First Trad Fall

[Sherri]

Fell just couple feet on a #3 Camalot on the fistcrack start of Aries in Index. My second, third, and fourth trad falls have been on a #2 cam on Classic Crack. (hey, at least I'm consistent. )

[hafilax]

I fell onto a purple Camalot on Octopus Garden at the Y section of the crack. Greased out and kicked the sling of the cam as I tried for the next foot jam. I fell a few feet then just as the rope was starting to weight I fell the trap door release and I dropped another 6'. My partner was chatting up the neighbors standing away from wall. My fall yanked him at the wall.

 

I remember thinking it was one of the best cam placements I had ever found.

[ivan]

Tumbling @80 footer P4 (counting the traverse as a pitch) onto a small angle piton SE Corner of Beacon in 1973 while downclimbing with @ 20 lbs on my back as it got dark. Knocked me unconscious for @ 5min, cracked my wrist bone and almost killed us both as the partner I lowered first was not roped into the tree on pitch 3 on the ledge as he belayed me down. The story he told later was this, as I fell, he stepped back to brace for the impact thinking "Oh Holy Fuck, this hip belay is gonna hurt". I augered in on final approach just as he as starting to fall over the edge of the cliff and lose his balance for the long ride to dirt, simultaneous to the rope becoming tight on the single piece of gear between us: it yanked him back up onto the ledge. It was a fixed baby angle piton with a now bent eye which is still there I think.

20 lbs on your back? of beer perhaps? did the bottles survive?

 

guess the rap stations weren't in then or why else would you be downclimbing the route?

 

is that the angle that's had the eye bashed out of it?

[marc_leclerc]

my friend has a funny first lead fall.. he was laybacking a crack and arguing that it was easier than jamming, i then told him his leg was on the wrong side of the rope and he argued about that too. I noticed he was starting to pump and struggle and I laughed at him for laybacking and making it harder, then he fell off. His leg was on the wrong side and he flipped over and bounced down the dihedral a few times and came to a stop 15 ft above me. He finished the route by jamming, lol

[Bug]

Classic Crack

 

You have climbed at Broughtons?

No that's in Kootenai Canyon near Missoula.

[billcoe]

Ivan, 10 lbs of that was a 140' Goldline we had carried as a 2nd line for rapping. In retrospect, having the first guy carry all the shit would have been intelligent, I thought of that when he fell downclimbing but had a toprope to me.

[canyondweller]

20'er onto a #3 Camalot on the 2nd pitch of Princely Ambitions in Index.

[mkporwit]

Short pendulum onto a small BD nut... on the short traverse at the very start of the S. Face of SEWS. Dragged my belayer face first into the dirt when I popped off, but she held the rope.

[kevbone]

1973

 

Damd Bill.....that is the year I was born.

[catbirdseat]

A 30 footer on Barbed for your Pleasure, a dirty Bill Robbins obscurity, at Sunshine Wall, Vantage. Popped a 1.5 in Rock Empire cam and fell on a #6 BD hex, 2 feet short of hitting the deck.

[bstach]

Fingers slipped out of a damp crack above the crux of Mosquito. I fell on a blue Metolius TCU. It almost torqued out - it was holding by a single lobe.

 

Only other notable fall was on the 2nd last pitch of Birds of Prey (10a?)...a bit pumped and wanting a rest, I quickly placed a piece behind a flexing flake and then tried to "take" on it. I ended up inverted because I was already leaning back on the piece when it gave. Bruised a rib and didn't climb for the rest of the season (was September anayway). I think the piece that held was an offset alien in the 3/4" range.

[sobo]

you can only have one "first trad fall".

[Sherri]

20'er onto a #3 Camalot on the 2nd pitch of Princely Ambitions in Index.

 

That 2p is rather featured, isn't it? Musta been a bumpy ride.

[Ring angle claw]

The first fall I still remember was a 20 footer off of a wet section of Eagle's Domain onto Cairns' old rigid #2.5 Friend, which promptly broke and tuned a 20' into 50'. I'm pretty sure that I had taken some small falls and hangs on gear before that though.

 

Why did the friend break? Was it placed horizontaly?

 

The route is predominantly finger sized and Andy only had about 2 pieces that fit the crack, so after placing everything that fit I started placing things that did not. I had the friend in a pod with two cams tight and two cams mostly open. When it was weighted, the swages on the trigger wires of the tight set of cams broke (they were about 15 years old and heavily used at that point methinks) and the cam then rotated out of the crack and came sliding down the rope with me till the next piece - which I think was a #7 Rock or something - held me.

 

It doesn't sound like the cam broke, you just placed it shitty. A little bit of melodrama there.

[plexus]

The climb next to Cat Crack on Neat n Cool. BD #9 nut, fell about 20 feet cuz I was feeling confident and near the top.

 

First fall and having a piece POP, was Index, two pieces popped and I was saved from grounding head-first (got tangled in the rope) by a brass nut. I still have that nut and carry it all the time on my rack.

 

[jfs1978]

A #8 Kouba brass nut (from Czech Rep.), from 10 feet short of the anchor on Moonshine Dihedral at Smith. Took about a fifteen footer, catching my foot on a nubbin on the way down. I wish I still had the nut but I was too chicken to finish and the tweaked ankle was a handy excuse to go whimpering home - shameful. Some lucky climber got to booty the nut...hopefully it found a good home. =)

[flashclimber]

First fall on Trad was on Ultra Brutal at Index, on a BD .5 right at the start. Actually it was the first piece of gear I ever placed. I accidentally stepped in the puddle of water that is sometimes at the start. I was just above the piece of gear before I slipped back down. About a 3 foot fall. But the piece held. I wiped my foot off and lead the route. I didn't think much of the fall. It was more embarassment of falling on the first piece of gear.

[Dechristo]

A 15-20 footer on a perlon-strung #10 Chouinard Hexcentric during a ground up FA of a sandstone tower in the Wyoming desert; '77.

[alpinemorg]

8-10' on a #6 ABC Nut (same sizes as BD) on some 5.8 route in Crow Hill, MA. This was my first education in how much older graded routes can vary in difficulty from a "modern" 5.8....I also just am not that great of a climber :-).

[selkirk]

 

Took four five footers onto a blue TCU right at the crux on Calamity Jam down at Smith, before I figured out the crux sequence

[G-spotter]

 

It doesn't sound like the cam broke, you just placed it shitty. A little bit of melodrama there.

 

If the trigger swages had not broken the cam would have held.

[Adventureboy]

fell on rollerball j-tree, 35 feet onto an orange T.C.U placed in a bottomed out little slot

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Took a slip on the only vertical part of the route on Steeple Rock near Hurricane Ridge. I was trying to take a "more interesting" variation in winter and lost my feet on the ice (no crampons) overcoming a chockstone. Fell onto a #1 BD cam which was just below my feet. I landed on my ass in a snowbank right as the rope came tight and my partner who couldn't see me barely noticed. I took a minute to recover my composure and check out the couple of scrapes i got and then finished it. Maybe 4th class in summer.

[Ring angle claw]

 

It doesn't sound like the cam broke, you just placed it shitty. A little bit of melodrama there.

 

If the trigger swages had not broken the cam would have held.

 

Explain

[jshamster]

fell on rollerball j-tree, 35 feet onto an orange T.C.U placed in a bottomed out little slot

 

Not that it makes a big difference, but it was a red tcu.

Still on my aid rack, just kinda bent.