Dumb things other climbers have said

After being tight roped for a few clips in a row, a frustrated leader finally yells to his belayer, "Slack, Asshole!!!"

The belayer responds, "You have a what?"

Overheard in Squamish: "... I can't get my knee up, cause I'm too #$@%ing old!"

Girl is about to rappel down Stolen Chimney with her belay device clipped through her tie in points and no prussic in the dark. I comment, "maybe you should put on a prussic; this thing is pretty much a mud castle.. loose rock everywhere" she calmly replies, "whats a prussic?"

After it takes her friend 1.5 hours to do 1 double rope rap from the top of the chimney (wrong rappel beta), she calmly slides down the chimney and goes off rappel at anchor 1 and tries to pull the rope. Rope stuck. Y'all should have seen the double backed up cluster bomb they tied their ropes together with. Somehow her friend is on the ground (must have down climbed off the end of the 2 ropes) and is yelling non-sense commands at us. Eventually we do some rope finagling work and chuck their ropes off the anchor. We slide down to the 1st anchor and this girl is just standing there not tied into anything. She wants to rappel down in the dark with no prussic and try and free the stuck ropes. Since we didn't want to see anyone get fucked up we threw their stuck ropes off the side of the wall and get her to slide down our ropes and give her a fireman.

Most mind boggling thing is this girl had zero sense of panic or worries at all - it was 10pm and getting cold - 2+ hours into a 200 ft rappel.

John Byrnes wrote: "Take", for example, comes from sport climbing. Have you learned that one Greg? Have you been climbing long enough to remember the first time you heard "take"?

Yes, M’Lordship, I remember very well the first time I heard “take.” It was at Reynolds Hill at Vedauwoo in 1990. My partner was about 50’ up when she yelled “Take”. I wondered for a moment what she was saying, but since the speed of the rope through the belay device indicated a fall, I tightened my grip on the rope. She went about 20’ before the fall was arrested and then she started swearing at me about why I didn’t “take” when she shouted. It took a few minutes before I understood that “take” was supposed to mean “tension.” When I said, “Why didn’t you just say tension?”, I was subjected to more verbal abuse.

These days when I climb with those new to outdoor climbing, I warn them that if they are climbing with an old person and if they hear “tension”, it means “take”.
The new terminology that I find most amusing is “dirt me”.

Rob.calm

rob.calm wrote: Yes, M’Lordship, I remember very well the first time I heard “take.” It was at Reynolds Hill at Vedauwoo in 1990. My partner was about 50’ up when she yelled “Take”. I wondered for a moment what she was saying, but since the speed of the rope through the belay device indicated a fall, I tightened my grip on the rope. She went about 20’ before the fall was arrested and then she started swearing at me about why I didn’t “take” when she shouted. It took a few minutes before I understood that “take” was supposed to mean “tension.” When I said, “Why didn’t you just say tension?”, I was subjected to more verbal abuse. These days when I climb with those new to outdoor climbing, I warn them that if they are climbing with an old person and if they hear “tension”, it means “take”. The new terminology that I find most amusing is “dirt me”. Rob.calm

Hey Rob!

Yup, it was about that time that I heard it too and my reaction was about the same except my leader didn't fall.

And although I regularly use "Dirt" as a command, I usually have to smile when I say it.

i always cringe when i hear someone yell " i am safe!" when they get to the anchor. it makes them sound like an overly optimistic beginner...

slim wrote:i always cringe when i hear someone yell " i am safe!" when they get to the anchor. it makes them sound like an overly optimistic beginner...

Isn't that a pretty common thing to say?

slim wrote:i always cringe when i hear someone yell " i am safe!" when they get to the anchor. it makes them sound like an overly optimistic beginner...

Brits and Aussies?

Joel Allen wrote: Isn't that a pretty common thing to say?

apparently it is now... seems like maybe the last 2 or 3 years.

as for brits and aussies, it's usually just some random profanity but the general tone in which they apply it get's the message across.

for the most part, as long as you and you're partner are on the same page that's probably the most important thing. when i climb long routes with my main partner we don't really even use verbal commands. why wreck the peace and quiet with a bunch of yodeling back and forth.

We used to use:

Are you Reggie Jackson? (Are you ready/on belay?)

You're Ron Jeremy. (You're on belay)

Climbing.

Climb Ron.

you could almost be british - just need to substitute a famous cricket player (oxymoron, i know...) for reggie jackson.

Funny thing a climber (a guide) yelled:

"I'm awfully gay!"

upon reaching the belay where me and my partner were preparing to climb the next pitch

TBlom wrote:We used to use: Are you Reggie Jackson? (Are you ready/on belay?) You're Ron Jeremy. (You're on belay) Climbing. Climb Ron.

SO GOOD

frank minunni wrote:I was climbing in the Daks with a couple of friends and scoping out a new line. As we're looking at it, Doc says "We can scamper up to the overhanging crack and see what it's like." As it turned out, the "Scamper" turned out to be a 12a mantle onto a sloping 6 inch shelf. "Scamper" has since been stricken from our lexicon. Here's another: Climbing at the Devil's tower and on the way in a couple asks us what all that stuff is for. "We're going to climb the tower." I said. "Really." the guy said. "Why are you climbing the tower?" "Phone line's down up top. We're going to fix it." "Oh." he said. "Now it makes sense."

I enjoyed this as well.

Sadly, I got to the last page of this. Crying tears of laughter here at work on this thread.

One of the dumbest things I've experienced, was at the very beginning of my climbing "career". My partner, and now very beloved friend, on teaching me how to lead belay. All he told me was to"pay out slack when I'm above my gear."

Luckily, he was a strong climber on a 5.9. Also luckily, an old timer was nearby to see our idiocy and correct the ten feet of slack at my feet.
Wow, still makes me cringe/laugh.
Got a lot of shit for that one. Occasionally I continue to get shit for it.
Rightly so.

Downtownt wrote: SO GOOD Sadly, I got to the last page of this. Crying tears of laughter here at work on this thread.

You've got to be fun to hang out with...You are easily amused.

slim wrote:i always cringe when i hear someone yell " i am safe!" when they get to the anchor. it makes them sound like an overly optimistic beginner...

One Brit here.

We normally just shout "Safe!"

I guess some people might go for "I'm safe!"

But I really like this idea of going for "I AM safe" as a way of convincing myself that I might not die at least for the next half an hour. However:

On a serious note, "safe" and "take" sound surprisingly similar over any distance. A friend fell 30m in Chamonix this summer when he said "take" and his belayer took the belay device off because she thought he had said "safe". Ended up with various busted bits and a stay in hospital. I've had the same thing happen do me, but descended more slowly due to friction though the runners. "Safe" should be banned.

I was bouldering at Governor Dodge State Park. We were carrying our pads past a campsite, and the people asked what the pads were for. We told them we were going rock climbing and we used the pads to land on in case we fell, to which we got the response:

"Oh, so you wear those pads on your back while you climb."

Jimbo wrote:Me to my climbing buddy as he is belaying someone we have never climbed with before: So is that new narcolepsy med working better than the old one?? Me every time I see someone struggling on a sport route: Be careful we loose a lot of climbers on that route every year. Me as someone climbs a new route we have put up: Boy we sure saved a bunch of money using those pewter bolts instead of stainless didn't we!!

Me climbing above someone giving me shit: "look! It's snowing! (Dumps contents of chalk bag on his head)

At Brooklyn Boulders, which has an annoying policy of fixing GriGris to every toprope with cheap screw gates...

Me to gym employee: Hey, just to let you know, the carabiners on these GriGris have been jamming up a lot.
Gym employee: Oh, just don't tighten them all the way...

Alex Zucca wrote:I was bouldering at Governor Dodge State Park. We were carrying our pads past a campsite, and the people asked what the pads were for. We told them we were going rock climbing and we used the pads to land on in case we fell, to which we got the response: "Oh, so you wear those pads on your back while you climb."

I've also heard this before but I prefer "we're members of the narcoleptic hiking society."

old guy at crag:

"isn't it too early to be drinking beer?"

idiot