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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:02am PT
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Nutjob,
Really well told! Oh, I so miss the USSR! I gotta say you could at least
walk the streets safely then. Of course, the reason they were safe is there was nobody on them.
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:07am PT
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Mickey's Beach...
Route called Nancy...
I'm weak....
"Z" clipped..
moved past until... couldn't move no more...
"Uhm... dude... the tide is coming in..."
Can't move...
"uhm dude... the tide... (feet getting wet)"
strength totally sapped...
figured it out.. eventually..
only half the rope got wet.. friend was drenched...
still living with it
not so proud moment in sports
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Branscomb
Trad climber
Lander, WY
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:25am PT
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Getting involved in this ridiculous activity.
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Port
Trad climber
San Diego
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:26am PT
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I tired climbing the east buttress of whitney the day before thanksgiving. We got stuck in the dark 300 feet from the summit with no bivy gear in an unpredicted snowstorm. It got so cold my nalean froze solid and I had frost nip on my fingers and toes. I damn near wanted to die.
I learned that going light and fast in the mountains can have major consequences.
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Russ Aulds
Trad climber
Cleveland, TN
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Aug 18, 2010 - 09:44pm PT
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First pitch of Wolf's Head in the Wind River Range of WY. I lead up to the belay stance and start to haul up the slack to bring up my inexperienced older brother when I see the other end of the rope!!......followed by my brother free climbing trying to catch up so he can tie in!!!
We made sure that never happened again!!
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coldclimb
climber
Wasilla, Alaska
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:13am PT
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At one time I was quite the experienced internet climber, and my buddy had climbed once or twice, just because he was my friend. We were set up for a 5.10 we'd never climbed, and being the experienced internet climber that I was I had my partner tie into his end of the rope, just in case we didn't have enough when he lowered me off, and then we rigged his belay and double checked everything. I quickly climbed to the first bolt, which was after a long crack that ends about 25 feet up, and I didn't bother with placing gear since the rest of the route was bolted. Reaching down to pull up some rope for the clip, I heard my belayer say "Ummm..." and glanced back to see him dutifully maintaining a correctly rigged belay... 60 meters away at the other end of the neatly stacked rope...
Easily rectified after a little downclimbing, but man we felt dumb! :D
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426
climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Aug 19, 2010 - 12:38pm PT
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Fruit w/ 'grits'. Ya!
I was recently thinking about another one that could have been easily mitigated, just by watching the new school and how they work highballs, brushing the tops, working moves on gris, etc.
Got to the top of Like A Virgin, (Bachars) pretty pumped. No pads of course (pumice is soft, right?...not)...
Did the last move a little worse than static, came up with a handful of sand. It was a long fall, semi-out of control. Walked out, but very woozy, took some of the impact on the head. Fortunately I was pretty youthful, but it was one of the falls that hits the landing gear hard.
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jfailing
Trad climber
A trailer park in the Sierras
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:47pm PT
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Pete was right about to fire the rest of the route when we had him come down and reassess his bolt clipping decision. We gave him a real hard time about it, but he sent way harder than us, so it's ok.
About five years ago I swaggered into the gym, hungover, and threw myself at a bunch of hard bouldering problems - no warmup. 15 minutes later, I'm underclinging a two finger pocket and am reaching for the next move. All my weight shifts onto my ring finger. There is a very audible snap and my tendon pulley goes poof. Took me over a year to start climbing confidently again, and I still tape it up to this day.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Aug 19, 2010 - 02:27pm PT
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Holy thread bump Batman. Half of page 1 is deceased.
I performed a David Copperfield rope-trick while pumped and totally noobing-out. I ended up with a mess of tangled rope and draws at the anchor and an overhand (yes overhand) knot somehow magically tied directly around the whole mess and snugged down tight with absolutely no way to free it or myself.
I think it took me 20-30 minutes to escape the thing. Route was overhanging so I was stuck hanging there like a dead duck at the market. I had to pull up tons of slack to sort of build a hanging belay to tie into so I could fully untie to fix it I was in so tight to the anchor it was way harder to un-weight and get off it than you can image.
The partner I was climbing with that day stopped returning my phone calls. BTW.
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Paulina
Trad climber
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Aug 19, 2010 - 03:51pm PT
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Oh what a thread!
Nutjob and Jaybro, you've got me pining for the good old days (not really), sob. In fact, Nutjob, your feats of climbing on drainpipes probably brought the same image to the heads of the Russian policemen: "The Story of the Unknown Hero" by Marshak. It's a poem that every kid used to learn in school, about a regular guy who worked out a lot and so once he was able to climb up a drainpipe and into the window of a burning building to save a little girl. :-) Ah, Soviet propaganda!
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Trouble
climber
Fresno, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:05pm PT
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This is my first post ever on this site...So here it goes.
My cousin John and I were rapping Skull Queen one fine October day. As we descended we made plans to drink pints upon pints of Mammoth ales and grub on Pizza at Degnan's that evening.
John was leading the traversing rappel into the alcove above the Kor roof. It's a tricky one (especially with a pig between the legs) as you have to pendulum to reach the next set of anchors. As soon as the ropes went slack, I knew he was at the anchor, it was my turn.
As I started my rappel the wind began to pick up a bit and it was a little difficult to hold my position once I reached the top of the alcove. Just as I was about to swing plum, John reached his hand out and pulled me into the alcove.
As I moved under the roof into the alcove, he had to unclip a long draw he was using to maintain control of the rope ends to let me pass. HERE IS WHERE IT HAPPENED. As I passed, I assumed he was going to clip the draw around me and back to the ropes so I could just anchor myself and come off rappel. I wasn't even thinking otherwise. I anchored myself, came off rappel, and LET THE ROPES GO!!!
Out of the corner of my eye I see the ropes swing out of sight, plum with the anchors above, or so I thought. I had the biggest sinking feeling in my chest. I felt like such a helpless fool. John looked at me and said, "did you just let the ropes go?" I snapped back saying "dude, I thought you were going to clip the draw around me!" It didn't matter what I thought...I had let them go. We were up sh@t creek now and it was time to hatch a plan.
I extended my daises, leaned out as far as I could, and saw one rope end snagged on the smallest of crystals. The wind had already taken the other end out of site and was threatening to dislodge this one. I dug through my haul bag and pulled out the longest chord I had, maybe 30ft and 6 mil.
After some trial and error (down aiding knots to see if we could swing over and reach it) and some debate, John decides to lead the pitch above ON THE STATIC CHORD to reach the rope. Freaky, given the first few placements are pretty thin. Needless to say, he reached the first bolt, clipped a leaver to it and I lowered him out. He reached with all his length and grabbed the rope just as the stopper knot hit my belay device!!!
I remember yelling up to him something like,"DUDE YOU ARE A F#@KING HERO! I AM GOING TO BUY YOU A STEAK DINNER AT THE AWAHNEE WHEN WE GET OFF OF THIS ROCK!" The rest is history.
Lesson Learned:
NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING...ESPECIALLY WHEN RAPPELLING. IF THE RAP ISN'T STRAIGHT DOWN AND THE ROPE GETS AWAY FROM YOU...IT COULD BE LETHAL.
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LB4USC
Trad climber
Long Beach
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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After Six is one of the first valley climbs my buddy Harry and I did on our own. It seemed like we ALWAYS had big wind on the last pitch, that made it hard to hear commands.
We decided in case of high winds to use three rope tugs to signal "off belay" in case the wind drowned out our shouts.
So Harry climbs out of sight. Then a little bit later, I feel three very even tugs. I let go of the rope, take it out of my ATC, and shout, "Harry, belay off!"
In a fraction of a second I hear, "NOOOOOOOOO!"
Fortunately, Harry had a stance and we can laugh about it now, but ...
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Gregg Olson
Boulder climber
Moorpark, Ca
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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This was back in the late 80's at Stony Point Ca. I had introduced my new girlfriend to climbing and thought it would be a great idea to get some laps in on the 5.11+ toprope climb " Scurf " so she could get some belay time in. After showing her all the in's and out's of belaying I started my workout, put in about 5 or 6 laps all of which she belayed and lowered me perfectly. After I was done I looked down at my knot to untie it and was absolutely sick to see that the melted plastic at the tip of my rope was all that the 1/4 completed figure 8 knot had sinched down on !! In all my showing her how to belay I must have been distracted while tying my knot and all I had done was pass it through my harness and up through the first loop of the figure 8 !!! To this day I stlll look down at my knot 3 or 4 times within the first 5 to 20 feet of any climb Im on. ( 4 or 5 times when im in the GYM !! )
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jhog
climber
south lake tahoe
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Aug 19, 2010 - 07:02pm PT
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I soloed up that climb at Tenaya lake (can't remember the name). Thought, that was easy, I'll go solo up the Great White Book across the valley.
Most scared I've ever been. Awkward climbing for a 5.6.
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cmcnall
Trad climber
belmont, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 07:18pm PT
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taking the wrong decent off Epinephrine.
Finished the route with the last 2 pitches, in the dark, in august and out of water. Awesome route BTW, I lead every pitch and loved it!
People warn of taking the wrong way down and we tried so hard to not be one of those. so we turn left and start heading down this scree field about 500 feet. and then we see it a gully cliff and a rap anchor. well we didn't feel like climbing back up 500 feet of scree so let take it.
talk about 15 of the worst sketchy raps in the dark ever!
the best rap was two chock stones with webbing wrapped between them and was about 4 feet away from the edge of a ledge. you had to lean waaay out to clip it and then just swing under the balanced stones and hope they didn't decide to come loose. half way down we saw a boulder that had fallen from top with a bolt in it!. great.. then about 6 pitches from the bottom we are exhausted. i forget to untie the knot on the end of the rope when pulling it and we get it stuck. at this point we are fried. my friend sleeps in a stagnant pool on the ledge and i think i slept on an ant hill near the stuck rope. Dawn breaks and my partner climbs up and manages to free the rope. we rap the last 5 or so pitches into a little one foot pool of stagnant water. we both stood in the pool for a while not daring to drink any of it but just hoping to absorb some moisture.
So don't go the wrong way down even if it means having to hike back up a little.
and don't wear crocs in the desert. i had to stop every 5 feet and pull the thorns out of my foot.
-chuck
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Rusty Royden
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:18pm PT
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Was directing a rock climbing exercise for kids at a Y camp involving 7 climber/instructors at 5 stations for some 30 kids. Got an emergancy call from one of my TR instructors. After instructing the rest of the team by radio to end thier exercises I dashed over to the staion that had called in the problem to find A kid dangling 15' up from his leg loops with his harness belt open. The kid didnt panic and the belay lowered him out. A quick investigation revealed that an untrained camp staff member had taken it upon herself to "help" by putting kids into harness's. She of course failed to double back the buckle. This occurred right under my nose as I was supervising the other climbing staff. A quick check found 3 other kids waiting their turns at various stations with improperly fastened harness buckles.
RR
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docsavage
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:33pm PT
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Long time listener, first time caller....
This thread actually inspired me to create an account. Where to start? Two episodes, in fact, stand out.
Attempting to free up a route in the Sandias (Duck Soup on Chaos Crag). Had done the crux 3rd pitch & set up a belay for the last when the sky opened up. Lowering off I misjudged the amount I had traversed, neglected to clip the lead line & wound up hanging in space 30 feet away from my partner's belay. Still don't know how I got back to him - you definitely won't find it in any manual. Worst part was, by that time the weather had passed but I was too freaked to continue....
Later I was leading a new route on the sandstone bordering El Malpais in New Mexico (since made off limits by the Acoma tribe), a splitter finger-&-hand crack widening to an off width, with a moderate escape right. Now off-widths are not my forte but this one, being kind of offset, called for a sketchy layback more than anything else. Besides there was that great ledge above. It wasn't. Again, don't know how I got back down. Multi-purpose lesson: Be sure & bring extra shorts....
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ruppell
climber
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:45pm PT
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4th of July weekend I was climbing at Bart Dome. Finished the climb and was in a hurry to get down and do the next one. It was my first time at the dome but from the guide it looked possible to get off with one rope with some small raps. Well the first rap is this weird rap into a chasm. You actually have to rap way off to climbers right as you chimney the chasm. My partner was not happy with this at all. We both got down and searched for the next rap. This one happened to be off of a huge chockstone with at least ten pieces of webbing. After double checking the slings it looked safe to me. I threaded the rope through the rap rings and looked at the 50 or so feet to easy 3rd class and my pack. Still in a hurry I put the bight of rope through my belay device and put that into my locking biner. I leaned back and felt the usual rope pull tight. I started my rappel. About ten feet down this slightly overhanging rap I notice my harness is riding really high on my right side. This is new I think as I look down to see what the problem is. The problem it turns out is that I was "clipped in" to my gear loop instead of my belay loop!! Knowing the ground was only 40 feet or so away I kept rapping quickly and smoothly. One thing that I thought as I reached the ground was "Thank You Yates" the other was "Are you a Friggin idiot". I took a lot of lessons from this one.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:04pm PT
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Most of mine occurred like most victims: after a couple years climbing, feeling comfortable and not knowing what you don't know.
Combine that with the fact we just started to drive to the crags and drink on our return in the mid sixties with no seat belts, metal dash with pointy cool looking knobs looking at you like bullets it's astonishing I'm alive. Good old mom claims it was the power of prayer, something more than just dumb luck.
Anyway, the worst? Too numerous to mention, teach your children well.
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mjb
Trad climber
Point Pleasant, NJ
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Aug 20, 2010 - 09:47am PT
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Pulling onto the summit of lizard head just as the sun set in the distance, shorts and a tee shirt. Moonless night, couldn't see my own shoelaces, clipped into rappel backed over the edge heard a click, thought to myself, "Shouldn't be no click noises" hand over hand back to the top find the rappel gear completely disconnected from my harness.
Now that will make an impression on you!
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