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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Nov 27, 2014 - 11:10am PT
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It was a bomber anchor, but I came so very close to dying there that I can't get it out of my mind whenever some mentions rap anchors.
"The Sarge" and I had just climbed P1 of Devil's Delight (Tahquitz.) Our plan was to do P1 and rap (It's a really fun pitch.) At the anchor I caught up with a nice gal belaying her leader up P2. I asked her if I could share the anchor, and clipped in without intruding on her set up. "The Sarge came up. By then the gal was gone. My partner clipped the anchor and I leaned out to view the rappel. I started to fall outward. I felt like a million volts was going through me as I turned saw the anchor moving away. I grabbed for the runners there and just barely reached them before taking the plunge.
I will never know how or when I got unclipped, who did it, or how I could not have noticed it. So I guess the worst anchor I'll ever use is the one that I wasn't clipped into.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 27, 2014 - 12:51pm PT
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The best anchor story that I have heard recently came from Eric Bjornstad during my interview with him last year.
He and Fred Beckey climbed Chinle Spire and found the capstone to be very soft, much too soft for bolts, so they set up an anchor driving several ring angles as soft stone pickets.
The rope got twisted and they started flipping it aggressively to free it up from the ground. After a few tries they gave the rope a mighty flip and were amazed to find the rope pitons and all flying to the ground!
My wife Mimi and Dan Langmade did the second ascent many years later only to find no anchors so after futilely trying to set up another piton anchor they chose to sacrifice Dan's new 9mm and single wrap the entire capstone to get down. Todd Gordon and partner were the third party up and found Mimi and Dan's bleached rope still in place thinking it was original equipment.
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KabalaArch
Trad climber
Starlite, California
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Nov 27, 2014 - 03:46pm PT
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Fright fest thread!
So I guess the worst anchor I'll ever use is the one that I wasn't clipped into.
A thunderstorm had closed in unnoticed and fast from behind Glacier Point, and a precipitate retreat from Deep Throat was in order. We three were all strung out on the upper pitches, about 500' or so above the Valley floor – Scottie was topped out at the stance, Tom about halfway up the pitch, myself smeared on the rounded dish which constituted the lower stance.
Coming down in buckets, with stream courses everywhere. Hella lighting and thunder added to the confusion of us shouting back and forth. A short pitch it was, and the rope was running past my stance; I think the Plan was for me to untie so the upper climbers could bypass this stance, and make it to the next one on down. So, I was just clipped into the bolts, when the word came down for me to head down first.
So I grabbed a belly of slack to rig my descender – the 6-biner brake still in wide use at the time.
Surrounded by the confusion of this sudden tempest, I stopped myself in the middle of the act of unclipping from the anchors – before I was clipped into the rappel.
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christoph benells
Trad climber
Tahoma, Ca
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Nov 27, 2014 - 07:02pm PT
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about 2 snow bollard raps below this. Had been climbing way too long.
I dug out the bollard and hit ice about 6 inches deep. I cut it out as good as i could but alaskan ice is very, very hard.
We had a couple of stubby ice screws in our packs that would have worked great as a backup...but general tiredness took over and i elected to use a half pounded in picket as a backup...
I rapped over the overhanging edge of the crevasse and when i made it to the snow down below and put my feet down it all collapsed.
next thing i know i am hanging upside down a few feet into a crevasse only being held up from certain death by the terrible bollard and a useless picket. I had the other rope too so if i had gone in my partner would have been totally f*#ked.
But hey, all is well that ends well, and i learned a great lesson and will never do that again.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO & Bend, OR
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I bump this again for real climbing content. And fortunately I still have nothing else to offer.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Marooned, 855 miles from Tuolumne Meadows
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Arrowhead Arete gully had at least a dozen faded slings around a tree or boulder; but, still seemed sketchy (Walt S. in charge of safety...). Especially since it's a full 165+' free-hang off of a huge, sharp, chockstone. Unnerving.
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big ears
Trad climber
?
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https://www.climbing.com/videos/hansjörg-auers-terrifying-rappel/
Personally i think they should not have published this vid. With so many people climbing these days, there will be more and more peoe who think its “cool” to get into situations like this. In other words, some might take this as some thing to emulate, rathwr than contemplate and them learn from.
Thoughts?
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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That^^^ is the most sketchy suicidal rappel I've ever seen. It's so ludicrous it seemed staged at first. I fail to understand why a climber attempting this kind of ascent wouldn't be prepared with more hardware to facilitate the attempt. I guess the video proves what is possible, but yeah- posting it may encourage idiots to try the same.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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What about stories of Himalayan climbers rapping off of ski poles?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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I recall rapping off a hand-sized chickenhead in the Cochise Stronghold which snapped off as I was trying to flip the runner off of it to be cheap once I got down.
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ground_up
Trad climber
mt. hood /baja
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Man that video is almost hard to watch , the stuff of nightmares.
I do not think that any new climbers are gonna watch that and
want to try it cuz it looks rad.. I would hope not. Rapping is
one of the more dangerous aspects of climbing. I have never wanted
to make it more spicy. I would have crapped myself on that one.
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rbolton
Social climber
The home
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Not sure about this anchor.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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^^^^the bomber mousetrap anchor^^^
the practical physics (and assumption therein) requisite for this sh#t....
or just oblivious good luck...not that any of you know a thing about that...
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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I've posted these before, but they have a place in this thread:
Bailing off Coonyard Pinnacle mid-pitch somewhere with Davidji. It was actually pretty good because we each took a 40 foot slider off of it before giving up:
This one doesn't look bad, but the rusty piton is cracked all the way through, and the direction of pull on the nut is not friendly to where the rock constriction is. It's somewhere most of the way up Geek Tower center route, bailed with Jay Wood:
Probably would have had some other good ones on first time trying Hawkman's Escape, but camera strap broke in a chimney on the way up and I lost the camera (down somewhere on Michael's Ledge since 2008 or so).
Careful if you have to rap down Via Aqua (we didnt't - it's a relatively easy climb and a walk-off):
I have blocked out memories of whatever we rapped off or left behind in the Aquamist Chimney, which Ritwik and I used when were not sure exactly where we were after doing a new route to the left (which we had spontaneously decided on with no prior scoping/planning). It was the middle of the night, tired/cold/etc. and we didn't know we could have scrambled/walked off and come down the Yos Falls Trail from our high point :)
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Decades ago my buddy Galen and I made a late season descent of the Sherpa Couloir on Mt Stuart in the Cascades after an ascent of the complete north ridge. Silly us, September meant that the normally reasonable descent had changed from steep plunge stepping to an inch of mushy slub over rock hard alpine ice, and there was no way we were walking down, or even climbing since we had omitted the crampons to save weight. Someone had rappelled this recently and left anchors, all red slings with the initials RM sharpied on them, and each sling was super grim. In each case we reset the sling on a bomber horn situation within a 3' radius of the original awful placement, often requiring a little nut tool excavation to expose the solid situation.
We turned 8 terrible half rope rappels into a solid escape, including the last anchor. It was tied around the pinch point of a large peanut shaped boulder on a sloping gravel covered wet slab, and led straight over the overhanging downslope cliff face. Honestly, there wasn't more than 6 square inches of contact for this boulder spread over two points on a 25 degree downsloping slab. We just untied the sling, put it on the other point, and the load faced uphill as we escaped down the lower angled gully to skier's left.
Just because you come upon a horrible rap anchor doesn't mean you have to use it.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Canadian Rockies. We had to bail down a gully you'd normally just downclimb unroped, but a huge dump of heavy wet snow had occurred so everything (including the class 3 continuation of the route) had become a total death trap from risk of just getting sloughed over a little cliff. Things were sliding everywhere, and it only takes a few inches of that shyte to sweep you off. No photos: we started in the blizzard and before 2 rappels were done it was dark. Carried on all night, nine or ten 25 m raps. A bollard, an icicle, a V-thread (bomber), a whole bunch of single-piece raps on anchors including a cammed tricam, all in typical Canada rubble. Once, maybe twice, we had 2 pieces incorporating something we found. Being noobs to the region, we didn't realize in advance that any crack larger than knifeblade was just a stack of loose rocks, so most of the handful of pieces we had were totally useless. I conserved that one precious KB as long as possible!
Any real alpinist would have thought it was casual, but we thought it was gnarly and that we were lucky to get down without getting sloughed and burgerized against the gully walls.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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All rap anchors that hold are good. Your worst anchor is your last anchor.
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WBraun
climber
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Every gross materialist's anchor has already failed and that is why you are on this planet .......
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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pehaps but certainly some anchors only hold on some whim beyond our comprehension...
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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Timbers of Fennario
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Sketchiest rappel? The one I fell 45 feet off of, flipping and tumbling into the Ice Park. I made it into Accidents in North Amer. Mountaineering on that one. Anchor was fine, just the user (me) was an idiot. I do recall rapping off of a bush that was maaaayyyybe and inch in diameter that was frozen into the snow after an ice climb in the mountains. Good times!
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