Looking for belayers' anecdotes for a story I am writing

Hi friends,

My name is Federica Valabrega, and I'm a freelance journalist working on a
climbing article and I wanted to reach out to you for help with the research.

The focus of the piece will be "Heroic Belays," and I'm looking for
anecdotes, stories, yarns, etc. about either you, your own or other's
belayers putting in monumental efforts - 4-hour long belays, or cramped
horrible hanging belays, etc. etc. - to support a project redpoint.
Alternately, I'm also just looking for good, funny, or unusual belayer
anecdotes.

If you think you have anything that fits the bill, or know someone else
I should talk to about this, too, can you drop me a line, and I'll get back
to you with further questions?

Many thanks,

Fede

I wouldn't call this heroic but I do find it somewhat amusing in a scary way.

I was at the base of the Bastille Crack in Eldorado Canyon and witnessed two young college age guys come up and eye the route. One had obviously climbed some before and the other a complete novice. The more experienced guy was explaining to his partner how to belay. After a detailed explanation of about 1 minute he obviously thought his partner was now competent and proceeds to lead up the crack. He must have not been too experienced himself because he was obviously having a bit of struggle up there. Then at one point he yells down in desperation, "slack!". So the belayer promptly lets go of the rope. (and no he wasn't using a gri-gri, just your basic atc). Didn't know if I should yell up to the climber that he was soloing or not.

This thread addresses what I thought was a pretty heroic belay by a guy who was severely injured when a block came loose and hit his legs while belaying high up on the Doub-Griffith in Eldorado Canyon:

mountainproject.com/v/injur…

I think that the volunteers at the Colorado Mountain Club's Youth Education Program (YEP!) are the most heroic belayers of all. Who else ties 200 figure eights, belays 4 hours straight, shouts beta and encouragement, lowers 200 little souls, completes 200 cross checks and creates a thousand smiles? Not to mention fitting up to 60 harnesses and helmets, all the while maintaining safety and promoting climbing fun.

Those are some heroic belayers.

By far the best belay I have ever had was from a guy known as "Crazy Stevie"

We were trying to put up a new route in South Dakota from the ground up and I got the first attempt. The climbing was fantastic but the pro consisted of a good #8 stopper followed by a RURP followed by half a .5 equilized with an RP. Not inspiring.
After about 40ft I found a horn to sling and lower off of. As soon as I weighted the horn it exploded, sending me into a free fall.
Stevie took off running down hill and was able to take in enough slack to slow me down on each piece of gear. I landed with nothing worse than a few cuts and bruises, Stevie saved my ass, literally!

I was belaying my partner on the 2nd pitch of a climb in the Kentucky summer heat at RRG. He was groveling up an offwidth for at least 45 minutes, while I'm standing on a small belay ledge. I've forgotten the offending meal by now, but I had to fart really bad. So I let loose, but I got more than I bargained before. So I'm sweating in the 90% humidity, 80+ degree heat with a dirty ass while belaying my partner who doesn't have cams big enough to protect as he'd like to. I had no choice but to grab a few rhodo leaves, dig deep to clean up, all while attempting to pay out slack with the other hand, hoping my partner doesn't peel off of the poorly protected offwidth.

Thanks for sharing that Pete. My story is told by a picture:

you should look into the story of Peter Terbush. Pretty heroic belay by a Colorado climber. I don't know enough of the story to give details but he gave his life for his partner

Peter L K wrote:I was belaying my partner on the 2nd pitch of a climb in the Kentucky summer heat at RRG. He was groveling up an offwidth for at least 45 minutes, while I'm standing on a small belay ledge. I've forgotten the offending meal by now, but I had to fart really bad. So I let loose, but I got more than I bargained before. So I'm sweating in the 90% humidity, 80+ degree heat with a dirty ass while belaying my partner who doesn't have cams big enough to protect as he'd like to. I had no choice but to grab a few rhodo leaves, dig deep to clean up, all while attempting to pay out slack with the other hand, hoping my partner doesn't peel off of the poorly protected offwidth.

Awww shit. That's "bad ass".

With the introduction of a little penalty slack, a good belayer can introduce their climber to an instant zen moment.

Once I was well motivated to climbing this amazing hill. I decided to venture down south for some training. The local magistrate lined me up with a regimen of running and climbing. The sights were beholden. Upon completion, let's say a grad climb; we scaled this towerly looking feature. With pro & rope, we thrashed about, but topping onto the summit nonetheless. It was mentioned the likeness of beer to be drunk, alas we had none; but wait we had. As the belayer had stuffed a six pack in the pack, though he stated no ice as I drew the line...

(just a poetic moment based on X -- we've all been there, or should be anyway)

Check out Pete Schoening and his "belay" with an ice axe of five falling climbers on an ascent of K2.
In climbing lore it's known simply as THE Belay.

About 2 weeks ago, I was belaying on El Cracko Diablo on Devils Tower. The wind was pretty bad, so every time any one tossed a rappel line on the adjacent rap route, it fell on me or my partner. We'd had this problem from the moment we left the ground, and it was made only worse by the fact that apparently none of these people had looked at the topo, or rappelled in windy conditions before. They certainly hadn't rappelled many pitches in a row before. We, recognizing the wind issue, had elected to climb the two pitches that make up El Cracko, and would rappel at the Meadows before our route joined any of the summit routes.

My partner is a very deliberate climber, so he wasn't moving very quickly. Still and all, he completed the second pitch in about 45 minutes. That is, he got to the belay ledge after about 45 minutes. I didn't know this at the time, and the wind was bad enough that we couldn't really communicate. In that time, about 4 parties had rapped down past us, including a woman who was completely convinced that where I was was the rap station she needed to be at. I advised her that the ledge on the topo is after two (2!) additional rap stations, not just the one.

Shortly after my partner went out of sight, I look up to see this guy dragging two ropes behind him. Which is odd, maybe he wanted a top belay while he rappelled, I didn't really know. Until I see both of them just sort of fall from the ledge. There was nobody connected to the other end, in fact they weren't connected to anything except this guy. And, true to form, these things come crashing down onto me. Except not quite. He didn't see it until he was down past me, but one of the ropes had caught on a horn a solid thirty feet above me.

He was about 20 below me, the rope was caught 30 feet above me, and the rope hung right over my helmet. So this guy (who clearly had never heard of turning a butterfly coil into a backpack), starts whipping the rope to get it unstuck. And with every whip comes this satisfying WHACK! as the rope slams into the rock, my helmet, and my back. Somewhere around his eighth attempt, I yell down to him.

"Are there other people in your party?"

"Yeah!" he says.

"Then let them deal with it! You're beating me to death here, and I've still got a climber on belay"

"But I have to take care of this!" he cries.

"WHY?!"

"Because the rope is tied to me!"

"So untie and let them deal with it!!" I shout in frustration.

He does precisely that, and a little bit of work on my part gets the ropes free. Less rope between the horn and I means less rope stretch to interfere with pulling the rope.

My partner is still on belay through all of this. Shortly after the second (of four) people from the next party start down, I finally hear from my partner. I've had him on belay for at least 2 hours at this point. I follow the pitch, make it to the belay, and suddenly my partner is apologizing for the wait.

See, there was this huge group of people who wouldn't get out of the way so he could set up a belay. They kept telling him that the top of the tower was just a little ways up. Except he didn't want to go to the top straight away. He just wanted to belay his partner up. He couldn't even get an anchor in until two had gone down, since they absolutely refused to move away from the only protectable crack on that ledge (a ledge that prominently features bolts, which is what they were rappelling from. Its bad form to belay from bolts that a party is currently rappelling from, right?).

We rappelled without incident, didn't even get our ropes stuck.

Brian Scoggins wrote:Shortly after my partner went out of sight, I look up to see this guy dragging two ropes behind him. Which is odd, maybe he wanted a top belay while he rappelled, I didn't really know.

Brian, I am that guy. It's a bit hard to explain the CF that developed. In the off chance that you're interested, here's the story. I had just seconded another pitch and encountered a relatively large group of people at the top of the Cracko Diablo rappel station (I was just climbing with one other person--we weren't part of any other team). We developed the plan that I would rappel the ropes that were already set for rappel (another party's ropes), while just keeping the ropes that I was tied into attached to me for the purpose of bringing those ropes down to the intermediate rappel station (not for the purpose of a top belay). In retrospect, it would have been better for me have carried the extra ropes with me backpack style, but the goal was to be as quick as possible. I would then pull my ropes (the ones I was tied into) free and set them to rappel to the walk-off ledge, so there would be ropes set for rappel from the top anchor to the intermediate anchor, and then another set of ropes from the intermediate anchor to the walk-off ledge. Then, everyone in all the teams could rappel to the ground, with just the last person pulling the ropes.
We believed this would be better than having two people do the first rappel, then pull the ropes, then two more people do the first rappel, then pull the ropes, etc.
It may be worth mentioning that if you would have "allowed" me to
just stop at the rappel station on the ledge you were at, the stuck rope would not have been a problem, as I could have freed it from that point (at least I thought could have--maybe it was stuck higher than I thought, and I was wrong about that. But since you were able to free the rope, I don't think so). I wasn't super happy that you insisted that I descend to the lower set of anchors, when the whipping wind was causing trouble. If I was rude to you when we spoke (I hope I wasn't), that was what was going through my mind. I was also pretty motivated to free the stuck rope so that I could set it up for the rappel below, but you were right that I should have just untied, and as you noted, once you asked me to do that, I did. (In fact, I just set up the remaining rope for the second rappel, as it didn't need 2 ropes.)

Anyway, the bottom line is I messed up the rope work and got in your way. I apologize. Thanks for freeing my rope and I'm glad everything worked out more-or-less OK. I could also tell you were frustrated dealing with other people, not just me. I can't speak for anything anyone else did, but the whole situation did seem FUBAR, even though I played a role in all that.

Edit: no need to ding BS at least from my perspective--that's a bit of "blaming the victim" in this affair, and I agree that if anyone is motivated to consider best practices in rappelling/lowering in high wind conditions, that will make the world a better place.

Here is a story of which legends are made.
In the '70s at Seneca, WV, Ben and John are soloing Conn's East. Ben is trailing a rope for the rappel. John is on the Soler flake feeding the rope as Ben solos the crux moves of Conn's East. Ben falls heading a 100 feet to certain death. John grabs the rope in his bare hands and catches Ben. No anchor, no belay device.

Just to be clear, it was the final bit in a saga that had dogged us during the entire climb. Party after party after party threw their ropes when the wind was high enough that they should've just lowered them down. I got hit by one rope while I was leading. And not a small amount either. It put me off my game enough that I couldn't finish the pitch and had to yield to my partner. I was irritated by the consistently inconsiderate people above, and you guys were just the last in a long string of them. Especially in light of the fact that there's a specific tear-out topo for those rappels in the new guidebook. Its one of the few accurate bits of information in that book.

I still don't understand why you thought just dragging your ropes behind you would work. Seriously, that was really dumb. There was probably little chance of freeing the rope from that ledge while you were still tied in. It was still a solid 30 feet above me. I got lucky when I cleared it, but you should've been pulling the ropes clear every chance you got, rather than descending then looking up to see what got caught. It is always harder to dislodge a rope from below. And it could've been avoided by just setting up a butterfly backpack, or a pair of coils clipped to the harness, or stacked across a cow's tail, or something. And if you're even decent at rope management, those take 1 or 2 minutes to do. Same with threading another anchor with a pre-coiled rope. As it stood, not coiling that rope probably cost you more time and effort than coiling it would've done.

I'm sorry to harp on you this much. I just hope somebody out there will learn something from it.

It didn't ruin my trip, but it did leave me in a less than friendly mood when I encountered other climbers, and it kept us extra careful on every rappel.

So for all readers: if there are high winds, don't throw your line, just lower it (in fact, mostly just lower it, it'll save you a lot of headaches); clear snags as you come to them (as opposed to after you're below them); and don't assume that minuscule stance that dude is belaying from is the big belay ledge promised on the topo. Chances are its farther down.

PF +1 for owning it.

BS -1 for piling on redundantly.