When do you say something at the gym/crag?

Hank Caylor wrote: So many pages I didn't read them all. As an EMT, seeing people climbing with wedding bands on there finger freaks me out. Do yourself a favor and DON'T Google "ring avulsion. Funny thing is, I almost always get told to buzz off. I'm not a dick about it at all, just saying, but generally not appreciated.

I met a guy missing a ring finger from sliding down a half pipe. Caught his ring on a screw that was less than flush with the wood.

MisterE Wolfe wrote:

Pulling NO punches, haha! But wait, seriously - has anyone ever talked about this? It seems fresh and legit?

We only harvest the freshest of lulz here at MountainProdge Farms.

At the gym never,that's the staffs job to watch the nobs.. At the Crag only if they are gonna die. 

Greg D wrote:

I really didn't want to post on this thread till I saw this dumb shit.  (not the earbuds) 

Similar story:  At Turkey Perch a few years ago, a very busy day.  This is a crag packed with single pitch gear routes, no top anchors.  Most people climb the pitch, build an anchor, belay their partner up and do the easy walk off.  Some dumb shit walks to the top, builds and anchor, yells rope and tosses it into the crowds.  Turns out, he built the anchor above someone on lead.  His bundled up rope hit the leader in the head.  The leader hung on, kept his cool, and kept climbing, although he was pissed.  When said dumb shit rapped down I laid into him in the most polite but firm way I could.  He responded "But I yelled rope".  You dumb fuck is what I want to say, but I didn't.  You hit that leader in the head.  He couldn't get out of the way.  Just because you yell rope, doesn't give you Carte Blanche to toss your rope wherever you feel like it, especially when you already know there is a crowd of people below.  He looked around, paused for a second and said, "Point Taken".  You could just lower your rope slowly or saddle bag it, rap most of the way, and drop it when you get close to the ground.  You asked for my thoughts.  Rant over.

Had basically the same thing happen, but at the gunks.  Leader was on Double Chin, which isn't even a route that is normally toproped without first being led.  The lady that threw the rope said we were rude for not pulling our rope and letting them toprope it.  He wasn't even done leading it when she started telling me to pull our rope.  It was one of the weirdest interactions I have ever had at the cliff. I am sure she thought I was weirdo too because I said almost nothing in response.  I was just dumbfounded that I was even having the conversation, I basically couldn't come up with anything except, "no, we are not in a position to pull our rope."

I mainly stick to the Nears now.  If I climb at the Trapps, I try to go at odd times or go really deep on the cliffline.

Greg D wrote:

I really didn't want to post on this thread till I saw this dumb shit.  (not the earbuds) 

Similar story:  At Turkey Perch a few years ago, a very busy day.  This is a crag packed with single pitch gear routes, no top anchors.  Most people climb the pitch, build an anchor, belay their partner up and do the easy walk off.  Some dumb shit walks to the top, builds and anchor, yells rope and tosses it into the crowds.  Turns out, he built the anchor above someone on lead.  His bundled up rope hit the leader in the head.  The leader hung on, kept his cool, and kept climbing, although he was pissed.  When said dumb shit rapped down I laid into him in the most polite but firm way I could.  He responded "But I yelled rope".  You dumb fuck is what I want to say, but I didn't.  You hit that leader in the head.  He couldn't get out of the way.  Just because you yell rope, doesn't give you Carte Blanche to toss your rope wherever you feel like it, especially when you already know there is a crowd of people below.  He looked around, paused for a second and said, "Point Taken".  You could just lower your rope slowly or saddle bag it, rap most of the way, and drop it when you get close to the ground.  You asked for my thoughts.  Rant over.

 I got a story like that but.. dude got heckled so bad he pulled the rope back up and disappeared. At least the guy in my story realized his mistake.

Greg D wrote:

I really didn't want to post on this thread till I saw this dumb shit.  (not the earbuds) 

Similar story:  At Turkey Perch a few years ago, a very busy day.  This is a crag packed with single pitch gear routes, no top anchors.  Most people climb the pitch, build an anchor, belay their partner up and do the easy walk off.  Some dumb shit walks to the top, builds and anchor, yells rope and tosses it into the crowds.  Turns out, he built the anchor above someone on lead.  His bundled up rope hit the leader in the head.  The leader hung on, kept his cool, and kept climbing, although he was pissed.  When said dumb shit rapped down I laid into him in the most polite but firm way I could.  He responded "But I yelled rope".  You dumb fuck is what I want to say, but I didn't.  You hit that leader in the head.  He couldn't get out of the way.  Just because you yell rope, doesn't give you Carte Blanche to toss your rope wherever you feel like it, especially when you already know there is a crowd of people below.  He looked around, paused for a second and said, "Point Taken".  You could just lower your rope slowly or saddle bag it, rap most of the way, and drop it when you get close to the ground.  You asked for my thoughts.  Rant over.

That is inexcusable. Bears little resemblance to the situation I had, but I agree with you 100%. I've had ropes thrown on me before while leading(old folks dome in Sylvan Lakes) and didn't like it. But I should have explained better so you wouldn't get upset. 

-The group below us were entirely expecting the ropes, they were waiting to climb on them

- lowering ropes slowly would not be possible on the cliff I was on...too many places to get hung up, you need to give them at least a little toss, they landed about three feet out from the cliff face, and it wasn't the entire coil.

-rappelling was impossible in my case, since my harness wasn't with me, and there is a good deal of scree near the lip I would rather not kick down.

And you missed my point entirely. which was that when in place that things might hit you in the head if you aren't marginally situationally aware, you should probably pay a little attention, or Darwin will get you.

So I know you wanted me to be some idiot that you could say was a "dumb shit"(and my wife would agree), but I think your jumping to conclusions paints you as a reactionary, which you probably aren't.

I am not against listening to music or having a good time, but I think being present in the moment is also a good idea, so as to not get beaned on the head with something.  

Ciao

Jake Jones wrote:

Hahaha, you warned me but I didn't listen.  Why don't I ever listen?

Or just do like my friend and instead of a physical ring he just has a wedding tattoo ring.

Buck Rio wrote:

That is inexcusable. Bears little resemblance to the situation I had, but I agree with you 100%. I've had ropes thrown on me before while leading(old folks dome in Sylvan Lakes) and didn't like it. But I should have explained better so you wouldn't get upset. 

-The group below us were entirely expecting the ropes, they were waiting to climb on them

- lowering ropes slowly would not be possible on the cliff I was on...too many places to get hung up, you need to give them at least a little toss, they landed about three feet out from the cliff face, and it wasn't the entire coil.

-rappelling was impossible in my case, since my harness wasn't with me, and there is a good deal of scree near the lip I would rather not kick down.

And you missed my point entirely. which was that when in place that things might hit you in the head if you aren't marginally situationally aware, you should probably pay a little attention, or Darwin will get you.

So I know you wanted me to be some idiot that you could say was a "dumb shit"(and my wife would agree), but I think your jumping to conclusions paints you as a reactionary, which you probably aren't.

I am not against listening to music or having a good time, but I think being present in the moment is also a good idea, so as to not get beaned on the head with something.  

Ciao

Buck, thanks for the explanation.  And I didn’t miss your point. Carry on. 

eli poss wrote:

Climb like Frodo. Bear the ring around your neck.

That's exactly what we both do. They hang on necklaces.

Was soloing ice with a friend at clear creek. instead of doing the five minute walk off from the first pitch of the climb a guy decided to rappel. He rappelled on me. I was in clear view, he hit me with the rope then when he got close I was like could you please just not for a minute. Kept rapping. I down soloed. It was just a pain. And yes I know that is to be kinda expected climbing so close to Denver. Just dumb.

Yeah the "ROPE!" thing gets me too. Yelling ROPE and then immediately throwing your rope defeats the purpose of yelling. You yell ROPE and then wait to make sure nobody is below you. You gotta give people time to get out of the way or yell back that it's not safe to throw.

I'm gonna make a YT video of me just walking up to random people, yelling rope, and then immediately throwing some rope in their face. It's both funny AND educational!

FourT6and2 ... wrote: Yeah the "ROPE!" thing gets me too. Yelling ROPE and then immediately throwing your rope defeats the purpose of yelling. You yell ROPE and then wait to make sure nobody is below you. You gotta give people time to get out of the way or yell back that it's not safe to throw.

I'm gonna make a YT video of me just walking up to random people, yelling rope, and then immediately throwing some rope in their face. It's both funny AND educational!

Come to NY and hang out near some Gunks classics on a weekend, you could just film without even instigating the trouble.

I was climbing in Red Rocks a couple years back and after finishing our climb I was watching the party next to us climb.  The person climbing was cleaning the anchors on a 30 ft climb and from my angle it looked as though they completely untied without anchoring themselves and threaded the anchors and then tied back in and was then lowered.  It was a descent ledge on a moderately angled slab but I still couldn't  believe what I had just seen.  When the climber got down I casually walked up and said I don't mean to bother you but from my angle I could not tell if you had anchored yourself before untying and threading the anchor.  They we very quick to tell that of course they had.  I said my piece and went back to packing up and started to hike out.  As we passed by the climbing group the climber caught up to me quick and said after thinking about it they actually think they had forgot to anchor themselves and I could tell they were quite shaken up by it.  I just told them nobody got hurt and its something you will never forget and to this day It still gives me the shivers thinking about it.  They will probably never forget again.  By speaking up I turned a close call into a situation we both learned from and will never forget.

Sorry if this is to far from page one

T Roper wrote:

Hello fellow Darwinist!

I used to be fully hands off/walk away, then one day a body dropped off the cliff and almost landed on people in our party by about 5' , now I speak up more often.

??? Was this a Gunks thing? somewhere near Drunkards Delight ?  Bastille Day 7/14/94(?)                                                                                                                                                         The poor kid, I don't think the reasons were ever made public?   there were some Heros who, having not been witness to the fall, so less tramitized, tried to jumped on the CPR,  We who had seen & HEARD the fall felt it was. . . ., there was a lot of spilled gray matter. . . . .but it was a heroic effort.    Dave was from Ridgefield CT. He was just starting to make his own soft goods(?often speculated as source of failure, but it was the "Only 1 Loop/bite of rope thru the device?)He was young, strong  & was going to be instrumental in opening a gym & climbing business .

When I've seen it, I have always inserted myself into situations where the level of incompetence threatens TO RUIN EVERYONE'S DAY.

Hey Roper!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 glad it wasn't you at theGunks that day, now i need to go touch some rock, this has given me the "willies'

Michael Schneider wrote: Sorry if this is to far from page one

??? Was this a Gunks thing? somewhere near Drunkards Delight ?  Bastille Day 7/14/94(?)                                                                                                                                                         The poor kid, I don't think the reasons were ever made public?   there were some Heros who, having not been witness to the fall, so less tramitized, tried to jumped on the CPR,  We who had seen & HEARD the fall felt it was. . . ., there was a lot of spilled gray matter. . . . .but it was a heroic effort.    Dave was from Ridgefield CT. He was just starting to make his own soft goods and was going to be instrumental in opening a gym & climbing business .

When I've seen it, I have always inserted myself into situations where the level of incompetence threatens TO RUIN EVERYONE'S DAY

It was at some tiny CT crag 2-3 years ago. Bodies dropping can hurt someone besides the somebody that is dropping. That day it was two kids who were chilling at the base when the body dropped.

I’ve said something a few times including one where someone asked to go off belay with a failed attempt of a clove hitch as an anchor. They were happy I said something.

Thanks to all yall looking out for people!  We all make mistakes and thats why climbing with a good partner is critical.  Another set of eyes checking over everything and re-evaluate the results. And if you see someones partner might suck, help them out.  

The main reason Not to say something when you believe someone could get hurt is how you would feel if they give you pushback.

If saving someone from injury or death is more important to you, than you should probably speak out.

You may be saving more people than you think as the practitioner of a bad technique could be passing them on to others. 

I usually speak up if I'm confident that something is wrong. If the person seems receptive I ask if they want me to show them how to fix the problem. I try to approach people in a way that doesn't embarrass them to maximize my chances of a positive response. I would want someone to tell me if I was getting something wrong.

Last week I pointed out to someone at the gym that they had their harness on upside down. They asked how I could tell, said thanks, and then fixed it.

On two occasions I've let people with really egregious anchors know that they weren't being safe. In both situations the parties said something along the lines of "we were done climbing anyway" and didn't want suggestions on how to do it better in the future. You win some, you lose some. I don't want someone to get hurt when I could have prevented it but I also can't fix everything.

I'm glad this post got bumped I just picked up a story regarding this.

I was out at the crag with my good buddy and in the same area was either a school group or a camp group or something. It had 2-3 adults and roughly 5-7 kids, so certainly not a bad ratio. Anyways, one of the adults was leading a sport route with one of the students/kids belaying him with a grigri. Looking over I noticed that the kid belaying him wasn't looking up at the adult and only had his right hand holding the grigri with his thumb across the camming device so it couldn't activate, while not holding the brake end of the rope. Obviously not a good belay, but by the time I had noticed it the adult was already at the top of the route and placing quickdraws for it to be top-roped. He called out to his belayer and was safely lowered from there.

A few minutes after this I approached the adult and quietly explained what I had saw to him for two reasons. 1. If that were me I would want to know if my belayer was doing something unsafe while I was climbing. 2. I didn't think the instructors would appreciate a random stranger approaching a kid that they were responsible for. The adult took it well and replied with "well its his first time lead belaying so we will be sure to go over the process with the group". We then left it at that and wished each other a good day.

I know this isn't a crazy story but I think it's a good example of how approaching people can go right and just wanted to share.