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Most memorable climbs?

Tony B · · Around Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 24,665

Most memorable? The bad ones. One bad climb can wipe out 1000 good ones.
Passing out on lead on Rift Of Consciousness in Eldo.

Getting beat down off of the Diamond on D7 by golf-ball sized hail on July 3 1996, by the storm that wiped out Eldo Canyon's Redgarden Trail.

Surviving Childhood's End in one of the worst thunderstorms I've ever been trapped in (account by Josh Jaynes).

Stranding myself in a winter storm on the first flatiron on Thanksgiving weekend in 1998 and having to be rescued. (A rope was thrown up to me and I rapped from a sling I fixed.)

Getting off route on Babes In Thailand (Snow Canyon, UT) and running it out 30 meters on 5.10 territory before pulling off refrigerator-sized blocks and climbing through sand, only to finish with a descent in the dark.

Everything else seems pale compared to the experiences of and lessons learned on those climbs.

Jim Matt · · Cincinnati, OH · Joined Sep 2003 · Points: 255
Tony Bubb wrote:Most memorable? The bad ones. One bad climb can wipe out 1000 good ones. Passing out on lead on "Rift Of Consciousness" in Eldo
Hence the name, Tony?

Reading your account (and Josh's) gives me the willies, in a weird yet positive kind of way. Time for another beer tonight... :)
Bosier Parsons · · Colorado Springs, CO · Joined Jan 2003 · Points: 1,380

Hey Tony,

That's so funny about the First Flatiron, especially coming from you. I had a similar epic up there in spring '95 doing it as a "training" climb in plastic boots to prepare for the Devils Thumb. We started in soupy foggy conditions, and it just pasted us up there with 3 inches of wet spring snow. I remember leading 2 or 3 of the most harrowing pitches of my life up to the ridge, and then along it towards the summit. Finally we got to a point below the summit where we could rig a rappel into the unknown, which ended up being essentially free-hanging, but it worked. Man I hated myself for putting myself in that position!

The Devils Thumb was surely my most memorable climbing experience of all time. I was just commenting to one of my partners from that trip that I've never actually written about it, but there's much to write about! It's really almost too scary to recollect in this forum. But to give you an idea, there were actually two moments about 5 days apart where I was utterly sobbing in relief to be off that mountain! Yet I still get the urge to go back some day...

Tony B · · Around Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 24,665
Bosier Parsons wrote:Hey Tony, That's so funny about the First Flatiron, especially coming from you.
Well, I've done some stupid things in my life like anyone else that has had enough experience (opportunity to have done so).

Luckily none of my fool-headed acts have killed me. In retrospect, the way I got caught up there WAS by being fast. If I hadn't known I could do the thing car-to-car in ~45 minutes, I don't think I've had tried it, as there was questionable weather coming. You couldn't tell how bad, but I was fool enough to think I'd run it down. The weather came in fast though, and wet. Snow probably would not have stopped me, but what fell was a wet freezing sleet and every hold became ice, even as a result of trying to scoop the slush from them. I made the summit slowly from the ridge, cleaning a bogus sling on the way up and then downclimbed the overhang of the West Face down to the slab perhaps 30' off the ground, where the low angle rock had been pasted with an inch or more of ice by the driving wind. There I sat in tights and a single shirt until I was tossed a rope by RMR, which I fed into the sling and lowered off of.

I forgot to mention a different one. Doing Stamford Roof in Eldo without finishing my knot, maybe 1998. I always check my knot before lowering and saw that it was less one pass from fully done. It PROBABLY would have held a fall... but I remember that now and I have become a persistent knot-checker and stopped "yeah yeah-ing" my partners when they check mine.

Any one of these experiences sticks out so much more in my mind than does any good day at the crag. I don't want to give the impression that climbing is a bad thing or that I always have bad days. It's been close to 20 years of climbing now and I have by far more positive memories than negative ones, but the negative ones stand out more in memory -- as they should.
Bosier Parsons · · Colorado Springs, CO · Joined Jan 2003 · Points: 1,380

Sorry, just meaning in light of your experience, and the "easy" rating and nature of the First Flatiron. When I consider my experience up there and the context of my longevity in my climbing career at the time, it's a rather humorous comparison to me...

Tony B · · Around Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 24,665

My most memorable day of climbing perhaps, as a haunting one, was soloing in Eldo to go get a friend's abondoned gear. The story was printed by Rock and Ice in the 'outlook' section of #139. Although I was never really near danger, it remains as a personally haunting experience that I find so detached from climbing itself that I almost don't associate it.
I will see if I am still contractually obligated not to reprint it or not. If I can, then I'll see if the admins want to put it somewhere on the site.

Bosier Parsons · · Colorado Springs, CO · Joined Jan 2003 · Points: 1,380

Likewise, if I do ever write a complete piece on our Devils Thumb trip, I will be glad to share it.

Another scary one I had was 4th of July '94. Climbing Backflip on Bookmark Pinnacle(?) on Lumpy Ridge. I started the third pitch and ventured left into a variation which looked like a nice big right facing corner. It quickly revealed itself to me with crumbling rock, and a crack that would close down and only allow intermittent gear. At the top of the corner, it arches right with an undercling move. I was about 15 feet out, with one or two moves left to safety, contemplating trying to place a piece, when a foothold broke and I went sailing. The last piece was one I placed while pumped and sketching a bit. It was the old 0.75 Camalot before they started sewing runners on them. I didn't add a draw to it, but rather just clipped directly through the biner. When I fell, the single biner somehow twisted and came unclipped from the piece, which remained, and the biner stayed clipped to the rope. Due to the intermittent gear, my next piece was another 10' below that, maybe more. With rope stretch, I literally sailed backwards, almost doing a backflip, falling 60' or so, and hitting ass first, then elbows and head. When I came to, I could see my partners at the belay above me! I had to get a few stitches in my elbows, but luckily nothing serious to my head as I was wearing a baseball hat, which helped. But my ass was bruised so badly I couldn't sit down without a cushy pillow for weeks! This was with about 3-1/2 years of climbing experience and I must say it took me a while to feel comfortable again running it out on lead.

d.reed · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jun 2006 · Points: 0

Soloing a mixed free /aid climb in RMNP, in november.(1973)
I was only about 50 feet off the deck.The piton placements ran out, so It was time to get out of the ladders, and free climb the upper face. I had mountaineering boots, with knickers, knee socks,and long undies under all that. I moved about 10 feet above the last pin,and was able to get a fist jam in an over hanging flake. but that was all
So I was hanging off the fist jam, and was burning out, mean while, the miller mits, were beganing to peel off of my hand. My first thought was to figure out how to make a safe landing, for the fall that was about to transpire.
ZIP!!!!!!!!!!
when I stopped, 10 feet below the pin, I thought I had bumped my shin, on the way down. MAN< THAT really ouched!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I shook off the pain, cleaned up the route, and began the drive back to Denver.
I decided to take a quik rinse, before dinner. Kicked off the giant boots, and so forth, until I got to the socks. The long underwear, and sock, were jammed in between the skin, and the tibia bone, from hitting the pin on the way down. There was a hole on the shin, and I could actually see the white bone!!from a hole about 1" diameter ? I really didnt know how bad that fall was.

Tom Hanson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 950

If this post has evolved from "most memorable" to "dumbest" then I would have to submit the following:

sport jump off the "blade" of the petit grepon while baked on mescaline.
unroped running jump to the top of a detached tower from the north rim of the black canyon.
unroped soloing yellow spur in hurricane force winds.
doing handstands on the rail of of the royal gorge bridge.
midnight lsd and beer ropeless solo ascent of 1500'gulley to the right of yosemite falls with half a dozen equally faced goofballs.
teaching my beginning climbing partner how to jumar while he was spinning in space after popping off seconding the diving board in eldo.
repeatedly holding a 350 lb buddy with a body belay when he was following me up redguard route.

....oh, the list could go on and on. just a glimpse into my dumbest, er, i mean, most memorable, climbs.

Umph! · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Nov 2004 · Points: 180

Tom. . . well, uhm. . . Hunter S. T. would've been proud!!
You are one sick bastard. Thanks.

Buff Johnson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2005 · Points: 1,145
Classic Dihedral First lead, never will forget this climb.
Tom Hanson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 950
cameron wrote:Tom. . . well, uhm. . . Hunter S. T. would've been proud!! You are one sick bastard. Thanks.
Cameron,
These days I am quite conservative by comparison.
Those experiences occurred in a past life and I am thankful to have lived though them.
Looking back, I think that I had a guardian angel with me.
As one who was initiated into our sport back in the early seventies at places like Devils Lake, I fell into the DLFA mentality and thought that was how the sport was defined.
One of our old club mottos was "Have fun or get hurt bad"
Luckily, I always chose the have fun part, though I know of several of my peers who opted for the latter.
These days, as an over the hill has been, I rope up on anything that I can't sefely jump off of.
Nick Storm · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2007 · Points: 185

Great stories out there...I mean we've got passing out on lead, mescaline, broken appendages, all great stories. I think my most memorable route was soloing S. Face of W. Column in a day. Brought 1.5 liters of h2o, a clif bar and gear. Bivied at the base only to catch a couple hours of sleep because folks on the second pitch of Ten Days After were drunk and obnoxious all night long. Started climbing around 6am and got waylayed at the Kor Roof. Jumped onto Southern Man to pass the group at the roof and shortly thereafter ran out of water and food. Thus begins the epic. Started climbing slower and began to dry up like a prune. Climbed the last four pitches in the dark and topped out around 10pm. Gathered my gear and began the long slow, slog down N. Dome Gulley. My legs burned, lips were cracked and bleeding, throat a desert, head throbbing, eye's unfocused, dizzy spells, near blackouts, ready to pass out...I needed moisture. As I passed the top of the column, I saw a miracle. A two-gallon bottle of red gatorade left by some tired climbers. The thirst gods are alive! I dropped my gear, opened the liquid magic and chugged like I was the frat house champ, only to ignore the slight tinge of sugar rot. Descended to the bpers camp and passed out on my face. The next morning was a day filled with numerous cafeteria meals and endless toilet breaks. Although the water in the gatorade helped me safely descend, the rotten sacharine did not. I was an anal fire hose for the next 7 hours. Great climb though!

KevinCO · · Loveland, CO · Joined Mar 2006 · Points: 60

I have had many memorable climbs and epics, but they can't match the ones in this forum. Instead, I'll relate one of my memorable approaches.
One of my partners had attempted Castleton's Kor-Ingalls and was repelled by the crux on the third pitch. He was all fired up to go back with me to complete the climb.
I arranged an extra couple of days off around the weekend and we road tripped to arrive at the camp site just off the road late afternoon. We planned on getting an alpine start and went to bed at 8:30. At 9, a large group arrived and set up camp. Thirty minutes after they arrived, they were already getting hammered. For the next several hours they were whooping, hollering, screaming, crashing through the woods... Wishes of alien abduction, the earth opening and swallowing them, or just plain comas were to no avail.
We decided to modify our alpine start to a super alpine start and left camp at 1:30am. We almost tripped over two of them laying randomly in the woods, passed out.
There was no moon and my partner led the way. It was a surreal experience, sleep deprived and slogging heavy packs up scree covered slabs and trying to find the 3rd class entry through cliff bands. We arrived at the base and suited up as we watched the dawn slowly approach. My partner did the Sun Salutation back-lit by the pre dawn glow.
At the crux, I was expecting an OW problem and tried numerous times before looking behind me to the polished calcite. Laybacking on the polish was insecure but it got us through the crux.
Rapping down, we didn't encounter anyone until the base. A group of very hungover college students (they said from BYU) were contemplating starting the climb in the now heat of the day. One of them apologized for the noisy night. I told him at first we were pissed off at them, but I thanked him for the super alpine start.

After a hot descent, across the road was a leaking, elevated irrigation pipe that we cooled off under. This capped off one of my most memorable approachs/climbs.

Petsfed 00 · · Snohomish, WA · Joined Mar 2002 · Points: 989

The first time I did the Bastille Crack. We got really off-route after the third pitch and traversed through Wide Country onto the west face. I'm not certain what we finished on, but the jugs in that chimney were enormous.

Drinking beer in the parking lot of Blue Gramma Cliff leading to climbing Ancient Art the next day, a little hungover. Most notably was sitting on that MAMMOTH belay ledge just below the final two pitches, checking out the girls from Ft. Collins. You'd be surprised how well that area carries sound. My partner said to me in a conversational tone "She's pretty cute". Accounting for acoustic travel time, the girl in question looked up directly at us. The entire climb was amazing.

Finally, the day my partner and I did the 5.9 variation to Sundial Slab in the Snowies. You really had to be there. Conditions were perfect, and the climbing was spectacular. And the roof was cool too.

Wendy Laakmann · · Bend, OR · Joined Dec 2005 · Points: 5

Leading Whodunit at Taquitz. Part way up the first pitch, at the crux, maybe 50 feet off the ground. I went to put in a small nut but couldn't find them on my gear sling. After much searching, I looked down to find them clipped to my husband's harness from the previous climb. Nothing else would go in. My last piece, not so good, was 15 feet below me, and I didn't think it would hold. I envisioned things zippering below it if I fell.

I stood there for literally 45 minutes, trying to get a piece in, before deciding I just had to go for it. I looked down at my partner and told him in total seriousness to move his pack, because when I fell to the ground I was going to land where it was sitting. I also told him I'd try to land on my arms or shoulders so I could hike out down the steep trail. I've never been so scared in my life!

I eventually pulled the crux and stuck about 10 pieces in to protect myself (slight exaggeration). I'll never forget planning where I'd deck...

And a second one. Climbing South Crack in Tuolumne. Beautiful sunny day, shining lake below us. I'm starting to lead off after the approach, maybe 10 feet off the deck, when an older gentleman comes to the belay. He and my girlfriend start chatting as I'm finding my first piece. Not sure what they talked about, but next thing I know he solo's up next to me and tells me what piece I need. He introduces himself as TM, but I'm a noob and I don't know who that is. He proceeds to solo up the entire pitch, slightly ahead of me, pointing out every place to put in a good piece. At some point I figure out this guy is someone important and just start doing what he's telling me. He solo downclimbs, and when I bring my friend up she excitedly tells me who TM Herbert is.

I think this was after the Whodunit day, so maybe he sensed I needed help with pro?

Dirty Gri Gri, or is it GiGi? · · Vegas · Joined May 2005 · Points: 4,115

I was just breaking into leading 5.8+ in Red Rock, and had planned one night to climb the following day, after work to lead Valentine's Day, a 5.8+ trad route in Calico Basin. Sadly, during my work shift, I was part of a team that were first responders to a suicide by hanging. It was a sad, and intense day. I remember feeling wiped out from the events that day, but thought it may be good for me to get out after work, anyway. I felt relieved to have finally left work that afternoon to meet my friend/partner for our planned climb at Calico Basin. I racked up, and started up the climb, but I wasn't feeling like myself; I felt terribly weak, and emotionless. For no good reason, I was placing a piece at what seemed like every foot or two; sewing it up. While I was making a lot of noise, and struggling to get myself to lead the route with some dignity, a climber from Bishop, Ca. started soloing right beside me on a thin 5.10 face, totally calm, and beautifully, and without a sound. I intermittently watched the tall man for a few seconds at a time, before I surrendered my lead to my patient,and understanding partner who finished out the lead, and then I followed. I remember feeling useless on Valentine's Day; just wanting to get home, and sleep. I slept for 12 hours solid until waking up to go to work the next morning. I was myself again after a couple more days, but I haven't the heart for Valentine's Day since then. A memorable climb it was.

Tony B · · Around Boulder, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 24,665
Gigette Miller wrote: ... I remember feeling wiped out from the events that day, but thought it may be good for me to get out after work, anyway. ...I was placing a piece at what seemed like every foot or two; sewing it up. While I was making a lot of noise, and struggling to get myself to lead the route with some dignity...
I've alwasy found it the same way. When my heart is not in it, I can not climb. Your state of mind effects everything as you know, and the more intense something is, the more it can be effected.

Once you are pushed past your center of gravity in any particular life motivator, be it chaos, emotional security, etc... any other activity that moves you further away from your center isn't going to work for you.

If there is too much unknown in your life, you won't want to go on 'adventure routes.'
If there is too much risk in your life, you won't wnt to run it out.
If there is too little time in your life, you might not want to take a road trip.
If there is too much emotion in your life (turmoil) then all of it is impossible.
Off course what is too much or too little depends on the person.
david goldstein · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 2,541

What are the odds that The Whodonit would make two appearances on this list? BITD, before Camalots had even been invented, I, a fledgling leader set out to climb The Error, a seven pitch 5.6 at Tahquitz with my brother, Tom, a fledgling follower. Our kit included perhaps ten stoppers half a dozen hexes but no cams as Friends had just come on the market and were beyond our means and a pack containing the blue Wilts guidebook, three quarts of water, some gorp, ancient 35mm SLR camera with no film and our EBs (climbing shoes) which we took along just in case but didn't plan on wearing since we didn't want to wear out those $30 extravagances, intending instead to climb in our heavy leather hiking boots. Since we were basically peak baggers, we were all about early starts though we anticipated the climb going quickly long since we considered ourselves 5.7 climbers. The first pitch did go fast, but I bogged down leading the second. I eventually, using a term from the future, "redpointed" that pitch after taking a 15' leader fall, dropping the rack, lowering down past the belay to retrie the rack, reclimbing to my high point, being stymied and again lowering back to the belay this time to change into my EBs. During the course of the five hours all this required, Tom ate all our food, advance compensation for the misery he endured following/being hauled up this pitch. None of the subsequent pitches were as trying, but all seemed much harder than the guidebook indicated they should be and most were beyond the ability of Tom, burdened with the pack which now also contained my hiking boots, to free climb. The technique we worked out for expeditiously getting him through the harder passages involved him hand over handing off of my waist belay. After several such pitches one of us noticed that the sun was pretty low on the horizon. Since the top was nowhere in sight, we realized a night on the rock was a real possibility so we tried to expedite. With the sun now below the horizon, I reached the first decent ledge since the ground, though still not the top, threw in an anchor, put Tom on belay and urged him to ascend as fast as possible since in our befuddled, flashlightless state (neither of us even owned a headlamp), had either of us been benighted mid pitch, he might well have just hunkered down and waited for the dawn to resume moving. So Tom sucked it up and batmanned 80' straight feet of slab, a feat I watched in state of intense apprehension, wondering what would happen if he flamed out, let go and plummeted to the end of the rope and thus my waist belay. At any rate, he sent and reached the ledge as darkness enveloped us. We anchored in, curled up on the ledge in our shorts and fleece jackets and spent the hungry, chilly ,timeless (no watches) May night waiting for the dawn to arrive which of course it finally did. Even though the guidebook indicated we should be about at the top since we'd climbed more pitches than the book said our route contained, we no longer had the least bit of faith in anything Mr. Wilts had to say (thinks he's so big) and wondered if the route would ever come to an end. To our great relief, one more easy pitch got us to the top. Back at the car, Tom compared the face we'd been on with the photo in the book (something we hadn't bothered to do before the climb) and exclaimed "You idiot, we were on the wrong route. We just climbed something called The Whodunit, a 5.9!"

Julian Smith · · Colorado Springs, CO · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 2,140

Memorable, eh; well, maybe it’s a good thing that my memory is so bad. Usually my friends will say, “Do you remember the time…” and it’s like I was never there. Too much climbing or was it too much of something else…;-) Anyway, as far as memorable epics go, I won’t forget the time I was rope soloing Roulette in Yosemite Valley on the Leaning Tower. I can’t remember what pitch it was… one of the A4+ pitches, which were worse than any of the A5. Somehow I managed to leave both ends of the rope tied into the belay and didn’t discover it until I was about mid-pitch and found out that I couldn’t move another inch. I was on the verge of being physically ill as I had to equalize two heads that were about a body length apart and then rappel back down to the belay, untie one end of the rope, and then jug back up to the high point to finish the pitch. I was really fried by the experience, and spent the rest of the day just sitting in my porta-ledge…. Yeah it was memorable OK.
Otherwise, better memorable climbs were my first multi-pitch climb with my wife on Table Rock in Linville Gorge back in NC; Howse Peak, Mt. Temple, Sea of Vapors, and Nemisis with my bro Tim Fisher. Or being alone last year on Polar Circus…

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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