What is the longest, scariest runout you've had?

While the climbing feels really secure, if you don't have a 6" cam or something else huge, the 3rd pitch (?) of Great White Book in Tuolumne is basically a free solo. I managed to get a 5" to stick, but it was totally tipped out and would not hold a fall I imagined.
Fortunately the climbing feels really secure albeit a bit awkward. I don't recall being that scared because once you start up there's no way you'd want to downclimb.

I've been much more scared on alpine routes where the top is very steep and unconsolidated snow and you've got maybe a psychological picket in somewhere between you and the anchor.

Last summer I lead the 2nd pitch of a climb on the east side, Serious but Not Desperate and there is a good bit of 5.9ish slab climbing well above the crux protecting bolt. All the while you are teased with a HUGE ledge if only you can keep it together for one or two more smeary moves. I recall being very relieved upon reaching that ledge.

bergbryce wrote: Great White Book in Tuolumne is basically a free solo.

+1

Toxic Shroom Syndrome

Sometime back in the mid 80’s we had an especially long and drawn out winter.
We hardly climbed other than occasional bouldering sessions at Morison.
My primary climbing partner in those days was Maurice Reed.
We were planning a road trip to somewhere with better weather.
After hearing about our plans our friend Pierrette wanted to go.She was a great cook and had some cash to help with expenses.
This put us with a party of three so we set out to find a forth.
After exhausting all of our usual possibilities Maurice said,” How about Johnny Rotten? He‘s always up for something”.

We go over to where John was living at the time.
His truck was parked in the street out in front of the house.
We left a note on the door. GOING CLIMBING NEED A FOURTH, J-TREE/RR.
There had been a lot of snow that year and the shady side of John’s truck still had a drift against it. There were no tire tracks. It obviously hadn’t been moved in a very long time. In passing we peeked in the passenger window. Maurice said,” Man check this out!” I looked inside and laughed when I noticed that out of the debris and dirt on the flour there were a number of healthy 6 to 8 inch plants growing directly out of the carpet.

John found the note and he was totally up for a climbing trip. His only request was that when we were in Vegas he would like to sit in on a poker game or two just to offset his expenses. Maurice, Pierrette or myself knew nothing about John’s poker interests so we said, “sure no problem”.

With our team assembled we maintained the van and packed the camping and climbing gear for a great early spring climbing road trip.
Our first stop was going to be Indian Creek near Moab but it was so cold that we decided to keep going to Las Vegas.

We pulled on to the strip and John asked if we could stop at a casino just to look around a bit.
The next thing we knew he was absorbed a game and we couldn’t get his attention. When we finally got him to acknowledge us it was way late and he said that he was on a streak and if we would bear with him he was sure that he would make enough to pay for all the expenses for the trip.
Well,we wound up sleeping on the parking lot of the casino that night.
At daylight there was a knock on the door of the van and it was John ready to go climb.

This scenario went on for the whole trip. Several times we dropped John off at the casino in the evening and picked him up in the morning. There was no such thing as just a few hands with John on that trip.

We did quite a few notable first assents on that trip. In fact everything we climbed was ether a new route or we had no knowledge of it being climbed.
Back in those days there was no guide book to Red Rocks.
Also in those days Red Rocks was not a park. It was rugged, drive anywhere, unimproved trails out in the desert.

I woke at dawn one morning to the sound of automatic weapon fire right next to our camp.
There was a Cadillac convertible with the top down parked no more than 50 yards away from our van. Standing next to the Caddie was a guy the size of a box car dressed in a business suit with a machine gun in his hand and he was just mooowin the desert down with blasts of gun fire.
We hunkered down in our sleeping bags and prayed that he would go away.
Maurice and Pierrette were having mild desert romance so John and I usually teamed up for climbing after he had played cards all night.
He never minded taking his leads but was more than happy to second when I wanted the sharp end. Back in those days I was somewhat of a lead hog any way.

One particular climb that still stands out that John and I did on that trip was in Oak Creek Canyon.
The details of the first pitches are a blur but the final pitch will stay in my quiver of unique climbing memories.
This pitch was Johns lead.
The climbing up to this point had been on those solid dark purple, almost black, mushroom holds that are unique to Red Rocks.
The pitch before was mine and the shrooms had been getting exponentially lighter in color and protection scarcer by the meter. In fact I had a hard time finding enough pieces to construct a sound belay when I finished the lead.
At this point I expressed to John,” I think we should bail and leave all this stuff in as anchors!”
John wasn’t having any of that and started setting up the rack for the next pitch!
He set out climbing on brown shrooms and getting very little gear in. The further he climbed the gear got scarcer and the shroom holds got lighter in color.
I didn’t mention that we had NO bolt kit.
Silently John calculated the hold sequences and face climbed with smooth deliberate progress.
He never backed down or even looked down.
That’s when it started to rain!
Not water, but, white sandstone mushrooms!
Every time he unweighted a hold to move to the next one it fell away!
I was terrified by the fact that he hadn’t placed a single protection placement for a very long time.
The dynamics of a leader fall from that far out would have ripped my belay anchors right out of the rock.
Every hold that he unweighted dislodged and to make matters worse he was nearly out of rope.
It seemed the he was way past half rope since he placed a piece.
At one point the thought of untying from the rope crossed my mind.
I held on in stupefied silence for what seemed like a long time to me. Finally I heard him say that he was off belay.
I didn’t even ask what the belay anchor was like. I just pulled the gear and started climbing.
The same thing happened as I climbed but a lot sooner. Each hold that I used popped from the face as I unweighted it all the way to the belay ledge!
He had found some cracks for a belay so I was protected while seconding that pitch. We found good rappel anchors for the decent.

Around the fire that night I asked if John if he minded calling the route, “Toxic Shroom Syndrome”.

Not considering free solos, the hardest was probably 10b, with two bolts spaced 10 feet apart, about 60ft up over 100ft of amazing (read terrifying) slab climbing. Quartz Mountain, OK. Twice on that climb I looked down and said to my belayer "watch out, and get ready to get to the car and get some help." and thouroughly meant it. I made it after a long time contemplating the crystalline structure of everything in sight.

Good to see a few Organ mentions. Love that area. You haven't been scared until you've climbed The Tooth, by any route really. Rusty old quarter inchers all 40 feet apart with some of the best granite you'll ever find.

Sugarloaf is a great route. It was my first multipitch, and I was the strongest leader in the group of 3 (horrible planning). It turned into a cluster when a hail/ rain storm came in and soaked the entire face essentially turning it into a runout water slide. We bailed down the side the first chance we got. There are some really long runs between gear depending on how you climb it. I've done it three times since and each time been over 100ft a few times. One time I climbed it with 14 pieces of gear (plus some rusty bolts and one anchor from chicken heads) over the entire 9 pitches including anchors.

Huge props to rgold and Don S. on the Needle's Eye, and rgold's recounting of the first ascent.

I did the Needle's Eye in 1985 or so, when I was barely breaking into leading 5.10. Interestingly, I had just left my job with a company where Don S. also worked. I had no idea that he had been a bad ass Needles hard man BITD. I was back in the Needles a few years ago--I looked at the route and passed on it, even though I'm a stronger climber than I was 25 years ago.

Scariest in the moment: up high on Elephantiasis, just left(?) of B cubed, traversed too late. Pro gets sparse, wall gets steep..had to edge across 30 feet of those little crumbly flakes you could peel with your fingernail.

Scariest looking back: Started up The Point thinking it was Warpaint... First pitch seemed soft for 10c, second pitch belay ledge turns out to be a heel smear/butt smear equalized with two questionable tricams. The next pitch was a dooozy, starting with a good cam 30 feet up, making me think I Might not die, 80 feet across a holdless (but course) slab, finally spotting the bolts on the blank 4th? pitch on Warpaint.... almost home free, but for the little tuolumne-like edges and the growing ropedrag, pretty desperate moves. NEVER want to go back to that one, dubbed the Accidental Tourist

Ten feet on a brand shiny new #4, solid 5.5 climbing. I wasn't that scared.

tuolumne!!!!! almost anything on a face......the first flatiron...hallet peak in rmnp.....goodrich pinnacle on glacier point apron.....the bulge in eldorado canyon......white punks on dope at the needles....the first pitch of crying time again on lembert dome when you cant find any/all the bolts.....that can be FUN!!!!

mine was this past winter in hyalite canyon.

it was early season and i was psyched to push it, sort of a bad combo. anyways we had about an 1.5 hour approach to this climb called slight of hand (4) even though it looked easy my partner handed the lead over to me. after about 50 feet of sketchy but low angle window payne (sheet of ice over facets) i got to the crux column of the route .

i climbed up a couple of feet to realize that all of the the ice was really aerated, not a big deal it was easy climbing. so i place an 'psychological' screw and continued. little did i know there was a 5 foot section between the ice and snowy top-out of blank rock, and dry moss that was obscured by the snow.

Needless to say i was not psyched, i was pumped already from trying to chop away aerated ice to get a good screw and didn't know how to pass this section. luckily there was a branch sticking down from the topout that i was able to reach. i stuck one tool in the shitty ice, grabbed the branch and tried to step up. however, my elvis leg depleted all of the purchase of my other frontpoint. so there i was dangling with one tool flailing in the air and my other arm grabbing onto a tree branch, i dont know how i held on.

on the way up my partner was able to yank two of my screws out (like not turn unscrew them) because the sun had come out since i had started. it wouldn't have been pretty had i not been able to hold onto that branch.

this was really funk early season ice that i hadn't really ever encountered again. its like it had not structure.

...More than I can remember, but here's a few:

Kemosabe, Red Rock
Headstone, SW Corner, Joshua Tree
The Misunderstanding, Red Rock
Lotta Balls, Red Rock
3rd Flatiron solo

There's this black 11c at the gym and the crux move is a lot easier if you skip the clip for it. By the time you get to your next clip you're a good 7 feet above your last one. I always have to remember to breathe.

Austin Baird wrote:There's this black 11c at the gym and the crux move is a lot easier if you skip the clip for it. By the time you get to your next clip you're a good 7 feet above your last one. I always have to remember to breathe.

YER Gonna DIE!!!! that sounds way runout.

I stepped higher than a bolt once, but kept my cool. The toprope made me feel safe. :) Pretty bold!

John Hegyes wrote:...More than I can remember, but here's a few: Kemosabe, Red Rock Headstone, SW Corner, Joshua Tree The Misunderstanding, Red Rock Lotta Balls, Red Rock 3rd Flatiron solo

SW Corner of Headstone is not runout....

About 100 ft. out on a .75 on the N. Face of Nez Perce in the Tetons. There's more details here. Had nightmares for a few days afterwards.

I haven't been leading long enough to run anything out and I consider a 1' of TR slack too much. But here's one I remember reading that was fun (5.9 SCARY - haha, no thanks)
supertopo.com/climbing/thre…

Black Walk in Eldo sure got my attention. Walking on the Moon on the front side of Hueco Tanks also. Back in the day that had one shallow pink or red tri-cam to protect the first pitch. And almost any face climb at Quartz Mt. will have you talking to yourself to maintain your footwork or take a long cheese grating fall.

crankenstein wrote:Black Walk in Eldo sure got my attention.

Lots of contenders there... Anyone else find 'Space Invaders' to be kinda creepy?

bergbryce wrote:While the climbing feels really secure, if you don't have a 6" cam or something else huge, the 3rd pitch (?) of Great White Book in Tuolumne is basically a free solo. I managed to get a 5" to stick, but it was totally tipped out and would not hold a fall I imagined. Fortunately the climbing feels really secure albeit a bit awkward. I don't recall being that scared because once you start up there's no way you'd want to downclimb.

Ha, hey Brice. John totally tried to get me to do that this last weekend! I ended up doing West Country (had some good 20-30 foot runouts) instead just because my girl wanted to lead some crack. It seems like just about all the routes in Tuolumne have a letter after them.

RandyR wrote: SW Corner of Headstone is not runout....

Runouts are going to feel relative depending on your skill and experience. Having said that, SW Corner is pretty runout for it's grade. If you're a solid .10 trad climber, it'll be mellow. If you're breaking into trad, it'll probably feel pretty run.