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good catch


Gary_Yngve

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NE Ridge of Goode. I'm leading up near the 8,800-ft level. I'm busy trying to get a piece in when I drop a 'biner. Strangely, I don't hear it clink when it hits rock. I look down and can't see it at my feet (the terrain is not vertical). Not finding it, I give up on it and use a different 'biner. Anyway, when I start off again and take one step I notice something is in my boot...

 

...the 'biner had fallen into my knee-high gator and down into my boot! A gear save and I didn't even have to try.

 

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Once I was playing metal-tip darts with a pal. I was standing near the board when he subsequently won the game (Cricket, I believe) with one dart remaining of his three. Since he had won, I proceeded to move to the board to take out the first two darts. I put my hand up to the board but before I could get it there, the third dart came in (he had thrown it not knowing I would quickly move to the board) and I literally caught it without knowing it was coming. The dart only stuck slightly in the side of my pinky.

 

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I'm with a friend at his house when I was in high school. A bunch of us were in the room goofing off/talking/normal stuff teenagers do. Anyway, my friend (Bill) smokes, so he requested a cigarette. Since the cigarette pack happened to be near to me, I took one out while he continued to yap. I tossed it across the room (about fifteen feet) and it landed perfectly between his flapping lips as if it had been there all along the way smokers dangle cigarettes out of their mouths.

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i dont have any cool personal stories..

 

but my friends micah and lars were doin someting really fast and twice in a row micah dropped offset aliens and lars caught both of them......

 

they swapped leading blocks right there as it was obvious who was on their shit and who wasn't.

 

rockband.gif

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Last Saturday while leading Lions Jaw, I was in the process of placing a nut and as I slotted the nut and was sliding it off the biner another nut slid off and began to fall to the ground. When I looked down, expecting to see the nut bouncing down the rock face, I saw nothing. Wondering where in the hell the piece had gone, I finally noticed that it had somehow fallen cable end first and had fallen straight through my shoelace and if it wasn't for the fact that the nut was bigger than the loop wouldn't have stopped until it hit my belayer in the head. I reached down, grabbed it, put it back on the rack and continued climbing.

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My partner popped off the tether connecting his rain-jacket to his harness while squeezing through the "chimney" on p1 of Orbit. The jacket was zipped into one of its pockets so was about the size of a softball and a half. It bounced down the rock right to me and I was able to catch it with my free hand.

 

Caught a TCU a partner had dropped above me at Static Point.

 

Have a buddy who caught his partner's street shoes when they came bounding over the bulge on Diedre.

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Two pitches up Touchstone: Somehow both our .75s were clipper onto the same biner. I was rearranging the rack and dropped the two cams hellno3d.gif...they straddled my left foot, one hanging on each side. I gingerly scraped my foot up the wall and grabbed them before my partner could see my dumb-ass. Half a pitch later it started to rain, then sleet, then snow....we were in the Bit and Spur drinking weak stout within two hours.

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One time I got off route on a steep climb in Pinnacles Natl Monument and pulled off a big flake of lovely lichen when I grabbed the crux knob. It nearly dropped out of sight but thankfully I caught it in my right eye, without even blinking about it...

 

Then there was the time my partner accidentally dropped John Long's entire ginsu knife set from his rucksak high on the Eigerwand when he was readjusting his hemp line. I caught six of the eight knives in my teeth as they rocketed at me but alas the other two went plummeting into a crevasse far down below. I later learned that a marmot used them as daggers to claw his way out of said crevasse via a WI8 route before using them to slice open my tent and devour my stash of gorp. When I returned, I found that the knives were still razor sharp. Have since mailed the whole set back to Largo...

 

Oh yes, and my wife is a damn good catch, but that's another story...no foolin' rockband.gif

 

Anybody going to the slideshow on the 4th of Nov? I don't see it on the events list anymore...still happening?

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Gary_Yngve said:

The other day while I was placing a piece most of the way up Cocaine Crack, a blue alien unclipped itself from my gear sling and fell. My belayer caught it in the air.

 

Anyone else have any lucky catches like that?

 

There's something wierdly automatic about it. Probably would have done the same for a live hand grenade. Maybe ancestors stood around under trees catching falling fruit.

 

I was heading for direct finish on Cream of White Mice when I slipped way above pro, fell a few feet but caught myself on the only horn nearby.

 

We were given old eggs to toss out behind the barn. My friend and I started the game of moving further apart as we tossed one back and forth. At about 50 feet I turned and did a catch behind my back. I just knew it was going to work. Should have saved that moment of grace for some climb.

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On Devil's Tower a few years back I dropped the cap to my Nalgene bottle (OK, it was more than a few years back). To my amazement it landed on my shoe and stopped right there. I so badly wanted to yell up to my partner and have him check it out, but I figured it would disappear before I could explain the significance of a blue lid on my shoe. So I picked it up and went about my biznez of belaying.

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i actually did this just the other day. not only that, but i actually tracked the knife long enough to let the handle spin back to me so as not to catch the blade. i ended up down on one knee with the knife only an inch or two off the floor. i was alone in the kitchen, but i swear, for a second there i could hear the cheering of a full stadium... "what an amazing save, the crowd goes wild!"

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forrest_m said:

i actually did this just the other day. not only that, but i actually tracked the knife long enough to let the handle spin back to me so as not to catch the blade. i ended up down on one knee with the knife only an inch or two off the floor. i was alone in the kitchen, but i swear, for a second there i could hear the cheering of a full stadium... "what an amazing save, the crowd goes wild!"

 

I usually just concentrate on getting my toes out of the way...

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forrest_m said:

i actually did this just the other day. not only that, but i actually tracked the knife long enough to let the handle spin back to me so as not to catch the blade. i ended up down on one knee with the knife only an inch or two off the floor. i was alone in the kitchen, but i swear, for a second there i could hear the cheering of a full stadium... "what an amazing save, the crowd goes wild!"

Not only are you a better climber but a better knife catcher.

 

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Thinker said:

 

I usually just concentrate on getting my toes out of the way...

 

 

I would tend to agree, reflaxes in the welding and carpentry shops change from "Oh I should grab that ___" to "Crap, I better get out of that ___'s way" Heard stories of workers getting knives and tools through their feet and starting their pants on fire... No thanks!

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I was once doing this climb of Twin Peaks with some old man named Brian. After we were done rappeling from the summit block, I proceeded to pull the rope. When the rope came free, I yelled out "rope!" and then caught it within two feet of the end. Old man said if you catch the rope that close to the end then you are owed a beer by the others in the climbing party. I never did get that beer, Brian. frown.gif

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