing but still not as good as Colorado.
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Modesto Mutant
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Nov 28, 2016 - 11:05pm PT
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Back in the day (early 1970's) my first climbing foray in the Valley was Church Bowl Chimney (5.7, if that). Did it with a fellow Modesto Climber Rick Richardson. Except we were completely clueless to technique. We thought that our new Galibier Vercors would be the solution for our bold endeavor. We were young, we were stupid. Well, miraculously we made it to the top of the Chimney only to be stumped by how to get down. If you've done the climb, there's a free hanging rappel off the back side, we wanted no part of that. In our innocence, we decided to improvise a Tyrolean abseil improvising with the big Pine Tree adjacent to the Chimney. It made for a gripping adventure and made us feel like (false) gods as we drank beer in Indian Canyon deep into the night.
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DM88T
climber
Dave Tully San Dimas CA
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Nov 29, 2016 - 11:00am PT
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Don Paul's fine picture of the north face of Pagoda Peak in the Mtn-Gods thread reminded me of some Type 2 Fun.
In 1971 two of my regular partners and I climbed the buttress in the center of this north face. I lead the last 5th class lead. With 600 feet of fourth and third class remaining to the summit the weather started to turn. We packed the ropes, threw on cagoules, and made a run for it. Speed was our only protection and the quickest way at this point was over the summit. Everything was buzzing around us. I still had the rack on under my cagoule and as I was crossing the ridge just east of the summit I looked down inside the cagoule and could see little lightning bolts between the iron and the cagoule. We didn't stop for the register. Apparently the Mountain Gods forgave our impertinence that day.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2016 - 06:17pm PT
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I'm hiking with my Boy Scout troop up San Gorgonio peak in So Cal.
It's dark and cloudy but not raining or storming.
Out of nowhere lightening zaps a tree about 75' from us and with the instant deafening thunder boom accompanying. We were all on the ground dazed without really knowing how we got on the ground.
We all had our little metal Sierra cups and a few pots and pans. Fortunately the lightening decided the nearby tree was a better target.
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Peater
Trad climber
Salt Lake City Ut.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2016 - 06:38pm PT
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I was in the dentist office this morning just for cleaning fortunately.
But it seems that the other souls in there were in for much worse. I couldn't see much but I could hear all too clearly. The woman cleaning my teeth and I had to pause occasionally for us to stop laughing before she could get back to work.
Aahhh
Dentist: I knew that was going to hurt but I had to do it.
Aahhh: I don't want you to do that!
Dentist: You have a cavity and I have to fix it.
OK but just let me walk around for a bit first.
Aahhh:
Dentist: I think you need some more Nitrous.
Aahhh: Mom he's hurting me again!
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Nov 29, 2016 - 09:39pm PT
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Frying while climbing the arch supports of a bridge 300' above a dry creek in the Angeles under a full moon.
It's ok, we were 17 then and quite invincible.
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