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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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First multipitch climb
Start at 3pm no light
Found anchors with bic
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Nothing really happened on my worst climbing mistake, but it still really haunts me. I was taking a book learned belayer up Astroman. I would lead and he would follow and belay. I had just led the boulder pitch and tied off the rope. I let him know it's ok to jugg. Just at the last minute he asks again, are you sure it's ok? Of course, as I lean over to catch a glimps. My heart raced, and I yelled NO! He had clipped into the end of the rope, with all this slack between me and him. I had not pulled all the rope up to the ledge, just tied off thinking he would just trail the rope, or we would pull it up after. Anyway, he swore that he read in a book the right thing for me to do was to pull up all the rope then tie off. He may have been right, I just had never used that method in all my years of climbing. Anyway, no harm no foul, but boy it could have been deadly.
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SeanC
Trad climber
Redlands, CA
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After soloing Royal Arches I threaded the rope through the rap chains,made sure the middle point, which was marked by a foot long dark mark, was in the right spot, pitched the two ends and started rapping, really fast. I was looking up at the anchor for the first 60 feet or so and when I looked over my shoulder, right as I headed over the first bulge, I realized I had about 10 feet left on one end and 30 feet on the other. If I had looked over my shoulder two seconds later I may have rapped off one end of my rope!
Turns out a foot of my rope close to the middle had gotten wet at some point and looked just like the faded halfway mark. After I got down I sewed a bunch of floss through the midpoint on that rope... Much easier to see and harder to mistake.
It's the simple ones that get ya!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I sassed my wife-to-be and made her third class some nasty shite I shouldn't have.
But I learned my place.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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My mistake was not checking my partners sh#t- we are about to simul-rap off daff. we confimr its time to start and right before I lean back my partner yells to stop and I look over and he hasn't even threaded his atc yet- just holding it in his hand. Sheepish apologies suffice as nothing came of it, but now I keep an eye on all my partners- their anchors, their raps, even if I trust them- we all make mistakes
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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My mistake was not checking my partners sh#t- we are about to simul-rap off daff. we confirm its time to start and right before I lean back my partner yells to stop and I look over and he hasn't even threaded his atc yet- just holding it in his hand.
Yet another in a long list of reasons why simul-rappeling is a really bad idea.
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harryhotdog
Social climber
north vancouver, B.C.
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Yes simul-rapping seems like a real time saver,if you do it right you don't waste any time getting to the nether-world.
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Trusty Rusty
climber
Tahoe Area
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2014 - 09:18pm PT
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Excellent cast of "Oh F**k" moments. Many terrific eye openers and stories to hopefully keep raising awareness. . .but clipped shoelaces???; that's just proof the Devil wears a chock-bag.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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If you're into leaving really looooong tails for your Euro Death Knots - consider not trying to rap down them.
I witnessed that 'almost heaven' moment first hand, even it if wasn't mine.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Yet another in a long list of reasons why simul-rappeling is a really bad idea
Like simul-rapping off Daff is worth the risk, especially for n00bs?
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bjj
climber
beyond the sun
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This is absolutely beyond embarrassing, and I swore the other guy to secrecy back then, but it's been 17 years, so... f**k it. Some of the details I may have wrong due to fuzzy memory from it being so long ago.
I took my second trip to Yosemite in the spring of 1997 right after the reopening from the big flood. Had been climbing about 2 years, and was feeling very good on all kinds of leads. I pulled into the park about 2 hours after it reopened in March. I was literally the second tent set up in C4, and for the week I was there that trip, the place never got more than 1/3 full.
There was more free firewood than we could burn. Deadfall, pieces of destroyed cabins and buildings. It was piled up everywhere and we were encouraged to use it.
Partner and I had the park to ourselves more or less. No matter how mega classic the route, we could wake up at a leisurely time and amble over whenever we wanted, without any worry of being in a line. He'd never been there before and I'd only been once, so this was nice to know we could hit up all the trade routes. The only other person I saw climbing anywhere the entire time was when Ron Kauk rapped off Reed's while we were standing around at the base.
Anyway, after many days of rock ecstacy, I want to get to the one ultra mega spot that we seemingly can't get to: The Cookie. I REALLY want to check out some of the routes there. But of course the highway would remain in ruins for a very long time, so there was no way to access it... or was there?
We stop by some ranger office thing and ask to look at a map. I find what I am looking for. The old logging road from Foresta down to the cliff. Fantastic!
The next day we drive up into Foresta and park in a cul-de-sac. We wade off into the woods and bushwhack a few minutes before finding the now defunct road heading down the ridge side.
45 or so minutes later, there we are. The Cookie stands before us in all it's glory, and there's no one around. Not a soul. Just two N00BS and the cliff.
Our plan is to climb Bev's tower, to Wheat Thin and (if we're feeling good about it) finish up on Butterfingers, and perhaps then TR butterballs.
IIRC, the start to Bev's requires a scramble up around to the left, gaining a bit of altitude before the start of the climb. I rope up and cast off. I pass a belay spot / rap station (this will be important later) that seems to serve no purpose. I have plenty of rope left and keep going until I get to the ledge at the end.
I belay my partner up. Or at least I hold the rope a lot while he hangs and wheezes his way up. He's way way out of shape and the last few days have taken it out of him. He's having a hard time.
Finally he joins me on the ledge and we are then faced with a weird traverse to the right that seems a little scary. IIRC, I place some gear and tenuously make my way over. I put my partner on but he's kind of worn out and gripped. He doesn't want to continue, and says that even if he makes it over, there's no way he can follow Wheat Thin or anything else.
Ok, so be it. I reverse back to where he is and we rig for rap. I toss our 50m rope straight back behind us down the front of the cliff face (oopsy #1), and amped up on stoke to get us to something else (oopsy #2) I hard charge rap on out of there.
I don't really know what I was thinking as I head down the face. At some point before very long it should have been REALLY REALLY obvious I was on a rap into nowhere. I guess I assumed if I just kept going I'd find another station. Wrong. The station I should have been going to was back around the corner. That one I passed on the way up.
So now, I am getting close(ish) to the ends of the rope (no knot tied in said ends, of course) and I am starting to realize I have a problem.
I'm in the middle of the face, still at least 75+ feet off the ground, with nowhere to go. There's nowhere to build any kind of emergency anchor out of gear (most of which is on my partner's rack anyway). I didn't rig a prussik (prussik? WTF is that?!) around the rope before casting off, so I have no way to even let go of the rope short of leg wrapping it. Add to all of this, what now seemed a blessing -having the whole cliff to ourselves- has become a liability in that no one with an actual brain in their head is around to help us.
So, what to do? With mounting panic, I spy what looks to be a detached flake of some kind another 20 feet below. I rap down to it in the hopes I can rig up something.
I get to it and it's not going to take any kind of gear, or at least at that level of experience and in that mindset, I can't think of any way to make it work. It's flaring and dirty and too wide and whatever else it was such that I do not think I can trust any potential nest I can rig to support my weight.
So, instead I decide to go the bone head directissima route. I yell up to my partner who sticks his head over. I explain the situation. I'm going to simply grab on to the flake with one hand, pull my rope through the device, tie myself in with one hand and have him put me on and lower me to the ground, at which point he can then rap in the correct direction to get off the thing.
He's like "uh....well ok". So I do kind of arm drape / grab of the flake with my right hand and paste my feet on some slanting ruggosities. It all feels fairly solid. Well, moment of truth... I manage to pull the rope through the device and in about 15 seconds flat I have retied a figure 8 one handed. I yell up to my partner to put me on. 5 seconds later the rope comes tight and I finally exhale as I let go and am lowered to the ground.
At no point during all that did it occur to me to do anything to make it safer. Such as pulling some slack through the device first and one hand tying a bight and clipping it to myself, or tying the ends to myself, or anything. It was just put myself in a certain-death-should-anything-go-wrong type situation and hope for the best.
My partner rapped off and joined me and we skulked back up the road and called it a day.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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This thread has some really good lessons within.
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STEEVEE
Social climber
HUMBOLDT, CA
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As the saying goes,"God looks after fools and children."
We have all been fools.
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sDawg
climber
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The worst was not checking that a relatively inexperienced partner had untied his figure-8 before pulling a rope. Then thinking maybe we can find an easier way to the top than Double Cross (5.7 and a straightforward lead for me at the time). Luckily for me he felt responsible enough to lead the .10c slab above an ankle-breaking ledge.
Worst that was more on me was borrowing a harness, gratuitously checking it before leading a pitch, then starting to take it off before understanding that the group wanted me to setup a toprope at an anchor that was easiest to exit via rappel. Luckily I am light and not an adventurous rappeler and the un-doubled-back hipbelt did not slip at all between when I "checked" the rappel and when I got to the ground.
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Travis Haussener
Trad climber
Salt Lake City
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Maybe not my worst but this one has stuck:
We had just finished climbing Bishops Terrace. Everything at the anchor went as smooth as possible a nice tight EDK with long tails, my fatter 11 mil was sitting on top of my skinnier 9.7 I rapelled down without a hitch. My partner and girlfriend was next, I told her to be careful, I had to work to prevent swinging on the rap (nothing crazy but enough to keep you aware). So I got a good vantage point from the ledge at the bottom of the rap (lookers right of the climb and this is the standard "rapel to" point).
She came down without any significant problems all the way to the dirt. I decided it'd be easier to pull the rope from the ledge. Given the topography of the area the ledge was on moderately steep sloping terrain so once on it you're 15 ft off the ground but can easily walk lookers right to get down.
As I begin to pull rope I can feel the slack give way and down it comes falling the full ~55 m (Ordinarily not a big issue...you just look out). So as I stand on this ledge nonchalantly...the rope whips hard, within 6 inches of my face. It was then I realize if it would have hit me I would have said an obscenity stepped backwards in pain an pitched head/back first 15 ft to the ground, helmetless (I had taken mine off once on the ground), on top of a number of granite boulders.
I try to be a little more self aware of my surrounding when pulling the rope these days.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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I see a lot of pics of belayers in a comfy spot. My worst mistake was not paying attention to directional forces on the leaders pro. I was too far from the cliff. When he fell all his pieces ripped. If I would have been closer to the cliff they may have held. The directional force of the rope leveraged the pro out.
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