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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 31, 2007 - 09:18pm PT
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Here we go. . ."Lead Piton" award runner-ups!
Years ago I was leading some vertical kitty litter in the Boy Scout rocks area of Mnt. Diablo. Having forgot my 2" swami, I tied on with what I thought was a "Bowline on a coil" (few wraps around the waist with a bowline knot through all) Wrong. At about 60'during a strange down-move traverse between cracks I felt tickling un-goodness on my calves. .. looked down to see two wraps of loose rope around my legs and the rope end hanging a few inches below my quivering EB's. Did some highball Kung Fu moves, got retied and left my loaded trowsers in a bush on the summit. Sorry.
Getting cork screwed into oblivion due to bad knot tying would be a pathetic epitaph.
Summary: Smoke less weed, and for that no-swami/harness condition: Bowline is an awesome knot, but it can work loose and fall apart. Its pretty cheap & easy to follow the end out along the lead line & back up with a dbl overhand. Profoundly enough, its called a "strengthened bowline".
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Jan 31, 2007 - 09:19pm PT
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I lead up past the crux and twenty feet up I realised I forgot the rack.
JDF
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Jingy
Social climber
Flatland, Ca
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Jan 31, 2007 - 09:55pm PT
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Climbing with a new climbing partner out at Mickey's Beach, Ca. Was doing some traversy 11D thing out on the sea side of the rock. At the end of the travers I reached for the rope and didn't notice that the piece I was grabbing was behind the last bolt and ended up "Z" clipping.
This is when my buddy Tom chimed in and told me of my problem.
I thought no problem, I'll just unclip this one, let it loose and clip in correctly. But the real problem was that I was beyond pumped and could not do the simplest of tasks.
So I yelled 'take'. Waited for the pump to go away. Made many valiant attempts but only ended up somehow tying more knots between the two or three draws.
20 to 30 minutes later my buddy Tom is yelling up to me, something about the tide coming in. Great, just what I need... A deadline!
Thank God I had a patient climbing partner. He stayed hydrated with sea water and eventually talked me out of my mess.
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The Wretch
Trad climber
Forest Knolls, CA
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I was in JT. My wife and I were going to do the Eye, maybe 5.3.
We then say some guy who decked doing Balderdash. He was being
carted out on a litter and had an oxygen mask on. I lost all
enthusiam for placing gear so we wandered over to a bolted route
I had led, Psoriasis at 5.9. There is a bolted climb next to it
called Exit Stage Right and it is also a 5.9.
I headed up. I got to the second bolt, I think, remember this
is maybe fifteen years ago, I am at work with no guide book.
I clipped the bolt and made it about three feet and fell. That
actually relaxed me. I had gotten it out of my system, tested
the bolt as I am wont to do. I led up about twenty feet
above the bolt. I did the math and figured I had better find
the third bolt soon or I faced a ground fall.
Just then my friend Eric Beck showed up. He glasses the climb
with his binoculars (ominously, ones he had retrived from a
dead body). I quavered, "Can you see the third bolt?"? He
said yes, up and left about ten feet in a black stain. I saw
the stain and headed toward it. Ten feet further up, now definately facing about a 65 foot ground fall, I had the stain
at chest height. "I can't see it. Where is it"?
Then after a loooooooooooooong pause, Eric says, "Ah, David,
I see itabout twenty five feet down and off to the right".
I suddenly becomes crystal clear to me. I am about to get
hosed. I am climbing a 5.9 becasue I was afraid to climb a 5.3.
I have already fallen once. This route is named Exit Stage Right
because it veers right above the second bolt. I cannot down
climb and who knows what is above me. The climbers who did the
first ascent, no doubt bettern that I am, obviously thought the
direct rout would not go.
Oh, well. In for a nickel, in for a dime. Very slowly and very
carefully I inched upwards. Not known for my foot work, I
was as focused as I have ever been. Up and up I worked. It
took perhaps a half an hour to gain aother 20 feet. Then the
angle began to ease off. I finally resorted to plastering my
stomach on the rock and inch wormed my way until I reached a
ledge. There, following thrity minutes of gasping I recovered
enough to cram a camelot into a crack and the odeal was over.
The cold beer that night tasted exceptionally well.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Getting suckered onto the "Moose's Tooth(?)" on the ER of the Grand. Great climb, but way off route when you are out of water and very much need the snow in the notch below--as the sun sets and the dark comes forth.
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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I was doing fine, then I found out about these internet climbing web sites. Worst climbing mistake I ever made!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Here's stupid...
I was leading an easy 5.5 bolted route in Courtright with my wife so she could top-route something easy. I lead up past about 8 bolts or so about 150'. I get to the top, set the rope through some chains and re-tied in so she could lower me. She starts lowering and about half-way down yells up, "do you know there's only about 6 feet of rope left?". Doh! It's a 2-rope top-rope. I had to 'anchor' in to one bolt, pull the rope through, and have her lower me off one bolt and a biner I left behind. Stupid!
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G_Gnome
Boulder climber
Sick Midget Land
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The Wretch, great story. When we put that thing up we expected to go straight up. But then that was one of those Josh daze that makes you lazy and when the climbing got hard I bailed and took the easy way to the top. Only after screwing up the route did we decide to name it 'Exit Stage Right'. Heavens to Mergatroid!
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ChrisW
Trad climber
boulder, co
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Climbing the First few piches of Never Never Land with Pass the Piton's Pete. Actually we never technically roped up with eachother....Hahahahaaha.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Without a doubt; choice in certain partners.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Otto, NC
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Hopefully it's already been made...
but there was the time I finished the pitch, pulled up all the slack so Shaggy wouldn't have to jug with it, and tied it off to a fixed pin next to the anchor. If that had blown he would've dropped about 70 feet until my tie-in caught him , who knows what happens when jugs bite down after a 70' free-fall. He was pissed.
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Lando
climber
Tulsa
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Backcountry snowboarding a few years ago in the spring with a friend near Washington pass in the North Cascades of Washington State we decided to check out the west couloir on South Early Winter Spire(near to Liberty Bell).....maybe we'd ride down we thought. As we got higher it was quite apparent that the couloir was WAY too steep and icy to ride.....so I asked my friend if we should just stash our boards(mine carried on a vertical carrier on my pack) and continue to the summit. He didn't want to stop.....I pestered him at least a couple more times about ditching the boards....anyway we continued to the summit, boards and all, via the perfect steps someone had kicked when the chute was still soft....we were wearing snowboard boots, so this was lucky for us. Anyway.....we get to the summit and my friend continues up this massive rounded summit snow blob and I walk around to the left of it on the snow next to the rock......next thing I know my whole lower half of my body punches through....the only thing stopping me from taking a BIG drop is that snowboard digging in the snow behind me! Well....my friend extracts me and we look in the hole and down the several hundred foot east face of the spire.....as we got quickly on to the rock we realized that the snow slope was a massive cornice, and my friends "summit" was well out past the lip. Whoops! We had a snack and went back down after that....I don't think we said much....but we both felt like we dodged a substantial bullet.
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hobo_dan
Trad climber
Minnesota
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I was soloing a short ice route in St.Paul not vertical but still steep. i was watching the real men climb it w/out tools-so i decide to give it a try. No tools no rope. i get up about 45 feet off the ground and there is a bulge that is vertical for 4 feet. too high for me to step up on. So I kick in my front points for my right foot and balance up carefully with my mittens on the top of the bulge for balance but no grip. That was my sole point of connection and if they skated out I was going to bounce down.
they held but that was the end of the no tools game for me
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rockermike
Mountain climber
Berkeley
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Oh yea, bowline on a bite; that one got me once too. I hardly ever use it but one time I tied in with one, about to lead off. My partner insists on checking the knot. I am annoyed. "I've got it, don't worry". He gives it a yank anyway and my knot dissolves and the rope falls free. I guess I gave the twist of the loop in the wrong direction. It's one of the few serious technical mistakes I can remember making. Don't use that knot anymore.
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WBraun
climber
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"Your worst climbing mistakes. . .what happened/why?"
I joined the Supertopo forum and now my mind has become warped.
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
hither and yon
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I got injured and let myself get out of shape and addicted to internet porn and cheap booze.
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clustiere
Trad climber
Durango, CO
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Climbing at Suicide a route called Iron Cross. Two of my buddys had gone up and had lowered down. I was in the woods petting my dog and napping. They call down and ask for me to try the pitch out. I hike up to find a black alien as the highest piece and the crux shortly there after all the three pins that were supposed to be there were gone. I pass the alien and figgure out the crux. Standing at an overlap I find a pin scar, place a HB offset and per lack of confidence in my feet fail to set the stopper, clip a draw then mantle on a chip to clear the overlap. As I mantle onto the overlap I hear then see the most terrifying site; the nut has fallen down the rope and the last piece is not high enough to protect me from the taco making/back breaking gap (created by a huge flake/spike of rock) directly below me. I yell then shake, then a voice floats up "pretend like it never happened Ryan" ok I can do this. I grab a knob and finish the 5.10 moves above to a ledge and a quesy feeling in my stomach. My pals get up to the ledge and want to bail but the next pitch looks like a relative clip up so I opt to finish. I have never experienced a feeling like that sickness watching the nut swing down, I hope never to again. God I love climbing.
Ryan
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Anastasia
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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I have done many mistakes. They all evolve around two things, getting distracted and getting nervous.
I now just take my time to breath and concentrate.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Worst climbing mistake...I went up to do the Nose with two chicks.
(Do I need to explain more?)
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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Soloing, top of 1st pitch. Anchor in, cleaned the route on the way down, jugged back up. Went to pull rope up, forgot to disassemble bottom anchor. Only excuse, had head up a$$.
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darshahlu
Trad climber
Irvine, CA
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Getting off route on the East Buttress of El Capitan.
We were at the pitch that climbs the defined buttress of the route, about half way up. Maybe 6th, 7th pitch. You can't escape the exposure. You are committed to finishing the route. At the same time, you still have about half of it to go and summit anxiety is about to set in.
So there I was, halfway up on my first Grade IV with my partner Kia, with whom I learned to climb with. It was his first Grade IV too.
This pitch was steep. I climbed up the rounded arete for about 15 feet, a fixed piton about 5 feet below me. Which way now? Out right, the climbing is steep and the wall below me shoots all the way down to the Valley floor. To the left it is not as steep and there is a prominent crack slanting left around a corner. I am lured right by chalk marks and fixed gear.
The pitch is 5.9, but it feels like 5.10. I clip a fixed nut, using the old sling and 'biner that has been abadoned on it. I get about 5 feet up and make some long reaches to thin holds, barn door and fall off.
Sweet! My first Grade IV and my first trad fall! My buddy yelps an enthusastic "YOU CAN DO IT! COME ON MAN!" up to me. I am stoked, and press past the move I just slipped on. I am fearless and climbing well. I dyno to a nice jug and mantle on top of it.
All enthusiasm instantly leaps from my body as I realize there are no more chalk marks to follow, the wall is slick as glass above me, and I can't downclimb what I just climbed. That and the fixed piece and weather-worn faded blue sling is dangling beneath me 15 feet.
I don't think too long about it and neither does my buddy. We decide "On the count of three".
"One!"
"Two!"
"THREE!"
I feel like a rag doll flying through the air, the wall whipping up past me like a giant tread mill. I will never forget the moment when I looked down and saw 15 feet of rope wiggling like a snake beneath me.
Finally the rope comes taught and I slam into the arete I was climbing thirty feet earlier.
I don't lead any of the rest of the pitches that day. Seconding was almost too scary after that. A great learning experience.
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dfinnecy
Social climber
san joser
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This is an almost mistake, stopped just at the edge of oblivion. My buddy Don and I had just finished Liberty Crack up in WA. We had meant to spend the night on the ledge you can abseil to off the top of pitch 7 or so, can't remember exctly anymore. So we had hauled the pig all day. We made good time and decided to knock the thing off in a day.
We got to the top as the sun was going down, enjoyed a quick break and congratulated each other, both exhausted but proud of our achievement. As I recall there is a 50 meter abseil into the gully down the back. We set up the abseil off a good ledge and Don went down first. I think I wqas more exhausted than I knew.
I waited in the dark on the good ledge with the haul bag tied to my harness and clipped to the anchor. Don called up that he was off rappel and i started to move over to the edge to kick off the haul bag and ride it down. I realized I was still clipped to the anchor and that I wouldn't be able to grab all the gear from the edge. I waddled back to the anchor and cleaned it off. I waddled back to the edge. As started to push the bag off I realized in my exhausted state I had FORGOTTEN TO PUT MYSELF ON RAPPEL. I remember desperately reversing the push on the bag, seeing my life flash before my eyes, etc etc etc.
Ok, so now I am awake. I crawled back from the edge dragging the bag and had a minor heart attack.
It's actually quite embarrassing to tell that story,....
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WBraun
climber
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darshahlu
Wow, that was always my worst fear what you went through.
Getting strung out and having to be forced to launch off like you did. Yikes!
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2007 - 02:18am PT
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Locker-
I might still have a better "lead piton" runner up.
FMJ and I found a sweet FA. on Diablo west. I drilled a bolt and equalized it to a small pine for a TR anchor. We did the line several times, then I pulled the biners and rapped to the ground on a 1" sling.
Smoked some Bartolini hash, talked at length about draft & Reganomics. (vintage 82) Half hour later (forgetting the top rope was threaded through just sling) FMJ did a round and lowered off typical Gym style. I went up and lowered off the same. FMJ went up again, but when he reached the anchor, the burned "rap" sling had less than an eighth inch remaining!
Moral of the story: Drink lots a beer, get naked, dont shine shoes, climb hard & die young.
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L
climber
The City of Lost Angels
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I'd been climbing about 2 years and wanted to do the East Face of Whitney. An acquaintance from the gym wanted to do it too. He'd been climbing 26 years and had supposedly done the East Face twice, so, happy to have an "experienced" partner, I agreed.
We were on the trail at 5am, and by 6am I was beginning to suspect the reliability of my partner's memory. We missed the first turnoff for the North Fork, and had to backtrack a quarter of a mile. We then proceeded to get lost in a labyrinth of bushwhacking, slippery streams and dead-ending granite faces. From the trail description I'd photocopied and the hieroglyphic maps I'd acquired, I suggested we were to go through the notch along the cliff face on our right. Brilliant Partner knew we were supposed to be on the left. We ended up clawwing our way to the notch through a barrage of willows and undergrowth from which even tiny lizards could not have passed unscathed.
I later learned that we had totally missed The Ledges--on our right--and indeed had grappled our way through bramble which even tiny lizards avoid at all costs.
By the time we reached Iceberg Lake, I knew Brilliant Partner was suffering from an excess of confidence and a dearth of memory. Maybe even Alzheimer's. We were running behind schedule because of his insistance that the maps and descriptions were wrong and his memory and keen trail-finding abilities were right. But there was that glorious mountain and those glowing spires right there before us! No way we were turning around. And things actually went okay up until we got across the Freshair Traverse.
We then found ourselves in a corner area with a 2" crack that 26 years of climbing had not prepared Brilliant Partner to climb. He was up there struggling and knocking large rocks down on me, his belayer, and swearing a lot. Finally he came down and told me it wasn't doable. I said I'd give it a try, although I hadn't done much trad leading at that point. He said no. I said I thought we only had a couple more pitches plus some third class--I was willing to try to get up the thing. (Since the hardest move on this climb was a 5.6/5.7, I was pretty certain I could pull this off. I was a better climber than he was.) He finally admitted he hadn't brought enough gear to protect the crack. I heard this non sequitur and could only stand there looking at him...he, the guy who'd done this climb twice before.
It was now 4:00pm--he suddenly started asking what I thought we should do and looking around in an agitated manner. The sun was setting--he said, we can't get up the climb--he said. For the fifth time he asked me what I thought we should do. Now he'd been climbing 26 years and I'd been climbing 2...I was a bit confused about whose experience was supposed to keep us from The Grand Epic. But I wasn't confused at all about what was happening here: Mr. Brilliant Partner was in a full-blown panic. And novice that I was, I knew the first law of the jungle was never do anything at high altitude with a dude in a panic. I asked him what he wanted to; downclimb, he said; and that's what we did.
I was so pissed, I free-soloed the Freshair Traverse and didn't give a sh*t about the exposure. We left his old ratty not-enough gear at the top of the Grand Staircase and downclimbed back to the scree trail. The sun was going down, it was starting to get chilly. As we death-marched down the gravel path, we both realized we'd be doing the deadly wet slabs in the dark and would probably die horrible cheese-grater deaths. Luckily, right then we stumbled across three marines camping among the boulders just before the decent to Upper Boyscout Lake. Two of the guys were in a two-man tent, and the third had a bivy sack and pad. They graciously allowed me to sleep between them in the tent and out of the wind, while Brilliant Partner got the pad with a pile of ropes for a blanket. And some very cold wind.
So there I lay on the hard ground, wrapped in my down jacket and cold as hell, wedged between two farting strangers and counting my blessing with every gaseous expulsion. And although I didn't sleep, I didn't get hypothermia either. Neither did Brilliant Partner, but I think he was damn close to it.
The next weekend I went back and did a 13 hour door-to-door solo of the Mountaineers Route. The top of Mt. Whitney was worth it. And I chose my climbing partners much more carefully after that.
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Robb
Social climber
Under a Big Sky
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Dragging a non-climber "friend" up the left dihedral of the Monday Morning Slab. Dirt, min-pro, blah-blah-blah.....
I'm still here
Proof of the mercy of God
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Two things come to mind.
The first was forgetting a lighter or matches on my first big wall (Leaning Tower) and not being able to light the joint on my 19th birthday on Ahwahnee Ledge.
The second was thinking that I could become a professional football (soccer) player in my late 20s and spending way too much time in that useless pursuit at the expense of my climbing. BIG mistake.
Trusty Rusty
I first started climbing on Diablo in 1969 and was there often from then until 1974 or so. Perhaps we know each other.
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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"The first was forgetting a lighter or matches on my first big wall (Leaning Tower) and not being able to light the joint on my 19th birthday on Ahwahnee Ledge."
Patrick, that sounds more desperate than forgetting the birthday cake! I can hear the silence as you and partner look at each other, wondering just where the flame could be.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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As a beginning leader, I had just topped out and built an anchor. Pulling up the rope, it seemed jammed, so I gave it three hard tugs to free it. It seemed, OK. I was then farting around with something when it struck me what had just happened. I had just given the three tug "on belay" signal. I started reeling in rope like crazy.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
Otto, NC
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I'm trying hard not to acknowledge 'moving to Leadville' as the obvious answer here...
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WBraun
climber
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Gary
Hahahaha LOL
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ChrisW
Trad climber
boulder, co
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climbing the Nose with a girl...... was the BEST decision of my LIFE.
Worst mistake climbing.....I that one big fall that broke my ankle....and that other big fall that fu#cKed my foot up. And those other two falls that broke my wrist.
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sling512
Trad climber
Chicago
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I think I was 18 and wanted to put up a solo ground-up new route on the NF of Middle. I really didn't want to solo but my climbing partner bailed on me last minute. I lugged the pig, ledge, gear, water etc to the base and climbed about 3 pitches. At this point is was dark and I decided I'd bivy on the portaledge that night at my highpoint. It was sorta slabby and a crappy place for the ledge, but I was 'in the moment'. I was mad hungry by now and fished out the canned food I brought. OH SH*T, I didn't bring a can opener!! Since I was about 350 ft up with no rap anchors to zip to the base and bail to the cafeteria, plus it was way late... I just starved. Next morning I bailed with my tail between my legs and had to lug all my crap back to my truck. That sucked.
My other 'worst mistake' was my partner and I did DNB one fine fall day. We went for the DNB-IAD, haha, and just photocopied the topo to bring along. About half way up we ran out of water and an hour later I choked down the last Powerbar... We got to the chimneys in the dark and I led them with our only crappy headlamp. I was so tired and kinda freaked out, that I was running it out probably 50+ feet between pro. We made it to the finish ledge and started the search for the Kat Walk in pitch-black. I only had shorts and a tank top (again, poor poor planning) and was starting to get quite chilly. My partner Jackson was getting stupid from dehydration and somehow dropped his belay device. Since we didn't have the page photocopied with the descent directions we thought the book said “go left and up along the Kat Walk to a few easy rappels and downclimbing to the valley floor". Wow, couldn't have been more wrong. We made the decision to bivy on that little ledge tied to the tree and huddled together in one space blanket. We were making so much noise with that damn aluminum blanket that guys were yelling at us from El Cap across the way! Haha. Well, the thing tore in two in the middle of the night and an attempt to tape it together was futile. I don't think I slept 10 minutes that night. We were so hungry that the bottle of piss I saved “just in case” was tempting. At one point and made an attempt on it… but I couldn’t get past the thick smell, gaaaaa!
At first light we were talking about getting down in time for pancakes and OJ at the cafeteria and started our wrong descent route. We by the time we made it to the notch between Higher and Middle we knew we were f-ed. The “few easy rappels and downclimbing” was a 2000 ft straight drop!! But the tattered slings around the basball-bat sized shrubs qued us in that we weren't the only idiots to make this mistake. We were able to rap down into the unknown on trees and shrubs with me lowering him then rap and pull. We had one green rope and one red rope, so we always made sure the green rope was the one to pull so our knot didn't get stuck at the anchors. That was a pretty successful strategy until we were in the steep, deadly bowling alley at the bottom of the notch. At this point it was damn near noon!! At the worst possible spot I went to pull the green rope and.... nothing. Pulled the red rope.... nothing. Sh#t, We ro-sham-bo-ed to see who would make the tenuous jug to the top to unjam the ropes. I lost… so I decided to jug the red, hoping we had set the rap up correct. Once I got to the top I realized that both ropes had jammed under a big ol’ loose block and if it had come loose we probably both would have been toast. After a few more raps and 1 more rope jam we made it out. By the time we were back in C4 it was almost 4 pm. Man, we were so f-ing thirsty I had actually found a coke can (pop top) in the notch with some mystery liquid that I filtered through my shirt and drank. But it was all worth while when we hit the road and looked up and saw the DNB line soaring through the trees from the road cut! What a day. The tourons driving past only saw two crazy kids hugging in the middle of the road.
Good times-
-sling
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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My worst mistakes almost killed me and didn't, I expect most of us could say that, but maybe we don't delight in those stories.
Here's a funnier one that only hurt my knee:
Climbed up 10 feet, placed a doubtful-looking nut below the first crux. To test it, I gave a hard yank. It flew out, hit me in the face, I lost my balance and decked on talus. No more climbing that summer.
This stupid mistake taught me something deeper than nutcraft: the freedom to climb can vanish in a flash, for a short time or forever. So you've gotta have other goals in your life. This hadn't been so obvious to me before (not too bright in those days), but I acted on it and took a new direction.
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G_Gnome
Boulder climber
Sick Midget Land
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I was leading a route at Josh that goes about 10c. Near the top there are a pair of knobs about 2 1/2 feet apart that you are supposed to mantle. Well, I am not what you would call limber and can't get my foot to my hand to save my life. So in my failure to mantle, I put my left knee on the left knob and then tried to reach the next hold. When I still couldn't reach I tried to mantle the other knob but couldn't and so stuck my right knee on that knob. I still can't reach anything! There I am, kneeling on both knees with no hand holds. I eventually had to just push backwards and launch into space. My wife had to finish the lead (she mantles really well). I was kinda embarrassed.
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The Wretch
Trad climber
Forest Knolls, CA
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Rare for me to be home and able to post.
G.Gnome:
So, do I get a new route? Exit Stage Right,
The Direct? Don't Exit?
Happy not to care these days.
I have an addendum to my post. I usually
learn from my mistakes. What I learned was:
1. do not head to a bolt you cannot see.
2. in trouble, it is probably best to down
climb, since ever foot you down climb equals
some measure of lessend injury.
3. I am very careful these days. I climb with
some fabulous has beens. I am a never was was,
but still, was there, climbing in the golden
age in Yosemite in 1961.
4. Had a bad day at work today, crazies coming
out of the wood work. I know I will regret this post
in the somber, sober light of tomorrow.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Sling512:
I was mad hungry by now and fished out the canned food I brought. OH SH*T, I didn't bring a can opener!! Since I was about 350 ft up with no rap anchors to zip to the base and bail to the cafeteria, plus it was way late... I just starved. Next morning I bailed with my tail between my legs and had to lug all my crap back to my truck. That sucked.
This musta been in the modern era. Back earlier when Joe & I climbed walls, we opened cans with Lost Arrows. Then used them as spoons and forks too! Don't know why, as if the extra weight of a plastic spoon or a can opener would have busted the pig?
Canned spaghetti was the bomb, slides down fine no matter how thirsty you are. Recall Ray Jardine advising us to get the plain spaghetti, without meatballs, because those taste a lot less yummy stone cold.
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ladysmith
climber
san diego, ca
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worst mistake:
Overtime becoming very comfortable with being hundreds of feet up on a wall can be dangerous. About three pitches up, I had just finished rapping to a new station and took myself off rappel. About 5-10 minutes later after chatting with my partner he pointed out that I was just hanging out, not clipped into anything on a ledge about 4" wide. Had I just leaned back in my harness or stepped off the ledge, it would have been over. The scarey part is I had no idea that I wasn't clipped in. This was a good reminder not to get too comfortable and to ALWAYS preload one system before removing yourself from another.... Makes me ill just to think abut it. I think we all forget how dangerous climbing can be and how one very simple mistake can be deadly.
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Rocky5000
Trad climber
Falls Church, VA
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I've made a few, but the one that branded me as a moron went like this:
Started leading Illusion Dweller late in the afternoon of a sunny winter day, wearing t-shirt and thin long pants. Got to the overhang crux in decent style, a little beat-up and tired though. Set an excellent nut just above my head and then couldn't pull the crux. Let's say I was dwelling in an illusion of weakness and fear as the sun went down and the wind rose. I thought, hell, I'll rap off this excellent nut. I can almost certainly get close enough to the ground, since the crack slants, and we'll clean the gear later. I clipped into the piece, untied the rope from my harness, threaded it through the sling on the nut, and stuck the end of the rope in my teeth so I could deal with gear and whatnot. My partner yelled up to find out what I was doing, and I replied.
So I had to wait, oh, maybe forty-five minutes as he hiked around to the top, located the spot, set an anchor and dropped the rope for me to rap on. The wind rose and the temperature dropped, of course. I had, subjectively, ages to meditate on my total lack of competence.
About seven years later I went back and led it all in good style. I learn slowly, but I do learn, if you hit me with a big enough mallet. I don't drop things anymore.
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Gabe
climber
San Clemente, CA
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I posted this in another forum a few beers back.
In the 90's two 'new guys' were climbing at Indian Cove near Joshua Tree. They walked up to a route called Silent Scream passing a few boy scouts beers in hand. Are you guys climbing? one scout asks as his scout master pulls him away from the degenerates.
Leaving my empty Bud can at the base I set off. The climb went smooth for me and my second until it was time to lower Ammon. I thought there were bolts at the top and only had gear enough for a small crack to the right of where the climb tops out. I used it not knowing about setting up a pendulum in my belay. I set it long to see Ammon climb up stacking the odds further against us.
With a few scouts watching I start to lower and I'm suddenly thrown off balance and smacked into the wall hanging plumb from my anchor. In the blink of an eye both sides of the rope, hand above my device, were in my hand and sped up like a band saw. I knew my partner was falling. Ignoring the pain, I twist the rope spraying an arch of skin many feet into the air, stopping Ammon two feet from the ground after he crunched his elbow on the rock.
The rope had a glaze of skin twenty feet long that wouldn't wash out and kinda smelled funny.
Ammons elbow still hurts a little.
Even though I had a huge grooves in four of my fingers, my pinky down to the bone, I soaked my hand daily in hydrogen peroxcide for six weeks and it healed like new.
The scouts were not impressed.
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Frog Man Junior
Social climber
CA
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Me an my Bro Abe were on the 2ed pitch of Nut Cracker (circa 1980) and I just had to have a drink of H20 before following his lead. I unclipped the 1 gallon milk jug of water and glugged down my fill. After clipping in the only jug of water we had I just let it hang, Well it didn't hang...it plummeted down to the valley floor. I yellede ROCK! as loud as I could several times, only hearing a foul come back of "you A$$ hol#". Bottem line: look, be sure, then look and be sure for real!
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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OH SH*T, I didn't bring a can opener!!
I used a sharp rock caveman style atop Salathe on a can of "unknown" origins. Turned out to be canned fruit and "grits"...
One bad mistake--totally unclipped way off the deck...had a nekkid feeling all of a sudden.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Since we're in a recycling mode lately, here's a tale about the Direct NWF that I posted a few years back on rec.climbing:
Late in the day, my partner and I had climbed a ropelength up the zigzags, planning to rap down and sleep on Big Sandy. I rapped first, using a double-carbiner brake on our 9mm haul line. With stretch, it just barely got my feet to the ledge. Standing there unanchored and not thinking at all, I slowly let the tail of the rope slide through the carabiners. As it released, the unexpected whiplash threw me off balance. I teetered on the edge, arms windmilling, for a couple of long seconds while the 'biners clattered noisily down the wall as if inviting me to follow. I regained my balance, yelled "ROCK" for any parties below, and sat down shaking at how close that had been.
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Don't let go
Trad climber
Yorba Linda, CA
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Darshanlu,
I remember that day. Justin and I started freaking out because you were several hours late and coming down in the dark.
Amoung the many stupid things I've done is committing to a tiny sandstone flake (about a 1/2 inch square) while bouldering at the beach. Surprise suprise it breaks. Sand landings are nice, but not when there is a rock just underneath my landing zone. Even worse is when I started spining when the hold broke. It got worse when my feet he a sloping wall off to the side and started to pitch me forward while spinning. Did almost a full turn and a flip to land on my back inches from the rock. DON'T TRUST SANDSTONE.
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E.L. "One"
Big Wall climber
Lancaster, California
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Feb 10, 2007 - 11:44am PT
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Have to chime in here. Worst climbing mistake and worst climbing injury in my 30 plus years of climbing happened when I was doing traverses on the "People's Wall" in La Jolla, California. Was just completing my second traverse, when my arms started to really flame out. I hung from a nice hand hold about six feet off the ground where there was a large bush below me. Figured I would land between the bush and the wall on level ground. Strategically positioned myself for the controlled fall, lined up my landing spot and let go. Just before hitting the ground, my left ass cheeck was "harpooned" by a rather sharp branch of the bush. I lay crumpled on the ground feeling the first waves of shock. I limped to my car, positioned a tee shirt under my ass to provide pressure and control bleeding, and drove to the emergency room. Unfortunately, there was a major accident on the freeway which had the emergency room over capacity. A punctured ass was low priority compared to all the crumpled bodies coming into the ER. Four hours later I was finally seen by an intern who plunked 20 stitches into my ass and said, "Two inches more to the right and you would have had a bullseye!!", the thought have which has kept me from returning to the People's Wall ever since.
Cracko
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sketchyy
Trad climber
Vagrant
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Feb 10, 2007 - 12:31pm PT
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Got 15 feet off the ground and realized I forgot the rack.
3 times
in the same day
weed was good tho
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 10, 2007 - 01:11pm PT
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Recycled from August. Soon after posting I was asked to submit this to a new book being written by Butch Farrabee and Michael (don't know his last name), called "Off the Wall, Death in Yosemite" to counter the total grimness they wanted a few survivor stories and picked this one. I'm not all that eager to read their book, but apparrantly the other versions have sold well in their respective National Parks.
_
I was not on the schedule to work, and I had pulled an all nighter in difficult discussion with my girlfriend. I went into YMS just to pick up my paycheck and chill with my best women buddy, KB (an unheralded hot stonemistress from the 70's). Brossman the Bossman, comes into the back room, "some folks want a guide today, your up, thats what Chief Guide means, you take the walk ins when you can!" So off I go and spend a nice day with some nice dudes, we do Keystone corner, Reeds Regular, Bongs away left, and they still have a bit of juice left, so I just run up the first pitch of Reeds Direct trailing the rope. When I am standing on the detached ledge I pull up the rope to tie a bowlin on a bight to the tree, while pulling the rope, with no cams to block it, the cord becomes stuck back in the flake. I turn back in to downclimb to free it, and bobble my balance on the ledge. I make a grab for the unfinished knot on the tree, grab the wrong side and fall backward off the ledge...I let out the loud death yell, plummeting to the ledges below, certain of my impending doom, when I am brought up short by the rope, just as my heel breaks on the small ledge early on the pitch. The rope jammed in the crack, my client had put his hand on the rope running on the ground allowing it to sink in deeper and stick. I am now so high on survivors adrenelin, I swing back to the crack, untie and solo down the lower section easily, back to my shaking clients. I had split my calcaneous into two pieces, which 22 years later can still bug me if I am teaching the snowplow, and the weather is changing.
I learned some valuable lessons that served me well over the next 20 years of guiding. One, do not try to get my climbing kicks while working, it can be bad enough pulling the bulge on top of RCA with rain splattering the stone. Second, guiding is never just a job. The trials of real life, may make it necessary to call in sick occasionally rather than put myself or my clients at risk.
Cool postscript. The client who probably saved me, dropped dead of a heart attack years later. Two years ago, I get a call from his son, he was passing through the park with his sons and was trying to convey to them the adventurous life of the grand father they barely knew. I took the kids up Aqua Knobby, had a great time, and conveyed my respect for their granddad who saved me!
Peter
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Feb 10, 2007 - 01:28pm PT
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ooohhh...
yeah I was going to say, "I went up El Cap with a stranger."
...but two chicks has that beat by far!
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hossjulia
Trad climber
Eastside
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Feb 10, 2007 - 05:35pm PT
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I'm posting this up now because this relates to the accident in the Gorge. Obviously, I havn't climbed enough to have anything worse than this happen, and this was an almost, which should cover a lot of questions and ruminations over on the Gorge fatality post.
Climbing with a new partner, we headed to the upper Gorge.
Mistake #1, we didn't talk about the lowering procedure before we started.
Mistake #2, I didn't ask for a clarification of what "OK" meant. I thought it meant, "OK, I'm off", thinking he was going to set up a top rope anchor and rap. Just as I pulled the rope through my device, I looked up and saw him looking at me, rope hanging straight down the wall from his harness, him hanging onto the anchors, looking for the tension in the TR. I immediatly realized what was going on, thank God (or whoever) he was looking to make sure, and I hurridly put him back on belay as the tears and adrenalin started flowing. As I was lowering him, the horror of what just almost happened hit me. When he got down, he sat next to me. I was too choked up to say much besides croaking out "Sorry, I bet you won't climb with me again." To his credit, he said "No, but I'll never say OK again at the top of a climb."
Then we proceeded to talk about what we should have talked about before the climb. And went on to have a great day.
Why didn't he deck that day? Because this guy double, triple checks everything, and when he didn't feel any tension in the system, quickly clipped his daisy back into the anchor. (I didn't see that.)
I learned alot that day.
Now, when I am getting ready to lower off, I don't untie off the anchor untill I feel the tension in the TR, and can see the belay happening.
I quit trying to be "cool" with my on-off belay signals and just keep it traditional and straight forward. If I even here the word "OK" at the crags, it makes me cringe, and if I see it being used in conjunction with belay signals, I always tell this story.
Distractions can be very insidious. There was a bit of that going on this day as well. Male-female stuff.
If someone is yakking at me while I am belaying, I usually just smile and nod. If I am getting sucked into a conversation that is too distracting, I say something.
I double check my partners harness and tie-in each and every time, no matter who they are! My favorite way to do this is grab them by their tie in and give a good yank. Makes for some good jokes.
When I am re-setting anchors, I take my time, no matter how long it takes, and make sure I never come untied from the rock.
I clarify belay signals if I'm not sure. If that's not possible, I just keep them on untill all the rope is up and I get a couple of good tugs on my harness.
What else? Oh, he and I are still partners, even though I almost dropped him on his arse!
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Jingy
Social climber
Flatland, Ca
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Feb 10, 2007 - 06:23pm PT
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I'm in with WBraun. I'm warped since becoming a Supertopian.
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nutjob
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Feb 10, 2007 - 10:31pm PT
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first trip to camp4, the place where I'm supposed to find climbing partners coming out of the woodworks...
being so anxious to climb... not having a partner, starting to solo up Royal Arches on-sight with a heavy mist... beads of water balling up on the slippery rock... a torrent of water pouring through the easy way... committing to the very exposed slabby face & finger crack about 3-4 pitches up after lots of half-hearted attempts... somehow not dying on that part, and realizing shortly thereafter that I will die if I keep going... finding an alternate way down on-sight (rock still all slippery, etc.)... finding an ancient pile of tattered slings about half a pitch above the ground, somehow hanging off that and wedging into a chimney / body stem and sliding down the last 20 feet ripping up my clothes and somehow not getting hurt.
I've climbed it a handful of times since then, and even solo'd it once in good whether in a pretty casual way... but every time I pass the part I solo'd on-sight with all the water beading up, I just think that it was such a stupid and idiotic thing.
lessons:
 have a partner lined up ahead of time, or have enough time to find one
go climbing often enough to not get the urge so pent up that it outstrips all reason and restraint
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nutjob
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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Feb 11, 2007 - 02:13am PT
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Actually just thought of a better climbing mistake...
Summer of 1990, long nights in the last days of the Soviet Union.
I was in a youth science exchange program learning about their space program. And I was 16 yrs old, away from an overly-restrictive home for the first time, and I had a childhood full of selling boy scout crap, magazine subscriptions, and other stuff door-to-door to build my selling instincts.
So against multiple dire warnings by our American chaperones and group organizers that we'd be shipped off to a Siberian gulag if we participated in the black market, and after horrific tales of what happened to kids the year before, our first night in Moscow our dorms had visitors hawking their wares. I quickly lost the 2 pairs of jeans I brought with me. Upon arrival in Leningrad (now St Petersberg), I traded the Nike shirt off my back for a Sovietsky Soyuz Socialist Respublic shirt with a map of all the states. Then it got serious.... most of the kids in our delegation were crapping their pants worried about getting caught talking to these people, but they wanted stuff. My buddy and I smelled money.
Every night we started going out for a midnight rendezvous, collecting flags, military pins, navy and army hats like in those bad movies with Arnold Swartzenneger or Dolph Lundgren, etc... A week into it we were taking special orders from our American cohorts, then building up our system of suppliers to fulfill requests. We'd buy 3 military watches and sell 1 for the same price, keeping the others as our personal souvenir stash. The most difficult special request was a woolen trenchcoat with navy ensignia on it. In hindsight I realize that our avarice and ignorant longing for adventure came at the expense of some poor souls who probably had their gear stolen to fuel these trades.
What does all this have to do with climbing? Hold yer horses. It's coming...
So one day we were supposed to go on a tour of the Hermitage, quite a large museum with one of the best art collections in the world. Instead my buddy and I ditched the group right when we got there, and hopped in a taxi across Leningrad to do our dirty business. We ran into complications on the way back, not least of which was our lack of a map, first visit to a large city, and a Russian vocabulary that mostly consisted of "that's too expensive" and "would you like to dance with me?"
By the time we get back to the museum to rejoin our group, all the kids are loaded up in a bus. The physics professor chaperones who have tried hard to ignore our hijinks just can't ignore this. They pretended not to notice when we were falling down drunk after a night of beer, wine, vodka, and beating ourselves with leaves in boiling saunas. But with the sweat beads dripping down the windows of the bus in the baking afternoon sun, and the priceless mix of anger and awe and "you're screwed!" written on all the kids' faces, it was clear that our time was up. From that point on, we were tied at the hip to the chaperones. But everyone has to sleep sometime.
And so comes the climbing part of this epic journey...
We slip past security out the back door of our hotel, bound for our last midnight meeting near an abandoned housing complex. The final round of goods scored, we reach the hotel. Crap! The back door we used is locked. And going through the front is out of the question. Now I haven't formally discovered climbing as a sport yet.... But I've climbed up to the roof of a house or two. Now I'm confronted with a 10-story building, and every balcony landing up to the 5th floor is covered in chain-link fence to prevent people from getting in our out. The drain pipes look pretty solid.... away I go. The plan is for me to climb up, reach a balcony where I can enter, then come down and open the door for my buddy.
I'm fully in the zone of my first solo, 4 stories up. A friendly Russian couple several floors above is attentively watching this American idiot. And then my worst fears are realized. No, not smacking the ground. But the thought of pulling cabbages out of permafrost in a Soviet gulag certainly scared the bujeezus out of me. And the voice of authority, in thick Russian, came yelling from below. The police station was next door to our hotel... should have done more research. In the souped up paranoia created by our chaperones and American organizers, we thought these guys were the KGB. We braced ourselves for torture. We would eventually have to confess. And our bloody stumps of fingers would be digging at icy dirt to extract those cabbages, which our bloodied hollow eye sockets wouldn't be able to see.
Speaking of bloody stumps of fingers, I'm still hanging by my fingers in a chain link fence, stemmed out from a drain pipe, nearly 5 stories off the ground. My buddy has been captured. You never leave your men behind. I froze. I can't make out the Russian, but I'm sure it's something like "get your ass down here and join your friend, so we can beat you to a bloody pulp and make you disappear forever." I complied. Pulling myself together enough to finish the task at hand, I reach a balcony and flop myself over the railing. Meanwhile, the friendly Russian couple above is shouting something down to our captor. Now I'm back down to the bottom, out the door, and into custody with my buddy. Rifle in hand, the KGB agent marches us to the deep shadows on the side of the building. Suddenly frozen cabbages don't seem so bad. Hey, I could learn to like a gulag... it can't be all bad! "Hey buddy, let's talk about this..."
But he keeps walking. We find ourselves at the fully-lit front entrance to the hotel, where we are turned loose in the lobby. Filled with wonder and relief that the KGB didn't execute us, we now dread the hotel security that will surely raise alarms to our chaperones. Again to our amazement, we walk back to our rooms with no event. I guess these Russian dudes are pretty cool!
So I got lucky, but that climbing incident could have led to a fate worse than death.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 11, 2007 - 02:25am PT
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Nutjob
Hahahahaha that Russian trip story was a great read. I loved it.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Aug 17, 2010 - 05:42pm PT
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Nut job, do you remember what hotel it was? We stayed in the Oktyaberskaya, when i was there for a youth exchange in '73... That same summer, if I have the story straight, Alexey, who grew up in Leningrad, was on a foreign exchange, stateside. Wish I'd kept up with my Russian like he's kept up with his english...
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gtowey
Sport climber
Sunnyvale, CA
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Aug 17, 2010 - 06:41pm PT
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radical wrote:
And it destroyed my fingers.....climbing like an idiot everyday didn't help that either
So from one beginning climber who's had enough tendon injuries doing other sports to be worried about destroying their joints further -- would you elaborate on what you did that was so bad for your fingers?
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Aug 17, 2010 - 08:09pm PT
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Jaybro, at this point it's all a blur! I see mental snapshots of places, of faces, a few people's names, but I'm drawing a blank on the hotels. We stayed in Moscow Technical University in the beginning; shifted to a hotel in Dmitrov where I thought the shower water would give me lead poisoning; and I remember very little about the Leningrad hotel except the starkly lit lobby and night and the dark back balconies covered in chain-link fencing :)
Maybe a hypnotist could extract more memories?
Edit: Jaybro, just took a look at Oktyaberskaya. That place is the Ritz compared to where we stayed. We had more of the industrial cement prefab theme. In my memories, it kind of matches the movie set for "Running Man" or "Total Recall"
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Aug 18, 2010 - 08:08am PT
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Oktyaberskaya had that air of opulence gone shabby, all to common in the soviet era....
across the street from ploshid vostonaya...
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Two Pack Jack
climber
The hills
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Aug 18, 2010 - 10:12am PT
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Signing up to get on supertopo.
why?
that question still haunts me to this day.
-jack
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TwistedCrank
climber
Ideeho-dee-do-dah-day boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom
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Aug 18, 2010 - 10:57am PT
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Drinking a buttload of free coffee from the Tuolumne store and then trying to climb thin and delicate and smooth and runout shiz. I can't recall why it was free (the coffee that is), but "free" meants "lots" to us back then.
I think we tried a climb called "step it up and go"
I think we ended up dashing Matthes Crest after we realized that thin and delicate and smooth and runout was not in the cards that day.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:02am PT
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Nutjob,
Really well told! Oh, I so miss the USSR! I gotta say you could at least
walk the streets safely then. Of course, the reason they were safe is there was nobody on them.
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:07am PT
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Mickey's Beach...
Route called Nancy...
I'm weak....
"Z" clipped..
moved past until... couldn't move no more...
"Uhm... dude... the tide is coming in..."
Can't move...
"uhm dude... the tide... (feet getting wet)"
strength totally sapped...
figured it out.. eventually..
only half the rope got wet.. friend was drenched...
still living with it
not so proud moment in sports
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Branscomb
Trad climber
Lander, WY
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:25am PT
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Getting involved in this ridiculous activity.
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Port
Trad climber
San Diego
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Aug 18, 2010 - 11:26am PT
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I tired climbing the east buttress of whitney the day before thanksgiving. We got stuck in the dark 300 feet from the summit with no bivy gear in an unpredicted snowstorm. It got so cold my nalean froze solid and I had frost nip on my fingers and toes. I damn near wanted to die.
I learned that going light and fast in the mountains can have major consequences.
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Russ Aulds
Trad climber
Cleveland, TN
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Aug 18, 2010 - 09:44pm PT
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First pitch of Wolf's Head in the Wind River Range of WY. I lead up to the belay stance and start to haul up the slack to bring up my inexperienced older brother when I see the other end of the rope!!......followed by my brother free climbing trying to catch up so he can tie in!!!
We made sure that never happened again!!
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coldclimb
climber
Wasilla, Alaska
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:13am PT
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At one time I was quite the experienced internet climber, and my buddy had climbed once or twice, just because he was my friend. We were set up for a 5.10 we'd never climbed, and being the experienced internet climber that I was I had my partner tie into his end of the rope, just in case we didn't have enough when he lowered me off, and then we rigged his belay and double checked everything. I quickly climbed to the first bolt, which was after a long crack that ends about 25 feet up, and I didn't bother with placing gear since the rest of the route was bolted. Reaching down to pull up some rope for the clip, I heard my belayer say "Ummm..." and glanced back to see him dutifully maintaining a correctly rigged belay... 60 meters away at the other end of the neatly stacked rope...
Easily rectified after a little downclimbing, but man we felt dumb! :D
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426
climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Aug 19, 2010 - 12:38pm PT
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Fruit w/ 'grits'. Ya!
I was recently thinking about another one that could have been easily mitigated, just by watching the new school and how they work highballs, brushing the tops, working moves on gris, etc.
Got to the top of Like A Virgin, (Bachars) pretty pumped. No pads of course (pumice is soft, right?...not)...
Did the last move a little worse than static, came up with a handful of sand. It was a long fall, semi-out of control. Walked out, but very woozy, took some of the impact on the head. Fortunately I was pretty youthful, but it was one of the falls that hits the landing gear hard.
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jfailing
Trad climber
A trailer park in the Sierras
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Aug 19, 2010 - 01:47pm PT
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Pete was right about to fire the rest of the route when we had him come down and reassess his bolt clipping decision. We gave him a real hard time about it, but he sent way harder than us, so it's ok.
About five years ago I swaggered into the gym, hungover, and threw myself at a bunch of hard bouldering problems - no warmup. 15 minutes later, I'm underclinging a two finger pocket and am reaching for the next move. All my weight shifts onto my ring finger. There is a very audible snap and my tendon pulley goes poof. Took me over a year to start climbing confidently again, and I still tape it up to this day.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Aug 19, 2010 - 02:27pm PT
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Holy thread bump Batman. Half of page 1 is deceased.
I performed a David Copperfield rope-trick while pumped and totally noobing-out. I ended up with a mess of tangled rope and draws at the anchor and an overhand (yes overhand) knot somehow magically tied directly around the whole mess and snugged down tight with absolutely no way to free it or myself.
I think it took me 20-30 minutes to escape the thing. Route was overhanging so I was stuck hanging there like a dead duck at the market. I had to pull up tons of slack to sort of build a hanging belay to tie into so I could fully untie to fix it I was in so tight to the anchor it was way harder to un-weight and get off it than you can image.
The partner I was climbing with that day stopped returning my phone calls. BTW.
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Paulina
Trad climber
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Aug 19, 2010 - 03:51pm PT
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Oh what a thread!
Nutjob and Jaybro, you've got me pining for the good old days (not really), sob. In fact, Nutjob, your feats of climbing on drainpipes probably brought the same image to the heads of the Russian policemen: "The Story of the Unknown Hero" by Marshak. It's a poem that every kid used to learn in school, about a regular guy who worked out a lot and so once he was able to climb up a drainpipe and into the window of a burning building to save a little girl. :-) Ah, Soviet propaganda!
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Trouble
climber
Fresno, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:05pm PT
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This is my first post ever on this site...So here it goes.
My cousin John and I were rapping Skull Queen one fine October day. As we descended we made plans to drink pints upon pints of Mammoth ales and grub on Pizza at Degnan's that evening.
John was leading the traversing rappel into the alcove above the Kor roof. It's a tricky one (especially with a pig between the legs) as you have to pendulum to reach the next set of anchors. As soon as the ropes went slack, I knew he was at the anchor, it was my turn.
As I started my rappel the wind began to pick up a bit and it was a little difficult to hold my position once I reached the top of the alcove. Just as I was about to swing plum, John reached his hand out and pulled me into the alcove.
As I moved under the roof into the alcove, he had to unclip a long draw he was using to maintain control of the rope ends to let me pass. HERE IS WHERE IT HAPPENED. As I passed, I assumed he was going to clip the draw around me and back to the ropes so I could just anchor myself and come off rappel. I wasn't even thinking otherwise. I anchored myself, came off rappel, and LET THE ROPES GO!!!
Out of the corner of my eye I see the ropes swing out of sight, plum with the anchors above, or so I thought. I had the biggest sinking feeling in my chest. I felt like such a helpless fool. John looked at me and said, "did you just let the ropes go?" I snapped back saying "dude, I thought you were going to clip the draw around me!" It didn't matter what I thought...I had let them go. We were up sh@t creek now and it was time to hatch a plan.
I extended my daises, leaned out as far as I could, and saw one rope end snagged on the smallest of crystals. The wind had already taken the other end out of site and was threatening to dislodge this one. I dug through my haul bag and pulled out the longest chord I had, maybe 30ft and 6 mil.
After some trial and error (down aiding knots to see if we could swing over and reach it) and some debate, John decides to lead the pitch above ON THE STATIC CHORD to reach the rope. Freaky, given the first few placements are pretty thin. Needless to say, he reached the first bolt, clipped a leaver to it and I lowered him out. He reached with all his length and grabbed the rope just as the stopper knot hit my belay device!!!
I remember yelling up to him something like,"DUDE YOU ARE A F#@KING HERO! I AM GOING TO BUY YOU A STEAK DINNER AT THE AWAHNEE WHEN WE GET OFF OF THIS ROCK!" The rest is history.
Lesson Learned:
NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING...ESPECIALLY WHEN RAPPELLING. IF THE RAP ISN'T STRAIGHT DOWN AND THE ROPE GETS AWAY FROM YOU...IT COULD BE LETHAL.
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LB4USC
Trad climber
Long Beach
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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After Six is one of the first valley climbs my buddy Harry and I did on our own. It seemed like we ALWAYS had big wind on the last pitch, that made it hard to hear commands.
We decided in case of high winds to use three rope tugs to signal "off belay" in case the wind drowned out our shouts.
So Harry climbs out of sight. Then a little bit later, I feel three very even tugs. I let go of the rope, take it out of my ATC, and shout, "Harry, belay off!"
In a fraction of a second I hear, "NOOOOOOOOO!"
Fortunately, Harry had a stance and we can laugh about it now, but ...
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Gregg Olson
Boulder climber
Moorpark, Ca
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Aug 19, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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This was back in the late 80's at Stony Point Ca. I had introduced my new girlfriend to climbing and thought it would be a great idea to get some laps in on the 5.11+ toprope climb " Scurf " so she could get some belay time in. After showing her all the in's and out's of belaying I started my workout, put in about 5 or 6 laps all of which she belayed and lowered me perfectly. After I was done I looked down at my knot to untie it and was absolutely sick to see that the melted plastic at the tip of my rope was all that the 1/4 completed figure 8 knot had sinched down on !! In all my showing her how to belay I must have been distracted while tying my knot and all I had done was pass it through my harness and up through the first loop of the figure 8 !!! To this day I stlll look down at my knot 3 or 4 times within the first 5 to 20 feet of any climb Im on. ( 4 or 5 times when im in the GYM !! )
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jhog
climber
south lake tahoe
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Aug 19, 2010 - 07:02pm PT
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I soloed up that climb at Tenaya lake (can't remember the name). Thought, that was easy, I'll go solo up the Great White Book across the valley.
Most scared I've ever been. Awkward climbing for a 5.6.
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cmcnall
Trad climber
belmont, CA
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Aug 19, 2010 - 07:18pm PT
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taking the wrong decent off Epinephrine.
Finished the route with the last 2 pitches, in the dark, in august and out of water. Awesome route BTW, I lead every pitch and loved it!
People warn of taking the wrong way down and we tried so hard to not be one of those. so we turn left and start heading down this scree field about 500 feet. and then we see it a gully cliff and a rap anchor. well we didn't feel like climbing back up 500 feet of scree so let take it.
talk about 15 of the worst sketchy raps in the dark ever!
the best rap was two chock stones with webbing wrapped between them and was about 4 feet away from the edge of a ledge. you had to lean waaay out to clip it and then just swing under the balanced stones and hope they didn't decide to come loose. half way down we saw a boulder that had fallen from top with a bolt in it!. great.. then about 6 pitches from the bottom we are exhausted. i forget to untie the knot on the end of the rope when pulling it and we get it stuck. at this point we are fried. my friend sleeps in a stagnant pool on the ledge and i think i slept on an ant hill near the stuck rope. Dawn breaks and my partner climbs up and manages to free the rope. we rap the last 5 or so pitches into a little one foot pool of stagnant water. we both stood in the pool for a while not daring to drink any of it but just hoping to absorb some moisture.
So don't go the wrong way down even if it means having to hike back up a little.
and don't wear crocs in the desert. i had to stop every 5 feet and pull the thorns out of my foot.
-chuck
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Rusty Royden
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:18pm PT
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Was directing a rock climbing exercise for kids at a Y camp involving 7 climber/instructors at 5 stations for some 30 kids. Got an emergancy call from one of my TR instructors. After instructing the rest of the team by radio to end thier exercises I dashed over to the staion that had called in the problem to find A kid dangling 15' up from his leg loops with his harness belt open. The kid didnt panic and the belay lowered him out. A quick investigation revealed that an untrained camp staff member had taken it upon herself to "help" by putting kids into harness's. She of course failed to double back the buckle. This occurred right under my nose as I was supervising the other climbing staff. A quick check found 3 other kids waiting their turns at various stations with improperly fastened harness buckles.
RR
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docsavage
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:33pm PT
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Long time listener, first time caller....
This thread actually inspired me to create an account. Where to start? Two episodes, in fact, stand out.
Attempting to free up a route in the Sandias (Duck Soup on Chaos Crag). Had done the crux 3rd pitch & set up a belay for the last when the sky opened up. Lowering off I misjudged the amount I had traversed, neglected to clip the lead line & wound up hanging in space 30 feet away from my partner's belay. Still don't know how I got back to him - you definitely won't find it in any manual. Worst part was, by that time the weather had passed but I was too freaked to continue....
Later I was leading a new route on the sandstone bordering El Malpais in New Mexico (since made off limits by the Acoma tribe), a splitter finger-&-hand crack widening to an off width, with a moderate escape right. Now off-widths are not my forte but this one, being kind of offset, called for a sketchy layback more than anything else. Besides there was that great ledge above. It wasn't. Again, don't know how I got back down. Multi-purpose lesson: Be sure & bring extra shorts....
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ruppell
climber
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Aug 19, 2010 - 08:45pm PT
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4th of July weekend I was climbing at Bart Dome. Finished the climb and was in a hurry to get down and do the next one. It was my first time at the dome but from the guide it looked possible to get off with one rope with some small raps. Well the first rap is this weird rap into a chasm. You actually have to rap way off to climbers right as you chimney the chasm. My partner was not happy with this at all. We both got down and searched for the next rap. This one happened to be off of a huge chockstone with at least ten pieces of webbing. After double checking the slings it looked safe to me. I threaded the rope through the rap rings and looked at the 50 or so feet to easy 3rd class and my pack. Still in a hurry I put the bight of rope through my belay device and put that into my locking biner. I leaned back and felt the usual rope pull tight. I started my rappel. About ten feet down this slightly overhanging rap I notice my harness is riding really high on my right side. This is new I think as I look down to see what the problem is. The problem it turns out is that I was "clipped in" to my gear loop instead of my belay loop!! Knowing the ground was only 40 feet or so away I kept rapping quickly and smoothly. One thing that I thought as I reached the ground was "Thank You Yates" the other was "Are you a Friggin idiot". I took a lot of lessons from this one.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Aug 19, 2010 - 11:04pm PT
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Most of mine occurred like most victims: after a couple years climbing, feeling comfortable and not knowing what you don't know.
Combine that with the fact we just started to drive to the crags and drink on our return in the mid sixties with no seat belts, metal dash with pointy cool looking knobs looking at you like bullets it's astonishing I'm alive. Good old mom claims it was the power of prayer, something more than just dumb luck.
Anyway, the worst? Too numerous to mention, teach your children well.
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mjb
Trad climber
Point Pleasant, NJ
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Aug 20, 2010 - 09:47am PT
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Pulling onto the summit of lizard head just as the sun set in the distance, shorts and a tee shirt. Moonless night, couldn't see my own shoelaces, clipped into rappel backed over the edge heard a click, thought to myself, "Shouldn't be no click noises" hand over hand back to the top find the rappel gear completely disconnected from my harness.
Now that will make an impression on you!
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Steven Amter
climber
Washington, DC
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Aug 20, 2010 - 05:46pm PT
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I've got three ancient history stories:
1) The first was in the summer of 1976, the first season I ever climbed out west and in the big mountains. My Buddy Andrew and I (both 20, having climbed for 2 years) had hitchhiked from NYC to Eldo Canyon and, arriving tired the night before, we, slept in. But boy were we jazzed to do our first Colorado climb! We were inexperienced, but pretty strong (Gunks 5.9; 5.10 by todays standards) trad leaders. We decided to do the classic Bastile Crack, but didn't start until something like 1:30 PM... so of course, three pitches up a few hours later we are huddling and terrified, rain and hail coming down in torrents, lighning hitting all around us! The afternoon thunderstorm abated, we finished the climb, and down in the parking lot we were informed by some older, wiser, bemused locals that there is almost always an afternoon thunderstorm in the front range.
Lesson learned: know your local climate.
Later, Andrew made a confession to me: that morning as a joke, he had written something in his climbing log something that did not seem so funny in retrospect, to the effect of: "Dear Mom, we are about to go on our first Colorado climb. But try as might, I can't fake life any more. I want to end it. Today. I think I'll take Steve with me." I guess that would have made for an interesting accident report.
2) Same trip, same partner, in the Indian Peaks area of Colorado, along with some more other experienced mountaineers who were helping us improve our mountaincraft. Neither Andrew nor I had crampons or ice axes (we were travelling really light for hitchiking), so we split off from the group for the day determined to stay only on the trails and rock bands and avoid anything dangerous. We ascended some minor peak successfully, but on the way down kept encountering icy snow fields that we had to circumvent. At the top of one snow chute, I told my buddy, "stay here while I scope this out." I cautiously ventured onto the top, relatively flat part to get a look down it: an obvious nightmare. It was long, quickly became steep, and ended in a horrendous field of boulders and snow. I turned partially back to Andrew to tell him: "its no good, its a death slide," and promptly slipped onto my ass.
What happened next was straight out of a Roadrunner cartoon: I sat there trying to gain traction, but it was hard and slick. I could feel myself ever-so-slowly slipping down onto the steeper slope, helpless to prevent it. After about 10 seconds, suddenly I lost all control and flew down the slope.
Andrew later said I seemed to simply take off and vanish from sight. The other climbers we knew, who were looking up at us from about 1000 feet below and from the side, who had been wondering "what the hell are they doing on that slope without ice axes?" were now thinking "sh#t, he's a dead man for sure."
Although I was moving really fast, the length of the slope gave me plenty of time to think on the way down. I tried a series of strategies to stop myself. First I tried to self arrest with my heels and elbows. Nothing! I flipped over on my stomach an tried my fingers and toes in the classic arrest pose. The snow was too hard - again nothing. Knowing my appointment with the boulders at the bottom of the snowfield was imminent, almost on a whim I decided to flip onto my back and at least see what was going to give me the chop. I also had this vague idea that maybe since I had pretty strong legs, they could absorb the hit and somehow let me survive - this decison probably saved my life.
What happened next happened at hyperspeed, but somehow seemed to occur in slow motion. I remember hitting a refrigerator sized block squarely with my legs in a semi-squat position. This promptly fipped me over onto my stomach, going headfirst down the slope. By some miracle of speed, trajectory, and slope angle I was somehow skimming over the boulder field in superman postion. I could feel my hands slapping at the rocks beneath me as I hurtled over them. After what seemed a long time, I found myself crumpled against a car-sized boulder in softer, flatter snow.
I lay there for a while, my whole body trembling and numb. I was sure both my legs were broken, at the very least. After a time, I became dimly aware that voices had been calling my name. "Steve, are you all right?" I responded: "I don't know." I lay there for a bit more, than pulled myself up into a sitting position. Andrew eventually arrived at my side, having descended down the rocks adjacent to the snow, and was looking very concerned. "Steve, you look f*#ked." It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about - I hadn't noticed that my clothes had been partially peeled from my body. My gloves and my mountaining parka were in tatters. My heavy climbing pants had mostly been shredded off my legs. But - I didn't see any blood or really bad scrapes, and a self check revealed that I could move everything.
With help from Andrew and my other friends, I painfully stiff-legged it back to basecamp, to spend the next seveal days lying in the tent. Although I had a few scrapes and some impressive bruises, for the most part I was entirely unharmed. I never really could explain how I had managed to fly over something like 35 feet of boulders and not get seriously hurt. My friends who had a distance view of the whole incident said I seemed to skim above the rocks without really hitting them. I took the incident as a wake-up call and the very first thing I did when I hit a town with a mountain shop was buy a killer SMC iceaxe, even though I could ill afford it. Its a honey and I still have to this day.
3) Okay, this is the last one. In about 1986 I was climbing in Tucson, AZ's awesome wilderness climbing area, the Reef of Rocks. I was on the first crux of the third pitch, leading a hard 5.11+ which, in retrospect, I had a slim chance of on-sighting. While moving past a fat stopper I had plugged in on a steep, strenuous, fingery section of the climb, the bizzare happened: my foot brushed against the top binner of the quickdraw, and somehow managed to clip my (doubleknotted) shoe lace). Suddenly I was trapped, unable to move up or down! Fighting to hang on, I executed a series of increasingly desperate, spastic foot kicks which eventually pulled the stopper. Now, with the gear hanging off my foot, I was high above my last piece, with no placements, with my arms rapidly fading. I was too spent to downclimb the crux section, so I was forced to pull a couple of moves higher. With a last bit of strength, I got in a good piece, and gratefully sagged onto it in the middle of the face. But I was not done yet...
After my heart (and my ears - you know the feeling?) stopped pounding, I stubbornly decided to decide to complete the pitch. Even though I was still somewhat pumped, I didn't want to look wimpy to my climbing partner (who was the far better climber) and the second crux, an exciting overhang with a thin edge at the lip, lay ahead. I began to climb again. I led high into a corner to reach the overhang, walked my hands along the lip, threw up a high foot, then a heel hook, and semi-blind placed my trusty custom 2/3 inch tri-camming unit in a shallow crack. I couldn't really see it, but I knew it was possible to get a good piece in there.
And than I ran out of gas.
Try as I might, I could'nt make the long reach to the next set of handholds to allow me to pull the roof. After struggling for a while, and then trying to reverse the sequence, I spun off the roof and fell sideways. First I felt the camming unit pop. I fell a bit further on to my next piece and felt/heard that sickening thing no climber ever wants to experience - a harness tearing! Hanging off-kilter in mid-air, I looked down and saw that I torn through one of the leg loops of my favorite (and obviously too old) harness. Defeated (and little bit unnerved), I lowered to the belay ledge so that my partner could waltz up the route.
Final lesson learned: even though the harness looked ok ("just a little worn in some spots") never compromise on your gear. Tragedy lurks!
Well, that was certainly long-winded. It wasn't originally my intention to write a tome, but I must say it was really fun reliving past terrors from the safety of my office chair. Hope you kind of enjoyed it too..
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 20, 2010 - 08:34pm PT
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Talk about getting lost and mistakes. Posted previously.
Alas, here is a photo of Galen crossing the Merced when we went up to climb the Worst Error in 1962 and never found the correct route so we made a first ascent. Appropriate that we named it the Real Error. Oh what a cock-up!
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hb81
climber
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Aug 20, 2010 - 08:50pm PT
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Not getting into climbing until I was 26.
But I still have plenty time to mess up and come back to this thread I guess. :))
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Aug 20, 2010 - 09:15pm PT
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my worst mistake is probably about to happen,
so i don't make mistakes unless i know about them in advance,
by then, it's junk food, like a mc steak sandwich,
or lunch meat, like spotted owl or beagle,
whoopin crane or eagle, it's all lunch meat to me,
some say save the baby seals, they might get hurt,
i say save the baby seals, save them for desert,
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Aug 20, 2010 - 09:36pm PT
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rapped off of penny pinnacle and was 4 ft shy of the next rap ledge...i un did my leg loops , ( days before harnesses ) and tried to reach the ledge with my toes....no dice...my swami began to tighten on my chest and suffocate me...i quickly learned how to make a prussic knot and solved the problem...then lived happily ever after until i discovered this white stuff in my water bottle...rj
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jfailing
Trad climber
A trailer park in the Sierras
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Aug 20, 2010 - 09:38pm PT
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Steve - that story of your trip down the snow field was great! Glad you ended up miraculously okay...
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Tfish
Sport climber
La Crescenta, CA
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Aug 20, 2010 - 11:52pm PT
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After bitching out on a lead when I was learning to lead I didn't want to leave a biner so I clipped in direct to the 3rd bolt, un tied and put the rope through the hanger and got lowered off. I'm stoked I used my buddies rope for that kook move.
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skywalker
climber
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Aug 21, 2010 - 12:25am PT
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Led the second pitch of country club crack with the intention of setting a top rope on the second pitch lower and belay from the ledge on top of the first pitch. Never climbed with that partner before. This was standard business with other regular partners. Got to the top, built the anchor and yelled O.K.! Backed off and fell ~90 ft??? until the rope came tight to his anchor on said ledge. He thought I meant off belay. Thank God it was the second pitch and its steep! Didn't hit anything but blew the rope apart. We went home...
S....
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Mimi
climber
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Aug 21, 2010 - 12:44pm PT
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Hello there Steve Amter! Great story.
Guido, that is a wild scene in that photo! True adventure.
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docsavage
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
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Aug 21, 2010 - 01:40pm PT
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Steve - great stories! My snowfield story involves trying to negotiate one on EB rubber ... 'nuff said.
Charlie - remember when a seatbelt was your mom throwing her arm across you?
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Aug 21, 2010 - 07:56pm PT
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I once made the mistake of listening to my partner on the approach to the Chouinard-Herbert on the Sentinel. He said "It has to go up here..." pointing to a dead tree leaning against the rock, after which a 5th-class ramp went up and right.
"We're not supposed to rope up yet," I said. Then I pointed up and left and said "The climb is over there!"
Arguing with this bloke was of no use, so after a minute I acquiesced and uncoiled the rope for him to start the lead. I knew full well that this would be the end of our "ascent."
A move or two up the tree, and this guy actually slips and falls off, lands right on me, and falls past. His lead rope sawed the inside length of my bare arm, giving me a deep rope burn that ended my climbing season.
I looked at him in disbelief and said "I can't believe you just fell on me."
Then the pain hit.
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Captain...or Skully
Big Wall climber
Transporter Room 2
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Aug 21, 2010 - 07:59pm PT
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Goin' general....made a bunch.
Not dead yet!!!!
Who's the joke on now? Yowza.
Groove on, my brethren.(sisstren, too.) ;-)
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 15, 2011 - 03:27pm PT
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Bump because there are lots of great stories here!
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nutjob
Sport climber
Almost to Hollywood, Baby!
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I just ran across this again, laughed a bunch and puckered a bunch and sweated a bunch with such good stories. And then the final laugh when I was about to bump it, was reading that I was the last one to bump it a few years ago :)
Anybody got new ones to add?
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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winter solo of north ridge of Mt. Stuart; 1980 or so. Bunch of sh#t went wrong on that trip, but the best was when I dropped my tool. 45 degree water ice, with a 200 ft cliff below. I drop one of my tools and it cartwheels a couple hundred feet, then sticks in some soft snow a couple of feet above the drop-off. So I delicately down climb the ice with one tool, but slip maybe 50 feet from the brink. Saw my life, and said my prayers expecting the worst. Then I too came to a stop when I hit the soft snow just above the cliff. Picked up my lost tool and continued up into more mayhem. fun was had by all....
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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First multipitch climb
Start at 3pm no light
Found anchors with bic
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Nothing really happened on my worst climbing mistake, but it still really haunts me. I was taking a book learned belayer up Astroman. I would lead and he would follow and belay. I had just led the boulder pitch and tied off the rope. I let him know it's ok to jugg. Just at the last minute he asks again, are you sure it's ok? Of course, as I lean over to catch a glimps. My heart raced, and I yelled NO! He had clipped into the end of the rope, with all this slack between me and him. I had not pulled all the rope up to the ledge, just tied off thinking he would just trail the rope, or we would pull it up after. Anyway, he swore that he read in a book the right thing for me to do was to pull up all the rope then tie off. He may have been right, I just had never used that method in all my years of climbing. Anyway, no harm no foul, but boy it could have been deadly.
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SeanC
Trad climber
Redlands, CA
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After soloing Royal Arches I threaded the rope through the rap chains,made sure the middle point, which was marked by a foot long dark mark, was in the right spot, pitched the two ends and started rapping, really fast. I was looking up at the anchor for the first 60 feet or so and when I looked over my shoulder, right as I headed over the first bulge, I realized I had about 10 feet left on one end and 30 feet on the other. If I had looked over my shoulder two seconds later I may have rapped off one end of my rope!
Turns out a foot of my rope close to the middle had gotten wet at some point and looked just like the faded halfway mark. After I got down I sewed a bunch of floss through the midpoint on that rope... Much easier to see and harder to mistake.
It's the simple ones that get ya!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I sassed my wife-to-be and made her third class some nasty shite I shouldn't have.
But I learned my place.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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My mistake was not checking my partners sh#t- we are about to simul-rap off daff. we confimr its time to start and right before I lean back my partner yells to stop and I look over and he hasn't even threaded his atc yet- just holding it in his hand. Sheepish apologies suffice as nothing came of it, but now I keep an eye on all my partners- their anchors, their raps, even if I trust them- we all make mistakes
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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My mistake was not checking my partners sh#t- we are about to simul-rap off daff. we confirm its time to start and right before I lean back my partner yells to stop and I look over and he hasn't even threaded his atc yet- just holding it in his hand.
Yet another in a long list of reasons why simul-rappeling is a really bad idea.
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harryhotdog
Social climber
north vancouver, B.C.
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Yes simul-rapping seems like a real time saver,if you do it right you don't waste any time getting to the nether-world.
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Trusty Rusty
climber
Tahoe Area
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2014 - 09:18pm PT
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Excellent cast of "Oh F**k" moments. Many terrific eye openers and stories to hopefully keep raising awareness. . .but clipped shoelaces???; that's just proof the Devil wears a chock-bag.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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If you're into leaving really looooong tails for your Euro Death Knots - consider not trying to rap down them.
I witnessed that 'almost heaven' moment first hand, even it if wasn't mine.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Yet another in a long list of reasons why simul-rappeling is a really bad idea
Like simul-rapping off Daff is worth the risk, especially for n00bs?
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bjj
climber
beyond the sun
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This is absolutely beyond embarrassing, and I swore the other guy to secrecy back then, but it's been 17 years, so... f**k it. Some of the details I may have wrong due to fuzzy memory from it being so long ago.
I took my second trip to Yosemite in the spring of 1997 right after the reopening from the big flood. Had been climbing about 2 years, and was feeling very good on all kinds of leads. I pulled into the park about 2 hours after it reopened in March. I was literally the second tent set up in C4, and for the week I was there that trip, the place never got more than 1/3 full.
There was more free firewood than we could burn. Deadfall, pieces of destroyed cabins and buildings. It was piled up everywhere and we were encouraged to use it.
Partner and I had the park to ourselves more or less. No matter how mega classic the route, we could wake up at a leisurely time and amble over whenever we wanted, without any worry of being in a line. He'd never been there before and I'd only been once, so this was nice to know we could hit up all the trade routes. The only other person I saw climbing anywhere the entire time was when Ron Kauk rapped off Reed's while we were standing around at the base.
Anyway, after many days of rock ecstacy, I want to get to the one ultra mega spot that we seemingly can't get to: The Cookie. I REALLY want to check out some of the routes there. But of course the highway would remain in ruins for a very long time, so there was no way to access it... or was there?
We stop by some ranger office thing and ask to look at a map. I find what I am looking for. The old logging road from Foresta down to the cliff. Fantastic!
The next day we drive up into Foresta and park in a cul-de-sac. We wade off into the woods and bushwhack a few minutes before finding the now defunct road heading down the ridge side.
45 or so minutes later, there we are. The Cookie stands before us in all it's glory, and there's no one around. Not a soul. Just two N00BS and the cliff.
Our plan is to climb Bev's tower, to Wheat Thin and (if we're feeling good about it) finish up on Butterfingers, and perhaps then TR butterballs.
IIRC, the start to Bev's requires a scramble up around to the left, gaining a bit of altitude before the start of the climb. I rope up and cast off. I pass a belay spot / rap station (this will be important later) that seems to serve no purpose. I have plenty of rope left and keep going until I get to the ledge at the end.
I belay my partner up. Or at least I hold the rope a lot while he hangs and wheezes his way up. He's way way out of shape and the last few days have taken it out of him. He's having a hard time.
Finally he joins me on the ledge and we are then faced with a weird traverse to the right that seems a little scary. IIRC, I place some gear and tenuously make my way over. I put my partner on but he's kind of worn out and gripped. He doesn't want to continue, and says that even if he makes it over, there's no way he can follow Wheat Thin or anything else.
Ok, so be it. I reverse back to where he is and we rig for rap. I toss our 50m rope straight back behind us down the front of the cliff face (oopsy #1), and amped up on stoke to get us to something else (oopsy #2) I hard charge rap on out of there.
I don't really know what I was thinking as I head down the face. At some point before very long it should have been REALLY REALLY obvious I was on a rap into nowhere. I guess I assumed if I just kept going I'd find another station. Wrong. The station I should have been going to was back around the corner. That one I passed on the way up.
So now, I am getting close(ish) to the ends of the rope (no knot tied in said ends, of course) and I am starting to realize I have a problem.
I'm in the middle of the face, still at least 75+ feet off the ground, with nowhere to go. There's nowhere to build any kind of emergency anchor out of gear (most of which is on my partner's rack anyway). I didn't rig a prussik (prussik? WTF is that?!) around the rope before casting off, so I have no way to even let go of the rope short of leg wrapping it. Add to all of this, what now seemed a blessing -having the whole cliff to ourselves- has become a liability in that no one with an actual brain in their head is around to help us.
So, what to do? With mounting panic, I spy what looks to be a detached flake of some kind another 20 feet below. I rap down to it in the hopes I can rig up something.
I get to it and it's not going to take any kind of gear, or at least at that level of experience and in that mindset, I can't think of any way to make it work. It's flaring and dirty and too wide and whatever else it was such that I do not think I can trust any potential nest I can rig to support my weight.
So, instead I decide to go the bone head directissima route. I yell up to my partner who sticks his head over. I explain the situation. I'm going to simply grab on to the flake with one hand, pull my rope through the device, tie myself in with one hand and have him put me on and lower me to the ground, at which point he can then rap in the correct direction to get off the thing.
He's like "uh....well ok". So I do kind of arm drape / grab of the flake with my right hand and paste my feet on some slanting ruggosities. It all feels fairly solid. Well, moment of truth... I manage to pull the rope through the device and in about 15 seconds flat I have retied a figure 8 one handed. I yell up to my partner to put me on. 5 seconds later the rope comes tight and I finally exhale as I let go and am lowered to the ground.
At no point during all that did it occur to me to do anything to make it safer. Such as pulling some slack through the device first and one hand tying a bight and clipping it to myself, or tying the ends to myself, or anything. It was just put myself in a certain-death-should-anything-go-wrong type situation and hope for the best.
My partner rapped off and joined me and we skulked back up the road and called it a day.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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This thread has some really good lessons within.
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STEEVEE
Social climber
HUMBOLDT, CA
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As the saying goes,"God looks after fools and children."
We have all been fools.
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sDawg
climber
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The worst was not checking that a relatively inexperienced partner had untied his figure-8 before pulling a rope. Then thinking maybe we can find an easier way to the top than Double Cross (5.7 and a straightforward lead for me at the time). Luckily for me he felt responsible enough to lead the .10c slab above an ankle-breaking ledge.
Worst that was more on me was borrowing a harness, gratuitously checking it before leading a pitch, then starting to take it off before understanding that the group wanted me to setup a toprope at an anchor that was easiest to exit via rappel. Luckily I am light and not an adventurous rappeler and the un-doubled-back hipbelt did not slip at all between when I "checked" the rappel and when I got to the ground.
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Travis Haussener
Trad climber
Salt Lake City
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Maybe not my worst but this one has stuck:
We had just finished climbing Bishops Terrace. Everything at the anchor went as smooth as possible a nice tight EDK with long tails, my fatter 11 mil was sitting on top of my skinnier 9.7 I rapelled down without a hitch. My partner and girlfriend was next, I told her to be careful, I had to work to prevent swinging on the rap (nothing crazy but enough to keep you aware). So I got a good vantage point from the ledge at the bottom of the rap (lookers right of the climb and this is the standard "rapel to" point).
She came down without any significant problems all the way to the dirt. I decided it'd be easier to pull the rope from the ledge. Given the topography of the area the ledge was on moderately steep sloping terrain so once on it you're 15 ft off the ground but can easily walk lookers right to get down.
As I begin to pull rope I can feel the slack give way and down it comes falling the full ~55 m (Ordinarily not a big issue...you just look out). So as I stand on this ledge nonchalantly...the rope whips hard, within 6 inches of my face. It was then I realize if it would have hit me I would have said an obscenity stepped backwards in pain an pitched head/back first 15 ft to the ground, helmetless (I had taken mine off once on the ground), on top of a number of granite boulders.
I try to be a little more self aware of my surrounding when pulling the rope these days.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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I see a lot of pics of belayers in a comfy spot. My worst mistake was not paying attention to directional forces on the leaders pro. I was too far from the cliff. When he fell all his pieces ripped. If I would have been closer to the cliff they may have held. The directional force of the rope leveraged the pro out.
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| Messages 1 - 112 of total 112 in this topic |
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