close calls

[cracked]

Hit an elk while driving to ski S. Sister last spring. Totaled the car. We skied the moutain, and managed to drive back to Springfield. The next day the car barely made it to a junkyard (20min drive).

 

The really funny part was when some guy started honking frantically when he saw our car. Like we hadn't noticed the damage.

[Bug]

In high school, a friend and I used to get really stoned and go free solo stuff. One time we were on parallel cracks about ten feet apart. We got about forty feet above the talus when my crack ended. I traversed over to his crack which took a long time on very delicate face holds. When I was directly under him, he dislodged a large rock and yelled ROCK!. I reversed my moves in a split second as the rock went right by me. It would have peeled me off and damaged me before I hit the ground.

Later that year, we were climbing a peak on some fairly mild halucena genics. I took a direct route up a face into the fog and climbed for about 30 minutes in mountain boots before topping out. When I went back a few years later and climbed it in climbing shoes, it was about 5.9 and I placed a lot of pro. The next spring, we were diving at about fifty feet in Fathead lake with some fairly serious halucino genics starting to kick in. We were cruising along a steep cliff underwater and I cut loose a big rock off a ledge. It bounced out of sight making very loud sounds that must have been heard by every maneating fish we could dream up.But none of them ever got us.

When I started using ropes, we were in Ophir cave, rapping into the bottom cavern, free hanging for about forty feet. I had tied an atrie' in a 9mm perlon and put the first loop at the lip. When I climbed back up to it, the rope stretch had put the last loop about eight feet below the cieling.. I spent about two hours standing in the top loop tying a loop in the rap rope, then standing in that loop and tying a loop in the 9mm.When I finally topped out, my grip muscles cramped up and I couldn't help my friends for about fifteen minutes.

Then I went to Yosimite. Never mind the muscle bound gay rapist I narrowly escaped on the way there. I was riding in a van with some guys from Modesto. They had some really good weed and I was totally ripped when we got into the valley. I found a bushy little spot and bivied. When I woke up, I was in a ranger's back yard. After a few weeks of climbing, I was doing a variation of the Royal columns that goes up a nice crack to a fixed hex. The crack keeps getting wider until it is rattly fists at the hex. I put my last piece in about half way up and decided to go for it the rest of the way. When I got to the hex, I peeled and fell 60 feet onto a ledge. I landed right beside my belayer and bounced off. I reached up and grabbed the rope and yanked and stopped myself with about a four foot loop of slack. I was pretty much unhurt except for a couple bad scrapes and a gashed knee, and blisters on my fingers where I had grabbed the rope. All of this took place about 800 ft off the deck.

A few weeks later, a girl friend and I were up in little Yose valley when a bear wanted to rumage through our packs. I got between him and the packs and yelled at him. He left. Nice bear.

Then I went to Alaska. They use really big pots to catch crabs up there. I learned that , even though those pots are big, they can bounce around on a boat deck like dice on a table. We were all lunging and jumping to get out of the way. It landed about a foot away from my feet after my second lunging jump. It didn't help that the deck was awash from the twenty foot swells and we were crossing them diagonally to retrieve our set.

Then a drunk tried to knife me for knowing where the grooves were on the pool table in the Salty Dog.

That was before I turned 20 and got really serious about climbing.

[catbirdseat]

1. Free Climbing Stoned, miss falling rock

2. Climbing in boots on hallucinogenics

3. Diving while stoned.

4. Caving while stupid

5. Narrowly avoids Gay Rapist

6. Bivies in Ranger's back yard.

7. Runs it out and takes a ground fall with minor injuries

8. Narrowly avoids careening crab pots

9. Almost gets knifed by drunk

 

That's nine lives. It's a good thing you are a bug and not a cat, because you would be out of lives.

[Terminal_Gravity]

Yesterday, Lift assisted skiing. Fast through sapling trees, airborn, set up in air to carve past a big tree, landit in powder, ski goes under a large submerged branch, one summersault and the big tree rapidly decellerates my head. Massive swelling to the left side of my noggin/face and a slightly dislocated C6 vertibre. I'll be fine, but I'll think twice about doing anything as crazy as in-bound skiing for awhile.

[Ryan]

My partner and I were climbing the Direct Exum Ridge on the Grand Teton two summers ago. We had a terribly late start, but decided to go for it anyway. We cruised the Lower Exum with little problems. By the time we reached the top of the Golden Staircase, dark clouds had started to dot the sky. This is where we really made a smart decision (note extreme sarcasm). We decided to book it the rest of the way, and started hauling ass up the rest of the Upper Exum. We got right below the Friction Pitch when I looked behind me (to the southwest) and nearly shit my pants as I saw a solid wall of water moving at us. Within seconds the wind started to pick up, but my partner said that we could make the summit still. This time I decided against it, and we began to downclimb the Upper Exum. We made it down below the Wind Tunnel just as the heavy rain started. We were hiding underneath a huge overhang, and we had all of our climbing hardware piled on one side of the overhang, while we sat shivering on the other side. All of a sudden, an intensely bright flash lit up the sky, and the air felt tingly. I realized that a lightning bolt had struck the rock roughly 30 feet to our left. At this point, I am incredibly strung out and want to get the hell out of there, but the heavy rain does not allow us to move from our location. Soon, the rain lets up, and my partner and I, not knowing how the fuck to descend (it was our first time on the mountain) decide to downclimb an "easy" gully that pointed to the southeast. We began to downclimb, but the gully soon turned into a waterfall, with water gushing over my shoes and hands as I tried to make my way down. At the bottom of the gully, we were delighted (again, note sarcasm) to discover that we had downclimbed to the top of a massive drop to the east. I'm not sure where we were at this point, but I have a feeling it was somewhere near the Stettner and Ford couloirs...? Realizing that we were fucked, we climbed back up the gully, which was twice as scary as downclimbing it. The water was still running down the gully, and at this point I was chilled to the bone. After that mini epic, we reached our "cave" again, and sat there for an estimated 4 hours or so (didn't have a watch, either- smart!). Once darkness rendered us completely fucked, I realized that I had forgotten my headlamp back down at the Moraine. At this point, I racked my brain for solutions. Suddenly, I noticed some lights down and to our left, to the southwest of where we sat. I wondered if it was climbers, but concluded that it couldn't be at this hour. Then, I realized that it was all the tents at the Lower Saddle! I grabbed my partner's headlamp (which probably saved us in the end), and began signaling to the Lower Saddle. A flurry of headlamps soon assembled, and a lone light began to trudge up towards Wall Street. Our "rescuer" was Exum guide Kevin Mahoney, and he soon reached our position just above the Golden Stair. He led us down 30 feet, and then announced that we would rap to Wall Street from there. 30 fucking feet- we were that close to the rap the whole time and didn't even know it. I was too knackered to care though. We rapped down, walked off Wall Street, and headed down towards the Lower Saddle. We parted ways with Kevin at the base of Wall Street Couloir, becuase we had to go grab our packs which we had stashed at the base of the Lower Exum. After this, we began making our way back towards the Moraine. We reached the Lower Saddle headwall, and could not for the life of us find the fixed line that would have made the downward passage of this headwall a hell of alot easier. At this point I was convinced that we were just plain retarded. We ended up downclimbing the northernmost section of the headwall (good thing it was dark, the exposure probably would have scared the fuck out of me in the daylight!), and began to hike down a small boulderfield. Halfway down the boulderfield, my partner set off a small rockslide, which I narrowly escaped by hugging the lower section of the headwall. We finally made it back to camp, God knows how many hours after our departure. Our plan to climb Irene's Arete in the morning was scrapped, as we slept late and then broke camp and descended further into the canyon. Definitely got schooled on that trip!

[Bug]

Yeah but when you are old and demented like me you will look back at it as one of your favorites. In cases like these, "ignorance is bliss" means you were stupid enough to turn a mellow climb into a grand adventure and just "bad" enough to do it without injury. With epics, life would get boring.

[tread_tramp]

Coming down the east side of Mnt Washington, over in the Olympics, The slope started to slide, taking me with it. When I went from sliding to 'being caried' to tumbling it got my attention. About 500 ft down the slope, with great effort, I managed to stay on top and swim-roll over to the edge of the slide and get out. Once I got out of it I watched as a 40 ft wide slide continued to flow. I could'nt see the lower section of the slide so I imagine it dropped off. One of those events you're glad you can walk away from. I had another close call more recently that I could'nt walk away from. But that's another story.

[Thinker]

Ryan, I've been in that exact same spot, looking for the rap down to Wall Street. Our group had come up the Petzoldt Ridge, dropped down into a little gulley, and scrambled up to the top of the Golden Staircase. A nice flat area with a few big boulders and more than a few bivy spots carved out of virtually nothing.

 

We tried a few ways up, unsuccessfully, and started looking for the way down. Eventually we gambled on a rap off a horn that paid off. We descended Wall St to the lower saddle and then on down to our tent further below. My partner had lost his headlamp and was operating on a little 'photon' light so the going was slow.

 

All the little routefinding snaffus like that supposedly make us better in the long run...

 

[tshimko]

Climbed the NE buttress of Goode in August a few years ago and chose to spend the night on top. Did you know that you can see most of the world from there? Anyway, woke up about 2:00 am to see a thunderstorm way to the south. One of my partners was already up, had been watching it for about an hour. After a while I convinced everyone that it would be a good idea to be packed up and ready to go in case....well, you know. The wind was coming from the SE, and eventually the cell was about due west of us, seemed much bigger (but could have been because it was closer). It was about 50-55 seconds, 10-11 miles away. One of the things I had forgotten about t-storms is not only do they move...as in toward you, but they also coalesce around you. All of a sudden there was a coalescence above us, followed by a lightening strike on Logan, Muuuuuccchhh lower than our altitude, close enough that I could see that the strike had set a tree afire. Immediately the ice axes/hardware/whatever started crackling and my words were "We gotta get outta her NOW". Now we are downclimbing wet, downsloping, 4th class rock, in the dark, get this, ROPED ( we had originally, before mother nature gave us a greater sense of urgency, planned to down climb using running belays, there were three of us, and we were roped and ready). It's still dark but lots of that lightening type stuff happening around us. I noticed a vague sense of there being a lot of light around me, even though it was obviously still dark. One of my partners reported a "blue aura" around me. We thought we were toast, either via lightening or one of us peeling off the wet rock, taking us all down. We eventually got down far enough, and the lightening stopped, and it began to get light. The relative lull allowed some more deliberate descent and traverse over to the east and the descent route. I'm sure glad I was out there with competent climbers who could handle that type of descent and still keep their wits.

[Plinko]

When you're in a storm and your picket starts to make a zinging noise, is that a good sign? We were on our way down the Cleaver on Rainier one August when a summer storm rolled in fast with lots of wind, hail, and lightning...kinda freaky when all your lil hairs are standing on end and you realise you're the highest point around. I think it was Edison that made a device that rang some bells when a storm was approaching...turns out there's no need for one of those when you've got a big ol' picket stickin straight up in the air.

[Ryan]

Thinker- yeah, it's definitely a decent spot to wait out a storm, but we were just pissed that the rap was so close to use, and we had no idea. Better safe than sorry I suppose. I definitely treasure that experience greatly, though. Taught me alot in the long run.

[KeithHow]

Ice climbing at Banks Lake Sunday. Just rapped off Trotskys Revenge when not five minutes after we hit the ground a large portion of the upper curtain released, barely missing us. Scary shit.

[HRoark]

I haven't had a seriously close call, YET. Other than being about 14 hours late - we were just slow, not in danger.

[Peter_Puget]

Once I was walking along the SW base of El Cap after fixing a couple of pitches. Lost in my thoughts I heard the sound of a few pebbles hitting the ground. That got me thinking about what I’d do if something large like a haul bag had been dropped. Of course I probably wouldn’t even know it was coming but nonetheless I thought If I did know something was falling the best thing to do would be to go huddle at the base of the cliff hopefully in a small indentation. A few steps further and small pebbles were falling all around me. I looked up and saw a very large flake slowly detaching from the wall. From its base dirt and rocks were pouring like water. I ran to the wall and put my hands over my head. Rock began falling all around me As soon as it stopped I ran downhill through the dust cloud. Some climbers seeing me emerge from the cloud asked if anyone was hit. I replied that I didn’t think so and kept going. I was covered in dust and was hit by a few small rocks but otherwise ok. When I got to the meadow people were looking up and pointing to the new scar.

[Bug]

At this point, I am into multiples of nine. You have to live a little bit on the edge to get the most out of life. But then, if you want to survive, you also have to decide to never give up. I wouldn't say I have never been afraid. I would say that fear has never dominated my reactions.

[riptorn]

Last week I triggered a class 3 slide that took my partner and I for a ride. Luckily the fracture was only about five feet above me so I was able to arrest with my ski pole long enough to let it pass by. Even though my partner was in a "safe zone" the slide propagated to where he was and took him for about 70m. He ended up on top once the snow stopped and was relatively unscathed. It was certainly one of the the closer calls.

[To_The_Top]

Last week I triggered a class 3 slide that took my partner and I for a ride. Luckily the fracture was only about five feet above me so I was able to arrest with my ski pole long enough to let it pass by. Even though my partner was in a "safe zone" the slide propagated to where he was and took him for about 70m. He ended up on top once the snow stopped and was relatively unscathed. It was certainly one of the the closer calls.

Yikes, where were you?

[mr.radon]

Got together with my sister to climb the ridge (forget which) on Mount Evans in Colorado, very nice hike/climb. You can drive up Mount Evans, so we had an easy way down, but not back to our car. The ridge was wonderful, not technical or nothin. Waited for my sister at the summit, egged her on. When she arrived her hair was standing up and a fast moving storm was rushing over us.

We quickly left the summit and headed back. The ridge gave us little opertunity to get lower. All of a sudden I started to hear the buzzing sound one does not want to hear. Then I felt intense pain on the top of my head. Felt like I was getting zapped by a spark plug multiple times. Instantly I yelled to my sister, I heard her walking sticks skitter over the rocks as she heaved them away from her. I finally realized what was causing my pain, by this time you could smell burnt hair. The metal beenie on my ball cap was conducting static electricity like a spark plug to my scalp. I threw the hat and squated down. As I got down I heard the loudest boom as a bolt hit a rock next to us, I remeber the bright flash and my shadow as the bolt lit the area up. We stayed in this position for 30 minutes. Every five or so I would ask my sister to remove her hat, her hair was our static charge gauge. We ran like hell when it stopped sticking straight up.

I figure I used up a couple of lives right there. The only thing going through my mind was reciting the procedures for CPR in case my sister got hit. When we got back to her Rover we both had the shakes. A few drinks later we started to mellow out.

Edited February 11, 2004 by mr.radon

[Bug]

So you had a few drinks before you drove down? There goes another life.

That reminds me of another time I almost bit it. A friend and I were driving home in the Red Shark, my 1969 Mercury Monterey hard top. The party favors were in full swing. I pulled up behind a car that was stopped and waited for awhile but he would not go. Finally I honked at him. Nothing. I honked again. Suddenly there was a man knocking on my window. I rolled it down and he asked me why I was honking at his parked car. When he saw my reaction he was rolling on the ground. He reached in, turned my car off and told me to come back for my keys in the morning. DOH!

[Plinko]

...blah,blah, summit ridge, metal beenie...

 

What's a metal beenie look like? And where can I get one to wear in local electrical storms??

[mr.radon]

What's a metal beenie look like? And where can I get one to wear in local electrical storms??

I never knew till this happened, the top of all ball caps have a METAL rivet (beenie).

This is what gave me a burn on the top of my head. So availability is not a problem. You just need the courage to stand on a ridge during an electrical strom; that might be a problem.

[catbirdseat]

Someone I know well had a close call right out of Vertical Limit today. He was on the lower Coleman icefall practicing ice climbing. He had just climbed a near vertical step about 15 ft high and was going to walk off, but he wasn't careful and caught a crampon. In an instant he was sliding on his side towards the drop off. Just has his feet reached the edge, he swung one of his tools and, to his utter astonishment it stuck. He walked away with only a strained tendon in is left forearm. It would have been a survivable fall, but it would almost certainly have resulted in injury. This individual says he vows to be more careful in the future.

[specialed]

So you had a few drinks before you drove down? There goes another life.

That reminds me of another time I almost bit it. A friend and I were driving home in the Red Shark, my 1969 Mercury Monterey hard top. The party favors were in full swing. I pulled up behind a car that was stopped and waited for awhile but he would not go. Finally I honked at him. Nothing. I honked again. Suddenly there was a man knocking on my window. I rolled it down and he asked me why I was honking at his parked car. When he saw my reaction he was rolling on the ground. He reached in, turned my car off and told me to come back for my keys in the morning. DOH!

 

When I was a dumb ass kid going to "College" in Missoula, used to rally around shitfaced going from house party to house party in mid-winter when the streets were covered in snow and ice in my beater '82 Subaru wagon. Car full of people, driving up on lawns, running into trees, pullin donuts and skidding around corners. That was good times.

If I got caught, cops probably would have just told me to go home. Got to love Montana.

 

Bug I know you've got some "close call" stories from your Missoula days. You got to kick those down dude.

[catbirdseat]

If you've ever had one of these close calls where you are sliding toward doom and manage to arrest a fall, it's amazing how much goes through your mind in the one or two seconds you have to think about it. In roped leader falls, it's all over in perhaps a quarter second. A slide is a comparative eternity.

 

You think of such things as:

 

"Why weren't you more carefull, dumbass!".

"You know that drop is enough that you are going to break something".

"I can't believe this is happening to me!".

"This isn't snow, you can't do a self-arrest on ice."

"Which tool should I swing with, right or left?"

"The LEFT one, Swing!"

THWACK!

"Goddam, the MF stuck, I don't fucking believe it!"

"Fucking get your other tool in, now!"

 

Okay, I admit it. It was me.

[Dru]

u r such a gaper