Teenage Near-Misses

1987-88 intro to climbing and rappelling with ROTC instructor at Hammond pound main wall outside of Boston.   later that summer with lots of summer job $$$ in wallet I discover the climbing section of EMS and get first pair of shoes (Asolo Onsights), gummy harness, a couple ovals, a couple lockers, and find these cool wild country wedge things.  gets 2  WC#9 Rocks (Still have them) .   goes back to Hammond pound and climbs around on the wall with rocks clipped to belay loop.  10-15ft off deck starts playing with Rocks.  places one into crack. leans back and commits entire weight to it.... God must have been watching me that day...

When I was around 16 y/o I did my first multipitch and at one anchor, on a small ledge, all my setup was such a mess that I got confused and totally unclipped myself from everything... as soon as I realized it my heart stopped and I immediately clipped my PAS again... never told anyone... before today :)
Now it is maybe even worse because when I m taking risks (mostly soloing or simul climbing) the difference is that it is intentional... we never really grow up I guess ;)

ps: for the first story please, don't tell my parents and for the second, please don't tell my wife...

Joey Chicharrones wrote: 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!

On this picture are you lowering yourself like if you were your own top rope belayer?? ahah that's genius!!

Hanging belay off a quarter inch bolt in welded tuff.

I made it up 4 clips up a hard local sport climb, then lowered so my friend could try.  He cleans the gear up to it (so there's only 1 quickdraw attached) and then decides to bail.  So while hanging on to the 12c crux, unclips the rope (no gear at this point), pulls a quickdraw from his harness, undoes one of the biners from the draw, clips the one biner, and then shakes... switches hands… shakes some more... and then clips the rope and lower.  Then we got tacos and boba teas.

Skip the long stories:  Teenage hitchhikers are sexual predator's dream come true.  I'm not saying never hitchhike.  Just know what you are doing and be prepared.  And I am talking to the young men.  There are old guys out there that want you bad.

Eighteen year old surfer who climbed a few local boulders in San Diego relocated to Telluride Colorado to ski and climb for the year before college. Late November I thought I would climb a proper mountain as it looked like a nice day. Vans tennis shoes, shorts and a t-shirt. No water, no food, no nothing. Super fit however and blindly ambitious. All afternoon I charged up the slopes above town with no plan other than go as far as I could. Well I did and it became clear that I went altogether too far when I noticed that the sun was setting. I made the mistake of thinking it would be faster to go back straight down rather than back the way I had climbed up. Somewhere in the middle of the night I got cliffed out. Black night no headlamp and shivering wildly. Decided the only way to be warn was to start climbing back up the mountain. So that is what I slowly did until the sun came up and I could see where I was. At my limit at the time scared hungry and colder than I had ever been I found my way back. Big learning experience. until the next close call a few weeks later.....

This topic is awesome! Aside from sketchy, steep scrambles/solos, whipping softly onto a ledge on my first trad lead, and the time I also pitched 25 feet off a university building (glad I'm not the only one), the scariest moment in my teenage years was when me and a buddy rigged a top belay over a quarry and lowered each other down to climb out. Our anchor points were a small tree and a boulder we could move by hand. In the very possible event that both failed, the climber would plunge 120 feet into the cold, toxic waters of the quarry, so if the impact didn't kill them, the resulting cancer likely would. I decided I didn't need to go all the way to bottom on that one.

So a few weeks later I thought I should stick to pure rock climbing as this was what I knew about. I took my 100 dollar edelrid rope and my green PA shoes ad a couple hex's a a few wires  slings and crabs and drove over to Ophir Wall. Wow, a real cliff! Still pondering my error in judgement of the previous adventure I decided to keep it safe. I hike to the base of the wall and set my pack down which had a sweater and some water and food. There at the base was a seventy five foot small buttress that had an angling ledge system which allowed me to scramble to the right to the top of the buttress and set up a top rope which I did. I rappelled halfway down the buttress and was hanging there looking around when I heard a roar from above. The sun was out and a big ice coating way above had cut loose. Not something I had considered in the least. The ice fall was split by the buttress and the bulk of it crashed down on my pack and tore it open and yard saled my things all over the talus. My eyes were wide open as I quickly rapped to the base and left my rope as it was and ran away. I had to move back in to find my car keys in a stuff sack and was gripped doing it but found them. I bailed and left everything there. Back in town I asked around for advice because it was clear now to me that mountains were pretty hungry to eat you even though they were sitting still unlike the moving ocean which I was used to. Upon the advice received I went back to the wall when it froze over that evening before it got dark and retrieved my gear. After this event I only bouldered at the bouldering areas until the ski season started. I started reading more and pestered anyone who identified as a climber for knowledge. No internet back then in 1979. Slowly I worked out my understanding of "climbing."

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.

20 some years ago my friend Clark was putting in routes at an old quarry.  Lots of cleaning required of dirt, loose blocks, choss, so he would be covered in dirt.  Afterwards he would stop at a deli where the employee kept asking Clark to get him a job at whatever construction site he was coming from.  Clark never was able to tell the guy that he was covered in dirt for free!

Joey Chicharrones wrote: 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!

And I thought falling sideways off the top of the Chube was gnarly!

jeez. you all have such wholesome teenage near misses. mine all involve junkies, drugs, the police, gangs, sex, violence, skateboards and at least one instance where all those things converged...

simplyput . wrote: jeez. you all have such wholesome teenage near misses. mine all involve junkies, drugs, the police, gangs, sex, violence, skateboards and at least one instance where all those things converged...

Ha, no gangs but the rest of the list is familiar. I guess you could consider the rednecks vs the skaters at a local skatepark a gang brawl though? I believe GWAR was there that night, memory is a bit fuzzy

Andy Wiesner wrote: 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.

can you imagine a parent telling this story now ....

Hey MP,
looking for advice, I just left my 14 and 12 year old kid on the side of a mountain and I came back and they were barely alive ....  what can I do?

Parent might be arrested, haha... miss the good old days

When I was about 14, a friend and I went to climb the 3rd flatiron. At the trailhead, we found out it was closed for raptors. Why we didn’t just do the first flatiron I have no idea, but we went to some random obscure flatiron on Dinosaur Mountain. I was about 100 feet up the second pitch and found myself gripped on a runout, steep, lichen covered slab that was a bit wet. I downclimbed the pitch and we bailed off the side. To the side, it was only about 30 feet to the ground. We pulled through enough rope to get to the ground, then I rapped. I got to the ground, which was a steep hill. I noticed there was a trail about 40 feet down the hill, so I decided to continue rapping/run backwards to the trail. I leaned back on the rope and started running backwards down the hill. Problem is, I had only pulled enough rope to get to the ground, and didn’t tie knots. I’ll never forget the shock and terror when the rope popped out of the atc, and I slid down the hill. Stood up wondering wtf just happened, I thought the rope snapped. Glad it happened because it taught me a solid lesson that I should’ve already known. Now, I always pull the rope to the middle and tie knots no matter what the situation, even if it’s a 30 foot Rappel to the ground!

Most of my teenage close calls involved motor vehicles. Almost killed myself on farm tractors, cars and  motorcycles many times.. My hero was Kenny Roberts. My best friend died on a motor cycle about a month before his 22nd birthday. last time I saw him he was in two pieces on fire.    I have gotten on a bike exactly 3 times since then...  each ride only a mile or so. 

I didn't start climbing until I was in my mid-30s, so most of my teenage stupidity tended to center around motorized transportation.

In 7th grade, I was riding dirtbikes at my cousin's house (my first time on a motorcycle). I was on a Honda Trail 70 (70cc), trying to keep up with my cousing, an experienced rider on a 250cc. Needless to say, I was in top gear with the engine screaming, trying to keep him in view, on a trail that wasn't familiar to me. The trail made a sharp 90-degree turn at a split-rail cedar fence. I did not make the turn. The bike broke the bottom rail and kept going. The top rail hit me in the chest, taking me off the bike and cracking my sternum.

In high school (in rural WI), we would entertain ourselves playing "cat and mouse" in our cars/trucks. This consisted of chasing each other through the town and countryside, trying to lose each other. So in town, for instance, if you were the one being chased, you'd wait at a stop sign until another car was coming on the cross street, and then gun it to pull out and cut them off, and denying your pursuer the ability to pull out directly behind you. String enough of these together, and you could gain enough of a lead to make mutiple turns in a row and lose your quarry. Further out in the country, it was a game of gunning it down gravel roads through the woods, without your headlights on, fishtailing around corners and curves, trying to get far enough ahead that you could  turn into a field/forest access road so that your pursuers would rocket past without seeing you.

This is more a tale of teenage stupidity, but a near miss in that the consequences would have been dire if anything had gone wrong and I didn't consider that one bit.
As a teenager I used to explore abandoned buildings, construction sites, and find ways onto roofs in the downtown area of where I grew up. One summer when I was about 15 they were doing some major remodeling to the baseball stadium so it was pretty easy to get in by climbing on a big dumpster for construction to access a ledge to get into the actual stadium. I went out there one night and was clambering around (by myself, of course) and came to a dead end with plastic draped over the wall. I knew there was something on the other side of the wall because I knew the area, and there was a big open window just next to the plastic. I peeked out the 3rd or 4th story window and saw that the window sill was actually a 6 inch ledge that went pretty much all the way around the structure. I could traverse on the ledge, through a 90 degree corner, then to the next window about 10 or 15 feet away to access the area behind the wall covered in plastic. So I just hopped through the window and carefully shuffled along the ledge and jumped through the next window. Once in the following hallway a gust of wind blew through and the plastic shifted around. There was no g*ddamn wall in the first place. 

When I was 19 my friend and I went down to Yosemite valley for the first time. I was a half descent climber but had never aided or climbed a route longer than 5 or so pitches. Nevertheless we were fired up! This stoke carried us through 2 weeks of essentially epicing on every route we attempted. Towards the end of the trip after climbing Washington column which we had bailed on a few days previous we took advice from a withered old climbing guide who we met on the Merced. He told us to go climb the northwest route on Half Dome and to take as least extra stuff as possible. So that’s what we did... that afternoon we walked to the base of the route fell asleep around 11. Next morning we rose in anticipation to get climbing no later than 6, we started at 8. Ended up sleeping well below our intended bivy on a half sofa sized ledge with a light puffy and 1 emergency blanket. The thought of bailing was starting to be thrown around that night however we only brought 1 rope so we concluded the only way off was up. Next day we climbed and submitted around midnight. We ran out of water partway through the day when our last jug fell 1500 feet to the valley floor. Once at the top we walked down the cables on the backside and for some reasons decided to take a left after exiting the cables. This funneled us down a steep slab that ended in a cliff. We slept on a ledge somewhere on this big slab. Next morning we climbed back up the slab along the way finding busted cameras and other relics dropped off the cables by dingle berry's similar to ourselves. We eventually meandered our way back to the base of the climb, by this time we were getting really thirsty haha. At the base of the climb there was a spring we drank water and ate snacks for hours as we watched brad gobright and his partner ripping up the climb. I later found out it was his birthday and he had climbed a few other big climbs in the valley that day. It was truly humbling to watch these guys move! Eventually after a few bowls we decided to head back to the car. The approach and descent off half-dome is pretty full value and by the time we got down my partner had gone ahead with no qualms from me. I was carrying the haul bag which weighed a lot but I didn’t mind and told him I’d meet him at the bus stop. Once I got to the bus stop he was nowhere to be found so I ended up laying on the ground waiting for him. Somewhere in that time of waiting I ended up falling asleep at the bus stop and woke up four hours later to find people staring at me. I boarded the bus and found my friend asleep at our car. once back at the car I realize my pants were ripped in the back and I wasn’t wearing any underwear and I must’ve looked really funny sleeping at the bus stop with my pants ripped open mooning everyone. We were haggard after a little over 2 weeks in the valley and lots of late nights we both looked pretty chapped. My friend and I laughed at the state of ourselves it was awesome we were stoked. We slept on the side of the road and made our way home to Montana the next day. I’m 22 now and can’t wait for some more!

Carter gall wrote: When I was 19 my friend and I went down to Yosemite valley for the first time. I was a half descent climber but had never aided or climbed a route longer than 5 or so pitches. Nevertheless we were fired up! This stoke carried us through 2 weeks of essentially epicing on every route we attempted. Towards the end of the trip after climbing Washington column which we had bailed on a few days previous we took advice from a withered old climbing guide who we met on the Merced. He told us to go climb the northwest route on Half Dome and to take as least extra stuff as possible. So that’s what we did... that afternoon we walked to the base of the route fell asleep around 11. Next morning we rose in anticipation to get climbing no later than 6, we started at 8. Ended up sleeping well below our intended bivy on a half sofa sized ledge with a light puffy and 1 emergency blanket. The thought of bailing was starting to be thrown around that night however we only brought 1 rope so we concluded the only way off was up. Next day we climbed and submitted around midnight. We ran out of water partway through the day when our last jug fell 1500 feet to the valley floor. Once at the top we walked down the cables on the backside and for some reasons decided to take a left after exiting the cables. This funneled us down a steep slab that ended in a cliff. We slept on a ledge somewhere on this big slab. Next morning we climbed back up the slab along the way finding busted cameras and other relics dropped off the cables by dingle berry's similar to ourselves. We eventually meandered our way back to the base of the climb, by this time we were getting really thirsty haha. At the base of the climb there was a spring we drank water and ate snacks for hours as we watched brad gobright and his partner ripping up the climb. I later found out it was his birthday and he had climbed a few other big climbs in the valley that day. It was truly humbling to watch these guys move! Eventually after a few bowls we decided to head back to the car. The approach and descent off half-dome is pretty full value and by the time we got down my partner had gone ahead with no qualms from me. I was carrying the haul bag which weighed a lot but I didn’t mind and told him I’d meet him at the bus stop. Once I got to the bus stop he was nowhere to be found so I ended up laying on the ground waiting for him. Somewhere in that time of waiting I ended up falling asleep at the bus stop and woke up four hours later to find people staring at me. I boarded the bus and found my friend asleep at our car. once back at the car I realize my pants were ripped in the back and I wasn’t wearing any underwear and I must’ve looked really funny sleeping at the bus stop with my pants ripped open mooning everyone. We were haggard after a little over 2 weeks in the valley and lots of late nights we both looked pretty chapped. My friend and I laughed at the state of ourselves it was awesome we were stoked. We slept on the side of the road and made our way home to Montana the next day. I’m 22 now and can’t wait for some more!

Stoke high! 10/10!