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shaoleung

Helmet or no?  

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  1. 1. Helmet or no?

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Why ridicule people who want to keep it as safe as possible?

 

That's called sport-climbing....

 

 

I've been hit by falling rocks three times.

1) cut up my hand - which I was using to protect my unhelmeted head

 

2) cut up my forearm - which I was using to protect my helmeted head from a direct hit.

 

3) The worst incident was a rock accidentally kicked down by a cameraman on a film project I was working with. It was the end of the day and we were rushing to retrieve the fixed ropes where they were anchored to a ledge at the bottom of an easy chimney. Although we normally wore helmets, we didn't bother this time because we were in a rush. The camera-guy was about 15 feet above me when he knocked this rock down about the size of a coconut that landed on my coconut. I almost blacked out which would have resulted in falling onto a sloping ledge and over a 150 ft. drop. Big concussion, out in a remote area ontop of a cliff, bleeding, getting dark, yada yada....although I was a mess, we did retrieve the gear and managed to stagger a long ways out to the desert where a vehicle was waiting. Survived the incident and was fine a couple of days later but I still have a big dent in my skull.

Lesson? We were too much in a hurry to bother with the 10 seconds it would have taken to put the helmets on in an area of loose rocks and that's when the incident occurred...we thought it was safe because we had already done "the dangerous stuff" earlier that day. In this case, the helmet would have made a real difference (it probably would have cracked the helmet...but it would have absorbed the blow.)

 

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Aside from the odd pebble, I've never come close to needing a helmet. I'm always making note of the jackasses around me and the potential for objective hazards. When I'm leading I watch the fall line and where the rope is in relation to my feet and last piece etc etc. But in the end I wear my helmet for the children.

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i don't give a damn what folks wear so long as they dont' get their blood or their brains on my blue suede shoes :)

 

last summer, on the ptarmigan traverse, my friend elected not to do the scramble up to the top of old guard - it was a bit of spur hike to get over to the peak, so i left everything behind, including my helmet, figuring the only real danger was falling rocks kicked off by a partner, but hey he's chilling n' smoking so i'm all set - so, a while later, 20 feet below the summit i did some little 5th class move, a short mantle onto a ledge, then stood up - as blinding pain shot through me, i realized i'd pile-driven my skull into a projecting rock horn above the ledge - blood and hair was all over the rock, and all over my hands as i evaluated just how stupid i was - half-drunk with the shock, i thought "is this, after all the stupid shit i've done, really how i've choosen to snuff meself?" downclimbing was fun, as i felt all my 3d vision had left me, in part due to the red, red kroovy flowing through my eyeballs :)

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marry a climber and then there is nothing to manage. Wife and I were doing Serenity crack in yosemite *wearing our helmets* when we looked down and saw a couple doing it out on the edge of the ledge at the nude swimming hole above the awanee. Neither was wearing helmets, or anything else. Wife was very disturbed at the blatant exhibitionism. After we rapped down, we had to check it out. No one was there...we didn't wear our helmets either. Now I have two kids...hmm, there's a lesson in there somewhere

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i thought the point of having a wife was so you didn't have to wear a helmet anymore? :)

 

Now that is some funny shit. Question is: "will she let you go climbing more than once a month now that you are married" :)

 

I am getting married soon to a woman that climbs with me, will belay anywhere. Even from a semi hanging belay and not complain. She has a dowry that includes a 60 meter rope and two cams and all her personal gear (helmet, harness, daisy chain, and shoes). She aspires to live in a tent and is an awesome camp cook. We plan on getting married on top of Beacon Rock after climbing the South East Corner Route.

We both wear helmets.

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I can climb any time I want. But permission to "climb" is a whole nother story.

i like to climb in my sleep

 

plaidman - badass! but not at the summit dude, land of the little people! i'll help you rig the keg-lowering if need be :)

 

choada boy - just because you lost grip and dropped your favorite crusty sock down the wall doesn't mean you "lost your wife in a climbing accident" :grin:

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