Garden of the Gods Problems

Shep you should change the title of this thread to Garden of the Gods Assault. This way maybe people can track the frequency of these actions and hopefully this tool will be caught.
Please notify park personnel or call 911 for any physical confrontation no matter where this type of bullshit occurs.

I'm really sorry to hear that this happened. Glad you weren't seriously injured but a fight between adults (especially someone his age) is not acceptable behavior and I agree with other posters that you should have called 911.

I might just be getting old but it seems to me that the population in general is just getting increasingly angry and prone to outbursts like this or worse. I'm in a profession where I deal with a lot of people and it just seems people are ever more angry, critical and irrational. Maybe it's just my perception but I think our society has changed over the last few decades and there is less sense of community and connectedness, which leads to isolation and antisocial behaviors like this. Just my thoughts.

Again, sorry this happened. My experience with other climbers has, fortunately, always been positive but I am hearing more and more stories about arguments, threats and violence at the crags. Not a good trend and I hope CO climbers don't turn into SoCA surfers....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter…

Or you could easily just go to the top of the rock and down climb the south ridge like everybody did years ago.Opp's might require some effort.

Ya I've never been one to try to stay away from people at the crags. Usually I'm fine with there being other climbers around and it's all fun but now I see why some people try so hard to find solitude while cragging.

Not trying to get into it with you here but since I was there I can say that your description of the events left out a few details. We were a party of four and not with the guy that fought with you. I think that you got off on the wrong foot with 'Joe' (not his name and I don't know his last name) by telling us we should be wearing helmets instead of saying something like 'sorry, I'll try and be more careful but there is a lot of loose rock up here.' We should have been wearing helmets but I know at least I did not see you and your partner starting the rappel before rocks started falling, a courteous warning to potential parties in the firing zone would have let us know and be prepared. Then on your second rappel you almost hit my lead climber with your rope, you did yell rope just as you chucked it down but didn't check to see where you chucked it and certainly didn't give anybody below a chance to get out of the way. You did however make a better effort after we asked for a little more of a heads up.

Of course none of this excuses what he did. He should have discussed it with you like an adult instead of losing it and throwing you to the ground.

BTW, Joe was likely in his 50's or 60's and I picked up he's been climbing for over 40 years and they lead New Era and top roped the 5.11 next to it.

Rock fall is a very touchy thing for a lot of climbers, I lost a friend to a tourist tossing rocks for the fun of it.

discussed it with you like an adult instead of losing it and throwing you to the ground. BTW, Joe was likely in his 50's or 60's and I picked up he's been climbing for over 40 years and they lead New Era and top roped the 5.11 next to it. Rock fall is a very touchy thing for a lot of climbers, I lost a friend to a tourist tossing rocks for the fun of it.

I would be upset if someone rapped down onto me and responded by telling me to put a helmet on.
However, still not OK to attack someone over said behavior and kind of disturbing to hear that it was an older climber, whom one might expect to be a bit wiser and less impulsive

Ya Ralph I understand where you're coming from. I apologized to you guys about the rope before any of the attacking happened. That was between my party and yours, joe was not a part of that. I apologized to you guys because I wronged you guys with my rope, not joe. Not worth arguing over because we both see it from separate sides. I understand the touchiness of the subject. There could have been better communication. I was doin my best to be safe. I would rather not argue over an Internet forum. Just wanted to get feedback from people to figure out how to deal with situations like this in the future. Every climber, even "joe," can always continue to learn to be a safer and more ethical climber. I hope this can be a situation we can all learn from, I learned to be more careful and more polite when rappelling. And it just stinks that things could have been talked about and both me and joe could have learned more about making the climbing world a safer place. Again, I would rather not argue, and Im sorry that you guys felt disrespected and annoyed by my party. Cheers!

Thanks Shep,

I think legally Joe 'assaulted' you and if it had been me I would have pressed charges. As you said there are opportunities for us all to be better and more courteous climbers and disagreements should be handled without getting physical.

Agreed, thanks Ralph for handling the situation tactfully. Also, thanks for your feedback and remarks on what I should have done better. Happy climbing to you and your clan. Maybe joe will see this forum and him and I could shake hands, get a beer, and work things out. I hate for there to be separation between climbers.

So "Joe," if you see this, shoot me a PM!

You have come to the Internet for advice on the situation. I cannot advise you how to deal with being tackled. But now that we know both sides we can look at the whole situation more objectively. For some reason when people yell rope they think that carte blanche to just toss it wherever whenever. This is very unfortunate. Last year I saw a guy get hit in the head with a huge bundle of rope at turkey rocks while on lead because some jackass needed to toss his rope off the top to set up a top rope on a super busy Saturday with A party on every route. Instead he could've Coiled the rope and clipped it to him and wrap partway and dropped it only when he could see the coast was clear. When he reached the ground I said dude WTF do you know you just hit that guy in the head with the rope? He said I yelled rope! I told him you can't really get out of the way when you're on lead even if someone yells rope. He paused for a moment and said point taken. It sounds like you knew there were lots of people below you. You could've done the same.

Yelling rock is the same type of thing. It does not give you carte blanche to just drop rocks on people. Yelling rock is a last second effort to save people down below when you accidentally knock something loose despite being very careful not to do so. It does not give you permission to knock rocks down. It would've been better to alert the people below that you were wrapping the route before you even started to set up. People wearing helmets below really has nothing to do with it. People can choose to wear helmets or not. Again people wearing Helmets does not give you carte blanche to knock rocks off. You can still get injured by rockfall even if you're wearing a helmet.

Although the older guy tackling you may not have been the best response he's probably just tired of all the BS that he sees these days. You know things like pissing on other people on the Elspur, dropping ropes on people attribute rock, playing loud music on multi pitch in black velvet Canyon, the list goes on and it seems like there are more inconsiderate climbers out there than ever baby it's just because it's getting super crowded. Rant over.

Thanks Greg. I felt like I was doing my best. I did coil the ropes at my side at one point, then at the last rap station we pulled the rope through chains above and the rope fell on to the climbers below. I had looked a minute or two before I pulled it and there was no one climbing but by the time I pulled it they were back on the route. A lot of assuming on my part, which is my fault. We all know what happens when we assume things... It hurts people. Like I said I'm learning to be more courteous and safe when at the crag, I think we all are. Thanks for your feedback!

As a suggestion before you pull your rope you could say to the climbers below hey we are about to pull rope are you guys okay with that instead of waiting till the last second when your rope is zipping through the anchors.

I was also in the party of four mentioned in this thread. As I thought about this whole scenario over the last day, the irony of "Joe's" behavior came to light. Despite his safety concerns, he created a VERY unsafe situation by his attack on Shep. My husband was the climber on lead and I'm grateful to Ralph for keeping his cool while belaying my husband despite a quickly escalating situation about 6 feet away from him. If Shep had retaliated or things got any more physical they could have easily impacted Ralph's ability to belay.

"Joe," if you're reading this thread, I'd suggest you reconsider your approach to educating the next generation of climbers.

Sorry you experienced this, Shep. Reading about this pisses me off. Joe is an asshole, plain and simple.

Edit: Joe needs a good beatdown. Not my style, but I'd be happy to watch.

LankyLab wrote:I was also in the party of four mentioned in this thread. As I thought about this whole scenario over the last day, the irony of "Joe's" behavior came to light. Despite his safety concerns, he created a VERY unsafe situation by his attack on Shep. My husband was the climber on lead and I'm grateful to Ralph for keeping his cool while belaying my husband despite a quickly escalating situation about 6 feet away from him. If Shep had retaliated or things got any more physical they could have easily impacted Ralph's ability to belay. "Joe," if you're reading this thread, I'd suggest you reconsider your approach to educating the next generation of climbers.

I'd go one step further and say: "Joe", grow the hell up & stop acting like a 15 year old. You could be in jail on assault charges or you could have seriously injured someone or you could have been seriously injured or even killed attacking a stranger (who could have been unstable and possibly armed). What kind of grown 50ish year old man acts like that? Come on man....

Yeah I guess I'm gonna take an opposite approach. Maybe "joe" was out of line with the roughing up. Maybe it wasn't his worst idea. I've been hit by a rope right after I heard "rope" yelled from above. I didn't rough up that party but I did give them a damn good cussing. Problem is they did the same thing a little later in the day, granted without hitting me. Maybe an ass kicking would have learned them. Seems like a memorable thing to have happen.

So tell me Shep, will you look and wait after yelling "rope" from now on? Or just yell and fling the fucker like you were doing?

Answer should dictate future crag practice in who's ass needs a kicking.

You should of down climbed. Who raps after new era? You knew the gods were loose, you knew there were multiple parties below you, (All free thinking human beings able to decide on their own if they should have a helmet on or not.)I'm guessing you knew there were other routes that you could be jeopardizing with your decision to rap off. You also knew that you were the hazard at the crag before the assault because you screamed rock as rocks began to land around or by people...
Like T.Y.S. said I'd learn to respect other climbers by being humble and not justifying your incompetence on a MP forum. If you can't do that better take a self defense class...

I'm sorry that happened, it sounds like you were doing everything right. Some people just get too macho about anything physical.

I'm not going to weigh in on who's right or wrong. I'm not going to write down whether I think physical harm should be handed down due to Shep's selfishness and rude comments.

I will say, and this is speaking from experience, that when you get into a fight in the woods help is far away. There's no police to rescue you from yourself. There's no running your mouth just so security can break it up before you get your ass kicked. So when you do something stupid in the woods ,from doing dumb shit to get your ass kicked to thinking you're going to do the ass kicking only to find out you were wrong, you can get more than you bargained for with no way out.

This should remind everyone to treat others like they wanna be treated. This way no one has their body or pride hurt. Not to mention their wallet hurt when they pay restitution and take a day off work for court.. Again experience and stuff.