Tell us your best (or worst) Gumby moment

These are great! Keep em' coming! Mark Nelson, that was classic.

Killer string... I recognize a few of those, so at least I'm not totally alone. One nice day started as I showed up for a multi-pitch outing, and digging through the pack, realized a harness was not to be part of the day. Not to be denied the day, I figured I could just loop a few slings "figure eight" style around my legs and then join the loops with two more slings, a couple lockers and I'd be golden. Harnessed-up, I then proceeded to take two successive leader falls on the first pitch. As a 2nd soprano, I continued the route to the top, 11 pitches later. Only then did I contemplate the successive rappels required to descend. I arrived at the base a 1st soprano.

When I was 14 my friend and I had the brilliant Idea to lead climb up a tree. A 70 foot tall pine tree to be exact. We didn't want to mess up our good rope, so we used about 30 feet of static line. He went first. he threw slings around tree branches and clipped them for protection. when he was about half way up I announced that he was out of rope. he put me on belay and we swung pitches to the top. the idea of multi-stage rappels had not occurred to us yet. We looped the rope over a tree branch and proceeded to rappel. I had tied a knot in the rope to avoid any accidents. I swung myself over to the tree and anchored in to a branch. My friend was close behind. we pulled the rope and set up a new rappel. I did not tie the knot in the end this time. I went first only to find that the end of our rope was about 8 feet off the ground. I slid off the end and hit the ground. My partner insisted that I tie a knot to prevent him from making the same mistake, so I did. Little did we realize that this was a big mistake. He rappelled down to the end of the rope and the knot stopped his motion. He quickly realized that he couldn't reach the tree to downclimb. He decided to test out a technique that he had read about in a climbing magazine. He attempted to walk the rope and reach a branch about four feet above him. He almost made it, but he slipped and grabed onto a thin twig for support. The twig broke and he fell face up towards the ground. the static line caught him and he jerked to a stop. He was in a great amount of pain. He started yelling for me to cut the rope but neither of us had a knife. I ran to his house to get a knife. When I came back he was still in the air. I threw him the knife and he cut the rope at the top of his belay device and fell to the ground. Yep there you have it.

Set up to do a rappel (Madame G's at the Gunks, which is free-hanging for about 100 feet with a short downclimb at the end.) This is a quite popular area so there were two people waiting to rap after me, and as I get to the edge, I look down and realize that I had only clipped the ATC through the bottom of the two master points on the harness...not a fatal mistake, but I probably would have tipped upside-down if I hadn't fixed it.

I then clipped the device correctly, and rapped without incident, but I think I really scared the crap out of the two people watching me make this mistake. They looked like they were witnessing death in action!

Another mistake I made was neglecting to initiate a bowl-movement prior to climbing the Petit Grepon in RMNP last summer. The first two pitches were NOT fun at all because I had to shit the entire time...every move I made forced the doo doo further and further out. I finally reached an ideal spot: belay cave with snow in the back. I relieved myself, and the rest of the climb was fun, with the exception of the shitty piton belay.

First time climbing outside: my partner set a TR on two hangers with a canoe strap, no biners. Thought he knew what he was doing.

Recently climbed a 500 ft. 5-pitch route in Ecuador with no shirt. It was sunny and warm at the base. After 1 pitch, entered the shade and started shivering. The final 2 pitches in the main dihedral feature were like an air-conditioned wind tunnel flowing upward, strong enough to flip my chalk bag upside down. Couldn't feel hands to place gear, violent shivering at belays, generally utterly miserable. Never been so cold in my life - it took me about 12 hours to warm up again.

When I was around 15ish a relative bought me Freedom of the Hills, over the next few months, I read it pretty much cover to cover. I really wanted to try some of the stuff out but did not have any gear, a partner or rock near my house. I settled for an old rope I found in the garage, some 1/2 inch suspect webbing, smaller chord (p-chord or simmilar) and a large tree in the back yard. I weighted the end of the rope, tossed it as high as I could get it around a branch. After lowering the end back down, I tied two prusks around both strands with the p-chord, leaving enough of a loop to put each foot through. I then assended the rope to the branch and repeated until I reach the top of the tree, around 50ft off the deck. Then I tied the loop of webbing around a branch, threaded the rope through and body rappelled back down. At no point durring this exercise was I actually attached to rope or the tree. I didn't bother me at the time but in hindsight I feel pretty lucky that I didn't slip out of the foot loops, let go of the rappel or have any of the crap gear or a branch break. live and learn I guess.

Most embarrassing/humbling?

I'd just led my hardest trad/mixed lead to that date. Later the same day, a long-time climber from Charlotte (D. Hogue sp?) was leading it. It's a short person route for sure. I was stoked I had done it and started giving him beta.

He was kind and said not a word.

He didn't need my newb beta. I could have learned a lot more by keeping my mouth shut. But my excitement got the best of me.

He was gracious in his silence. I learned a valued lesson.

1995 ice climbing in Valdez with group of five staying with the late Andy.
It was the last day (many epics later) of the trip so we decided to do a route as a single group. 3 pitches grade IV no problem. Everything went smooth till the last pitch.
The final pitch goes over the fall into stands of Alder in steep snow with a blind belay. We worked out a simple rope communication scheme and the leader took off. Besides the belayer the rest of us are hangin on screws fuckin around ice bouldering trying to stay warm. Ok.
Leader tops out, time goes by, the slack goes up...there's a steady three tugs...time to climb. Mike(the second) takes off with ease until 30' from the belay. One of his crampons comes loose and is dangling so he starts tugging on the rope for a take, gets a tug back and whoosh! Comes flying down! I lean out to catch him (taking a crampon in the thigh) while one of the other guys grabs both of us. We spin around hanging sort of upside down, sideways, confused, scared.
After a lot of patient hanging on Mike gets back in the system. Mike lost his crampon in the fall and the rest of the story is just a 4hr slog fest getting up and out injured and cold.
Great trip ever all but happy it was over.

Sadly seem to still be making them (or even worse, the same one multiple times).

First trip up El Cap (Lurking Fear), I left the whole big wall rack (belonging to my partner!) sitting at the top of the East Ledges raps. We didn't realize it until we were down and loading the truck...

me: "Wait, where's the rack"
partner: "You were carrying it!"

Partner trudged back up to the East Ledges (while I retrieved left gear from the base of the climb) and someone in the middle of the raps told him "sure, there's a whole rack sitting at the top". The guy was nice enough to batman back up and bring it down to us. Needless to say, the beer and pizza were no me that night and had never tasted so goo.

Fast forward to last fall when the same partner and I climbed Cloud Tower and got our ropes stuck on the last rap (from the top of pitch 2). My wife and I came back the next day and retrieved the ropes...but I again left the rack (again belong to the same partner!) atop pitch 2. My partner and his girlfriend came back the *next* day and climbed the same pitches to retrieve the rack.

Of course, I blame the same partner for teaching me how to climb outdoors: my very first day climbing outside, we flew up South Crack on Stately Pleasure Dome...and my partner forgot the rack at the top. He had to head back up the slick slab descent to fetch it.

I swear...I will *never* forget a rack again!

my first sport lead ever where I backclipped all 8 clips on a roof

My first "multi pitch route" was a 2 pitch 5.9. The first pitch was a 5.9 and R rated, the second pitch was only 5.6, but unprotected slab. I led the first pitch and my partner led the second pitch, however, he got spooked near the top and missed the anchors, instead choosing to just head straight to the top. The problem was that the top was farther away than our 60m rope. I ended up untying and letting my partner top out sans belay. The real problem started when we realized that I was stuck at the belay without a rope and he couldn't safely get back down to the anchors.

It started to rain and I thought I was really screwed. Fortunately a friend of ours happened to be hiking by and had a rope with him, so the two that were up top fashioned some sort of anchor and belayed me up as the granite slab was really getting slick

It all ended well and my climbs have gone mostly better since then, but I still remember sitting on that ledge wishing for my rain coat and wondering how on earth I was going to get out of this.

While climbing in at Castle Rock 2 years I decided to do a single pitch climb without my shirt on. No problem there, nice hot day. Well lets go do a 2 pitch route up to the top. I'll leave the shirt off, its a nice hot day. I proceeded to climb 2 SLOW pitches, all in the sun. And then walk and rappel down in the sun. A little information about me. I'm of polish decent and VERY fair skinned. I had such a bad sunburn I spent the next 2 days unable to climb or put on a shirt without wincing.

My first Lead in Yosemite was also my first route in Yosemite. Plus it was my first Lead, ever. I just didn't tell my partner that part. I was feeling a little inadequate. Anyway, I lead the 2d and the 5th pitch on the Nutcracker. When Tom Got to the top, he chewed me out for my shitty gear. That's when I told him I never led before. He still said I was a bonehead(justifiably), but he did give me a few points for boldness. Then we spent the afternoon practicing gear placement, because he told me I was gonna die for sure if I didn't learn some shit fast. It has worked so far......

Hmmm... First Gumby moment? 1986. Having started climbing at Mt Woodson in SD county, my friend Dave and i put together a rack that was perfect for learning how to climb, at Mt Woodson. A few slings, 'biners and one set of stoppers. Oh and a 30' rope. This set up worked well for its intended purpose but as our confidence grew, we felt it was time to check out bigger rocks. As luck would have it, we heard about a Big Rock at Lake Perris. Perfect! when we arrived at the base of Big Rock, we kinda realized we may have been under equipped. So off we went! Dave started leading an easy rated route and we were psyched! Real full pitch climbing! Well Dave got 30' up and ran out of rope. Unsure how to proceed, he stalled out and we could not figure out how to get him down. A bit latter, two marvelously beautiful girls came over and asked if we needed some help. Yes! We did. One of them lead up to Dave and set up a rappel and he got back to the ground safely. The two girls continued the short one pitch climb. But instead of being completely embarrassed, we fell in love with the girls who were at least four years older than us. We have been looking for them ever since then with no luck. The next day we bought a full 60m rope and have never looked back. except to see if those wonderful girls were around.

Kirk B. wrote:My first Lead in Yosemite was also my first route in Yosemite. Plus it was my first Lead, ever. I just didn't tell my partner that part. I was feeling a little inadequate. Anyway, I lead the 2d and the 5th pitch on the Nutcracker. When Tom Got to the top, he chewed me out for my shitty gear. That's when I told him I never led before. He still said I was a bonehead(justifiably), but he did give me a few points for boldness. Then we spent the afternoon practicing gear placement, because he told me I was gonna die for sure if I didn't learn some shit fast. It has worked so far......

Hahaha...weird. My first trad lead was in Yosemite. On second pitch of Nutcracker. And I also didn't share that fact with my partner. He offered the rack, and the lead. I took it, and broke a major rule of engagement ((Top Gun))...I started off plugging the undercling, and just before I got out of sight, he said "hey man, you gonna put a piece in?"...so, I fiddled like a #4 in there and chugged out another twenty feet or so...
I figured I'd seen enough photos of guys pulling on big stone, and fiddling in gear, to know what I was doing...plus, I was young and wanted to be up there so bad...nothing got in the way of that!