The worst climbing sensation

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 1 - 35 of total 35 in this topic

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

Nothing creative to say

Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 22, 2018 - 11:30am PT

Tarbusters post made me think this is pretty unique, but absolutely on point. Not only does it irritate the living fvck out of me, but I get irritated the second time after washing said same socks and the burrs and stickers are still there!!!

Perhaps this should be the worst climbing sensation, other than falling without pro?

Why, it's right up there with, with ... that feeling of getting stickers in socks from walking around through tall, dry weeds.

What's your worst climbing related sensation?

JC Marin

Trad climber

Jul 22, 2018 - 11:46am PT

That feeling you get when you arrive at the belay anchor and realize your new climbing partner has no f*#king clue what he is doing

Wayno

Big Wall climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 22, 2018 - 12:24pm PT

Sewing machine leg from drinking too much of that wiry Four Seasons coffee.

Lennox

climber

in the land of the blind

Jul 22, 2018 - 12:31pm PT

Sewing machine leg when you realize you are off route on an on-site free solo, and you are committed to continuing upward on terrain more difficult than any you have ever free soloed.

Bad Climber

Trad climber

The Lawless Border Regions

Jul 22, 2018 - 01:11pm PT

Lots of good bad ones so far. One that stands out for me: Being pumped and slowly greasing out of a jam, usually caused by heat and humidity. I followed a wide crack pitch up on Granite Mountain in AZ in the summer. It was more like swimming than climbing. Got up it, but, gah. Not fun. My partner just grinned and said he couldn't wait to do the pitch again.

BAd

Trad climber

Calgary

Jul 22, 2018 - 01:19pm PT

That split second when you know you will blow off but it hasn't happened yet

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jul 22, 2018 - 01:21pm PT

Seeing many tons of sh!t headed towards me with nowhere to run to, on any number of occassions. Usually lucked out, at least physically. 😳

Lennox

climber

in the land of the blind

Jul 22, 2018 - 01:29pm PT

At a semi-hanging belay with the lovely wintergreen-ish scent of formic acid, your partner has just started a 3 hour aid lead, and then the ants decide they have had just about enough of your farting and decide to attack . . .

norm larson

climber

wilson, wyoming

Jul 22, 2018 - 02:39pm PT

When you hear the crack of a collapsing serac above you but you can’t see it because it’s dark.

Spider Savage

Mountain climber

The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles

Jul 22, 2018 - 03:22pm PT

When you're long out of water at the end of a rope on a long hanging rappel where you see the rope is not even going to reach the ground and there is no ledge AND you forgot to tie knots in the ends of the rappel rope so your looking at a chance of two broken legs.

Luckly, there was a fixed pin. And I was able to pull up the ends and tie them off in time.

Back side of Lower Cathedral Spire.

climber

Just livin' the dream

Jul 22, 2018 - 03:32pm PT

That pop you hear when you hit the wall after taking a 30 foot whipper with your foot at just the wrong angle...

Fritz

Social climber

Choss Creek, ID

Jul 22, 2018 - 03:46pm PT

I enjoyed several of the worst climbing sensations during a Spring 1980 outing on the South Fork Clearwater River in Idaho.

Things were not going well, ever since dark clouds had closed in around us. There I was, 20 feet out from a #1 Chouinard wired stopper, on loose rock, with a bad case of rectal seepage. I needed to vomit from drinking too much the night before, a dear John letter was stuffed in my back pocket, and from the bottom of the cliff, my near-sighted three-legged cat, Ralph, was yowling incessantly at a rock it mistook for a cougar.

What I later found out was ash from erupting Mt St Helens, started falling. It blotted out the sun, like a grey snowstorm. Ashfall was sluffing off the slabs above us like spindrift.

Then I saw the tornado.
It was clearly heading our way.

About that time: an old Ford pickup skidded to a stop at the base of the obscure Idaho cliff we were climbing. As I looked down, two locals in camo jumped out, and I heard one scream: Gol-durn rock-climbers-----shoot em!

Just when I thought: this is the end!

An earthquake started shaking me off my precarious holds, then a dump-truck sized boulder broke loose just above me, as I skidded down, just missing my belayer. The stopper held, my belayer caught me at the end of an amazingly soft fall, & the boulder missed us by 5 feet, but luckily squashed the two shooters.

We called it a day, rapped off the route, rounded up Ralph, broke out the left-over beers, and drove through 120 miles of light, fluffy volcanic ash back to scenic Moscow, Idaho. The near-epic trip to Moscow was: grey-ash snow and zero visibility, when another car went by. It was a lot like driving through fine cold powder snow.

The next morning, I looked out my window at 6 inches of white volcanic ash, and said: Oh fuk----it didn't melt!

Lennox

climber

in the land of the blind

Jul 22, 2018 - 04:06pm PT

Take your pick:

Waking on Gray Ledges to a golden shower coming from the Shield headwall.

or

Later that day you are leading the L facing corner on the pitch after the roof on The Shield and ruthlessly back-cleaning; your last placement is ~40' below; leapfrogging 3 pieces is too slow, so you are alternating two yellow tcu's . . .

. . . then you are falling . . .

. . . while falling you have time to wonder why it is taking so long; you remember that morning that after putting away your urine soaked sleeping bag, and while switching from the webbing swami you sleep in to the urine soaked harness, that you had to stop to cower while 2 watermelon sized mini-boulders flew by to explode on Mammoth Terraces . . .

... and wonder if you finished passing through your buckle on your harness . . .

hooblie

climber

from out where the anecdotes roam

Jul 22, 2018 - 04:21pm PT

the stuttering saw sound of terminal rope drag on stretchy goldline, along with it's echo as it recedes to from whence it came ...
back in the day before quickdraws, when a single oval on a ring angle was thought of as a thrifty move in lieu of the deployment of double crabs,
and in the absence of ... well ... much of anything else in the way of good rope technique

nafod

Boulder climber

State college

Jul 22, 2018 - 04:33pm PT

Flying out to Colorado from back east to climb, and hydrating like crazy on the flight so you hit the ground running when you land and head to the crags, and the landing gear are down on approach and YOU GOT TO PEE RIGHT NOW.

Ksolem

Trad climber

Monrovia, California

Jul 22, 2018 - 04:53pm PT

L nails it.

WyoRockMan

climber

Grizzlyville, WY

Jul 22, 2018 - 05:11pm PT

That "electric" feeling when you aren't where you need to be in the early Rockies afternoon.

A wool sweater getting "goosebumps" will get your attention.

Fritz

Social climber

Choss Creek, ID

Jul 22, 2018 - 05:12pm PT

ATG! Re your comments:

Fritz, don't mistake this as me liking you or some sort of olive branch, but you write well.

P.s.

You're a dick.

Thank you! Much appreciated. I enjoy writting & to date Idaho Magazine has published 15 of my stories, ranging from short humor, to historical adventures, and Idaho mining history. A lot of people here know my real name.

http://www.idahomagazine.com/author/raybrooks/ntity too.

Unfortunately, although I really enjoy most folks on this forum, people like you can "piss me off!"

Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Jul 22, 2018 - 05:48pm PT

The sensation of acceleration on steep hardpack with a death runout, as you wait to find out whether a self arrest with ski pole tips will work.

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

Nothing creative to say

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 22, 2018 - 06:07pm PT

these are some jacked up stories!

I'm never climbing with any of you! LOL

There is a sensation when sitting around a campfire and the fire sparks and throws a big burner on you, you RAGE upwards swatting all the while, because your down puffy that ember is burning through is brand f'ing new.

FML is right!

climber

Jul 22, 2018 - 06:34pm PT

So, I draw the short straw (matchstick) between two of the three of us. The third had dropped one shoe from grey ledges in the early AM. There had been a heated discussion for the two of us with shoes to press on. Back then it was important; the first clean ascent of the Shield (waaay before it actually got done). Ed Sampson insisted that Richard Leversee bail solo, rappelling with our extra ropes. Richard created a ‘nerf’ (robo) boot for himself outta ensolite and duct tape. I felt sorta bad voting Richard off of the island, so we ofted for all to retreat.

Back to the short straw. Well, we had fixed to the Shield Roof from Grey. I ‘won’ the honor to retrieve the ropes by bailing down the Dorn Direct. Hey, this stuff is all procedure, no sweat.

I rappel from the roof and I’m hanging out there looking at the anchor; choked with old-ass rotten webbing. Hell, no. I GOTTA put one of my own slings in there.

So there I was, hanging Way the Hell up on the Captain; rappel ropes tight like piano wire. ‘Me with a damn knife in one hand...now all of a sudden, feelin’ EXPOSED!

What’s WRONG with this picture?! I’m thinking!

edit: getting reeled in to Grey was pretty funky too...

climber

Jul 22, 2018 - 06:38pm PT

or not...

neebee

Social climber

calif/texas

Jul 22, 2018 - 06:59pm PT

hey there, say, ATG... as to your quote...

:O

It was ten feet tall and two feet in diameter at the top; clinging as I was to the cliff. The hum was the thriving bee hive ten feet to the left of the crack my fingers and toes were wedged in to. I could not turn back. I climbed super slow and did not slap at them when the guards bumped my face and back. I eventually reached the anchors and lowered myself off. The rare feeling of being alive after what FEELS like a near death experience makes the sunshine a little more golden and the smell of sage and cactus in the desert like perfume. The deep quench of intense thirst after a hard rock climb is like a breath of life itself.

and then, this, to zero in on it:

The rare feeling of being alive after what FEELS like a near death experience makes the sunshine a little more golden and the smell of sage and cactus in the desert like perfume.

and, as to L:

:O oh my!

Ksolem

Trad climber

Monrovia, California

Jul 22, 2018 - 07:02pm PT

Nearly rapping off the end of my ropes did it for me.

I was coming down off Magical Mystery Tour at Tahquitz, the normal thing to do. Enjoy the good pitches and screw the garbage to the top. We were using double 8.5's, and deliberately chose not to tie the ends because it was breezy and those light cords could blow all over the place and get hung.

So there I was sliding down the ropes as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine, and I got distracted talking to a friend I hadn't seen in a while climbing an adjacent route. Maybe Edgehogs. Then I realized I had passed my anchors, all this on a clean face with no significant ledges. I stopped, looked down, and I had about two feet of rope left. I batman'd and jugged on my rap device up to the anchor and clipped in.

"Off Rappel!"

Larry came down. "What was going on? The ropes were jumping all around."

One or two raps to the base. I walked around the backside of the nearest big tree and barfed my guts out.

climber

Jul 22, 2018 - 07:03pm PT

Sorry for the low res...

Mark Force

Trad climber

Ashland, Oregon

Jul 23, 2018 - 05:55am PT

DMT, Been there....that’s freaky.

Maybe not the worst sensation, but not fun...way led out on offwidth, still a ways from the belay, and feeling like yer gonna puke.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jul 23, 2018 - 06:19am PT

4 ‘Whoomphs’ that went. I’m a gud swimmer. meh 😉

climber

Just livin' the dream

Jul 23, 2018 - 08:44am PT

I walked around the backside of the nearest big tree and barfed my guts out.

Kris, your quote reminded me of climbing out of the toilet once after 3 sweet-n-vicious martinis (vodka just ain't my friend).

It's a sensation I've been trying to forget for 4 years now.

EdwardT

Trad climber

Retired

Jul 23, 2018 - 09:22am PT

Watching the sun set as we're looking for unfamiliar rap anchors, knowing that once we make it to the ground, we'll have a nasty pitch-black scramble back to your packs... and then stumble down the trail (in the dark).

I had told my wife I would call her around 6:00 or 6:30. I finally reached her after 11:00.

That Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a lovely, lightweight headlamp.

Gnome Ofthe Diabase

climber

Out Of Bed

Jul 23, 2018 - 09:26am PT

the minute or so when everyone is looking at you, after the shadow has past, the sounds of falling have stopped & the "whoomp" sound of the body hitting the ground happens, in that moment -when you know- but when the other climbers you are with all have much less experience, so don't get what just went down, is worse than being at the base next to the carnage of a fatal ground fall.

fgw

climber

portland, or

Jul 23, 2018 - 09:35am PT

That sound of rock fall 500’ feet above your hanging belay…and then you realize it’s a falling body only when it screams by 20’ feet in front of your face and is then crushed by the approach slabs below.

NutAgain!

Trad climber

South Pasadena, CA

Jul 23, 2018 - 09:42am PT

I hope I never have to experience the falling body impact scenarios... awful stuff there. For some mild entertainment:

Being scared on lead, and having that sudden strong urge to evacuate the bowels

Being on lead after too much exertion with too little food, and the hand curls into a lobster claw and won't make any other position

Being run out, knowing that piece you just placed won't hold a fall, and knowing your energy won't hold until you can make it better, and just going for it and hoping it gets better

Yanking a rope on rap, sticking at the point of clearing the rap rings... yank yank, set up 3:1 and yank yank, and commit to ascending it when you don't know what's up there.... getting up to see just a few twists of rope friction

Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Jul 23, 2018 - 09:55am PT

One guy on Prodigal Sun had a female touron fall past him about 10m away replete with terrified eye contact.

Biffed a half second later. He lost his stoke and rapped off.