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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Mar 11, 2008 - 08:16am PT
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What a KILLER thread! Oh, the humbling humanity of it all.
I like the Yabo dropping shyte stories....I have one of my own.
When Yabo and Lesher did their all night "speed" ascent (Thirty hours I think) of the Shield, Yabo borrowed a large quantity of gear from me including my awesome homemade pile pants.
So Yabo returns "my" gear. I had lent him pretty new stuff, and he hands me the most motley collection of bent pins "cleaner" biners and copperheads with shredded cables etc.. "Hey Yabo, this isn't my gear..." "Yeah, heh heh but it was very similar..heh heh.." "Hey Yabo, what about my pile pants?"
"Uhhh...they got dropped from chickenhead..heh..heh..I'll go look for 'em later..heh heh.." Never saw them again. heh heh..
When Lesher, Lepton and I were doing the 3rd ascent of Tribal Rite in 81 I believe, Rob fell and flipped upside down and BOTH racks started to take the big dive! He caught them both with his fingertips!! We had religiously clipped the racks to our harnesses every pitch and I don't know why he forgot that time.(There you go Tar)This was about two pitches above Boot Flake.
Royster and I were on Excalibur, and Keith was a whole pitch straight above me. I heard him yell F*#K! I foolishly looked up as he hadn't yelled rock or giant camalot whistling down at you at 100 miles an hour I saw it just in time to duck. The camalot skipped off my helmet and dug a quarter sized hole in the back of my shoulder. OUCH! There was a big gouge in the helmet too, the only time I've ever worn one on El Cap. Who knows....
Dropped a jug once from the Ear on Salathe and had to do the rest of the route with one jug and one prussik..
Safe climbing everyone!
Bruce
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Mar 11, 2008 - 08:39am PT
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I once watched a #2 camalot jump off my partner's harness as she was following Horseman. I yelled "rock", and sure enough one of the team who had just finished the climb stepped out from under the roof directly under it. I guess it is like slowing down to look at a car crash. Lucky for her she wasn't really directly under it. Landed about 18 inches left of her.
Not far from there - Laurel - an ATC dropped down right in front of somebody sitting in one of those little folding chairs, and bounced over his head.
Another time we caught a driver's license. Missed the credit card though. We saw it go by. Don't know if landed cliff-side and walked off, or never made it all the way down.
I also know someone who was so excited after his first trad lead including rigging a bomber anchor, he walked off leaving his climbing shoes behind. :-) I just asked him if the shoes were his.
Never seen a whole rack go though. Dropped a couple individual stoppers until I changed the biner they were on to old school oval.
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Delhi Dog
Trad climber
Good Question...
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Mar 11, 2008 - 09:17am PT
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" What a KILLER thread! Oh, the humbling humanity of it all. "
I guess this is what I had in mind when I posted the Stories of Failure...
Great stories folks and the memories, oh the memories!
Nice to know though when it seems at the time its the worst thing that could happen...it makes for a fine telling later:>)
Cheers,
DD
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Hard Rock
Trad climber
Montana
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Mar 11, 2008 - 09:56am PT
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"Never dropped the rack ..." But my story:
I was in charge of giving out the awards for our university climbing club. So, you have to have a dumb sh#t award. The winners one year (70's/80's) were in the tetons -got to the climb and found out they had forgot to bring the rack. Next year, the same 2 guys are at Lumpy Ridge - Sundance. They get to the bottom of the climb. One guys says to the other: we forgot the rope. The other guy said: "Oh not, not the Dumb Sh#t Award again"
-Kurt
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Mar 11, 2008 - 12:02pm PT
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"One of the first routes I did at Squamish was Sentry Box, in early 1973. It was then an aid climb, later Canada's first 5.12. I did it with Eric Weinstein."
Sentry Box! That was one of my first 5.12 leads. Don't remember seeing yr gear behind the flake or I would've bootied it for sure.That's a blast from the past. Didn't Weinstein do the ffa?
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snowey
Trad climber
San Diego
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Mar 11, 2008 - 12:52pm PT
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Luckily I have never dropped the whole rack, but I DID drop a full set of nuts. Kostas and I were climbing at Tahquitz on (I think) The Blank. At one point I was doing this traverse to the left while on lead and placed a nut in the crack only to have my fumbling hand drop the biner with all of the nuts. Luckily the biner landed on a small ledge behind a flake and after setting up an anchor, Kostas was able to retrieve many of the loose nuts and the biner by using a sling and a nut tool to reach behind the flake.
After that point, I too moved to an old school oval biner and nothing of the sort has happened since.
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snyd
Sport climber
Lexington, KY
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Mar 11, 2008 - 01:00pm PT
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Never dropped the rack, just the rope.
Fall 1994. I was lurking around the parking lot late in the morning on a rest day. I see Rick Piggot taped to the hilt stomping around the place, with a pissed off look on his face. Normally I would have avoided Rick while he was in a mood but I had not talked to him in few years. "What's up man? You look like you are ready to kill someone!", I said. "F*#king Germans stood me up!" he replied. I soon understood that he was to attempt N. Face Rostrum with the Alien finish with some German dude who was AWOL.
I was taking a rest day but I told Rick that I didn't mind to give him a catch on whatever he wanted. I wasn't keen to jug up the north face but some 1 pitch stuff would be OK. It would give my partner some good photo ops and Rick wouldn't waste the whole day.
We busted down to Separate and Rick hucked a couple quick laps for a warm up.
He then insisted that we go out to The Rostrum where we would go to the summit, rap the last pitch and he could have his on-sight go at The Alien. I didn't mind, short approach and again my partner could get a really nice photo opportunity.
The three of us made our way to the parking area and then hiked down to the rim. Rick and I soloed into the notch with rack and two ropes. One we would fix to down below the roof and on the second Rick would lead Alien. Rick started up the short pitch to the summit of The Rostrum. Once he was at the top I started soloing this short pitch. I look down to my right and at the sickening drop, down climbed in my sneakers to the notch and called for a belay. Rick grumbled but threw down the cord. I tied in and started up. As I looked down to the right and contemplated the huge fall I might have taken the second rope, draped across the top of my pack in a lap coil jumped and went all the way to the base of the formation.
As I pulled onto the summit Rick immediately noticed the lack of aforementioned cordage. "I dropped it, Rick", I said sheepishly. "You f*#king bonehead! Go back and get it!", he chastised. It was apparent that he didn't understand, the rope was at the base. Luckily it was my rope and not his. I'm sure that this saved me at the very least a good tongue lashing and at the most a beating.
I ended up lowering him off the summit for a couple of TR laps on the standard 5.12 route and then going back to the base the next day with my partner and retrieving the cord. It was only 35 yards from the start of the Regular, Thank God!
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rick d
Social climber
tucson, az
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Mar 11, 2008 - 01:04pm PT
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11 friends in 1986 off the loose block belay of the Nose (above camp 6). I clipped around the daisy instead of into it as I leaned back and the block swiveled. We topped out thanks to Brad Ball's ability to get the HB's in friend holes.
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Bubba Ho-Tep
climber
Evergreen, CO
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Mar 11, 2008 - 02:57pm PT
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My "dropping the rack nightmare" happened back in 1976. An up and coming rock star (who shall remain nameless) and I headed up to the Naked Edge in Eldo. I drew the odd pitches and he drew the even. Obviously, this was the pre-cam era and we climbed in 2" swamis and each climber had a gear sling.
All went pretty smoothly and he floated the dreaded 4th pitch with the chimney moves. I followed with a little trouble, but managed to do it cleanly. Back then, there was a bit more fixed stuff on that pitch, so when I made the belay, I didn't have a lot of gear that I had cleaned. Somehow, in the changeover, the rock star managed to drop the sling with every piece on it that I had not cleaned from the last pitch. As I watched it disappear over the edge in slow motion, it dawned on me just how screwed we were. What lay ahead was a .11 move into an overhanging .10b hand crack and we had one piece that we knew might fit in the crack plus a hand full of biners and slings. Fortunately, there used to be a couple more fixed pieces on this pitch also, but they were down low.
At any rate, the rock star decided that since he dropped the rack, it was his duty to lead the last pitch - I have never been so overjoyed in my life! Off he leads, through the hard opening move and then he stops. Minutes turn into what seem like hours and pretty soon, he appears back at the belay, having reversed what many think is the crux of the route. It is apparent that there is no way he is leading the pitch.
After a short conversation in which we figure out that the only way out is up, I decide to take a look. Up through the tough crux move, then to the bottom of the crack which now looks like it goes on for multiples of it's true length. I reach up and get a couple of good jams and move my feet up, pretty much committing myself. At that point it comes to me exactly what I am doing and I get as gripped as I think I have ever been. Of course, any technique I had vanished and I started over jamming like crazy - scratching and clawing for all I was worth, basically turning .10 into .11. I finally thrutched my way into the wider part at the top and plopped down on the small exposed stance. At that time, there was a old fixed pin of dubious worth at the stance and I had no other gear to back it up with. After sufficient recovery time, I called down to start climbing. Fortunately, my partner climbed the crack like it was 5.6, continued on to the top and the adventure was over. It was kind of an anticlimactic finish to the day, but an experience I will never forget.
I went on to do many more climbs with the rock star and he went on to achieve rock climbing fame. Neither one of us ever dropped another piece of gear while climbing together! I haven't seen him in years now, but you can bet that if I do, the subject of that day will come up.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 11, 2008 - 03:31pm PT
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KLK: Yes, Eric did the FFA of Sentry Box. He was quite determined to do it, and worked on it over two years before doing it in 1976. Although it was technically harder than anything else in Canada at the time, it had a short crux near the top. Eric took one or two big falls there onto small stoppers and such, once falling a move before the top and going 10+ metres.
I wonder how much old gear could be fished out from places like that, using a fishing line and hook?
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nutjob
Stoked OW climber
San Jose, CA
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Mar 11, 2008 - 06:29pm PT
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Never dropped a rack, but at different times I've let go of a camera, a watch, a cam on several occasions, and a couple of slings.
Every time I pass over a rack on a sling I'm super-anal, holding onto it until well after my partner has grabbed it.
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Dr. Rock
Ice climber
Castle Rock
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Sorry to dredge up this thread, but I am heading for Patterson Bluffs and got started on a wild goose chase that led here, via Richard Leversee, who has done some multi pitch stuff up near Balch Camp.
Anyway, a friend of mine had a ranch off of Sanborn Road, and one drunken night, we thought it would be real cool to steal a Road Construction blinker, you know, the big yellow reflector type, oh wow, flashback, remember the smudge pot flaming roadside marker thingies, anyway, we want this blinker to be visible across the entire valley, so one guy is leading up the tree with an axe for pounding nails, and the guy 30 feet below him is heading up with the blinker.
I can see the progress, because it's after midnight, heck, everybody in Saratoga and Los Gatos can see the progress, blink, blink, up they go, this huge redwood is near the summit, so as they are making there way up the tree, I hear the lead guy yell,"Look Out!", then I hear this sickening thud, followed by a groan and Reflector Guy sailing down to the ground, bouncing off off tree branches, all the time clutching on to the reflector as to prevent damage.
I don't know if you have ever seen a guy bounce off of tree branches while clutching a blinker, but it's pretty entertaining.
The guy was alright. I think he was so drunk that he went back up and finished the job.
I think the next weekend we got drunk and cut down the huge Big Basin State Park sign with chain saws, boy , that could have been expensive, destroying Federal property, DUI, I mean, how did our cars get up there, right?
Holy Cow I hope this Butte fire doesn't hop across the N. Fork Feather, lookin serious up in Paradise...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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I haven't done the deed myself but fumbling the handoff always brings to mind the celebrated Yabo Affair. Unbeknownst to Largo, Lynn and Yabo had a little thing going and Yabo was doing his best to win the day.
My one chance to climb with Lynn was lost in the passion. We were going to do the Moratorium until it was proclaimed that THEY were intent on the same. The madness peaked during a fast ascent of the Chouinard- Herbert on Sentinel where the, by then, completely over wrought Yabo dropped the rack from high up. Down raced our heroes to fetch the goods and back up in a flash to redemption. He always was an excitable young lad!
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Hmm, does dropping the rope count?
I have a celebrated climbing friend (who shall remain nameless)who has done it twice. Once he and his partner were able to tie all their gear and slings together and retrieve their rope from a flake it had draped over, and once they were just stuck until someone came along.
That is why this particular pal (and a few others) prefers climbing on double ropes.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 30, 2009 - 03:00pm PT
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Bumbly Bump!
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Blinky
Trad climber
Hillsborough, NC
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Oct 30, 2009 - 03:14pm PT
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Myself, my main partner and a young kid were benighted on an easy 5 pitch route after spending too much time wandering around looking at the wall. On the last pitch, in the dark, I was standing alone at the belay when the rope came down to me... the whole and only rope. The kid had untied and tossed his end off after the other end was lowered to me... it was dark, he was 11, honest mistake. It was the most 'interesting' free solo of my life, 5.7ish. Can't say I enjoyed it much though... OK, I was skeered as hell a couple of times. We bivied at the top because the hike out was off trail and followed the edge for about a mile.
Does that count?
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gonzo chemist
climber
the Orange Curtain
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Oct 30, 2009 - 05:58pm PT
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A few years ago, a friend and I decided on a whim to go climb the Third Pillar of Mt. Dana after our original idea to do some climbing on Mt. Russell fell apart at the last minute. We arrived at the base of the route to find several parties above. Not wanting to risk getting stuck behind slower parties, or getting loose rock knocked down onto us, we decided to climb some variation pitches to the right of the original route. We had no topo, but figured it all looked pretty featured with plenty of options. On pitch three and my partner was leading up a fairly insecure set of twin flaring finger cracks, when I hear, "OH SH#T!" I look up just in time to get pelted with a hail-storm of stoppers. I managed to thrust my left hand way out at the last moment and snatch one nut mid-flight. I can't remember what exactly happened that all the nuts spontaneously seemed to fly off the carabiner, but it was a hell of a surprise. Ended up being a great day though...perfect weather and tons of fun.
-Nick
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Karen
Trad climber
So Cal urban sprawl Hell
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Oct 30, 2009 - 06:28pm PT
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A friend of mine while camping mid-way up Liberty ridge on Rainier accidentely dropped their pack containing all their gear, ice screws, ect. essentially they were stuck until another party happened their way. These guys ended up being helicoptered off the top due to frostbite.
Another time I was climbing Nutcracker, my friend was leading and he dropped his beaner with all our nuts on it. He freaked out and we ended up having to beg other parties to leave in their gear so we could finish the route.
what a bunch of nOObs....
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hooblie
climber
"i used to care, but things have changed"
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Oct 30, 2009 - 06:33pm PT
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no, we always got to the ground with at least a hardware sling, but i've paddled after a tent with sleeping gear
that blew into the river while breakfast was on the stove. things got real awkward for a bit bulldogging it to the beach
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Oct 30, 2009 - 06:44pm PT
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So I'm up on a major FA in the Leavenworth area with a recently highlighted individual who shall remain nameless but not blameless.
We're hauling the pig and it hangs under a little lip. I give it a little extra herk and I'm suddenly weightless until I hit the end of my daisy. I look down in utter disbelief to see yon porcine entity flying through the air with the greatest of ease. That is until it met the slabs whereupon it exploded its entrails. Said entrails included my full rack of Pentax gear and a borrowed Bolex Super-8! There were definitely some furrowed brows when the autopsy revealed a shocking lapse of knot-tying dedication! We're all still friends, as long as that doesn't come up.
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