What's the Stupidest Thing YOU'VE Done While Climbing?

Drove 3 hours, put shoes on, started putting harness on, partner passes me the rope, and I tie in and start climbing.  Never finished buckling my harness.  3 or 4 bolts up I realize my harness is slipping down to my knees. Had to climb a bit higher to a good stance before I managed to pull my harness up and get fully buckled.

Partner drives us to eldo.  hike to base.  No shoes... partner was kinda pissed, but was kind enough to drive back so I could get my shoes.

Managed to fall when rotten ice crumbled on Lambs Slide in early fall.   Somehow managed to self arrest on bumpy plastic ice as I was accelerating toward talus and possible death.  

Climbed the 3rd with a rope on my back to rap.  Failed to set up the rap chains properly, which twisted when I got onto the rope, and got my rope stuck on the first rap.  Luckily there was another party behind me that was kind enough to drop my rope to me.

Damn, I've done a lot of stupid shit!

TBlomwrote:

Partner drives us to eldo.  hike to base.  No shoes... partner was kinda pissed, but was kind enough to drive back so I could get my shoes.

Drove back to where?

Years ago I was camping at Lover's Leap in Tahoe. As my partner and I were getting our stuff together in the morning, a guy was driving around the campground asking everyone if they had an old rope to sell him. He and his partner had just driven in that morning from San Francisco ~ 3+ hours away. He forgot to bring the rope. His nearest options to buy a rope at the time were a small store in Truckee 90 minutes farther down the road, or the REI in Sacramento 90 minutes back the way they came. It was a holiday weekend. 

Lone Pinewrote:

Then you didn’t send

Correct. Should have said Send Attempt. 

TBlomwrote:

Drove 3 hours, put shoes on, started putting harness on, partner passes me the rope, and I tie in and start climbing.  Never finished buckling my harness.  3 or 4 bolts up I realize my harness is slipping down to my knees. Had to climb a bit higher to a good stance before I managed to pull my harness up and get fully buckled.

Partner drives us to eldo.  hike to base.  No shoes... partner was kinda pissed, but was kind enough to drive back so I could get my shoes.

That actually reminds of a few incidents.

1.Drove to the Enchanted Tower, got there at midnight, and no shoes. Drove 2hrs back to Albuquerque, and two hours back. Went to bed at 1:00 am. Snow storm hit that night, went home. In my defense, this was before the interwebs for easy weather.

2. several years later, same trip, left all of my climbing gear. Took the dog for a hike instead.

3.  The best one. Left a pack with 6 sets of cams at Cat Wall, and didn’t notice until Cortez CO when I went in the back of truck for a sandwich. Drove back to Meat Wall, and scoured parking and wall base. After no luck, drove to the Bridgers to find my friends. Pulled into their camp at midnight. One of my friends was standing outside sheepishly. She threw my pack into her car before I left. Got home at 6:00 am to an angry girlfriend who made a surprise dinner for when I returned.  It took her 13 years to marry me...perhaps because I’m a schmuck. 

Weighted my rappel while the atc was actually clipped to the gear loop, not the belay.

I now test weight everything

Frank Steinwrote:

1.Drove to the Enchanted Tower, got there at midnight, and no shoes. Drove 2hrs back to Albuquerque, and two hours back. Went to bed at 1:00 am. Snow storm hit that night, went home. In my defense, this was before the interwebs for easy weather.

....that math checks out. 

Daniel Chode Riderwrote:

Had just finished a two-pitch slab, my buddy and I were both hanging from the top anchor setting up the first rappel. I go to clove in (or go off clove and on to personal tether or something), unclip my biner from my harness (which had my ATC on it). As soon as I unclip it the ATC just slides right off and bounces slowly down the slab. It made the most irritating little 'tink, tink, tink' noise. We looked at each other and my partner said, 'Don't worry man you have a prusik,' and then we just started dying laughing for about ten minutes.

Eventually I just prusiked in and sort of awkwardly slid down both rappels that way. It was really dumb cause if I weighted the prusik, I had to lift my weight off the rope by grabbing the rope above the knot to get it to unlock. Good thing it wasn't a free-hanging rap.

As soon as I got home I looked up how to rap with a Munter hitch.

Another solution Would be for the person with the belay device to lower the person without the belay device to the next anchor and then Rappel and continue this to the bottom. actually if this is a 2 pitch climb you could have been lowered to the ground and then your partner could have rappeled twice. This is actually a good way to deal with low angled rappels as it's easy to get the Rope to go where you want it to go . 

Em Coswrote:

....that math checks out. 

Eh, I’m old and my brain is feeble. It was a long time ago :-/

Started up a route that was at my limit, crux off the ground, and a really high first bolt.  Was super gripped as I went to grab a draw off my harness when I realized I had not taken any up.  Held on long enough for the belay partner to grab one and toss it.  A few throws and a fingertip grab later I was able to yell take, and change my underwear

Some brain fart things like an hour approach and forgot my climbing shoes at the car. Only one really stupid thing when I was a relative beginner I topped out and didn't have a belay device so I decided to rap on a munter hitch. I tied it wrong, didn't double check it, and after a few feet it just turned into a biner wrap with very little friction. Burned my hand but held onto the rope. Close call and I've always double checked things after that.

Back in 1990ish, We were 2/3 of the way up a new route on the North face of Mount Hooker in the Winds. We had a great grassy ledge to crash on, plenty of food and water. We were both supposed to be back to our seasonal jobs in a day and a half. It was mid August and our work was only for a few more weeks. Jim spent four hours on a very thin aid pitch to get us started on the upper headwall and our rurps, knifeblades and bashies where getting useless. We bailed the next morning down an unknown route to avoid a massive roof that we had climbed the day before. In desperation I jettisoned the haul bag that had the wrench to tighten a bolt for a new rap anchor. I still have nightmares of dangling at the end of the ropes and drilling a single 1/4 hole for the next rappel and not having the wrench to tighten it.

We should have simply finished the route, walked off the top and said to hell with our two more weeks of work.

I was sport climbing outdoors with my indoor lead partner. He was new to outdoor sport climbing and I wanted to teach him about rappelling. We did a short 3 bolt 5.9. I got to the top and belayed him up so I could show him how to setup your rappel. He rapped down and I was about to clean the anchor when my other friend showed up. I was like "Dude, you want to climb this?" And he was like yeah. I wasn't in the rappel yet, so I asked him to lower me but I was lazy and didn't want to pull up the rope. I told him this is such a short route that I'll make a butterfly and clip into it. Yup, you guess it, I made the butterfly on the long side of the rope instead of the short side. Luckily I was 6 inches from the ground when the rope ran through his ATC. I never thought I'd hear what a weighted rope  sounds like running and ATC. We both looked at each other with that WTF just happened. My lesson from this is be extremely careful when deviating from the normal operating procedure.

I was all alone one day and didn't feel like lead soloing this route, so I came in from the top. Long story short its a three pitch rappel for a two pitch route. I set up my TRS setup on the first pitch anchors, climbed it just fine. 

Went to clean and I was a little shocked at how well it was going. Then I looked down. I was holding the tail of the rope in one hand. Nowhere was it attached to my harness or the anchor. I laser focused on the rope, grabbing it with my other hand and my teeth. I tied an overhand on a bight and clipped it to a draw on my harness. Finished cleaning the anchor, then cleaning my pants. 

It was dark out by this time and the crag was empty. If I were to have dropped the rope I would have been F'd. 

Ok, this is worth making a new account for.

I was cleaning the anchor on a single pitch sport climb.  I clipped into the anchor with a sling, and untied from the rope to begin rigging my rappel.  I wasn't ready to start threading the rope through the rap rings just yet, so I tied an overhand on a bight in the end of the rope and clipped it to a gear loop on my harness.  As soon as I look away I hear the rope slithering down the wall below me, stranding me at the anchor.  I immediately realized that I had not actually tied an overhand knot, but a slip knot, and a loose one at that.  The weight of the rope had simply pulled the tag end through the superficial knot.  Thankfully, I had the option of a roundabout and moderately sketchy walk-off.  If not, my wife (girlfriend at the time) would have had to go find a bystander at the crag so that one of them could lead the climb back up to me.  And of course if this were in a more remote setting, we'd be completely hosed.  At the time I was vying to earn my wife's trust as a climber and this was a big setback, as it should have been.  I eventually demonstrated a modicum of competency, but I'll never live this one down.

I was learning to rope solo.  I picked out a 5.6 bolted route in Enchanted Rock that I had done a couple of times, and got to.  

When I got to the top, I thought I might just rap from the anchors, So I set that up.  But there wasn't quite enough rope, so I fixed the rope, rapped down, cleaned my anchor at the bottom and tried again with the additional rope.  No luck, though... I was still about 10M off the ground.  

I had forgotten that in the past we had bailed from that station and needed a second rope.

There are a lot of ways out of that situation (from continuing up another pitch, to going and getting a second rope from my truck, to using a lower bolt as an intermediary rap station), but I ended up just borrowing a rope from some folks who wanted to climb the pitch and tagging it up... I think that's the only time I've ever had to get help from rando strangers.  Very embarrassing.  It made me a lot more careful about thinking out how to get down.

Stonathon Olives wrote:

About domed my belayer with a quickdraw while cleaning when I tried to clip it into my harness. I visibly saw it had missed my gear loop but from muscle memory/ habit my hand just let go of the draw anyway while I watched. Of course my buddy wasn't wearing a helmet. Just missed him! I'll have to aim better next time...

Just TR on the lead end of the rope and leave gear clipped to the belay side of the rope... works kind of like a guided missile.

When gym climbing, i'll often leave the laces on my Miuras loose and untied to easily get them on/off. One day, I took a lead fall and one of the loose bights of shoelace clipped themselves into a quickdraw leaving me hanging upside down. 

Kept climbing when I could see that the rock was bad from the ground.  About 100 feet up with many good placements in bad rock, half of the rail that I was underclinging broke off. If the whole think came off I may have well ripped my pieces out of the deteriorating granite, possibly decking. I don't mind a little choss, but that was too close for me.

Amy C wrote:

Honestly, climbing is kind of stupid in of itself.

...so...stupidest thing I’ve done climbing is just climbing. 

wait ... are you calling me stupid?

or are you saying that diving into this incredibly risky activity where no real support or resource besides trial and error exist to build competency is stupid?

because both, probably 

On my first time ever cleaning a route without a friend to guide me through it, I was clipped in to the anchor atop an easy sport climb on a pillar in Holcomb Valley. I hadn't yet learned that the proper protocol was to simply untie and rethread the rope to be lowered. Instead, I untied and pulled up the entire rope with the intention of threading it through the rings to go on rappel. Once I had the entire rope coiled, I turned around with the rope in my hand, yelled rope, but stopped for some reason before tossing it. This is when I turned around and realized I had never threaded the rope through the rings. The sun had already set and my partner and I were the last ones there on a Sunday evening.

Wouldn't have died or anything, but I would have felt pretty freakin dumb hanging there all night until someone else showed up the next day to lead up and rescue this idiot gumby