Noway Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Now that you bashed fellow climbers, how about discussing your own imbecilic blunders while climbing? I can't think of any. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedMonk Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 my first time on ranier while at muir i said "hey look at baker"... ooops Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geek_the_Greek Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 A couple come to mind: Â Getting ready to teach a beginner's class at Sugarloaf, Squish, I set up the anchor and rapped down to the eager students. One of them piped up "Shouldn't your harness be done up?". I looked down to see my Arc'T Neutrino held on by nothing but the velcro. Forget double-backing, I hadn't even threaded the buckle... Sheeeeeit....I tried to turn it into one of those "ok, what have I done wrong?!" lessons, but it was way too late for that! Â Then there was my first attempt to lead Jabberwocky (.10a fingers at Squamish). Had some trouble on the start, had to do the shoulder stand (as suggested in the guidebook!), put in a nut, went higher, put in another nut, relaxed 'cause I was past the crux. Then a toe slipped, a loose finger lock popped, and I said "aw shit" and slid down a few feet past my top nut. But then I felt a sudden release, a brief burn on the back of my ankle and before I had time to think about it I was screaming headfirst towards the ground. "Holy shit!" screamed my belayer, who thankfully caught me as my (bare) head bobbed to within 3 feet of the deck....(top piece popped, rope running behind my leg flipped me arse over teakettle, and bottom nut caught, thankfully). I thought about quitting this stupid sport while I was still alive...instead I bought a helmet and some more pro... Â Yikes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attitude Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Led a pitch of R&D and belayed up my follower. He got to the top and said he found a piece with a runner that was not clipped into the rope. Apparently, I had clipped it into the long tail of my tie-in knot. Â Got to the top of a sport route, clipped my daisy chain into the anchor and untied from the rope. As I was getting ready to thread the rope through the chains, I noticed that, not only was the biner on my anchor not locked, but the gate was fully open as well and ready to pop off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juneriver Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Hate to admit this stuff... Â Bad day at Vantage. Rapping off of some mesa or something, I roll off the lip and get my hand flat smashed under the chains. Don't want to call for help but one hand is trapped under said chain and the other is holding the rap device... can't let go. After extricating myself quietly and painfully (yank!!)I'm not paying attention on the rap cause I'm wondering if my hand is broken.... then my shirt gets caught in the ATC. I thought that only happened in the Mounties textbooks. Try getting out of that with one hand! Â Just felt really stupid that whole day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucK Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Left the tailgate of my truck open from like Darrington to Arlington, or something like that. Luckily neither mine nor my partner's stuff fell out somewhere along the way. Phew! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gschryer2 Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Last February I fell a LONG way from the top of a climb and am lucky to be alive. Â I am sure I did something stupid (like at least not having any of pro in for the last 40 feet or so),.... but I have no memory of completing the climb or anything else after. Â Probably a good thing! Bummer thing is I have no words of wisdom to learn from on this matter. Â GS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thinker Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Few years back was beginning the rap descent of a multi-pitch route somewhere. We broke out the 2nd rope we'd be toting up the climb for the occasion, ran an end thru the rap anchors, tied the ends together (EDK Rules!), and got the brainy idea to even the ends out because the rope we'd been climbing on was 60 m and the extra rope was 50 m. Sounded good at the end of a long day, right? So I start rapping, get about 5 m down the rope and of course run into the knot. Damn! Not an insurmountable problem, but felt kinda foolish. We still joke about that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Juneriver: Hate to admit this stuff... Â Bad day at Vantage. Rapping off of some mesa or something, I roll off the lip and get my hand flat smashed under the chains. Don't want to call for help but one hand is trapped under said chain and the other is holding the rap device... can't let go. After extricating myself quietly and painfully (yank!!)I'm not paying attention on the rap cause I'm wondering if my hand is broken.... then my shirt gets caught in the ATC. I thought that only happened in the Mounties textbooks. Try getting out of that with one hand! Â Just felt really stupid that whole day. CAN YOU SAY AUTOBLOCK?? I KNOW I CAN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thinker Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Also, at the end of a long day on Devil's Tower my bud and I were rapping down in the dusk/dark. Too many climbs, too much fun, too little water that day, no headlamps...classic. We were taking our time tying the ropes together, checking each other out, etc. When I got to the bottom of a long rap and was taking the rope out of the ATC I noticed the rope strandss weren't threaded thru the biner that the ATC was attached to, but thru a different biner on my harness. Â That mistake really woke me up. It just so happened that it wasn't fatal. A slightly different variation could well have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucK Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by erik: quote:Originally posted by Juneriver: ... Â Bad day at Vantage. Rapping off of some mesa .... CAN YOU SAY AUTOBLOCK?? I KNOW I CAN! Â HEY ERIK, YOU CONDESCENDING GOON, CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE TO PREVENT MY STUPID MISTAKE? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr._Natural Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 I had to ask Peter Croft to clean some gear off a route that I had backed off of, felt like shit that day, now I know why but I didn't then The fucked part is that he was soloing the route that I had bailed from! Those damn legends make mortals like me look like pantycrust. shit I can't believe i admitted that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedMonk Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 i can...shut your tailgate... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by chucK: quote:Originally posted by erik: quote:Originally posted by Juneriver: ... Â Bad day at Vantage. Rapping off of some mesa .... CAN YOU SAY AUTOBLOCK?? I KNOW I CAN! Â HEY ERIK, YOU CONDESCENDING GOON, CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE TO PREVENT MY STUPID MISTAKE? DONT BY FOREGIN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Thinker: strandss weren't threaded thru the biner that the ATC was attached to, but thru a different biner on my harness. WTF? Just through another on a belay loop or something? Â Haven't had the opportunity to mess up too much, but we did double-rope rappel off a pillar in the Melville Group, Selkirks. Both ropes were damp, and we fed the rope directly through a webbing anchor. Pulling the rope was impossible from the combination of rope stretch, webbing stretch, and dampness, and we had another rappel and unknown terrain to get out of a gulley. We ended up rigging a 3:1 to pull the line, after several desperate attempts to get the thing down. bring rap rings or junk biners for the long wet rappels I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Flash_Amazing Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Isn't threading the rope directly through webbing a commonly regarded no-no? Â Anyway, it's not as much of a no-no as removing your brake hand from the rope, even for a split second, even if you think your partner is solid. Because when you do, they will fall off right in that second. If you're insanely fuckin' lucky, they might be on a route that's not too tall, and they might land on top of a tall boulder, reducing the distance of their fall, which is slowed down a bit by the friction in the ATC, and the skin you burn off your palm trying to catch the rope as it slides by so agonizingly slowly, why can't you just grab it? Slide. Slide. Slide. And if you're super, super lucky, they might actually land and be completely uninjured, if scared to death, and they might even choose not to kill you on the spot, even though they're pissed, of course. Hell, they might even spend years to come actually climbing with you and being belayed by you. But you do know for sure that you will never, under any circumstances whatsoever, TAKE YOUR STUPID FUCKING HAND OFF THE BRAKE SIDE OF THE ROPE, YOU IDIOT!!! Â Shit, that was the stupidest thing ever. Â [ 08-09-2002, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Dr Flash Amazing ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Dr Flash Amazing: Isn't threading the rope directly through webbing a commonly regarded no-no? I don't see any problem with it if you are just doing a single rappel. It also spares you the task of threading the rope through a ring (you can just tie the webbing over the midpoint). I've done it plenty of times. It's those stupid punks who lower in that setup who get themselves killed. Anyone disagree w/ me? Â [ 08-09-2002, 10:59 AM: Message edited by: iain ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Flash_Amazing Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Yeah, it's obviously way less likely to kill you for a rappel. But there is the phenomenon of the rope halves not always moving through the device at the same speed, or shifting back and forth ever so slightly as you rap. And then there's all the friction you get when pulling the rope, which might not do much to the rope, but is going to play hell with the sling, leaving potentially compromised crap for the next party to dangle from. Â Dunno, DFA has always been super-wary of direct rope-to-webbing contact, and avoids it if at all possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rr666 Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Climbin the basalt cliffs outside of Boise with some friends. Teaching one of them how to climb and rappel. Went through the whole rappel thing on the ground with her, got it all set up, good to go. Drove into her brain not to let go with the brake hand. What does she do, but starts rappelling just fine, but after about 10 feet, she just lets go... Starts dropping, but luckily we were backing her up by holding the ends of the rope on the ground, she only dropped about 10 feet before we stopped her... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Standard practice re: rapelling off a sling or a rappel ring or biner? It is largely a question of setting but also a question of one's back ground. Most climbers I know (and myself included) do not carry enough rap rings and extra biners to outfit all the rappels on a big and technical mountain descent with rings or biners, but we generally carry extra slingage to replace worn webbings or establish new anchors where necessary. Some climbers do not give it a second thought, whereas I've had some partners who are so obsessed with the danger of rope slippage sawing the anchor that they will leave their brand new $20 locking biner behind if necessary. On populr crags, a quick link or two saves everybody the worry and the need to re-feed the slings every other day, and they will make all the guys who adhere to the "tech tips" or Freedom of the Hills much more comfortable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attitude Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Dr Flash Amazing: And then there's all the friction you get when pulling the rope, which might not do much to the rope, but is going to play hell with the sling, leaving potentially compromised crap for the next party to dangle from. Correct. That's why alpinists avoid rappeling from bare slings found on route. Always check found slings for the burn mark where the rope was pulled through and deposit in local recycling bin at end of climb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terminal_Gravity Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by iain: quote:Originally posted by Dr Flash Amazing: Isn't threading the rope directly through webbing a commonly regarded no-no? I don't see any problem with it if you are just doing a single rappel. It also spares you the task of threading the rope through a ring (you can just tie the webbing over the midpoint). I've done it plenty of times. It's those stupid punks who lower in that setup who get themselves killed. Anyone disagree w/ me? I absolutely agree with you. WTF? Sure there will be more friction, but if that is not a problem so what!? The webbing may not be suitable for the next team after you pull through, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Juneriver: quote:Originally posted by erik: [QBCAN YOU SAY AUTOBLOCK?? I KNOW I CAN! Hmmm... since we hadn't started climbing for the day yet... it would have been a little tricky getting the cord out of the pack..  Next time I'll just make sure to have you around for the fine instruction.  Kiss it [/QB] dear ignorant unsafe climber, thanks for letting me know that you are not intrested in making your climbing safe. i realize that you are probably an expert. i shuld keep my mouth shut from here on out(well i actually doubt that).  your good buddy, erik  p.s. i keep to prussiks girth hitched to the haul loop on my harness. just like i always keep my belay device, locking biner, extra locking biner and nut tool. so i would not have to get into the back of my pack for cord. i als o make a point of always using an autoblock when i rappell. sorry you do not. perfect practice makes perfect.  feel free to keep the kissing to yourself. i prefer respectable intelligent beautiful women! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erik Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 p.p.s you can retain my services for $150 a day. i will trasport myself to crag(i dont know how well you drive!!) i will als o provide meals for an additional $10 per person charge. Â ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryland_moore Posted August 9, 2002 Share Posted August 9, 2002 Only if I get your climbing partners this weekend! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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