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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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