Ugh... I can't believe I dropped...

2 #5 camalots off zodiac from the bottom of the grey circle. found and still use one of those...and the other...simply disappeared!

My one and only drop was actually a pretty good one. Last spring I was going up standard route on whitehorse ledge on a full moon night and having a couple beers in the process. After taking a minute to hang out on the lunch ledge we started up again and the near empty beer can in my chalk bag managed to weasel out before I could finish it. What followed was what must have been over a minute of, "ting, ting, ting" down 700 feet of low angle slab. There were some people at the bottom walking out via headlamps and all we could see were there lights looking up at the cliff the entire time clearly confused. The craziest part is when we got to the bottom we found that the can had landed right on top of my shoes.

I dropped the zipper pull-tab from the fly of my pants from the top of Freeblast. It broke off while trying to take a leak.

No big deal right? Well, we had climbed Freeblast in order to do the Triple Direct. Needless to say, my fly stayed down for the rest of the route...

[climbing] "shoe!!!!"

jaypg wrote:I'm truly enjoying reading these!

My climbing partner was about 15 feet up when his folding knife fell out of his pocket it hit the wall and the spring assited knife flipped open, his girlfriend was on belay and the point stuck her in the leg... I hollered up at him "Does that mean Off Belay?"

If I had to vote on the submissions thus far, Tozankyaku, would win.

Will Anglin wrote:I had just sorta-finished a route in the Black, 'sorta-finished' because after the route 'ended' there was still easy 5th and 4th class along a ridge type thing. Not wanting to rope-up I tied the rope on my back and in a moment of weakness, clipped my #3, #4, and #5 C4s onto the rope tied at my waist, instead of my harness. While attempting to make a pretty exposed move out of a chimney, I decided it was no longer a good idea to have the rope on my back. I untied it and tossed it out to my partner. I heard some noise in the chimney and thought 'loose rock, whatevs'. After reaching the car, drinking some water and restoring the mental function i have, I realized that, no, that hadn't been loose rock, I had just dropped my 3 most expensive cams over 1,000ft into the river. That still hurts...

I was climbing the Flying Dutchman, just finished leading the ice pitch and was belaying my partner up. I had taken my two BD Vipers and stuffed them into a crack in the rock. As my partner approached the rock shifted, the crack widened and one tool took the ride down the couloir.

I thought it was lost but a year and a half later it was found by a partner of mine when he went up to climb the route in the fall. It was a little rusted from the year and a half out, but otherwise fine. I ended up giving it to a buddy who needed another tool.

I used to climb with a buddy back in the early 80s who had prosthetic legs below the knee. He took a whipper on a large roof at the Gunks and when he hit the wall, one foot broke off and the shoe went tumbling. We yelled down to some guys on the ground to see if they saw where the shoe landed. They yelled up that they had found it, but there was something in it.

Had to take him to the body shop after that.

Bob M wrote:I used to climb with a buddy back in the early 80s who had prosthetic legs below the knee. He took a whipper on a large roof at the Gunks and when he hit the wall, one foot broke off and the shoe went tumbling. We yelled down to some guys on the ground to see if they saw where the shoe landed. They yelled up that they had found it, but there was something in it. Had to take him to the body shop after that.

Agreed.

1st place goes to Bob M and his climbing buddy from back in the '80s. Congratulations are in order... sort of.

So far I've been fortunate enough not to have any good drop stories of my own. However, when climbing at the Gunks a couple years ago I saw a lunch cooler, you know the coleman style one that every construction worker owns, plummet from the top on a busy weekend day. The best part was the picnic-ing couple was very confused as to why everyone started yelling rock.

I thought of this thread on Sat when my friends backpack decided to roll of the cliff on its part way journey down trilogy gulch from the second pitch, down and down and down.

I found a catsmeow sleeping bag in the bushes on the west side at Seneca Rocks W
eat Virginia. Held on to it for about ten years as a spare until I gave it to a homeless guy.

My Camalot C4 #5 went flying after the offwidth crack on Group Therapy at Red Rocks last April. I don't know what the hell I was doing, fumbling around like that. I know there was a party under us so I yelled ROCK as loud as I could and listened. I didn't hear any screams or cursing, I hope I didn't hit anyone with it, but I am really sorry if I did.
After coming down I went back to look for it but them bushes under Angel Food Wall are torture devices so I gave up after a short look around.