Funniest Trad Moments

What's your funniest trad moment? I'll start things off with a laugh at my own expense:

I  was on a trad project where I hadn't ever gotten past the crux before, and I got past it... only to discover that the rest of the climb had some significant pump factor and I needed more gear than I had brought. I placed a purple Totem and began the long journey to the top. I passed bomber placement after bomber placement, noting each time that the piece of gear that fit the placement was already placed far below me. However, the moves were pumpy, but otherwise doable. However, I finally reached a wide left-hand deadpoint traverse move, which I wasn't sure I could make. Looking down at the purple Totem, now 25 feet below me, I considered my options, and placed a blue Totem in a horizontal just above me. I couldn't get high enough to see the placement, but I tugged it and it seemed solid, so I went for the move.

I reached the next hold, but it wasn't a great hold and I was too tired to use it to move my feet over--I lost grip and fell back onto the jug my right hand was on. I tried again: same thing--I returned to the jugs on my right hand. I tried a third time. It was clear: the route was over for me: no matter how much I committed to that deadpoint I wasn't making that move. "Take!" I called.

As the rope began to come tight, my weight lifted bringing me just high enough that I could see the placement I was taking on. Oh. My. God. The crack was flaring and uneven, and the blue totem was angling out, with only two lobes engaged. My next piece twinkled in the sunlight 25 feet below me. "Wait don't take!" I yelled, my voice full of panic.

Holding onto the jug, I assessed my options, but there weren't really any. I could take on the piece, or I could try the deadpoint again and certainly fall on the piece. Doing a full pull-up on the jug, arms screaming, I attempted to re-position the piece, but there wasn't any better way. Finally, with the resignation of the damned, I called to my belayer, "Take?"

The piece held.

I hung there gazing at the 50 foot drop below me, trying to control my gentle swaying by pressing my feet against the wall. The blue piece had held this long, so I might as well get a proper rest before I finished the route. After a few minutes rest, I shook out quickly on the jug and finished the route--my first one-hang on the project.

In retrospect, the fall, though massive, was clean, and the purple Totem was bomber, as were my pieces just before the crux, so I would have been fine even if the blue totem had pulled. But damn that was scary.

Every time I've been to Incredible hulk I've had "issues" that caused me to decide that I can only wear brown pants when I climb there (and to not eat at the burger shop in town) 

Forgot my harness a few years back, but being desperate to climb anyway (obviously, and to not hose my partner), I improvised one out of 3 slings and a few biners. I took once while following a hard sport route, and the discomfort was enough to make my hang last all of about 3 seconds, and to make me ask my partner to lower me "faster, faster" once I got to the chains. That sensation down below was memorable enough to give me a lot of motivation to not weight the rope on my next route, leading a moderate crack. The leader must not fall! (my nuts were chanting) I felt part stupid, part "pretty trad."

My partner who was relatively new to the dark arts [read: trad] decided to hop on a climb at his limit. He climbed smoothly, blasted through the crux of the route, and got to a good stance. Overjoyed, he placed a piece and began up the awkward face sequence. For some reason he decided to dead point to a jug well within reach, and blew the move. I watched as he plummeted, and realizing that this was his first fall on gear, gave out a “whoop” and a “hell yeah dude.” The fall was pretty small, probably like 7 feet, and his gear held. Or so we thought. See, his last placement was an old school .4 camalot (the ones with the metal thumb catch and no thumb loop.) While he was resting on the rope he looked up at it and started losing his shit. I asked what his issue was. 

“Dude my piece pulled!”
“Huh? The one your weights on?”
“Yeah, just lower me now.”
Thinking his adrenaline was responsible for him being such a tweaker, I brought him down and led up the route to get all of the gear back. Once I reached the aforementioned .4, I saw something I had never seen and probably will never see again. The lobes were looking at me and the metal thumb bit was wedged in the crack like a nut.
I guess the piece ripped but after it came out the thumbcatch wedged into the crack below. It was quite the sight. 

Funniest thing I ever saw was someone taking a piss on J Crack at the optional hanging belay on pitch 2 and having the wind whip it back up onto him. 

I was on Loose Ends and his screaming was hilarious. I felt bad for him because the second was falling up the finger crack and taking forever (which was why we were on Loose Ends). We finished and were back at the packs before they even got to the cave...

Story 2, I forgot about this one until just now. I took my first ever fall on gear and was shakily talking about it on the ground with an old timer who was belaying on the next climb over, and he told me this stolry.

He had been climbing a few days before, and another new leader was leading next to them. The new leader took a whipper, ostensibly their first, onto a purple .5.

Immediately after taking the fall, the new leader demanded to be lowered, saying over and over, "I'm done" and began packing his bags. The old timer relating the story to me said he offered to go up and get the new leader's gear, to which the new leader responded, "No thanks, I won't be needing it, because I'm not doing this ever again." The old timer went up the route and retrieved the gear anyway--most of a rack of C4s--but by the time he returned to the ground the new leader was gone.

I guess some people just take their first whipper and immediately quit climbing. In this case, so immediately that he left hundreds of dollars of gear behind.

I find offwidth climbing tends to bring some interesting behavior in my partners, as well as in myself. I had my torso stuck inside a pretty tight chimney not long ago and I could hear my partner chuckling a upon hearing the profanity coming out of my mouth

On a recent on-sight of "Bishop's Terrace" in Yosemite, a 190ft single pitch 5.8 crack beauty.

A 190ft pitch is pretty long, but because it's just 5.8 (well within my ability) I didn't take any extra gear, because "how hard can it be". Except for a double #3 that the guide book recommends because there's a long off-width section higher up on the route. I used the first #3 at the start of the off-width. The climbing wasn't as trivial as I expected it to be, so I'm working pretty hard getting up the thing. Halfway up the off-width I place a black Totum (these are the really small ones), and keep on moving up. I'm struggling my way up and really want some more gear. But looking at my harness I see no #3, and I was SURE I placed both already. So, having no other options, I just run it waaaay out on that black Totum. It's scary. A fall wasn't unlikely, and it would be a big whipper even if the black Totum would hold.

Finally making it to the anchor, I look at my harness again, and THE DAMN #3 IS JUST HANGING THERE.

Me climbing my first off-width (10a). The route started as an offwidth and finished into something closer to what I'm used to (e.g. a crack). In all my naiveté, I had considered putting just 2 pieces in the off-width section, e.g. normal space for me at the level of difficulty. I tend to onsight at the level and I am typically confortable with spaced out gear if it is good, and the landing was good if it came to that.

I ended up putting in like 5, including a #3 that was recommended for the end of the climb where little other placements were possible, and 2 smaller cams that I jammed way in the back of the crack & battled to get back after. I did onsight but I should probably be stripped from it due to a large deficit in style points. Both knees & right shoulder were completely scratched since I spent most of the climbing scrapping my body upward and barely ended up using feet/hands at all. I'm sure I'll get around to do more offwidths later but I got my lesson & will take it back a much lower grades than what I take on in other climbing style... And plan more gear, too.

When I finally felt strong enough to try The Dangler, I was very clever and inspected the route from the ledge.  

I cleverly determined what cams I would place in what order in the traverse.

I cleverly pre-racked those cams on the side of my harness facing out from the rock.

I stepped up to the start, cleverly placed the first piece as far out as I could reach, then committed to the head-first traverse.

It wasn't until I got halfway that I realized what had been the "outside" of my harness while inspecting the route and placing the first piece was now the inside of my harness.

So, there I was, "gravity turned up to 15" (to quote S. Peter Lewis's guidebook description of the route), forced to pull the next two pieces off the wrong side of my harness.

I made it by the skin of my teeth and learned a valuable lesson.

I accidentally kicked the last piece of at the time was the hardest gear protected pitch I’d ever led.  Somehow I managed to clip the loop on my shoe.  I was pumped out of my mind and tried to pull the piece out with my foot but no luck.  I was eventually able to regain some composure and reach down and unclip the piece and finish the pitch.  For those of you that have been to Index, it was on pitch 1 of City Park, so a fairly exciting lead.

This one's probably familiar to some of you. A couple weeks ago I had just stepped above a bolt at the crux of a mixed route (bolts/trad gear). I'd just grabbed a decent hold with my left, started to pull over a roof, when I felt like I was getting short-roped. Looked down and saw the lobes of the .5 BD on my shoulder gear sling had caught under the roof, at my right hip. Tried to tug it out, but weirdly it wouldn't budge from the angles I could pull it, and the roof kept me from seeing exactly how it was caught. Did a few hula-hoop hip gyrations, that didn't help. Couldn't really downclimb either, it was the crux sequence. Was starting to mildly panic, wondering if it would hold if I fell, and feeling like I was running out of options. I wound up letting go with my right, gave the cam a sideways "hi-yah!" karate chop and it flew out. Now every time do that route I'll get that memory when I get to those moves, and probably give my gear sling a little flip out of the way. Sometimes there is more to trad climbing than just climbing.

I was following a route once, about to clean an extended cam. Right as I reached up for it, the leader suddenly took out slack, and the carabiner sprang up and hit me right on the bridge of the nose, leaving a small bruise.

Hiked into the Needles once. Somehow got there with 1 climbing shoe in my pack. The other one was laying in the shade just under the bumper of my car back at the lot. Anyway, we carried on. My partner and I were within a half size of each other so after every lead, the rope got pulled to the top and a single climbing shoe would come dangling back down the route. 

We did Igor's, the other cool one nearby (that has the neat traverse on it, what the hell is that called again, Airy something?), and some other route I'm not sure I ever knew the name of. Sure beat walking back to the car for my other shoe.

Airy Interlude

Ah I do have a funny one as a second.

We're doing a 5 pitch climb in Cannon cliff. We are a party of 3, and the other 2nd cleans the gear. He couldn't get one of the pieces out midway, so he keeps going while I give it try. I end up spending at least 30 minutes on the cam (a camalot .4), messing around with the nut tool. After quite a fight (the cam was deep, and the angle made it hard to see what's going on, and the sun was right behind the flake from my perspective), I manage to get it out, and climb up to the belay.

" Sorry it took forever, but I got your 0.4, it was quite a fight. "

" euh.... I don't have any black diamond "

Apparently I got booty without knowing it. I consider it well earned!

Mikey I’ve clipped my shoe lace too. Doing a mantle a biner on my rack sling clipped my shoelace when I got my first foot up, when I went to stand up I couldn’t and couldn’t really move my hands. Somehow I got it together to delicately untie my shoe without falling over backwards. I finished that pitch with one shoe untied.

bryanswrote:

Forgot my harness a few years back, but being desperate to climb anyway (obviously, and to not hose my partner), I improvised one out of 3 slings and a few biners. I took once while following a hard sport route, and the discomfort was enough to make my hang last all of about 3 seconds, and to make me ask my partner to lower me "faster, faster" once I got to the chains. That sensation down below was memorable enough to give me a lot of motivation to not weight the rope on my next route, leading a moderate crack. The leader must not fall! (my nuts were chanting) I felt part stupid, part "pretty trad."

I forgot a harness once as well, and made a swami belt out of cordalette.  I treated my leads as no fall territory the whole time, and after rapping on the swami belt and ending up with bruises just from weighting the harness, I feel like this was the right mentality.

In my first season of trad climbing I got into some hot water that I look back on fondly, in which I learned some valuable lessons.
(This is turning out kinda long, TL;DR at the bottom)

My friend was having a small bachelor party climbing trip, and I was the only one with any trad knowledge among the 4 of us. We went to Table Rock in North Carolina and hopped on a nice, mellow 3 pitch 5.5 and worked out a great system climbing as efficiently las we could in a group of 4 with one leader. The first climb went without a hitch (beyond accidentally hiking to the top of the route rather than the bottom), then we looked into tackling Crackerjack, a 2 pitch 5.8, which would have been my hardest trad lead to date. 

I thought it would be a great candidate, the physical crux was literally the first couple moves, there was a handy dandy picture on MP from the base pointing out some guy at the first belay station just under a big roof, so I was confident I knew where to go. The line goes straight up a crack system, then trends left under the roof to the belay, then to climb out you go back right around a leaning arete to continue up to the chimney section. Well, when I arrived under the roof I saw to beautiful bolt scars. Luckily there were ample features to build a gear belay, which I did. The belay turned out to be a hanging belay. I brought up the 2nd, who clipped in next to me on my right. He passed me my gear then started belaying up the 3rd. When the 3rd got to the point where he would traverse left to join us, we realized that 1: there was no room, and 2: I had to go around both of them to keep climbing. I ended up smooshing myself under the roof to allow room for them to traverse under me and me to traverse above them, which ended up creating quite a mess out of the two ropes we were using due to issues managing them while in the hanging belay with all the shuffling around. I ended up going in direct and hanging from a single bomber medium nut and going off belay briefly while they sorted out the rope snafu. 

After I was officially on belay at last I gratefully climbed out from under that accursed roof I had been hanging under for roughly an hour. Roughly 30 feet later I happened upon a shiny, beautiful anchor at a ledge with room for all four of us. Many expletives were heard, and the man of honor was able to avoid the hanging belay entirely as he was the 4th and just climbed right through to the ledge. 

After getting everyone to the ledge and taking a brief breather, I pushed on. Turns out the first section of pitch 2 was a crack climb, which I had never done and had only watched a 10 minute YouTube crash course several months prior. After grunting my way up the seemingly featureless crack, I flopped myself into the bottom of the chimney and wiggled into the back away from the exposure to chill out for a second. Upon looking up, I saw that even my chunky #5 would have to be placed extremely far back into the chimney, too far back to help all that much in a fall. To me, it looked like I needed huge gear to climb that beast. After pondering the issue for several minutes I decided to bail. Loathe as I am to leave gear behind, I told my belayer to put me off belay so I could rappel down from a microwave sized block wedged in the bottom of the chimney at my feet. I carefully placed the rope on a notch so I would be able to pull it down after I arrived at the belay ledge below. During the 30ft rappel I somehow managed to get my hair caught in the ATC twice (the only two times that has ever happened to me). Each time it happened I simply ripped the hair out as I was so eager to get my feet on that ledge. 

Upon arriving at the ledge, going in direct to the anchor, and undoing my rappel, I tried to pull down the rope. The soon to be newly-weds brand new rope was stuck on the second climb it had ever seen, and I was dubious on whether the other one would reach to the ground from that high. Luckily the way I had done my bail rappel we were able to tie the long end of the stuck rope to two lockers and do a single strand rappel all the way to the ground, with no need for any bail gear other than the two lockers and the rope. The next morning we got up early and bushwhacked around the top until we found the top of the climb and rappelled down to free the rope. 

After getting to the parking lot we bumped into a local guide who was impressed with our even attempting that route as a first 5.8 lead and who also informed us that the chimney section goes on small gear if you run out the beginning. Sigh.

Sadly I have yet to have a round 2 of Crackerjack due to weather not agreeing with my plans

TL;DR: Failed to plan adequately, had to hang from a single nut under a roof while off belay to work out a rope tangle, and rappelled off chockstone to bail and got the rope stuck in said chockstone. Do your research, kids!

Story #2.

After COVID lockdowns my partner and I finally get out again. On one of the first climbs my partner just kinda flails around, comes down, and declares "wow my feet are really not used to this anymore, my toes just can't take it!". 

It turned out he had accidentally put on my climbing shoes (same model) which are 1.5 sizes smaller than his.

On one of my first trips to Indian Creek, while climbing 3AM Crack (the hardest crack I'd been on at the time) I somehow managed to get the middle finger loop of my crack glove clipped to a #3 that I had just placed. With one hand stuck and the other keeping me from tipping back, I couldn't figure out how to get the rope clipped. I ended up pulling the cam and, with it dangling from my glove, placed & clipped the only other #3 I had left on my harness.