Missing one (probably needs to go in the specialty department): Me and buddy sorting out gear at Ellery Lake turnout post mini-epic up Ellery Couloirs. Dude in big RV drives up, gets out. Looks at us. Looks up. Looks at us again. Looks up again. Then looks at us once more:
In pitch perfect Slim Pickens voice: "You boys gonna scale that peak?"
Climbing at Swan Slab one day, the driver of the Green Dragon said to the tourists "This is where the climbers Practice their climbing" PRACTICE?!? This is real climbing buddy! Later that day while riding my bike to the Manure Pile, I passed the bus and yelled "This is where the climbers practice riding their bikes!"
Spot on with Mt. Everest, but forgot my second bane: El Cap! (I've stuck to mostly alpine and multi-pitch sans aid up til this point, it'll happen eventually.)
Gearing up at the parking lot for Ancient Art, hiker sees California plates: "You boys climbed that El Capeetan?"
Co-workers, "How was your weekend?" - "Great, was in Yosemite climbing". "Oh neat, did you climb El Capitan?"
While in Squamish, countless times, "Oh, from California? You climbed El Cap?"
If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked if I climbed El Cap, I could buy a new rack.
I should probably suck it up, buy aiders and ascenders and just do it one of these days. Maybe I'll just rap it though, I hear that's pretty easy.
I was bouldering in Acadia NP, Maine in 2002 and everywhere we went we would get the 'What the heck are those things' in regard to our crash pads. So we just started randomly telling people our crash pads were actually for our traveling puppet show. I guess word spread quickly and about 3 days later a gaggle of kids with their parents came up to us and asked when the next show was. Sadly the only show they got was us flailing on some terrible rotten rock covered problems.
A friend told this story. He was leading something, gripped, sewing machine leg, whatever, not making much progress. A suburban couple walking by stops to watch the drama as my friend is fighting for his life. "Come on, honey, lets go. He's GONNA make it," says the husband to the wife. They were just watching to see if he was going to fall!
Let us know!