Teenage Near-Misses

Was reading an old thread and saw this regarding a 16 year old wanting to road trip.

"I know that there is no way this can possibly sink into your testosterone-flooded brain, but I would bet that 95% of all the men on MP have had several lucky-to-be-alive episodes from our teen years"

Thought that this could be a fun story time hearing all the sketchy shit that people got away with, climbing related or not.

I'm not too far out from that age myself (and I don't pretend I'm "out of the woods" yet) but I'll start it out: while trying to do a 14ers linkup in CO I found myself bouncing down a scree field, solo, at 6pm at 13k feet on the backside of Mt. Elbert after the large scree boulder that I stepped on rolled.  Was tempted by "my first anchor..." but that's almost too low a bar.

Fun times...your turn

I once top roped off of a looped piece of 7mm cord thrown around a sharp horn and was certain that that was totally safe.

In 1993, as a a high school junior with zero climbing experience but a childhood spent slogging up Cascade and Olympic peaks in the rain with Seattle Mountaineer parents, I came into possession of a climbing rope and a bird's nest of webbing. My younger brother and I decided to become rock climbers. After "leading" the trees behind our house, we had all the skills we needed. But where was the rock? We seemed to remember a pristine alpine wall from a hike in the Olympics and so we coaxed my shitty Buick Skylark out to the peninsula where glory certainly awaited. The cliff was an exfoliating roadside choss pile. Perfect! We scrambled around the back and then slid tree-to-tree down through 70-degree, wet forest right to the lip of the cliff, where  the trees petered out in favor of some sort of heather or other scrub, which we dutifully tied off in at least three points before rapelling over the edge. The majority of the cliff came down with us. And I remember the feeling of the anchor "bouncing" as the heather flexed. It started to rain. We climbed and it was every bit as glorious as we thought.

I started climbing when I was 16.  At the time, I really wanted to be an ice climber despite living in western Oregon where there really isn't any.  I bought a pair of BD's first curved shafted axes (blanking on their name) on ebay and oblivious of the fact that I was quite weak and entirely inexperienced, tried as hard as I could to use them.  I distinctly remember climbing an old fir tree in the woods outside of Eugene and baaarely making it to the first branch 25' up with quivering arms and screaming calves.  A year or two later, I went up onto the north side of Hood to crag on some short ice climbs that form up there and took my first ever outdoor whipper.  It was pretty cold and I was still weak and inexperienced.  While trying to place my second screw, the brittle ice dinner plated and sent me for a ride that ended with me sitting slightly confused on a nice soft snow bridge at the base of the route with a small amount of tension on the ropes to my first screw 10' up.  Mercifully I was unharmed and walked away from that one.

A few years later I was cliimbing the North Sister and, on our way down, both my crampons and one hand ripped and left me dangling from one chossy cobble.  There was a small sloping ledge below me that I likely would have catapulted past and launched off of down the west face.  

Somewhere around the same time I was rope soloing at the Skinner Butte Columns in Eugene (using a single Petzl Basic) and got to the top of a mid 5.10 (easiliy my limit at the time) and realized that I'd forgotten to engage the tooth on the single device before starting to climb.  I was far from solid on the route and had been super shaky through the crux.

I'd like to say that as I gained experience and graduated from being a young adult male, the frequency of near misses declined, but in gaining experience I started trying harder and/or bigger objectives and spend more time climbing and in the mountains in general, so they still happen to me a few times a year.  

I was 16 volunteered at a gym and taught people to climb. I decided to take my girlfriend out climbing she had never been. I took her to an easy route and went up top and set an anchor and top rope. I let her climb for a bit and decided to climb something else. I have her a quick belay lesson like I taught at the gym and even climbed a little ways up and let her catch and lower me so she had the idea.  I was wrong about 30’ up I cone to a ledge with a big snake on it and bailed. I yelled falling and instead of locking off the rope she screamed and let go. Hit the deck and spent the next half hour laying on the ground. Luckily no injuries. After that I tore down the anchors and we left.  

I was 16. I Called "off belay" at the top of a 80 foot sport route. I went to lean back on my personal and to my  horror i realized I had not attached it. A moment later the rope came taught and I realized that my belayer had indeed not taken me off belay and his gri gri caught me. I got lucky.

16 was a bad year for me. I had a girlfriend that lived in a community about an hours away from my parents house.  We would always have to wait until her dad went to bed to snog, so that meant I was returning home about 11-12 PM. Well, after delivering newspapers at 4:30 AM, working a day job for Parks and Rec doing landscaping, and then working at McDonald's until 8, I was tired.

One time I fell asleep and woke up with the car in a gravel pull-off meant for utility vehicles doing about 60mph. Only thing that saved me was my 16 year old reflexes.

She broke up with me before the beginning of my senior year.

EDIT:  Some of the dumbest climbing near misses happened to me much later because my objectives had gotten much more serious.  Climbing in Indian Peaks got pretty spicy when my partner dropped one of our ropes, on a route that required two rope rappels...(back when 50m was standard) we could see that it was caught on a small bush about 30 feet below us, so he had me lower him, grabbed the rope end and had to fight his way up pretty blank rock back to the stance we were on. If that rope had not caught on the bush, we would have been screwed.

18. I was at the top of a two pitch rap and I had lowered my partner back to the anchor at the top of the first pitch. I then untied my side and began re-threading. I knew that my partner was on the other end of the rope, so I was only concerned about 'my end' being long enough. I pulled more than enough threw on 'my end' and tossed it. Yep, definitely long enough.

I was almost finished rapping when my partner shouted "STOP!" and held his hand against my back. I looked down and realized that he had untied his end earlier when I had been threading. My brake hand was mere inches from the unknotted end. Would have been 75ft straight to the ground from there.

That was a true communication fuck up. I still think that the onus of blame lies on him, but I made several dangerous assumptions on my own. I got very lucky in the end.

Though maybe the true close call was a few months earlier that year when I had peeled off the side of my dorm building from 25 feet up and landed in some mulch, missing a vertical steel post by about 6 inches.

Probably the couple times of sliding down a steep snowfield towards talus and lucking out at the end both times are top on my list (though both times were in my early twenties). One of those times I had Tevas on my feet...

when I was around 13, i went climbing for the first time outside.  we were toproping, and both my friend and i had very little belaying experience.  i was climbing, and reached the top of a route that finished on a small ledge.  i called down to my friend to make sure he was ready to lower, and he shouted something back, so i assumed that he was.  i stepped backwards off the ledge and plummeted about 20 feet before he got his hand on the brake strand.  turns out he was not ready to lower me, but luckily had the presence of mind to not panic and grab the brake strand.  the route was only around 50 feet, so it would not have been much longer before i decked.  learned the importance of communication real fast lol. 

Digging my own mtn proj grave posting this, haha.

Freshman year I stole my gf’s rope and tried to “rappel” down the spiral staircase in my dorm. Don’t worry I had a mattress on the ground 4 stories below as a backup. 

Obviously had zero climbing/rope experience at the time (no clue what’s going on with the atc/knot/lowering setup, so don’t ask). 10 years later I’ve gotten my shit together, apologized to the ex gf, and became an AMGA SPI certified wilderness EMT. Sharing this embarrassment in good fun and hope you can respond in kind!

19. Went to climb Hyndman Peak in Idaho in June solo. I believed the "No Parking Past This Point" signs some rich douchebag put on a Forest Service Road. Ended up doing 18-20 miles roundtrip that day. May have done a first ascent on a choss rib that went up the mountain that no one would want to climb. The postholing on the way down the mountain was so bad I could only move by belly crawling across snowfields to rock outcroppings which I internally considered "bases." I fell into the creek once the snow was over. I drenched myself and broke my sunglasses. I went back to Ketchum Burrito in town and was stared at by a 7 year old girl because I looked so bruised and battered. Her mom told her that staring is rude.

Artem Vasilyev wrote:

I can relate to the stares in public once one emerges from a lost scuffle in the back country. That sounds like a postholing nightmare lol. How deep were you punching through?

Usually about to my bellybutton. I want to say it took me 12 hours but time when you're 19 is different than time when you're in your later 20s.

Man, as someone who starting climbing at 13 in the late 70s, I've got more of these under my belt than I actually remember.  Rapping off the top of the first pitch of the Mechanic's Route on a single sideways stopper (because gear is expensive, right?).  Running out of gear half way up Sacherer Cracker and untying while balancing at a stance so I could haul up more gear after my friend rapped off that first short little pitch to get some more gear from our packs on the ground.  Getting off route while free soloing at Tahquitz.  Soloing up to the base of Leaning Tower with a haulbag on my back.  Too many J2s at Joshua Tree, etc., etc.  

I was on my first trip to the states and with a non-rockclimbing, mostly anti-outdoors group I was getting kinda tetchy for the outdoors. After 4 weeks of plaster on my arm (I fell over a vacuum cleaner at work days before the trip was due start), I removed the cast and began fantasising about all this glorious rock I’d never seen before. That’s also when I fell in love with the country.

2 days later whilst at a campsite I decided to go explore the gorgeous, yet chossy rock nearby. What started off as a scramble, turned into a impromptu free solo. I got lost, it got dark, I forgot the way I came up and decided to down climb on some random chunk of the rock. Snap, a hold breaks off and snap, so does pretty much my whole dang foot.

A random hiker nearby heard my whimpers and summoned help. The EMTs came and eventually got me to a chopper which took me to an absolutely fantastic surgeon who managed to put my haggard limb back together with a series of screws and a plate.

My father did not appreciate his 48 hr round trip to Albuquerque from the UK to pick me up, but I sure appreciated him coming and all the amazing people who helped my recovery and medical care. 
I’ve learnt a lot since then, I’m basically crag mum now. Bouldering terrifies me, and I will most likely never solo again, but the whole thing weirdly, really accelerated my love for climbing.

Feeling pretty guilty at my stupidity and also super inspired by those who helped me, I feel I owe big time. I certified as an EMT last year and currently am trying to find a way I can come give something back in the US (the nationality difference is making this a little tricky) either for work or as a volunteer.

I’m embarrassed to say I was 25 when this happened. I guess I hit peak dumb after my teenage years...

I was 14 years old. My mother dropped me and my brother (12 at the time) off at Windy Point on Mt. Lemmon with a handful of oval carabiners, a couple lengths of 2" webbing and a brand new purple 165' x 11mm rope that I was very proud to own. When she arrived to pick us up a few hours later she found us pale-faced, wide-eyed and unwilling to provide an account of the severe rope burns across my brothers palms and lower back. It was a quiet and somber ride down Catalina Highway that afternoon.

Jesus, where do I start? We learned from a single copy of R&I that my buddy found somewhere. I think it may have had Paul Piana on the cover doing When Legends Die in Hueco. Anyway, we enjoyed such delights as “hip rappels” on a clothes line (it was totally safe! 500lb rated!), and multiple top ropes on a single 1/4” bolt or a single MOAC nut (totally safe! we had a range of sizes! 3 pieces!).  Our first lead was Divine Wind, 5.8, 5 bolts, 80.’  We did that one on knotted quickdraws using steel Army ovals. Never mind that we had no clue how to tie webbing. But it was a “sport route,” so totally safe!  Mostly we just bouldered, but I have no idea how we survived those first two years.

Francesca - we got off to a very similar start, but I got very lucky

At 17 I was sleeping on my car’s bench seat on the weekends, camping in the foothills and mountains in CO while attending college.  I had never even been on a hike in the woods when I started but I had my heart set on climbing mountains.  

Roaming around one of my campsites I found a 30‘ ”sheer, granite cliff” (as I saw it then).  I have been back to verify that the solo was about 5.7 and the rock was crumbly granite but an actual line.  Overcome with an insensible urge, I knew I could climb it so set off.  I was having an amazing time of it right until I got  6 feet from the top and realized the rock was rather bulging outward.  At that point, cottonmouth and prayers set in.  Looking down I knew retreat was absolutely impossible, I had already outclimbed my abilities.  I had never looked so directly at the possibility of death.  Inching upward and with my greatest conviction to live, I managed a hand on the top.  Feeling loose granite and pine needles, my heart sunk a bit.  But telling myself, “F$%k that, I want to live!”  I proceeded to complete my first mantel and survive my first solo.  

It was well over 10 years before I returned to rock, and when I did I brought a rope.

Mine is surfing instead of climbing. I took a surf lesson on a vacation to Hawaii and decided when I got back to go all in on it. Bought a $600 wetsuit to keep me alive surfing in New England in February. Probably less than a dozen days a surfing 2-4 foot waves a good storm came through with 8-10 foot waves. I was so stoked to paddle out, especially since nobody else was there, so I had the waves all to myself. First wave I went for, I got caught on the lip, couldn't bail, and went over the falls. The wave behind that one threw the board into my face. It split my face open from the top of my nose down to my lip and broke the bone under my eye. The ER nurses all came in one at a time to take a look. Everyone I told about it said that I was lucky I didn't get knocked unconscious and drown. 

I was in my late teens and leading pretty solid 5.7.  Me and two friends decided we were ready for some multi-pitch action and went out to a local five pitch climb.  The three of us started off, with one rope.  I led each pitch, the second would clean and then I'd throw the rope back down to the third.  What could go wrong?  Well third or fourth pitch had a major traverse.  I led it and then realized there was no way to get the rope back to the third.  We ended up having the second climb the pitch with the rope fixed between belays while feeding his rope through his rappel device as he climbed- bomber!

My teenage story was underwhelming by comparison to most of these, so I'll offer one embarrassing and way scarier one that was not from my teenage years.

Having just learned to short-fix I went for an in-a-day ascent of the Finger of Fate on the Titan. It went pretty smoothly and I managed to survive a lot of scary "fraid" climbing. When it came time to do the raps I must have gotten tired or too fixated on the beers at the car and skipped a rap station. Darkness fell doing the first rap into the gully. I passed the station I saw and I went another 75 or 80' down the ropes to find the ends dangling at a sloping ledge/cave. Instead of jugging the line I stepped on to the sloping ledge and went off rappel. When I sat down I realized how sloping and crumbly the ledge was and that I couldn't really sit down and I had to squat there balancing in the dark. I waited for my partner to enter the gully and yelled as much as I could to not pass the rap station. Seemingly eternity later he passed me on the next rappel and was nice enough to just say that "everyone fucks up sometimes". When he reached the next rap station and went off I leaned out to find the ropes barely in reach from the edge of the sloping ledge and put myself on rappel. I think there was still one more double rope rap to the ground. Later that year I watched a partner nearly do the same thing in Yosemite.
I haven't skipped an obvious rap station since.