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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Alright... I actually had nightmares about that last video.
Wow. It looked like he could have welded one tool into that grassy crack/hummock thing above. I bet he could have bashed it in with his other tool, clipped the spike and rapped off of that.
Even hollar'ing for help before trying that awful stone thing would be preferable.
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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On Chimney Rock in the San Juan Mtns Jimmy Newberry and I were rapping down with one rope (two ropes would have allowed us to make the ground using established anchors. However, with one rope we ended up on a sloping ledge about 50 - 60 feet short of the bottom of the climb. No anchors, no cracks to put a piece in, so we looped the rope around the biggest cobble sticking out of that conglomerate. Jimmy went first and I held the rope in place in case it decided to slip. When it was my turn I walked off at an angle most likely to keep the rope looped around that protruding cobble. I did not like that rappel.
Another time Scott Mossman and I topped out on this pinnacle with a very small summit at Hartman Rocks south of Gunnison. There were no rap anchors at all on the summit so we put a bolt in. As the granite on the summit was rather grusy the finished bolt tended to flex. We were not reassured by that so we tossed each end of the rope down opposite sides of the pinnacle and simultaneously rapped off. It felt pretty wild but we felt much safer than we would have using that worthless bolt.
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clode
Trad climber
portland, or
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Joe should appreciate this one. In my early, teenage, stooped years, my buddy and I were deciding what to climb at Beacon Rock. I don't know the name of the route, but it's a thin crack somewhere between the western-most tunnel and Dod's Jam, on the western half of the river face.
I aided up, using all the small stuff on my rack: hexes 1 & 2, short, thin Lost Arrows, and a few small SMC wedges/nuts. I figured I got up about 70 feet off the deck because I had a 150-footer, and my buddy had not yet seen the halfway mark show up while he was belaying me.
At that point I ran out of gear for further upward progress. Then, right there, in front of my face, there it was, one button head, complete with hanger! I anchored off, my buddy jumared up, cleaning everything I had put in, then, with both of us hanging from that one bolt, we rapped off.
To this day I feel we got very lucky the bolt didn't pull or the hanger fail. I never climbed and rapped like THAT again!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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I climbed in over my head on a mixed line with sh#t gear early season once. 3m from the top in this nasty flared chimney I almost called for help from above as there was another party up there.. toughed it out and mad the thank god move to the bomber hook and the good gear....
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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It was like rapping off a bad anchor, only different.
I think it was in 2010 that I decided to replace the anchors for the top two pitches of the Don Juan Wall at the Needles. Some guys in camp said they were doing the route the next day and offered to trail and fix my ropes. Cool. I’d have two ropes tied together which they would fix to the last belay on the route. I explained that the last belay had two ancient bolts placed about five feet apart, a knife-blade in a Funky crack about ten feet up with a long piece of tat hanging down, and some good tcu placements up and right to back the whole mess up. Both bolts were quarter incher's with old rusty nuts, not button-heads. The one on the left had one of those hangars that lays flat, when weighted it pry’s out on the bolt. Bolts like these were designed to attached the toilet paper holder to the cinder block wall of a gas station bathroom. I asked the guys to be sure to back me up well, and offered them some gear to use. They said they’d use their own. I could return it later at camp. They had been there a few days and seemed competent so I wasn’t worried.
When the ropes were fixed I began jugging on up. The first anchor was previously replaced by Clint Cummins. It was the next two I was after, especially the last. At the second anchor, three old bolts as I recall, I bounced around quite a bit prying from various angles to get out the bolts. Lucky for me they came out easily so I didn’t have to get too active. That done I jugged up to the last one.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. My rope was clipped into the left hand bolt and then across to the other one with a slack tail. There was no attempt to equalize, and not even the pin was clipped. There was no backup. I could see this with another fifteen feet to go to the small stance at the bolts. I froze. My wife Barbara was sitting in the main notch reading a book and keeping half an eye on my progress. I thought about what it would look like to her if the bolts popped and I went tumbling down through the sky for four or five hundred feet all tangled up in ropes and a small haul bag. I jugged ever so gently up to the stance. Out came the tools. The old right hand bolt was in a pretty good spot over the stance, so I placed a 3/8” bolt a foot to its left and clipped in. Whew… Pulling the bolt on the right was like pulling a nail out of a rotten log. I placed a ½” in the same hole. I left the other old bolt as a relic for future passersby to see. Rage was swelling up inside me. I set it aside until I finished the raps to the base.
On the hike out I got more and more worked up. Today was not going to end well for these guys if I had anything to say about it. As I walked up the last bit of dirt road into camp I was on fire. Then, for the second time that day, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They’d packed up and left.
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nah000
climber
now/here
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^^^^
i’m somewhat speechless.
holeee shIt is that beyond fUcked up.
without your explaining to them you wanted everything backed up?
sure... just some surprising but still somewhat garden variety incompetence...
but as it stands?
that’s some not so garden variety attempted murder...
jayzeus. glad you didn’t bounce too much getting the ole anchors out...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Complete Shitbirds especially when you offered to give them some gear to back up that crap!
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F
climber
away from the ground
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
Mar 8, 2018 - 07:49pm PT
It was like rapping off a bad anchor, only different.
I think it was in 2010 that I decided to replace the anchors for the top two pitches of the Don Juan Wall at the Needles. Some guys in camp said they were doing the route the next day and offered to trail and fix my ropes. Cool. I’d have two ropes tied together which they would fix to the last belay on the route. I explained that the last belay had two ancient bolts placed about five feet apart, a knife-blade in a Funky crack about ten feet up with a long piece of tat hanging down, and some good tcu placements up and right to back the whole mess up. Both bolts were quarter incher's with old rusty nuts, not button-heads. The one on the left had one of those hangars that lays flat, when weighted it pry’s out on the bolt. Bolts like these were designed to attached the toilet paper holder to the cinder block wall of a gas station bathroom. I asked the guys to be sure to back me up well, and offered them some gear to use. They said they’d use their own. I could return it later at camp. They had been there a few days and seemed competent so I wasn’t worried.
When the ropes were fixed I began jugging on up. The first anchor was previously replaced by Clint Cummins. It was the next two I was after, especially the last. At the second anchor, three old bolts as I recall, I bounced around quite a bit prying from various angles to get out the bolts. Lucky for me they came out easily so I didn’t have to get too active. That done I jugged up to the last one.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. My rope was clipped into the left hand bolt and then across to the other one with a slack tail. There was no attempt to equalize, and not even the pin was clipped. There was no backup. I could see this with another fifteen feet to go to the small stance at the bolts. I froze. My wife Barbara was sitting in the main notch reading a book and keeping half an eye on my progress. I thought about what it would look like to her if the bolts popped and I went tumbling down through the sky for four or five hundred feet all tangled up in ropes and a small haul bag. I jugged ever so gently up to the stance. Out came the tools. The old right hand bolt was in a pretty good spot over the stance, so I placed a 3/8” bolt a foot to its left and clipped in. Whew… Pulling the bolt on the right was like pulling a nail out of a rotten log. I placed a ½” in the same hole. I left the other old bolt as a relic for future passersby to see. Rage was swelling up inside me. I set it aside until I finished the raps to the base.
On the hike out I got more and more worked up. Today was not going to end well for these guys if I had anything to say about it. As I walked up the last bit of dirt road into camp I was on fire. Then, for the second time that day, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They’d packed up and left.
I don’t always feel like gambling with getting the chop, but when I do, I have some total random dudes I just met fix a line for me to jug.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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I didn't see them as some random dudes. They were up there for a few days doing good climbs in good style. Also we had some conversations in camp. I came to the conclusion that they were okay. Obviously I was wrong. I'll always be stumped by the fact that we reviewed what was going to happen at that anchor and they totally blew it off.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO & Bend, OR
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By definition, we are not reading any reports from climbers who used "the worst rap anchors" of their career. It's a fine point, I know; however, a few of these reports seem only one RCH away from said limit.
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