Stupid Mistakes

[ScottP]

One to learn from:

After rapping from the top of the Triple Overhangs pitch on Town Crier, I settled onto the sloping ledge just outside of Smoke Out, pulled some slack through my device, unclipped, leaned back, and yelled to Rob that I was off rappel. It was only then that I realized that I wasn't anchored to anything but air and I was standing on the edge of the ledge that drops into the second pitch chimney.

Complacency chops many.

 

[texplorer]

Your were bit lucky on the rock. Let's hope the sprays that are sure to follow have as docile a bite as the rock had upon you.

PS I have done something similar before. Scare the crap out of you!

[Colin]

When I was learning to climb I once spent an entire day climbing Forbidden, tied only to the lower part of my BD alpine bod harness. Effectively, my security depended on two PLASTIC buckles. I even made four rappels this way; luckily I only weighed about sixty pounds.

[nolanr]

60 lbs.?! Are you a pygmy?

[Lambone]

I have got one of those, altough yours was a bit better.

I was leading the stellar pitch in the geat circle of Zodiac when I looked down to see my knot almost completely untied. I was soooo close to losing the rope completely. Down aiding on scetchy heads with no rope would have made me crap my pants for sure.

I use a saftey knot every time now. It only takes one of those close calls to lose a lazy attitude. Ay other scetchy close calls out there?

[freak]

I was solo top roping once and my harness wasint doubled back. I was way off the deck and I look down and Im like, whoa dude!!!

[Drederek]

Yeah I did the ScottP at Index on the grassy knoll coming down Swim. My partner was already down and started to pull the rope when we looked at each other and I grabbed the slings as he grabbed my arm. Thanks, Dave. Be careful when you're tired! D

[Retrosaurus]

It was Apple Blossom weekend and a great time to not be in Wenatchee. A former-local climbing pal of mine gave me a call to try to hook up for a 1/2 day of climbing at Castle Rock. He had a morning and I had an afternoon so he hooked up with a couple of 18 year olds that I had taught to climb about a year or so ago.

When my wife and I got to the rock just before noon, we spotted the three of them right away on a climb called Brass Balls on Lower Castle Rock.

Brass Balls is a stellar route and the best for its grade in the entire Leavenworth area, in my opinion. Moderate crack climbing to a 5.10- roof then a steep and slightly off balance 5.8/9 hand crack to a stradle move below a 5.10b roof pulled on straight-on fingerlocks. Great protection. Your feet normally cut loose when you grab the jugs at the lip of the first roof.

We are hiking up the trail to the lower rock to do The Bone or Catapult or something just as former-local has finished the pitch and Andy is following the route, removing all the pro and trailing a rope for Andrew to follow on.

As I top the chimney on The Fault, I see Andrew pitch off the first roof and take a fairly wild swing off to the side of the route with no pro on the rope to keep him on the route. He fights his way back on to the route andafter wasting a lot of energy trying to flip the rope above him across the lip of the roof so that it would be above him instead of pulling him sideways off the route, pitches off the roof again. On his third attempt he pulls the roof in a terrific display of determination and establishes himself in the crack above just as I am rigging my belay anchor about sixty feet to his right to bring my wife up The Fault.

A minute or two later I hear Andrew say,"What the f@#k!" And I look over in time to see his rope come whipping down the rock from above him and land on the slabs at the base of the route then slither off into the bushes and talus.

I have never seen any one so fucked.

"Get a stance! You're solo!" I yelled to him.

"What!?", he says in disbelief.

"Get a stance! You're solo!"

I see a nut hanging from his harness. "You've got a nut. Can you place it?"

He quickly glances at the 5.9 hand crack where his hands are jammed. "No. The crack's too big."

"If I clip some cams on your rope, can you pull them up and place them?"

"I can try."

I can't do this to this kid, I'm thinking. He'd have to take one hand out of that crack, pull up an arm-length of rope to his teeth and repeat maybe ten or more times while this jammed hand is holding all of him and milking out of the crack. It is becoming very clear that in precious few minutes I'm going to see this kid come off the climb, fly through the air and impact the slab. Bones will snap, blood will spatter and he will tumble broken down the slab off another drop and into talus and bushes. He's not even out of High School for Christ's sake. I taught him how to climb. I haven't even met his mom.

"Just hold on. I'll come and get you."

I clip about fifteen feet of runner onto my belay anchor, clip my climbing rope through it and climb out left and down to the start of Brass Balls. I take his climbing rope dangling off the roof above and tie a loop in it and clip it to my belay loop. I don't know if I could grab it when I'm higher on the route, certainly not until I'm over the the first roof. I climb to the first roof and stuff a cam in half way out, slinging it long. This is the first piece that I could place since leaving the belay on The Fault. I couldn't possibly have placed anything sooner and gotten through the rope drag. My wife has no idea what is going on at this point. I take Andrew's rope and tie him off short again to my belay loop. At this point, if either of us comes off, he hits the slab and I deck too, but I probably save him a tumble off the slab. Maybe he'll live. Another piece at the lip of the roof and I turn the roof and establish myself. I put in two pieces and put Andrew on belay. As he down climbs the ten feet to me I add a third anchor to the belay then lower him to the ground.

[ScottP]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Retrosaurus:

A minute or two later I hear Andrew say,"What the f@#k!" And I look over in time to see his rope come whipping down the rock from above him and land on the slabs at the base of the route then slither off into the bushes and talus.

---

How did he lose his belay? Did the belayer just cut him loose?

 

[Retrosaurus]

His belayer thought that he had been lowered to the ground when in actuality he was 40' off the deck.Instead of verifying this, his belayer who was late for an appointment, just cut him loose. What ever happened to "Off belay"?

[scott]

i grew up near the bronx, so when i came out here i had no idea what the hell mountains were. i got lost alot.

my first winter outing was in the middle of a snowstorm. i took my girlfriend and dog up to big four- then wandered directly under the avalanche funnel on the north face. i was about fifty feet from the base when i heard a sound like a 747 crashing directly above me. what the hell is that i thought.

it was a large avalanche and when i realized what it was i turned and started running. "run away, run away!" i yelled to my wife and dog. "it's an avalanche!" "run away!"

i ran about ten feet and my leg postholed up to my hip, leaving me thrashing around like a fish, waving my hands and yelling "run away!" my dog made it the farthest away, my wife didn't sink in and took off. when the noise stopped, the slide had missed me by about thirty feet.

they came back and laughed at me, even the dog was laughing at me.

[jblakley]

quote:

---

Originally posted by scott:

i took my girlfriend and dog up to big four- then wandered directly under the avalanche funnel on the north face. ....... "run away, run away!" i yelled to my wife and dog. "it's an avalanche!" "run away!"

---

I think it's very cool that your wife and girlfriend get along well enough to do stuff together with you.

 

[specialed]

Rapping down from Flathead Buttress in Blodgett (in the dark) I sidestepped a slew of dinner plate-sized rocks that had collected at the lip of the ledge we were on. I rapped down succesfuly to the next ledge. Just as I went off rappel and walked across the ledge to find the next rap station. I heard frantic yelling from above and in the next nanaosecond the cascading crah of those big-ass rocks smashing into the ledge I was on - fortunately a few feet to the right of where I was standing. Turns out as my partner went to rap he knocked those rocks off the ledge. They missed me but landed on our ropes - all of the slack which wasn't being used on the rappel was sitting on the ledge. The rocks chopped our ropes to bits, it took us like 200 rapps to get down!, but it very well could have been me. Lesson learned: trundle loose rocks before you rappel (if your in a remote area like we were).

[scott]

yes, i often mistake one for the other...

[forrest_m]

A few years ago we were climbing at Donner Summit, near Lake Tahoe after working a couple of long days at the Outdoor Retailer show in Reno. After two days, I was feeling pretty good and decided to try a harder gear route, so I psyched myself up and led this beautiful finger crack that was absolutely at my limit to do it and place gear. Several times, I debated hanging, then decided to go for it - what the heck, that's what the rope's for, right? Feet sketchin, arms shakin, in full elvis mode I got to the top, where there was a two bolt anchor, put draws on, clipped the rope in and was actually leaning back for a victorious ride to the ground, when I looked down and saw that I'd done the classic "tie half your figure 8, pass it through your harness and then don't finish your knot". I frantically grabbed the chains and managed to clip a long draw into the anchor and my belay loop and finished tying in. I guess it's a good thing the route was *at* my limit and not *just beyond* it. Put a serious damper on my excitement about flashing my hardest gear route. Now I'm totally paranoid - I'm notorious among my friends for checking knots and buckles multiple times over the course of the day.

[Beck]

While climbing a forth class pitch I went for a ledge that had a wasp's nest on it or in it, they got pissed and attacked, and I peeled fourty feet to some lower ledges- not so stupid but pretty freaky, had to do a fast panicky uncontrolled descent to escape this swarm of pissed off wasps!

[freeclimb9]

when I started climbing my brother encouraged me, but warned that if I hurt, or killed myself doing it, I'd "look like an asshole." I thought that was an excellent comment. I check my setup three times, everytime, and have only been hurt from falling ice, overtraining, and groundfalls while bouldering. Of course, there's always tommorrow.

[pope]

I used to think soloing was an expression of confidence and competence, rather than just a recklessly stupid activity. I learned. I learned this lesson on that waterfall just five minutes up the trail to Source Lake. I decided to solo this climb on a snow January day, and I must have been thirty feet from finishing when I began to question the wisdom of the adventure. As snow from above the falls sluffed with increasing frequency, I had to put on my hood and pull into the wall to let it pass over, but it was light stuff and didn't seem to bother me too much. I'd shake it off and think about my next moves when--ah shit, here it comes again. After shaking it off for the third time or so, I quickly made a move out and up that seemed like it might be difficult to reverse given the conditions, but at least I was out of that spindrift. The exit involves 10 or 15 feet of steepish ice, and as I worked up between two pillars, I noticed that the ice at the lip had been kreeping away from the wall, resulting in an enormous void behind the ice. The ice itself appeared to be leaning out from vertical as though pushed from the kreeping ice over the lip. I remember kicking my right foot into a pillar when it suddenly collapsed, leaving me with just the left pillar for crampons and some precarious ice above for tooling. At this point I didn't think retreat was possible; of course, I looked at the exposure, at just how bad my position was, then entered something of a controlled panic. Pulling it together, I struggled for the top, where deep powder over the lip precluded finding that bomber tool placement I so desperately wanted. I must have dug around in the snow, getting really pumped, for 10 minutes trying to make the exit secure, when I finally decided something had to be done: I placed my tools nice and low, grabbed the head of each and applied mantling downward pressure while I shoved the knee of my wooly trousers in the snow at the edge. F--king precarious, with an ultimate price for failure...but it worked. I collapsed in the snow bowl, got really emotional, gathered my wits and stood up. My first step triggered a 10-inch deep slabby, wind-pack/powder avalanche that swept around my ankles, through my legs and over the 200-feet of emptiness behind me.

I guess I got the adventure I was looking for, but I haven't been able to justify really risky climbing since.

 

[ScottP]

This thread got me thinking about what I've learned about climbing over the years and how I've learned it.

"It ain't over til it's over" was learned on that rap down Town Crier.

After finishing the second pitch of the Lizard at Index, I clipped into a green sling threaded through the funky railroad trash hammered into the base of the third pitch chimney. I tied off long and walked back down the sloping slab to tell Brian that I was off belay. Leaning out to yell, I put some of my weight on the rope and felt it give. Teetering on the brink of balance, I leaned back in to see the green sling and biner I had used slithering down the slab with the bight of rope I had tied off.

I made the mistake of telling Brian about this indiscretion and haven't heard the end of it nearly 20 years later.

From this I learned to not trust gear I haven't placed and ALWAYS back up your anchors, no matter how mellow the situation. To this day, I don't lean on anchors unless I absoulutely have to (hanging/semi-hanging stances.)

[Dwayner]

Dudes! I was in a pub in London once with several people I was trying to impress. In the midst of using some animated hand gestures while I was telling a story, I knocked over a FULL PINT of dark ale on a purty girl's light colored dressed. She got up and left. As soon as she was out the door, the boys at the table all high-fived me and then we mourned the loss of a fine beverage. Uh.....I suppose that wasn't very interesting and possibly irrelevant.uh...close-calls? Lemme see....oh yes....back in the early '80's, I was workin' for a guide service. After the end of a hard day's work, I learn that one of the students of a fellow "guide" had dropped a large hex down into a hand crack about thirty feet off the deck below that little 5.9 roof there up above Mountie's Buttress in the Icicle. I scrambled up there, and standing on a few holds, tried to reach in to getit but I couldn't get my arm in far enough. So I downclimb a bit and some dude handed me a long stick, which I put in the crack. I'm feeling totally comfortable on 2 little foot holds and a solid? jam and in the midst of complete concentration in accomplishing my special mission, I GREASED OFF!!! It was all like in slow motion and I tried to grab stuff on the way down. I landed on my feet less than a foot from a stump and in front of two climbers taking a break. I ripped the tip of my left thumb off and had bad abrasions on one side of my body, plus I was shakin' pretty bad. One of the guys at the bottom just sat there grinning while he continued to eat his lunch. He was an RMI guide and smuggly commented: "If you were workin' for Lou, he'd fire you!". Great advice, pal! (I think Lou would have asked me if I was O.K. and then rigged a top-rope, or maybe just reached up their with his mighty long arm.) Anyway, I went to the Leavenworthless hospital where they taped my thumb back on. The next day was a bit painful because I had to finish teaching my seminar (which included taking four people up Midway on Castle Rock). I could have justified taking the day off but I NEEDED THE MONEY TO PAY THE HOSPITAL BILL!!!! The lesson here? Just because you feel competent and comfortable, doesn't mean you're necessarily safe! And then there was the time.......

P.S. the hex was rescued so don't go lookin' for it.

- (burb!!!...'scuse me) Dwayner

[Pro_popper]

hmm..

[Pro_popper]

The guides of today have a minuscul cranium capacity; there very low on the foodchain, working their ass off for miserable pay believing that they are king. We chuckle and think "another looser" when someone says "I'm a guide.."

[Dwayner]

Just set down an ice-cold lager to see whazzup and it looks as if there is some need for a little edumacation! Pro_Popper! Come here! Step outside for a minute. It's time for a little man to man chat. Listen up! There are certain words that shouldn't be misspelled. "Incompetent" is one of them. "Loser" is another. You spelled it "looser". Also, same thing regarding your phrase "minuscul cranium capacity": try "miniscule" and "cranial". Nuff said. Better you heard it from me than from some of the meaner A-pipes who lurk around these parts. So, A-Pipes! Back off! The boy has been corrected! Laugh at someone else for the moment.

RE: Guides. I was involved in that racket for several years, especially in my '20's. You're right, the pay was ridiculous but I wasn't into money at the time. It was an actual way to get paid to go climbing although it was a HECK OF A LOT OF RESPONSIBILITY and often dangerous for the guide! Yes, I agree that there are some real wieners out there posing as "guides", but there are a few that know what they're doing, and there are even a couple/few from the dreaded RMI who are in their late 40's or early '50's who are still total studs (for example, George Dunn and Joe Horiskey, not to mention Lou....did I mention Lou?)

Have a safe, awesome weekend!

- Dwayner

[Retrosaurus]

Back in about 1980 my climbing gear consisted of a rope, four locking biners, 12' of 1" tubular for a harness, 30' for rigging anchors and hightop leather basketball shoes that I kept sewing the soles back onto with dental floss when the stitching wore off and the soles started to look like flip-flops. During this period of supreme ignorance I took a forty foot whipper on top-rope.

You can't make just one stupid mistake and accomplish anything this extreem; you have to make about four at once. I would drag any sucker that I could out to the undeveloped cliffs above my home town, equalize an anchor off about three sagebrush bushes and TR anything that I thought looked cool. My favorite rappel was an 80' convex slab with a fridge size boulder at the top for an anchor. We would sling this boulder and rap off the vertical face about half way down to where the angle of the slab eased and run back and forth across the face, springing out into space and spinnint around and doing other such shenanegans that you might see on a Mtn Dew commercial. Right of this slab is a funny wavy moss/lichenny L-facing chimney, that we decided to toprope after we tired of rappell buffoonery. I tried to flip the rope toward the chimney to position it more directly above our proposed route. After much effort it was still about 12 feet off to the left of the route. Good enough. (Mistake #1).

As I began to climb, tall dark clouds rolled over the top of the cliff and by the time I was about half way up, a full on cloud burst opened on us with hail and big pelting drops of rain. Almost immediately the walls of the chimney were running with water; the moss and lichen were all slicked up; and my cordurous were completely soaked. But my trusty partner had me securely on a hip belay and our anchor was bomber. I continued. (Mistake #2).

As I neared the top, things began to feel really desperate. The pull of 80' of wet 11mm rope through my off center top rope anchor was tugging me out of the chimney. I called for slack and continued. (Mistake #3).

As I reached the top of the cliff and put my hand on the greasy holds at the ledge, my feet greased off and I was airborn. (Mistake #4).

I managed to kick off and dropped twenty feet before the slack came out of the rope. As I hit the end of the rope my belayer with trusty hip belay locked off and went airborn himself for twenty feet before swinging back into the steep cheat-grass slope that he had run down as I fell. He had seen the desperation of the situation and wrapped the rope completely around himself a couple of times. Thank God.

I came to a stop without a scratch.

[Lambone]

Hey Dwayner,

I got one for ya, it is actually pretty sad, but I just can't resist the temptation.

One of my bolt clipping buddies took a grounder in Red Rocks this year. His belay bitch thought he was going to rap off the anchors. He thought wrong. One 70 footer, a broken pelvis plus shattered limbs and two cracked vertebra later, my poor freind realized the importance of good comunication.

Any way he's lucky to be alive.

And so are you. It's interesting that gravity doesn't give a shit about a persons "values."

Still, I am sure Lou would be proud of you.