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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Scary Larry, Texplorer, and I had to bail off a high shoulder of Mt. Wilson down the front-side. How we ended up there with just a handful of Trunuts and a single 8mm is another story altogether, but suffice to say we rapped off of one shrubbery after another with single piece of tape on each. Would have left our belts in the mix if we'd have been wearing any.
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Magic Ed
Trad climber
Nuevo Leon, Mexico
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I once rapped off an angle-iron piton wedged end-wise in a wide crack.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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CHERRY CRACK IS NOT MY WORK.
I've rapped with no anchor lots of times (Needles style).
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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When I was living in Garmisch, I was descending a big ice gully, chimney, maw kind of thing and had one of those moments where you know you'll never be that lucky again.
About 1/3rd of the way down there was a German party ahead of us who had just rapped a 30 foot ice bulge onto a snow ramp before a 300ft chimney. I asked them if we could use their rap lines and they said sure. So without checking their anchor, I started down their line. Given that their rope was encrusted with ice, I had to bounce a couple of times to get the rope to run thru the figure 8 I was using. When I did that, I heard the sound no one wants to hear in that situation....PING!!!. And I was ass over heels onto the 40 degree snow ramp, rag-dolling it until my legs post-holed mere feet from that cavernous chimney.
It turned out they had run their rope thru a single old soft ring piton that probably dated from the 1930s. When I came to a stop and pulled the rope, I casually unclipped the old pin and hucked it down the chimney. To this day I wish I had kept that pin.
There have been other close calls, but I'll save that for the memoirs
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goatboy smellz
climber
Nederland-GulfBreeze
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Nothing that bad compared to riding a bike in NYC or backcountry skiing.
Now that chit makes climbing and rappelling look like golf.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Porter's Pout+Mr. Way= you do the math.
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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The worst anchor I didn't use for rapping - coming off Snow Creek Wall in the dark, we were getting close to the end of the gulley. It was 4:00 AM. We could not find the right way to go, and sunrise was a mere 1 1/2 hours away. THus we perched our butts on a sloping ledge, sitting tobaggon style and tied into a tiny bush. We huddled until daylight came. With daylgiht, we were able to find the bestter way out and downclimbed from that spot. It just didn't look like it would take full body weight. I think this is at the area where the gal fell this past year on the descent and died.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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A Long Thin Lost Arrow in about half an inch, 44 years ago. We intended to do the East Face route of Glacier Point, done in the 1930's, so we took just a few pins and nothing else. Unfortunately, we started way too far to the right. I took a fifteen-foot fall with only that Arrow as an anchor, and no other pro. We had no bolts, and that was the best we could get it. The pin wasn't tied off, and it bent, but didn't break, so we rapped off of it.
All of which shows that making mistakes as a noob is good training, provided you survive.
John
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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I used a piece of 1" sling tied with a water knot, and managed to jam the knot behind a flake; very carefully rapped off the first pitch, Northcutt-Carter on Hallett in a rainstorm. Made me appreciate the Dresden climbers a lot more...
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Tahquitz- The Uneventful. Single piece of webbing that just made it around a tree branch tied with a square knot and 1 inch tails. Held for 3 of us. The 4th (me) not so lucky. Should've died/maybe I did and this is all just a prolonged dreamare occuring in the moments after impact...
published in ANAM '98
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Ron, i don't even know if it was cherry crack. just think it may have been. 1986 was a long time ago....certainly not suggesting that you placed bad anchors. i remember being very impressed with how far apart the drilled angles on Touchstone were and they seemed bomber...
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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those who've rapped off really manky anchors aren't around to tell about it.
Ipso Factor we're all poseurs on this topic.
pair of shoelaces comes close to a Worst Possible Nightmare
EDIT
whups…..should've read Skeptimistic's post first
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Crazy Bat
Sport climber
Birmingham, AL & Seweanee, TN
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All of these I not only rappelled, but juggied up.
A stalactite growing on mud (30 ft).
A half rotten log about 10 inches around (30 ft).
A 2 foot lightening killed tree that fell in the pit two weeks later (165 ft.) That one still gives me nightmares.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Mystery rap in the dark off space shots descent. 1.5" bay tree girth hitched with my nicest sling. Just went down, hoping I would find another anchor while spinning with the haulbag on me. Hit the ground just before the knots.
Off the north face of sill, just out out of my mind how sh#t the boulder was.
Lowered off a route on tahquitz long time ago by flicking the rope over a 3" bush and slowly being lowered, friction img with my feet and hands to keep the sling in place.
Live and learn, but that last one was backed up at least... 30 feet lower.
I bail now on shiny new gear and have down-led more often. Seems wiser :/
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
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Decades ago I did Goodrich to Oasis with Mark Blanchard and Glen Garland. We dawdled too much and spent a breezy night at the Oasis. In the morn we diligently followed Roper's instruction on the descent route. However... his "directions" made no sense and soon we spotted some slings and decided a rap was in order. HUGE EFFIN MISTAKE! We were now committed to a vertical wall with a CRAP series of "anchors" and zero ledges. One hanging belay (wearing 2" wrapped swami belts, no leg loops) after another. Three of us hanging from a single shite 1/4" bolt with spinner hanger then a rusted pin driven straight up followed by hexes hammered into "cracks" using our EBs as a hammer...
It was death waiting to happen.
Never, and I mean NEVER was I so happy to be on level ground!
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MisterE
climber
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There was this guy in 7th grade that was supposed to provide the bass beat for my rhyme?
That guy sucked.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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I've gone off some wedged knots. Thought they were fine. Funky loose bolts and drilled angles? Not a problem. They are cross loaded after all. I can't really think of a rap I've ever done that I thought might fail.
I've had some "special" belays though. Like the time I did No More Mr Nice Guy (Ca Needles) with EE. I led P1 which is straightforward 5.9 with pro. EE led P2, the money pitch, which is runout hard .10 with mank old bolts. This left me doing P3, which is easier, maybe a 5.9 move down low but mostly 5.8 and 5.7. But no pro at all for 60M. The plan is to end up at a bolted anchor, with a shorter pitch above to the top.
I took what looked like the easiest line and got to the end of the rope and there's no anchor. I was in a shallow scoop with a small knob, the knob sticks out about an inch. I can hold onto the knob and lean out a little to look around. I see some tat blowing in the breeze 20 feet to my right. There was simply no way I was going to leave my scoop and knob and venture out on that traverse while at the end of my rope with no gear. Especially when I knew with certainty that there was zero chance that EE would fall.
I dangled a runner over the knob, and was especially careful not to weight it, stood balanced in my scoop and yelled "off belay." EE arrived shortly, looked at my position, uttered some version of "duude..." and sped to the top.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Aug 10, 2013 - 03:38am PT
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 10, 2013 - 10:44am PT
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^^^^
I used a similar belay in a cave, and had 3 people jumar up a rope (one at a time) that I was holding.
We were on chockstones about 100 feet off the floor of a deep underground slot canyon. They had chimneyed 100 feet down to the floor of the cave, but the walls were too slick and muddy for them to get back up (I was smart enough to not free-climb 100 feet down a chimney). So I threw down a rope, jammed my knee into a crack and one foot on the ceiling, and they jugged the rope.
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